Hearts of Wulin 1905: Tremors (Four sessions in June... with more to follow?)

I’m saving a spot in this for someone who hasn’t played in a Gauntlet Calendar game I’ve run before. If that’s you, please message me to claim the spot.

For over 50 years, the area around Dupont Street and near Portsmouth Square has been the only place Chinese people could legally inhabit or inherit property: Chinatown. Now it’s 1905, and the community—still recovering from a terrible plague and faced with official racism and neglect—has created new ways to support and protect each other, and turned this place into a home. But soon after you arrive you discover a new kind of terror threatening the community, something impossible and horrifying lurking in the shadows. You are skilled warriors driven by powerful emotions, but are you strong enough to face a monstrous conspiracy at the heart of this city within a city?

This game uses Banana Chan’s 1905: San Francisco setting for Hearts of Wulin, with parts of the game’s optional supernatural and investigative rules, for a noir-inflected horror game (very) loosely based on the Eternal Lies campaign for Trail of Cthulhu. No rules knowledge is required and all rules will be taught during play.

I expect this will be somewhat darker in tone than a typical Hearts of Wulin game. If the series goes well and the approach works, I’d like to extend this out for a couple more months, and encourage you to sign up if you’d be open to a potentially longer game. (Of course, if you decide not to continue that’s fine as well.) Signing up for all these sessions is encouraged but not required, but please sign up for all sessions you’d like to attend.

Subject matter will include body horror, violence, and references (which can be veiled) to racism and the era’s bubonic plague pandemic. It may include references to drug and alcohol use and sex work. Romantic entanglements are fairly central to the game, but we can work around that if you prefer. We’ll use safety tools including lines and veils, the X card and the open door, and the game will run under the Gauntlet Community Code of Conduct.

Sessions will be over Zoom with short breaks on the hour. If the players don’t mind I’d like to record sessions for note-taking purposes, but won’t post them online.

I’ll email players a week before our first session to confirm attendance and share play materials.

Open access time for sign ups is 8.30am 14/4/22 AEST.

Session one: https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/event-detail/-N-PelbvC3UKau-UwT6v
Session two: https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/event-detail/-N-PeuTNhfP3OM47GHBo
Session three: https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/event-detail/-N-Pf-uPWBWs-rsawfWJ
Session four: https://gauntlet-hangouts.firebaseapp.com/event-detail/-N-Pf5u9bUbROO0bjCoL