For the months of May and June, the Gauntlet Reading Club will be reading Black Sun , Book 1 of Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky trilogy, using it as inspiration for a run of The Sword, The Crown, and The Unspeakable Power , a game of dark fantasy Powered by the Apocalypse.
Content Warnings for Black Sun : References to historical act of genocide. Blood magic. Reference to hand trauma suffered by one character in their past. Depictions of violence. Depiction of the ritual blinding of a POV character as a child in the first chapter.
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Session 1 will be a book discussion group for volume 1 of Black Sun . During the run, we’ll be drawing on it for thematic inspiration rather than specific plot points, and will have a discussion on tone and content before play, as well as establishing Lines & Veils to provide a comfortable play experience.