This holiday season, I’m going to review a different module, game or supplement every day. I haven’t sought any of them out, they’ve been sent to me, so it’s all surprises, all the way. I haven’t planned or allocated time for this, so while I’m endeavouring to bring the same attention to these reviews, it might provide a challenge, but at least, I’ll be bringing attention to some cool stuff!

The Curse Lingers is a 27 page role-playing game by Daniel Copper about beings in the far future visiting dangerous temples, places that generations have been told to stay away from. You delve into them, seeking to recover relics of the distant past.

Honestly, I feel like I should lead with thematics here: The layout is clearly inspired by the Sandia report’s “Landscape of Thorns”, in electric yellow and black. It’s a Caltrop Core game, also drawing inspiration from the same report. Similarly, the front papers are inspired, clearly, by the field of nuclear semiotics. This is cool stuff. But while the layout choices and the simplicity of the system drew me in, the opening flavour text is a little off-putting, as I got confused as to what the game was actually going to consist.

There are a few really unique mechanics hidden in this tiny game. One is that time is unimportant except where relative the Curse Gauge of the temple. Hence, when you do something, the temple’s curse gets worse. There’s a direct connection to player action and the progression of some kind of unknown doom. I love this: It’s the kind of extreme actualisation of what random encounters are supposed to represent that I adore, and I’m a little surprised we don’t see it more. When the gauge is filled (and, while it’s not stated, the player characters are irradiated), they begin to mutate, radically reducing their survival chances. This mutation level substitutes for hit points here, which means the fewer hit points you have, the more cool powers you have, until you die. This is a really satisfying curve. The mutations you gain are predictable, and related to your class, and the class descriptions make the majority of the ruleset. I could see players looking at their character sheet, realising they needed their 8+ mutation, and intentionally exposing themselves to further mutagen just to achieve their next goal, overshooting the mark, and then the game ending.

To be clear, this is intended to be a micro-game, not complete in and of itself, and hence it’s hard to criticise it for what it’s missing, but I want a little more here, particularly I want more from the “how to make a temple” rules here. I don’t think I need much else, though. The last part of the book is an example temple, a fragment of city where automated cards fly past pavements filled only with ghosts. While brief, it’s weird and compelling, with a labyrinth, a relic that mixes religion with automated vehicles, and a busker who must be given a donation to be allowed to escape. This is a very cool micro-dungeon, but it left me wanting more.

The Curse Lingers is a very cool twist on post-apocalyptic dungeon-crawling, but I think if I’m doing to revisit this kind of game, I’m probably going to go toward Eco Mofos that I reviewed earlier this month, simply because it has more depth and has an ecosystem in place, meaning I have to do less work. However, I’d love to see more modules written by Daniel Copper, just because the one that’s here is pretty cool and weird, and I could see a series of these nuclear semiotics inspired modules for a game like Eco Mofos getting a lot of attention. I’d definitely pick up modules based on this content. That said, if you’re interested in what I’ve described here, with some cool, multi-level thematic content, striking layout, and a cool dungeon for a one-shot, The Curse Lingers is a good choice.

Idle Cartulary

Playful Void is a production of Idle Cartulary. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing to the Idle Digest Newsletter. If you want to support Idle Cartulary continuing to provide Bathtub Reviews, I Read Reviews, and Dungeon Regular, please consider a one-off donation or becoming a regular supporter of Idle Cartulary on Ko-fi.