Sample file The Basics

THE GAME You all start out as teenage girls in the 50th century, living in The Loop. One of you will be the legendary figure one day known as Aurora . But we won’t know who until the end.

This game is played in three main parts, one for each Book. • Book 1 is set in the Loop, an offshore habitat for unemployed citizens, who live a life of enforced leisure and retail therapy. • Book 2 follows the girls into space, where they work on an interstellar cruise liner. • Book 3 takes place 10 years later, on the front lines of a guerrilla interstellar war In each Book, you will face a number of Challenges. Each challenge is “owned” by one player. They describe the details of the Challenge, narrate related events, and portray the people involved as necessary. Each Book is set later on than the previous one, but the Challenges within each Book don’t necessarily happen in chronological order.

SampleAfter Book 3 comes the Epilogue, with which the game concludes.file

1 BEFORE YOU START

Get a 52-card deck of ordinary playing cards (no jokers). Put it in the centre of the table. All players will use this deck to take on Challenges.

THE BASICS You’ll also have a set of special cards called Adventures. Set these to one side, face down, where everyone can reach them.

Take a blank sheet of paper each and fi ll in your character’s name: • Choose a given name. • Choose one of these : Smith, , , Darbinyan, , Kovač, , McGowan, Kajiya, , Pande

You begin with a score of 1 in each of the four suits: • Clubs fi ght • Diamonds desire • Heart insight • Spades curiosity

Write that down on your paper too.

Each player now draws a hand of 5 cards.

Each player chooses, or draws at random, one challenge that they will Sampleown in the upcoming book, and places it face-up in front offile them.

2 CHALLENGES & ADVENTURES

T   C  First, announce which Challenge you are going to tackle. It can be any Challenge that you do not own. Th e owner of the Challenge describes the scene and plays one or more cards of the same suit face-down from their hand. We’ll call this the Obstacle. Th e suit represents the owner’s honest assessment of the best way to deal with the situation, while the value sets its diffi culty. If you’re the owner, don’t spell out the suit and value but be sure to describe the scene in a way that’s consistent with the Obstacle you’re putting down.

• In Book 1, Obstacles must consist of at least 1 card. In Book 2, the minimum is 2. In Book 3, the minimum is 3 (if the owner only has 2 same-suit cards, the third may be of any suit: the majority suit is the one that counts).

Describe what you do to take on the Challenge and play one or more cards from your hand, which must all be of the suit matching the attribute you are relying on. • If your score in the suit is 1 or more, that is the maximum number of cards you may play. • If your score is 0, you must play 2 cards (of any combination of suits) and take the lowest value as your one card.

Now, turn over the Obstacle card(s). • If you chose the same suit, you need only equal the total value to best the Challenge. • If you chose a diff erent suit, your cards played must have a higher total value to best the Challenge. SampleFace cards are worth 10. Aces are worth 11. file

3 If you beat the Challenge, narrate your success and take an Adventure Card (see below). If you do not, the Challenge remains. Th e owner narrates what happened. Leave the Obstacle cards face-up. You or another player can try again, this time knowing the situation better. THE BASICS • If you played an ace, reduce your score in that suit by 1 (minimum 0). • If you played a Queen, increase your score in that suit by 1.

A When you best a Challenge, pick up an Adventure. Don’t show it to the others. If you like it, place it face down in front of you in your Archive - a separate space to keep your Adventures. If you don’t like it, you may draw another instead. In this case, you must keep the second Adventure. Put the fi rst back in the Adventure Deck. Th e descriptive text on an Adventure might refer to something that has happened in the game, but most of them describe adventures yet to come. Th ey will be used in the Epilogue.

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4 H  O If you think you aren’t ready to take on a Challenge, you can call on one of your friends - another Player Character - to hang out either in person or via some form of long-distance communication. Describe what you do, and have a conversation. You may now discard as many cards from your hand as you like and replenish it to fi ve. Your friend can also join you in your next Challenge, giving you a card from her hand.

E  B When you go to draw a card from the deck and there are none left , the Book is fi nished. You may not take on any more Challenges. Move on to the next Book, or to the Epilogue. You may also all agree to move on without completing the outstanding Challenges, even if you haven’t run out of cards. When you move on, the owner of each unresolved Challenge narrates a brief, melancholy conclusion to that part of the story.

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