Paranoid & Crotchety - Project Ouroboros & The Roots of Yggdrasil

Project Ouroboros, by Susan Weiner, Nat Budin, and Kate Fractal

There was no choice: you had to activate the time loop. As scientists in a remote outpost, you stand as the colony's last defense against the technology-destroying nanobots. Alongside your closest friends, colleagues, and family, you are fighting for your world and each other. Scientists and leaders from all over this planet have been battling this menace as the alien bots rained down. Nothing has worked.

Your last chance: give yourselves more time. You can send your consciousnesses back a short temporal distance. Armed with your future knowledge, you may be able to do better this time. Or the next. Or the next.

The Roots of Yggdrasil, by Tory Root and Lily Benderskaya

The Mage Isharay is dead in Yggdrasil Tower.

Which is perhaps frustrating, given that the Mage Isharay is why you're all here today. Some of you friends, some of you enemies, some of you complete strangers. Humans, haught, fellow mages {mages are tales for children, nothing more, all that matters is iron and blood} even seafolk, all called to this newly-abandoned tower on the rocky cliffs of the eastern shore.

But it's hardly a wasted journey. Rumors have always swirled around the Mage Isharay, after all. One of the sealed chests of the Ancients hidden in Yggdrasil Tower's {keep, the last bastion against the demon horde, its walls strung with the skulls of the fallen} treasure room. And it's rare that one of the great mages dies and leaves their treasures for the taking. In these fragmented, strife-filled {only this new plague of curselings threatens the peace and prosperity in our great democracy} fiefdoms of magic and adventure you call home, you may as well take what advantage you can. Before that fabric {starts} to {fray}

Project Ouroboros is a game about time loops, decisions made in desperation, and the world altering consequences of those decisions. A tight knit group of characters will play through the same sequence of events multiple times, trying to achieve better outcomes. Throughout the game, outside information will enter in the form of new memories. As memories filter in and relationships strain, new decisions will be made and tested. Whatever happens, the world will be forever change...and you along with it.

The Roots of Yggdrasil is a game about exploring alternate realities, other selves, and changing sociopolitical structures. A diverse group of characters will pass between different fantasy universes, discover new aspects of themselves, and try to find a world to call home. Throughout the game, outside information will enter in the form of buried messages, allowing them to better understand the mysterious magic that carries them across worlds. Whatever happens, their identities will be permanently changed...and perhaps their world along with them.

Project Ouroboros and The Roots of Yggdrasil are separate games that will weave together, with each game affecting the other. Players will be playing one of the two games, but will receive information from the other game, and may even enter the other game in limited ways. Together these very different worlds will join to understand their circumstances and seek solutions.

Note: Both games take place in settings in which it is well accepted that people of any gender may have any physical characteristics and be attracted to anyone.

48 character sheets?! You're crazy.
- all our friends a month before Intercon S

Tory and Susan came up with this idea one night while talking about the possibility of a collaboration between Paranoid & Crotchety and Alleged Entertainment, putatively for Intercon R which was our tenth anniversary and their fifteenth. Once we realized the scope of the thing, it got put off to Intercon S, but in the meantime we realized that we'd set up a thing where our game was passing contingency envelopes to their game and their game was passing scene updates to our game and we had perfectly and completely crawled up our own butts of our respective weird larp form brands, and what better a collaboration could you ask for? Also getting put off to Intercon S was all for the best anyway, since that was actually our tenth anniversary because we can't do math.

Tory also never expected to create a game more exhausting than A Crown of Hearts to run, but well, here we are. The first run was absolute madness but a lot of fun! We did at least manage to improve the madness/fun ratio in the second run. Now to fine-tune the details.

February 23, 2019, at Intercon S in Warwick, RI.
September 13, 2019, at Be-Con in Chicago, IL.
February 29, 2020, at Intercon T in Warwick, RI.

Project Ouroboros & The Roots of Yggdrasil is a game(s) for twenty-four players (characters have player-determined genders) which runs for six hours, in two largeish rooms, under the direction of four GMs. Average starting character sheet length for Yggdrasil is about twelve hundred words, and there is significant in-game reading. Average starting character sheet length for Ouroboros is about sixteen hundred words, and there is some in-game reading.

The Ouroboros side of the game needs some restructuring before we run it again, but we have some plans. Some runtime GM info is drafted, but it's otherwise not documented, especially the Yggdrasil side.