The compass spun today. Actually spun. Like a top. Made the ship's boy laugh. Then it stopped. Pointed straight down into the hold.
But the city is guarded by the : ghosts of dead explorers, each one convinced they are the real north.
The needle is pointing to a sunken city that doesn't exist on any map. Because it exists between maps. The city is the corpse of the First Navigator, a giant whose bones are lodestone. Whoever reaches the heart of the city can recalibrate one compass in the world—just one—to always point true.
Ships that sail east wake up in deserts of clockwork sand. Explorers following a bearing find the same village three times, each time more decayed. The only reliable direction is the one your gut gives you—and your gut is terrified. broken compass rpg pdf
I haven't smiled in ten years.
The party must stand in a circle, each holding a different "north" (a memory, a desire, a fear). The Echo Compasses will attack anyone who hesitates. The only way to win? Admit you are lost. CHAPTER 4: SAMPLE JOURNAL PAGE (Player Handout) Day 47 of the Ash-Transit.
We threw the mirrors overboard. But this morning, I looked at my reflection in my coffee. I was smiling. The compass spun today
What matters is this:
A Supplement for Nautical & Post-Calamity Campaigns Version 1.0 | Required: Broken Compass Core Rulebook CHAPTER 1: THE CALAMITY "The needle doesn't spin anymore. It just hangs there, limp, like a hanged man's tongue. Points to what it wants. Sometimes north. Sometimes your heart. Sometimes the grave." — Captain Sorensen, Last of the Compass Guild Fifty years ago, the Magnetic Alignment shattered. No one knows why. The old gods? A weapon from the Drowned War? A sneeze from a sleeping leviathan? It doesn't matter.
Engraved on the cylinder: "Point me toward what I have forgotten." Made the ship's boy laugh
We opened the crates. Inside: nothing but mirrors. Each one showed a different version of us. In one, I was king. In another, I was drowning. In the third, I was smiling.
The compass is back to pointing at my heart.
