Monster Take My Heart, by Tory Root
Soul Recompletion Support and Ritual Group: Wednesdays, 7:30-8:30 PM.
We all have different reasons for undergoing the ritual to sever unwanted parts of our emotions and personalities, and a different path towards the difficult choice to attempt recompletion. But we all deserve a chance to heal and reclaim our full selves.
This group is open to any adult who knows that they are severed or who has been verified by a soul-worker as showing signs of incompletion. During this three-month process, an experienced peer soul-worker will guide you through group therapy designed to prepare you for a collective attempt at recompletion. When it's time for the ritual, we'll provide space, ritual materials, and support, and your group leader will be with you the whole way. Please contact our program coordinator for more information.
THEY'RE COMING
THE ONES WHO lost us THREW US AWAY weRe tAKen fROm uS why did you do it I LOVE YOU i hAaaAAAAAte YOU letmeoutlemeoutletmeoutpleasegodletmeout WHYYYY i'Ll kILL THEM for takiNG yOu fRom me GO AWAY come back i'm begging you
they're coming
b a r e y o u r f a n g s . . .
Monster Take My Heart is a matchmaking larp about humans who cut off pieces of themselves, the monsters created from what they left behind, and the ritual through which they may—or may not—be reunited. The structure is inspired by the Dance and the Dawn matchmaking games, though it’s been altered and simplified. Rather than ballroom dancing, this game will use free improvisational movement, along with some limits on speech, to encourage nonverbal or semi-verbal communication. If you have experience with contact improv or microfusion, that’s a good vibe to bring with you, but no dance experience or knowledge is necessary. Just come ready to move and leave judgement, including of yourself, behind. There will be pre-game workshops to get you in the movement zone, build group dynamics amongst the humans, and develop embodiment and nonverbal expression for the monsters.
The two """genders""" of this game have fairly distinct play experiences. Humans are regular old people with holes in their hearts. These roles will have longer and more concrete character sheets. During game, you'll be moving and acting normally. There will be segments when you're asked to remain silent for ritual purposes, but no actual restrictions on your character's ability to speak. Monsters are beings composed of unwanted shreds of human souls. These roles will have very short and impressionistic character sheets. During game, you'll be encouraged to develop your own monstrous embodiment and communicate through movement and touch. You'll also be somewhat limited in verbal communication, though not completely nonverbal, as you are a being of raw emotion.
Content: Every human character in this game had some reason to want to sever part of their soul, or had that choice made for them by somebody else, and every monster embodies the emotional consequences of that action. The issues these characters are dealing with vary, but include depression, suicidal ideation, autistic trauma, toxic masculinity, puritanical repression, high control religion, experiencing misogyny, and surviving abuse. While you can avoid a specific issue, there is no character in this game not touched by at least one of those burdens, and they'll probably come up in conversation.
Accessibility notes: This is a movement-based larp. Participants will spend most of the time dancing, though the dancing need not be particularly energetic, and there is no need to know or learn specific steps. (Hold and sway about your feelings is very valid.) You'll be able to sit for some periods between dances, and could probably do a dance or two while sitting if you need a break. There will be music, and your ability to verbally communicate with your dance partner will be varyingly limited. Beyond that, you might engage in interludes that involve a small amount of in-game reading: this is designed to be read quietly aloud. There may also be moments of complete darkness for dramatic effect (though not when you’re dancing or reading for obvious reasons.)
"Children, what do you do when the music stops? You stop dancing with the human and put it back where you found it!"
- the mother of monsters, herding cats
So ever since playing the excellent Measure Twice by Jamey Patten in 2023, Tory has a) decided that Jamey is single-handedly inventing a new genre of larp called dance'n'cry, and b) been rolling around on the couch all like "I wanna write a dance'n'cry." A year after that, she played The Dance and the Dawn IV: Other People by Warren Tusk, which rekindled her interest in that very specific format of game. Like she'd played in them before, but that one gave her feelings, and also a sufficiently limited structure inevitably spawns ideas. Between those two, this game popped out. Well, more like it sat around half-developed for another year until she finally decided to write it.
The actually funniest part of this, though, is that she first thought of this as more fantasy-themed setting where all the humans were deprogramming from the same cult that did the severing thing. But as the ideas developed, she realized it worked best as the real-world-with-a-touch-of-magic people-with-relatable-issues game it turned out as. Which is to say, she wrote the most Jamey Patten version of the game possible. And then Jamey helped with the playlists. So this one's for him.
In a surprising twist, Tory scheduled this in a five-hour slot for boh the first runs, and they both ended over an hour early. A game shorter than she expected? What witchcraft is this? Anyway it's a four-hour game now.
December 7, 2025, at a private residence in Canton, MA.
February 27, 2026, at Intercon X in Warwick, RI.
Dissipation Cove is currently a game for thirteen players (characters mostly have pre-defined genders) which runs for four hours in a large room (ideally with some side space), under the direction of two GMs (or, in a pinch, just one). Average pre-game reading, including shared information and character sheet, is four thousand words for monsters and over five thousand for humans. (Monsters do have a lot of shared information to digest even if their actual sheets are short and impressionistic.)
The game is runnable as is. It has almost no GM documentation.