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–For Your Character–
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–For You, the Player–
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Character Creation
Playing the Game
ONE LAST FIRE is about having the knowledge that something will be destroyed and having the choice to do something about it. The tone of this game can best be described as melancholic and nostalgic due to the loss of so many Libraries already. However, players have the power to enact positive change and prove that not all is lost.
One of the main purposes of One Last Fire is to explore what knowledge means to people, and what people do in the face of inevitability. It is a historical mystery game that should feel fleeting and suspenseful. There will also be an emphasis on interpersonal character relationships and how they develop as they traverse various Libraries together, while everything else around them goes up in a puff of smoke.
Over the course of the game, we would like PCs to explore what it means to be human, and how humanity can contribute to the preservation of existing knowledge, as well as shape how future historians think of our short-lived time on Earth today.
Of course, this power can easily be abused through fake news and propaganda, and that is something we'd also like to examine in this game.
Another theme One Last Fire will tackle is the idea that our existence, as well as everything we hold dear, is temporary. Whether by fire, illness, or just the circle of life, we will all disappear eventually. We would like PCs to explore what to do in the face of such inevitability, knowing that everything they make, fix, save, everyone they hate and love, will all cease to exist one day.
On the flip side, PCs are also encouraged to think about how they can make fleeting moments in their life last longer, how they can delay the inevitable, and perhaps even manage to achieve some level of “immortality”, be it in writing or in some other form. We welcome characters whose main theme is trying to make things last in a perpetually deteriorating world. The implications of “living forever” are also worthy of examination.
From a roleplaying perspective, most of the adrenaline and action will stem from this theme as players rush to preserve what they love most in a world that is crumbling around them. Time is always of the essence, and you never know how much you have left.
As you have probably noticed by now, the One Last Fire wiki is pretty sparse. This is because we encourage PCs to poke and prod the setting for more information. With each Library Incarnation, the game world will reveal more and more of itself to the player base, with unexpected roleplaying and mechanics-based twists and turns.
We have engineered Skills in a way that allows most to be used for exploration and puzzle solving. The mysteries PCs will encounter will be of various levels of complexity, and we encourage players to unravel the metaphysic of the Library through the game.
Our Qualities and Skills system ensures that most PCs will not be able to achieve highly demanding goals on their own. Moreover, semi-major Fluff Actions were incorporated into the game to further encourage collaboration between player characters. It is important to remember that, besides a few non-humanoid Library denizens, PCs are the only people capable of transcending the destruction of the Libraries. Therefore, we would like you all to ask each other for help, form relationships, and learn to trust each other while your world burns down around you.
This is a game where unlikely individuals band together to face an environmental enemy. However, we also expect disagreements and arguments to arise. For instance, PCs may fight over how to solve a problem - or perhaps about whether the issue at hand is a problem at all. With this being a library-based game, GMs are somewhat more interested in seeing PCs fight their battles with words. However, as is evident from our Skill breakdown, we will always allow PCs to pick their poison.
We would like players to find comfort in knowledge: to love it, be passionate about it, and add to it as the game progresses. PCs may also explore the great sadness that can arise from the loss of knowledge, both at the large and small-scale. Some players may seek to restore it, understand its complex mysteries and histories. However, others may want nothing to do with what is already lost, and may look to the future instead. We accommodate both play styles within the game.
We are also interested in exploring the ethics of knowledge and how people store knowledge. In this game, humans are the keepers of knowledge - but humans make mistakes. Are these genuine accidents or deliberate acts of sabotage? And could knowledge itself be considered dangerous?
Due to the historical nature of this game, many aspects may be inspired by real world events and aesthetics. In player backstory and personal plot, we would like to avoid playing out real world historical occurrences, even with altered names and settings. While we do allow PCs to pull from historically-significant styles, movements, and events during character creation, we also ask players to change them at will to create a unique piece of history.
For example, you may play a character who lives near to the Western Front during World War 1 (a general historical period). However, you should not state that your character's Personal Library was shelled during the Battle of the Somme (a specific historical event). Merely stating that your library has received shelling due to the war should suffice, and you should be prepared to adjust the timings and locations of these types of events in your backstory if the GMs ask you to.
Another example is that you may play a character who lives in the Joseon Dynasty in 15th century Korea (a general historical period and real-world location) when King Sejong the Great invented the phonetic hangul writing system. However, you should not state that your character's Personal Library was visited by King Sejong (a specific historical figure). Mentioning that your library contains some new writings in hangul or painting of the monarch is fine, and if ever you have any questions as to what specificity is allowed you may ask the GMs.
However, settings for Libraries may take directly from real-world historical events. In each Library Incarnation there will be links to informative articles about the events in question. We do this because we would like to pay homage to history and cite our sources. However, real-world historical events will only be used as contextual information and a backdrop to the stories players will tell. Players will not be able to influence the outcome of these backdrop events, and we will not emphasise any particular triggering themes in our settings.
The exception to this, of course, is the burning of the Library of Alexandria, which the game is based on.
