Ash Trapped in Cracked Lips
A downloadable game
Your eyelids stick as you try to open them, sealed by grit and mucus. You try to blink the adhesive away but manage to rally too few tears to adequately liberate your crusty eyes. Your lids part to bleached desert under a spiteful sun. The air is dry. Your skin is dry. Your lips are dry. You run a not-damp-enough tongue over Ash Trapped in Cracked Lips. You have awoken in the Endless Sands, the Prison of Thirst, the Drier Hell. You have awoken in the domain of giant scorpions, black jackals, the Ash Widow, and the Tireless Pyre. You have awoken in the Drought. You see hope in the form of a column of black smoke rising from the horizon. You are better off lying back down in the sand and letting the Drought take you now than chasing such hope. But you will chase it anyway, won’t you?
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Ash Trapped in Cracked Lips is a d20 horror ttrpg that strands players in the endless desert known as the Drought. This document includes everything you'll need for a Drought Master to guide players as they survive, try to escape, and die in the unforgiving desert. It includes 90 random encounter seeds that provide a variety of challenges, dangers, and interactions.
Ash Trapped in Cracked Lips was created as part of Cthork Borg Presents: Summer Horror Jam. As it was completed shortly before the deadline, updates addressing typos and balance are likely, and some content, including a character sheet and different file formats, is in the works. That being said, the game is complete, can be easily played without a formal character sheet, and includes plenty for you to enjoy (in the way one enjoys horror).
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Exclusive content
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Community Copies
If for any reason the price tag of this game is a barrier for you, please feel free to pick up a community copy. I'll add five more copies for each purchase and will occasionally refill these copies.
If you participated in Cthork Borg Presents: Summer Horror Jam and there isn't a community copy available, please comment or otherwise reach out and I'll make sure you can get this game.
Download demo
Development log
- EditsAug 15, 2023
- Character SheetsAug 14, 2023
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Ash Trapped In Cracked Lips is a semi-conventional TTRPG about surviving in a dry, charred plane of limbo. You could use it to play Dark Souls, but it has a distinct flavor all its own.
The PDF is 58 pages, with extremely strong Borg-y type art and layout. Everything is clear and easy to read despite the wildly splashed colors, and the mix of photo edits and contrasting colors produces a surprisingly cohesive whole.
Mechanically, Ash is a d20 game with a few osry adjustments. PCs roll dice. NPCs almost never do. Rolls use target numbers, and you have an easier time making them if you have an appropriate skill. Resting recovers a scant amount of hit points, and combat and hazards chip away at your HP until you are defeated.
There are also some distinctly survival horror-y additions. Resting is only possible in shelter. Characters routinely gain Thirst, which applies damage if it climbs high enough. Characters also gain Heat whenever they are exposed to horrors, and transform if it climbs high enough. Ammunition, item durability, and spare parts are also tracked.
Character creation is Class based, with each Class being simple, direct, and evocative. Classes come with a single choice each, but the choice feels meaningful, and Classes have plenty of room to act outside of their default kit.
GMing Ash is loose but interesting. The setting is unmapped, but the party navigates from Smoke to Smoke across the trackless wastes. Each Smoke is an area of interest, and the spots between them can be options to rest, recover, or reduce Thirst. The system puts an emphasis on the negative spaces between Smokes, and there are detailed roll tables for things the party can run into out in the wastes.
Ash comes with a small bestiary, but the focus of the game is more on atmosphere and pacing than combat.
Overall, if you like the idea of lonely, haunted areas and barren liminal regions, and if you're comfortable with an osr style of GMing, you should check this out. The setting thrives on atmospheric narration and a slow rollout of detail, so above all else do not hurry this game into combat. Play with a focus on the setting's weight and pacing, and to see what the characters are like when the world around them falls quiet.