A King's Paranoia (CYOA)

## General Information

This Choose Your Own Adventure game was played daily (more or less) for about two months before it slowly trickled to a stop prematurely. The general gameplay was that the writer would post a small section of story, usually 1-3 paragraphs, followed by 2 or more options for what can happen next. The players would then vote for their favorite option through reactions to the message.

## Recap

##### Days 1-3

We meet you, a halfing/tiefling fisherman with eldritch dreams living in the small fishing village of Chunt in western Liirac.

##### Days 4-9

You go fishing and meet another fisherman on the water. Asking for "that good good, that blub blub," you anger the man - he seems concerned that someone will overhear you both as he tells you to meet him by the abandoned well outside town. You continue fishing but mentally prepare yourself for an epic adventure.

##### Days 10-13

When you reach the well with some extra food, your eldritch journal, and your old tail-blade you were gifted, the fisherman is nowhere to be found. You decide to head down by yourself, but you slip and fall, hurting your ankle when you land hard at the bottom. You eat a sandwich (no use in being in pain AND hungry) but it attracts a giant rat. You kill the rat with your tail-blade before it can attack you.

##### Days 14-16

You open your eldritch journal and read your dreams; looking through them together, in order, you realize they tell you about an entity from the Shadowfell which has taken the form of your tail-blade: a Hex-Blade. Your tail seems to have a mind of its own now and cuts into your hand, dripping blood onto your journal. This seems to finalize some sort of magical pact: you're a warlock now, which is very illegal in Liirac. But you use this newfound power to blast a hole in the wall of the well, around where the rat came out. Someone's at the top of the well now.

##### Day 17

Not wanting to get caught with your tail out, you crawl into the newly-revealed tunnel. It's odd, with strange symbols on the walls and whispers floating around you. You come to a crossroads: straight ahead is the sound of dripping, with moss and a slick floor; to the left is a warm, comforting glow that seems to calm you and call you to it; to the right is deep, impenetrable shadow which your tail seems called to.

##### Days 18-20

You head to the left, into a cozy, well-furnished living room lit by a warm hearth. The fisherman you came to meet is sitting in a recliner there. It's comforting and dulling... so much that you lose track of time. When your tail snaps you out of it, the man is burned away by the fire, but seems somehow alive and peaceful. You start to leave, but the man follows after you like an ashen zombie. You blast him to dust with your tail, destroying the foundations of the room in the process. It all comes crumbling down.

##### Days 21-22

Back at the tunnel intersection, you ask your tail for information on what just happened. It shows you journals of your dreams about a flame which invited people to be taken in by it, comforting them and filling them with euphoric peace as they burned away. Some survived and kept the fire inside, but most died. You also get a vision of a massive underground ocean filled with countless fishes; you just need to follow the sound of dripping.

##### Days 23-28

You find the underground ocean, more beautiful than anything you've ever seen before. The dripping is coming from a crack in the ceiling (roughly beneath the center of the lake above). You decide to fish, having *great* success... until you pull up a dead body. Just then, a town guard arrives in the room, so you hide and then pop out, acting surprised by the body. She doesn't buy it, especially when she recognizes the body as a townsperson who went missing and sees your tail. Melanie asks you to follow her back to the surface, and you comply.

##### Days 29-35

After a short break in which you learn more about the dead body (a fisherman who disappeared, his wife worried that he may never come home), you reach the well. You struggle to climb up and raise the buckets of fish up after you when one Sergeant Tabb arrives and demands that Melanie the guard brings you to their new holding cell so they can interrogate you. Some of your fish are ruined, but you get up and ask about the Sergeant. Apparently, Tabb arrived with a group of soldiers from the capital to perform a manhunt and track down any magic users.

##### Days 36-40

You ask Melanie to come with you and Tabb orders her to. Inside, you tell Tabb the story so far, leaving out any of your own magic. They reveal themselves to be a pretentious jerk, so you tell them off, shocking them enough that they let you both go. Outside, you ask about her position as the town guard, learning that she wanted to prove that authority doesn't equal brutality; she practiced since she was a kid to become one. You then tell her your vision of the fisherman who died attacking the one who invited you to the well, how he was killed in self-defense. She doesn't want to believe you, so she suggests you go home and rest.

##### Day 41-44

At home, you wash off, store your fish, and read your journal to learn more spells. You gain the ability to force painful disorientation on others as well as to cause fear in them.

##### Days 45-51

Melanie arrives and warns you that Tabb is doing something drastic to the lakes, above and below ground. You send her to evacuate civilians while you find the Sergeant and learn that, as their job is to root out all unregistered magic, they plan to poison the magical underground ocean by collapsing the polluted, dirty water of the pond above into it. You won't let them have the satisfaction of this, though, so you leap to attack, using your new magic and your sharp tail-blade. It's a hard-fought battle: you take several blows but manage to use your small, sturdy frame to knock them off balance and then kill them as Melanie sides with you for her town's sake. It's too late, though, as the lake drops away and opens up as a massive sinkhole.

##### Days 52-55

You ask your tail-blade if there's any way to fix the town. It gives you a vision of its home, the Shadowfell, which is a dark mirror of this plane. It's technically possible to pull your town and lake from the Shadowfell into the material plane, but it would be a treacherous, dangerous, difficult quest. When the vision ends, Melanie is very concerned; you share with her the full truth about your Hexblade and she's wary of you, but decides you're not the worst person she's ever met. You ask her what she plans to do next and she admits her only real option is to lead the townspeople east to the nearest city big enough to house refugees, then beseech the king for reparations. When Melanie goes to speak to the people of the town and tell them what happened and what she plans to do, you help by seeding affirmative reactions throughout the crowd.

##### Days 56-61

Joining some scavengers to retrieve what you can from the partially-destroyed town, you go with a couple others to sort through some houses. You find some useful items until you enter a home alone and find a perfectly-kept fireplace. The fire calls to you, calms you, and you notice a hole beneath the fireplace leading to some underground rubble. You decide to stay a bit longer and gather more items but you almost get trapped in that state of warmth and peace until one of the other scavengers snaps you out of it. You catch up with two of the three other groups, both of whom are about to head back to the camp, and search for the final group.

##### Days 62-67

You find evidence that the last scavengers are in the biggest house in town, so you climb in through the window alone. Inside, you find lavish clothing and expensive items. It seems the fisherman who used the underground ocean grew rich off its abundance and variety of blub blub. Someone starts walking towards the room you're in, someone with an eastern accent, so you hide in the wardrobe. When you see that this individual is one of Tabb's soldiers, you scare them away with your eldritch magic. After telling your fellow scavenger outside to warn Melanie of the soldier's presence, you follow the soldier through the house. Turns out, he has the last group of scavengers hostage and is looking for you, so you jump out and taunt him to distract him from the others. It doesn't work, though, as he holds the youngest scavenger with a sword against her throat. You send a mind spike into him which disorients him long enough for another scavenger to knock him down into the sinkhole nearby, but he cuts the girl's throat as he falls.

##### Days 68-70

You quickly flip through your journal and find a way to stabilize the girl with shadow magic. You cast the spell, but it scares the other scavengers into knocking you away. Still, the spell works and they let you go so you can start cutting their binds. Melanie arrives with backup, and everyone sees your clearly magical Hexblade. You explain that you did what you needed to save the girl; they don't like it, but Melanie tells them to set aside their superstitions and get back to work.

##### Days 71-73

Back in the room you first entered, you find a strange sundial that shows no shadow. It was listed as a "Nightfall Relic" in the fisherman's ledger. Unsure how to use it, you decide to meditate and ask your Hexblade how it works. You learn its limits, how it has minor spells it can use repeatedly (such as the mind spike and eldritch blast) as well as heavier effects it can only use a couple times per day (visions and the fear spell). It can also give you a sort of life drain when you kill an enemy.

##### Days 74-82

You rush back to camp, hiding your tail, and chat with Melanie a bit before bed. In the morning, the townspeople set out on their journey. You decide to scout ahead a bit and it pays off when you find a pair of bandits waiting in ambush for your group. You blast them a couple times and intimidate them into running away, then continue scouting.

##### Days 83-84

That night, you fall asleep and have a dream of the Shadowfell. At least, you hope it's a dream.