Light a Single Candle, by Lily Benderksaya
Close your eyes.
Focus on the afterimage of the flame, the ambient warmth on your palms, the faint smell of wax.
Remember why you're here.
A tiny pinprick of light blooms and glimmers in the darkness. They're coming. How long has it been since the last time? Feels like a fraction of a second. No, a lifetime.
A year has passed since the last Wanderin' Night, when the boundaries between life and death grow thin, so thin you can drift across. And every year, for some few, this night marks a rite of passage.
About time. It gets all kinds of boring out here. Kind of lonely too.
On Wanderin' Night, we lay the dead to rest.
No, before you ask, this isn't an exorcism. You don't become a monster just because you die. You don't become any less yourself. But death…well. That shit's hard to deal with, okay?
Not like life is all that much easier.
Sometimes I wonder if they need this—need us—almost as much as we need them.
Light a Single Candle is a four hour game for twelve players, loosely inspired by Spiritfarer and The World Ends With You. Half of you will be playing living humans, and the other half will be playing ghosts. The game will run in semi-darkness, with (electric) candles and glowsticks providing the only light. Due to the nature of the story, this game deals pervasively with themes of death, grief and mourning, as well as various ways one can die, including chronic illness, murder, and suicide. Character sheets may also reference domestic violence, homelessness, and police brutality. (In general, actual PCs are all decent people.) Due to the thematic content, this game is recommended for players sixteen and older.
"Three bad dates. For your bucket list you have to go on three bad dates."
"You know, not everyone comes to romance that way—"
"Oh I know. The date can be that you go on a date and realize your ace/aro. That's cool."
"No, I mean, not everyone picks up strangers in bars."
"I think you underestimate the levels of bad, here. I mean, the bad date can entirely be this person that you're best friends with, you've been pining after each other for five years. Just so many missed chances. And you're going on a date. And its finally going well, and then—she's rimming you, and you go diarrhea on her face."
- some ghosts
Light a Single Candle is what happens when Lily plays/replays Spiritfarer and The World Ends With You in quick succession, while still not being over The Good Place. (She will possibly never be over The Good Place.) Inspired by all three of those, she set out to write a LARP about death, trust, and moving on, in what would hopefully be an empathetic but non-Glurgy fashion. The year 2022 was by no means an easy year for dealing with death and its unfairness, but at least it wasn't 2020, and frankly a lot of us could use the catharsis.
Now that the game's run at least once, Lily can maybe stop freaking out about run length, her decision to keep the character sheets deliberately short, and whether or not some emotional notes struck the landing. (That's a lie. She will never stop freaking out about those things. It's what keeps her young.)
May 28, 2022, at a larp day in Canton, MA.
July 8, 2022, at Summer Larpin' in Boxborough, MA.
March 3, 2023, at Intercon U in Warwick, RI.
April 29, 2023, at Little Boffer Con in Westford, MA.
Light a Single Candle is a game for up to twelve players (characters have player-determined genders) which runs for two to three hours, in one room with usable out-of-game space, under the direction of one GM. Average character sheet length is about twelve hundred words.
The game is runnable as it is. There is no GM documentation at the moment.