‘The Longest Rest’ RPG Wants to Explore the Horror of a Simple Night in a Monstrous Inn
The Longest Rest is a new RPG crowdfunding now that wants to explore the horror of spending the night in a tavern.
“You gather in a tavern, taking shelter from the road. Four strangers from disparate beginnings united to find common purpose.”
So begins many an RPG. In fact, meeting or spending the night in a tavern goes beyond RPG, it’s a hoary old fantasy scene, repeated time and again. Iconic and common enough that it’s become a meme all its own. The Longest Rest wants to change the way you think about spending the night at a tavern, in a dark, horror-fueled spin on the fantasy staple.
Designed by the multi-award-winning Jeeyon Shim, whose past work includes the excellent Field Guide to Memory and The Shape of Shadows and has been seen everywhere from The Verge to Polygon, The Longest Rest looks incredibly cool.
The Longest Rest
At the heart of The Longest Rest is the idea that sometimes, getting your heart’s desire can cost you everything. As you and your companions come to rest in the tavern your deepest dreams and darkest secrets manifest:
A small band of travelers arrives at a tavern. Filthy, spent, and weary of their endless journey, they eagerly cross the tavern’s threshold to seek respite from the dust of the road and the weight of their own sins. But in the tavern, the rooms are bigger on the inside than they are outside. Lodgers wake in the night to see their darkest secrets coalesce before them, made flesh. The walls grow arms to embrace them.
And the tavern offers everyone the same bargain: your heart’s desire, in exchange for your humanity.
If reading that doesn’t send shivers up your spine, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s visceral. You can feel the weight of it. It takes a place of rest and turns it on its head. Fans of fantasy and lovers of horror will recognize all the best earmarks of their genres in a game like this:
Once the players’ characters enter the tavern, their outsider status and the secretive rituals of the tavern’s inhabitants will ring true to fans of folk horror. Themes of the land reclaiming itself through the vengeful avatar of the tavern have familiar eco-horror anchors. And as the action picks up over the course of the game and characters are subsumed, one by one, the game’s body horror elements will make themselves known as plainly as a ruptured artery.
Players take on the role of one of six different Travelers. Will you play the Sellsword, a former knight and dishonored mercenary? Or the cunning Consort, a courtesan in hiding, seeking vengeance? And will you claw your way out of the tavern?
The only way to find out is to back the game, crowdfunding now on Indiegogo. There are three different tiers available for a variety of budgets. And you can snag some luxury rewards as well. Don’t miss out on an 8×10 archival quality art print, a real leather coin purse, or an actual engraved pewter tankard. Or better yet: a Damascus steel pocket knight with bone handle, brass fittings, and custom engraving.
Back The Longest Rest today!
