Lighthouse Keepers

The sea was once a city. The sea is still a city: trenches stretch into the deep, dark and teeming with life, mirroring city-nights above.

In the world above the sea, there is a lighthouse. The lighthouse has always been there.

Lighthouse Keepers is a map-drawing game for 1-4 people about a lighthouse and the things that lurk outside it in the deep. You play a collective of lighthouse keepers living in an offshore lighthouse, a tower that stretches from its lantern high above the waves all the way down to the bottom of the sea in the hadal zone.

The game design is based on Avery Alder’s The Quiet Year and Carter Richmond’s Anomaly. Its themes are inspired primarily by Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under The Sea and, by happy coincidence, it bears several thematic similarities to Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse.

Lighthouse Keepers involves marine, body and psychological horror. If you prefer to describe your sea creatures verbally rather than look at them, files without illustrations are provided. (The illustrations include sea spiders, giant isopods, goblin sharks, sea bunnies/nudibranch sea slugs, anglerfish, and a whale fall.)

To play Lighthouse Keepers, you’ll need:

•  A standard 52-card playing deck (with jokers removed)
• A blank piece of paper, a printed copy of the map provided, or a shared way to draw a map digitally
• Enough pencils or pens for the group (if playing with paper)
• At least two index cards, or a way to track characters, Wonders and Terrors
• Six small six-sided dice

Community copies are available. Every sale contributes an additional community copy to the pool.

This game was written as an entry for the Mock Cover Jam 2, with title and cover both by Yuri Runnel.