I was honored to have the opportunity to playtest The Ritual, a sapphic, tarot-based solo game written by Caroline Sheridan of Questward Press, who is also the owner of Side Quest Books & Games in Somerville, MA. (Full disclosure, Caroline is a friend of mine, and she gave me an early digital version of this game to test!) 

I loved playing The Ritual so much but I think the play experience I had kind of speaks for itself, so I wanted to share an (edited and slightly condensed) version of my play through. I highly recommend you scoot on over to the Kickstarter page to join me in backing this game before July 31! 

Note: I played an early version of this game, so some of the prompt text may be slightly different in the final version.

I have photographed card spreads using the Intuitive Night Goddess Tarot, by Linzi Silverman. Some of the cards have different names in this deck, but I have included text of what the original card is.

Introducing “The Ritual”

In the Ritual, you play as the Supplicant, who serves and honors the Aspirant. During this game, you are asked to go on a quest and fetch an object that is necessary for a Ritual – and that ritual will be completed at great personal cost to you. 

Safety: The following content warning is provided in the game text, and should be considered for this playtest as well: Throughout The Ritual, you will encounter potentially difficult topics of power dynamics, intimacy, consent, and agency. […] Step away at any time. This game will still be here when you are ready to return.

The Oracle: This game uses an oracle for some sections, notated by (+) for yes/positive, (-) for no/negative, and (*) for the player to decide what happens. I have indicated where these come into play for certain cards I’ve drawn. During gameplay, I move tokens to a positive and negative pile based on these cards, and ultimately use the token balance to determine the outcome of the game.

Without further ado… let’s get to the gameplay! 

Overture

The Supplicant: The Hermit. 

My magic is quiet and ever-growing. | I come across as pensive and curious. | I am unfortunately distrusting and solipsistic. | My upbringing was solitary and unstable. 

Write about your background and upbringing.

For a long time, all I knew was near-isolation. I was raised with the same quiet curiosity that lives inside me now by my father, or at least who I believed to be a father figure. He taught me to ask as many questions as I needed, and that an answer could always be found with steady patience.

I left at an early age because my father and the small, quiet community where I grew up could not offer answers. In part, I wanted to know more about my mother, and my father could not or would not give me a lot of information. I have never been back, which is an agreement and a conversation my father and I made before I left. He was a very pragmatic man, who was well-respected as someone wise and knowledgeable. Knowing he could not give me what I sought, he sent me with his blessing and the hopes that I would find it. 

Describe your appearance and what you carry with you.

I am a woman in the middle of my life who has no idea that I’ve visibly aged because I have do not pay attention to that. I carry a notebook to record the information I find. I carry a lantern so I can always see what is coming up ahead. I wear spectacles because I have ruined my eyesight with lots of reading in dim light. I wear simple, practical, nodescript clothing that allows me to flex my social status a little above or a little below where I would fall by default. I have fair skin and long dark hair that I wear in a long, single braid. 

Choose a name, and some pronouns.

My name is Eadrad, and my pronouns are she/her/hers. 

The Aspirant: Judgement. 

Her magic is mirroring and harsh. | She comes across as observant and poised. | She is unfortunately analytical and self-important. | She treats me as a distraction and a moment to breathe.

Describe your relationship to her.

Our relationship is very one-sided. While we are similar in many ways, we are different sides of the same coin. I am analytical, curious, and believe the answers are waiting to be found, so I go and look for them. She believes that she has every answer, and centers everything on herself and her magic. She notices, takes in, and holds herself with a haughty elegance that is blunt and self-aggrandizing. I am drawn to her because she has the confidence to say that her answers are complete. In our own ways, we each prioritize the information over the informant. It’s just that to me, she is the information. And to her, I am the informant. 

Are you lovers?

We are not lovers, but I am endlessly fascinated with her. She’s like a brilliantly multi-faceted crystal, clear and bright and sparkling, and I want to catch every angle of her in the light. I would go anywhere that she invited me to go. 

Do you want to be? 

Very much so. Is part of the investigation and fascination. Because she is able to match my energy, I find myself focusing all of my energy on every aspect of her. I don’t know if it’s something I seek out, more it feels like an inevitable eventuality. 

She is everything to me, but what does everything mean? 

“Everything” is the answer to every question that I’ve been seeking. Perhaps there are also some deep-seeded mommy issues there in the way that I have set out in search of answers about my mother, and have found this woman instead. Everything means I can stop looking and finally satiate my curiosity – but the problem is every facet I explore brings new questions. 

Act 1: The Trials

“You stand at the edge of an ancient forest. The Aspirant’s ritual requires a relic, and so a relic you shall get… While she was not able to see just what the object was, she was able to point you in the right direction to retrieve it.”

The First Memory & Trial

The first time you met the Aspirant. 

Trial 1: Knight of Swords

Realm: Intellect/Air
Knight of Swords: Ambitious, action-oriented, fast-thinking – quick-witted scamp attempts to steal your coin purse.

The test is less the money, and more the keeping of it. Each coin is tied to a moment: the value is the sum total of the time I have spent with the Aspirant. The coinpurse is heavy; I didn’t realize at first that what we were collecting in this purse was for something – and now I know that I may surrender it at the end of this trial.

It is a trade, not a payment. The coin was offered and so was I. The coins were placed like marbles in a jar for good behavior, but they were so ethereal that I hardly knew they were coins. 

The thief grabs the bag and I stumble. “You will know, my Eadrad, when it is time to make the payment.” I do not know who this scamp is, but I know as sure as I know Her name: This is not the right time. 

By the time I’ve regained my footing they are already moving away from me. Where before there was an empty space, a path, a road, there is suddenly a traveling market sprung up on a courtyard. 

I can still see the child, weaving in and out of people with their own coin purses, spending on things that I choose not to be able to afford. There is magic in knowing that all that matters right now is myself. These people were not here five minutes before, and they cannot stop me. 

I take a deep breath. It does not matter how far away this child moves from me. They are moving as if all of the people are real; they’ve forgotten to verify, and they have too much faith that I, too, will believe it’s all real. 

I don’t even wave them away from me, I simply charge forward, moving with single-minded purpose towards the purse, not even the child, my magic steadily radiating off of me in waves. It protects me with the truth: I am real. I am the only one here. 

I pass through the people like they’re a mirage, cutting the distance between me and the thief. I catch up to them. 

There is a moment for me to make a decision, and I make it without even thinking about it, in a split second, but if one were to slow down and analyze that single second of footage, it would run through the following instinctive thoughts: 

• I have the power to make real, and make unreal. 
• I have not turned to see whether or not the folks behind me are still visible because they ceased to exist when I decided they did not. 
• This power was unlocked in conversation with the Aspirant, and comes from verifying so wholly and fully that she is Real, and that things can be unmade. 
• If I reach for the thief, I will have to fight them, disagree with them, wrestle the coin purse away. They will become real and then I will be Responsible for what happens to them. 
• The root of my magic lies in knowing that what I have not verified may, or may not, be real. The only certainty is myself. Perhaps this was a flaw originally but it is becoming something more powerful now. Like the Aspirant has brought out the coldness in me, the willingness to let go of anything to achieve what I want.
• If I simply reach for the purse, the Thief can be unmade, and I am not responsible for anything. 

In that split second, I decide that my own quest is more important than the thief’s existence, and I reach for the purse, and suddenly I am alone again, they are gone, I have no idea to where. Everyone is gone, the market, the merchants, the horses. 

I double knot the coin purse this time so it cannot be lost again. 

Memory 1: Ace of Swords

Realm: Intellect/Air
(+) Ace of Swords: new relationships, compassion, creativity

She seemed so kind the day I met her. I wonder now if she knew I was in need of kindness; in the moment, I accepted the kindness and hold on. 

She had questions for me. She was working on something, hair tucked behind her ears, a face of pure concentration. It felt a wonder that she had paused her contemplation to even pay me heed at all. She held a looking glass in her hands, spinning it carefully, watching the light focus and reflect on different points. It was like she could see things inside of it that I could not. 

It struck me then that she might have answers I was seeking, and I wanted to impress her, so I answered her questions. They were simple, about herbs and light and the way that people interact with each other, all things that I had already discovered.

With each answer, her face grew more delighted. She offered my first token – the things that would become the coins in my coinpurse – and asked if I would stay and have supper with her, for it had been some time since she’d had company. We did not dine together often after that. But at that first dinner, there were moments where we sat as intellectual equals.

I changed the nature of my searching, and focused on her from that day on. The more I searched, the harder she was to find, and the less of her I felt I had ever had in the first place. 

The Second Memory & Trial. 

A moment that is emblematic or representative of your relationship with the Aspirant. 

Trial 2: Ten of Cups

Realm: Emotions/Water
Ten of Cups: You have been walking undisturbed for some time when a new sound comes through the forest. It is a voice – resonant, warm, and enveloping. You know it to be some kind of god or other power, and it speaks to you with reassurances that it will be there for you when all of this is over. Why do you believe them? Will you tell the aspirant of what you heard?

I believe something that I cannot verify, perhaps for the first time. But perhaps something in me knows the answer and recognizes the voice: My mother. She is here to reassure me. I forget for a moment that this is a trial.

I do not know how it is that my mother is here, all around me, that I can hear her voice before me and behind, above and below. It’s like her voice comes from every piece of nature, and also comes from me. 

I believe her because I know her. She is so familiar, and I wish for the comfort to be mortal, and simple, arms around me, a lullaby I used to know. 

There is so much of the Aspirant that there is little room for anything else. But there will be room for this voice. I will make room. 

It takes a moment to remind myself that of course, I will tell the Aspirant. I will tell the Aspirant of this voice, because the Aspirant collects information about everything. She knows everything. She may already know this happened; she may already know this voice. Surely, she will not think the voice is a threat. She will hardly think of it at all. 

Memory 2: Queen of Wands

Realm: Passion/Fire
(+) Queen of Wands: independence, courage, determination

The Aspirant made it clear that she trusts me to do my own research and come to my own conclusions. Sometimes she sets challenges that are very difficult, and I wish she would not leave me on my own quite so much. But I have courage, and I have strength, and I am used to doing things on my own.  

Once, I was sent to fetch a fact from a tower so high that I must have spent years climbing it. It was as faceted as she is, with a spiral staircase made of cut glass. So high that when I looked down, I could only see the fading spiral below me, and when I looked up, I could not see the top. 

Sometimes, I was surrounded by glass walls, on the other side a cosmic expanse. Sometimes, there were little pockets of other things, like shimmer, or fire all around, or a room where someone was having tea. I did not stop, there was no time. 

But there was time enough to make the climb and ponder the answers to many things in the process. To think about how high up I was, how something could smash this glass and the whole thing would come tumbling down, catching me in sharp shards. 

I became terrified of tripping and falling. I was afraid of my own feet, and for long stretches, I would focus only on where I had to place my next step. 

When I reached the top, I was back where I had begun, and when the Aspirant asked for the fact that I had won for her, I spoke on the nature of cycles, and loops, and repetition. 

A lesser Supplicant may have thought there was no answer here at all. But I can always fetch an answer for her.

The Third Memory & Trial

The moment the Aspirant told you of the ritual and asked you to be a part of it. 

Trial 3: Knight of Pentacles 

Realm: Physicality and Earth
Knight of Pentacles: Productivity, routine, hard work — circle of women sitting in a circle around a table, passing yarn around to a rhythmic song to soften it. 

The song is the lullaby I had just been wishing for, who-knows-how-long-ago when I heard my mother. I strain my ears as I approach the group of women, listening for her voice, but I do not hear it. I do not hear the Aspirant’s either. 

They make room for me in their circle. I join them without a word. Touch is how I verify, and I feel my magic flow into the yarn, making it real. I feel the magic spread around the circle, joining in where I touch it, and worked in by the hands of each woman who touches it, until it makes a full loop back around to me and I begin a second layer. 

It takes some time before I realize that each of these women has their own kind of magic that they, too, are working into the yarn. Mine is a curiosity, a certainty, an ask and an answer at the same time. Satisfaction. 

I do not know what their magic is, what else is joining the strands of this yarn, but the song they sing is so gentle that none of their magic frightens me. 

After a long time, we are done. The yarn is so soft that it’s hard to believe it is real. They place it into my hands, tell me that it is mine, that it was always meant for me. I protest, but it is hollow. I covet this yarn, and all of the things that are worked into it. I want to know and understand it. I want to twist it apart and study it, figure out if it’s possible to put it all back together again. I will not do that – not quite yet. They seem convinced that I will need it. 

I try to pay for the yarn. They do not let me; every time I outstretch my fingers, they return the coins to my purse. 

“You may need this purse too,” they say, “It’s almost time, now.” All of them as kind as the mothers I wish had been around to raise me, so different from my father and I, so different from the Aspirant. 

I don’t understand what they mean, but they send me on my way. 

Memory 3: Page of Pentacles 

Realm: Physicality/Earth
(*) Page of Pentacles: Learning from failure, manifestation

I held so many successes in the palm of my hand that failures felt harsher and stronger, like little storms that came to batter me. This particular failure spilled out of me, tears and sounds and shortness of breath. She’d asked so much of me in that moment. She needed me to ascend to a new realm with her, and yet I found I could not meet her there. I feared I was not enough, because how was I to verify, and know, and hold it to be true? It was an emotional plane, one that was only found by joining together. And I stumbled away in fright, not of her, but of what it might reveal. 

In retrospect, perhaps she was waiting for me to know what holding a failure like that felt like before asking me to do something so big. 

“There is something I need – something we need – and I cannot go myself,” she said. “It must be you – it has always been you, my Eadrad.” 

She never promised it would be simple. She never promised it would be successful. But that “we” held me closer than any promise or coin ever had. 

I will not let her down. 

The Relic

Just as the Aspirant foretold, there before you in the center of the circular glade, sitting atop a rough-hewn stone plinth, is… 

The Tower: A jagged black scepter, pulsing with a sick energy. Its touch makes your stomach turn, like you’ve been flipped upside down. 

I have felt this stomach-turn before, in a way, and it is the way that I felt when I tried and failed to ascend to this higher realm with the Aspirant. 

I take the scepter. 

ACT II: THE NIGHT BEFORE

Relic in hand, you come to the Aspirant. 

For this phase of the story, lay out three face-up cards: in the middle, a card from the Sacrifice stack of major arcana cards, and a minor arcana card on either side. Read through the implications of each card, then write about your night with the Aspirant. Incorporate all three cards in your writing.

Location

The Aspirant has chosen a particular place for tomorrow’s ritual, and it’s there that you meet her now. This place is significant in some way, and necessary for the ritual to succeed.

(-) Eight of Swords: Self-imposed restrictions, victim mentality. (Token towards a negative outcome.)

The Sacrifice

During your night of preparation, the Aspirant reveals the nature of the final sacrifice she needs from you to complete her ritual. Find the corresponding description in the Sacrifice chart, and write about your reaction to this revelation. 

The Sun: You must sacrifice your vitality. This manifests as either a blood sacrifice or as years coming off your lifetime. A youthful essence of yourself is given over to the powers of the ritual. 

The Preparation

What else does the night entail? How do you and the Aspirant prepare separately for tomorrow’s ritual? How do you prepare together? The card you reveal here will tell you if your experience of the night is positive or negative — write about it, and add a token to the appropriate pool. 

(+) Queen of Cups: Emotional stability, in flow, caring. 

As soon as she explains where the ritual must take place, I understand why, but I do not feel good about it. “In our most private spaces,” she says, “We can be our most vulnerable selves, and that is essential for this to succeed.” I, of course, had been desiring to know what the ritual would be ever since I learned of its existence, but I had not expected her to be as forthcoming as she was the night before. 

She explained, first in simple words and then in increasingly more specific and granular terms as I asked many follow-up questions, that the ritual would be a process by which I lived through many years of life, providing her with all of those experiences – and while I would, perhaps, see flashes of them, I would not keep or retain those things upon completion of the ritual. Years of my life would go to her knowledge, and her life. 

It’s her certainty that this will work that tells me perhaps she has done this ritual before, perhaps she has held this dark pulsing scepter before, and wielded it to fuel her own magical life and power. 

In her room, it is me who feels vulnerable. Perhaps she is too, but I don’t let myself see it. It would be strange now to let myself have the upper hand when I would rather let her have it. 

I follow her lead and I do not ask questions. It is the first time in a long time that I have not asked any questions, only scrambled to answer, and obey, and accept. 

“Now is the right time,” she says, her voice tinged with something that could almost be sadness if I listen with the right hopefulness. “Tomorrow. Before it is too late. I’ve already waited longer than I should have, because you were so interesting to talk to” At first I do not know what she means, but when, after we’ve been intimate, she brings me into her bathroom and carefully washes me, I notice each part of my body that she touches as if for the first time, and realize that I am not young anymore. I do not know when that happened. 

I do not interrogate my own feelings about it. I would rather embrace hers: An anticipation, an eagerness. She will gain more information, and with it more power, and that is what I’ve always wanted to offer up to her. 

It sets my mind at ease to know that I am of use. 

It is only when I am drifting off to sleep, safely returned to my own chambers with fresh, soft sheets, that I think of the voice from the Trials, and wonder what my mother would think of the choice that I am making now. 

ACT III: THE RITUAL

Minor arcana cards drawn here will tell whether each aspect of the Ritual (the Relic and the Sacrifice) succeed or fail.

The Relic

(-) 7 of Swords: Betrayal, Deception, Getting away with something

The scepter is not right. Somehow the moment I offer it out to the Aspirant, I know that I have made a mistake. I do not know where the mistake happened but everything feels wrong, and I can see in her face that she knows it too. 

“What have you done?” she asks, the coldness feeling harsher in her voice only because it is directed at me, instead of floating alongside me like it normally does. 

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m sorry.” 

This object should be correct; I followed all the steps. Where did I go astray? The only things I know for certain are the things that I have done, and I refuse to let them be the reasons things fail. I worked too hard. 

“Carry on,” I say to her. “If there is something in me that I can give you, I will give it.” 

And so we proceed. If we wait any longer, it will be even later, and there will be less of my life to give to her. 

The Sacrifice

(*) 2 of Pentacles: Prioritization, adaptability, time management.

Perhaps I am older than those who have come before me, perhaps the scepter is not correct, but I am nothing if not a willing supplicant, and I am determined to make this a success. I think carefully about the paths before us. 

Even if the ritual fails, I know in my heart that there is still one way the Aspirant could have these years with me: For us to live them out together, and build each other up into something that we never could have been apart. 

I know she does not want that, she wants things now, and she does not want to wait for those years to be spent in real time. 

I ask for leave to fetch my coinpurse, and realize that this is what the coins are for: To ensure this final trial, this sacrifice, comes to be. 

For every coin that she has given me, I give back to her. A future debt together, paid in full on this day. As I count them out and push them towards her, they disappear into her open palm. I hope with all my heart that this is enough, even without the scepter. 

This is a success.  

The Supplicant

How does your faith in the Aspirant balance or tip over the scales of the ritual? The tokens are an overall decider of Success or Failure; my total points to Success.

I have the faith to ensure this is a success. I can feel it in my fingers with each coin that I pass; I can feel it in my soul as I refuse to let the failure of the scepter stop me from coming through. I will not let the Aspirant down; I will do anything for her, including this.  

The Outcome and Epilogue

It takes ten lifetimes, but it’s over in a moment. Flashes and glimpses, a laugh here and there. So many questions; I feel the weight and hope of them pulling me forward. 

My mind grows tired. My body wrinkles and folds and shrinks. Soon I will be able to rest. 

Through it all, the Aspirant is everything. She glimmers and watches and there is so much certainty in the way that she waits for everything to reach its conclusion. 

In the end, she takes my arm and guides me to a soft chair where I can rest. I remember the time as if I read a story about it once, long ago. Even the earlier parts of my life feel like they were part of this story. I know now only that I would like to rest. 

She moves with a new strength, and her confidence is elevated even from what it was before. 

“Ask me a question, any question,” she says. 

Something else about me has changed: My voice. It is deeper now, and soft, and I realize all at once that I am the voice I heard, not my mother. Of course – it was always going to be me. I am my own keeper, and I answer my own questions. 

She does not have much use for me. She finds me interesting, of course, but we do not talk the same way we used to. I am glad for quiet. I’m different now than I was before. I still want to know things, but the questions are simpler. What will we do tomorrow, and Where did I put my hairbrush?

She brings me to my own new room, arranges that someone will always bring me food and drink and amusements. I do not last long; I set out for somewhere simpler, where I can close out my story in the quiet, keeping myself company with my own voice. 

My hair is silver now, though I still wear it in a long braid. My hands are shaky, but I can still hold things for myself. I think of making my way back to the gentle women softening the yarn, asking if I can still share in their knowledge. But my memory is not what it used to be. 

The one thing I kept was that song, and that yarn, which my fingers still knew how to knit into a shawl that fits perfectly around my shoulders. I wear it while I watch the sea and wonder what I used to know. 

Final Thoughts

My playthrough took place over the course of two days; on the first day, I went through the Overture and Act 1, and drew the cards for Act 2. On the second day, I completed Act 2 and played through to the end of the game.

I had such a wonderful time playing this game. Even though the outline and events are very structured, there was so much room to write and build and explore. I never felt trapped or railroaded. It was easy to carry threads and repetition throughout, just by following the prompts. I was really happy with the outcome. I used random draw for each category, rather than looking through the prompts and choosing. But I liked so many prompts that I’d be really interested in playing this again with different cards, to see how different of a direction it could go.

Once again, if you think this is a game you’d like to own, you can back it on Kickstarter until July 31!