A MASS OF SLOWLY ROTTING FLESH

Hey, I wrote a solo game. It's part of a larger project I'll tell you about one of these days. It's right below, for free (the file is just a placeholder). But it's kinda ugly. So if I earn 50 bucks with it, I'll whip up a nice layout for it!

Within my myriad of crystals, I sometimes go through the memories of A MASS OF SLOWLY ROTTING FLESH, a member of the LAST IMMORTALS. It might be easier for me to explain them in the guise of a game which would unfold like so:

(a solo ttrpg written by côme martin in november 2024. it is part of the LAST IMMORTALS series.)

To prepare myself to embody this mass of flesh which, in spite of the rot gnawing at it, seeks a purpose to its existence, I start by making sure I have the necessary utensils within easy reach: I need something to write on or to record with, as well as the oldest, most damaged deck of 52 cards I own.

I start by asking myself what memories this mass, oldest that some of the stars, keeps inside it. I write a handful of them without going into details: for instance, “on the throne of the Red Empire,” “true love,” “amongst the first men,” “at the heart of the people’s revolt,” “substitute to the tyrannical princess,” “losing my heirs,” “the day everything burned,” “my meeting with another immortal,” “trapped by the river’s rise,” “hidden in a flying machine,” “pointlessly looking for a way to end it all,” “spared by the epidemic”, “exhibited with the rest of the wandering circus,” and so on.

I then think about the darkest corner of some anonymous city in which the mass lies when my story wakes it up. Any place, any time is suitable as long as humans are teeming: in the abandoned backroom of a North African bazaar, in the sewers of a European megalopolis, in the underbelly of a tunnel network where mankind hid after its fall, in the hold of a ship sailing through the seas or space…

Finally, I prepare the deck of cards, leaving space for three stacks. The first will be the stack of time: I remove all the spades cards from it and put them next to it, face up and in ascending order (from the ace to the King) to make up the stack of rot. The stack of flesh, which will be the third in the list, stays empty for now.

I take one or several cards, depending on my pessimism, at the top of the stack of rot, and shuffle them into the stack of time.

I get ready to feel strong emotions, often sad and dark. I am now ready to start playing.

Sometimes, the mass of slowly rotting flesh wears its most humanlike face and wanders outside: to renew its entrails, to feel a bit of warmth, to uselessly search for traces of past greatness. When it does so, I reveal the first card of the stack of time.

If it’s a heart, it’s a reminder of times passed, whether that means last month or millennia ago. I choose one of the memories I previously wrote down or invent a new one, then look at my stack of flesh:
- if there is at least one clubs card in it, this memory warms up in the mass a spark of humanity. I chronicle the way that memory heats the mass’s heart, then remove from play a spades card nestled in the stack of time, as well as the hearts card I revealed. If there are no spades in the stack of time, I remove from play the first card at the top of the stack of rot.
- if there are no clubs cards in it, that memory is hard to live through again. I chronicle the way it withers a bit more the already scrawny heart of the mass of flesh, then remove from play the hearts card I revealed (tearing it up would be even better). I then shuffle the next card from the stack of rot into the stack of time.

If it’s a diamond, it’s a victim from which the mass can feed. Is it an anonymous passerby, massacred and added to the mass of flesh without scruples, or someone in particular? How does the mass choose its victims? Does it keep only their mangled flesh, or also a shard of their personality? I chronicle the way the mass hunts and kills, while trying to answer these questions, then add the card to the stack of flesh.

If it’s a club, it’s the budding of a potential brightening: an unexpected but comforting meeting, a night spent with someone amiable, a fascinating find, an thrilling oddity of the human world… To know whether the mass can learn or get comfort from this event, I look at my stack of flesh:
- if there is at least one diamond card in it, I can switch the club with the spade, which is removed from play (eating eat would be better still). I chronicle the way the mass feeds from the event, which could end up deeply changing it.
- if there are no diamond cards in it, I shuffle the club card back into the stack of time. I chronicle the way this opportunity is missed, or how the mass doesn’t learn the right lessons from it.

If it’s a spade, it’s the inner rot manifesting. I can push it away or even reject it through one of the following means:
- by combining a hearts card I have just revealed with a clubs card from the stack of flesh, as I explained above
- by removing from play one or several cards from the stack of flesh at the moment the spades card is revealed; I can only do so if the combined value of the removed card is greater than the value of the spades card.
In both cases, I remove the spades card from play (burning it would be much better). I then chronicle how the mass defends itself against the rot devouring it.
If I reveal a spades card I can’t push away, I remove from play all the clubs card currently in the stack of flesh, the shuffle back the spades card in the stack of time. I then chronicle how the rot lodges itself a little more inside the mass, nipping any potential evolution in the bud.
If I reveal a spades face card (Jack, Queen, King) I can’t push away, rot finally takes over and I lose the game.

I thus chronicle time as it passes: every time I reveal a new card, I choose whether several days, months, years or even decades have elapsed since last time. I think about how this time passing gradually crushes the mass of flesh, which slowly rots and gets more and more detached from the world.
I shouldn’t keep it at bay too long, incidentally: if I don’t play this game for a long time, next time I pick it up, I’ll start by shuffling at least the first card from the stack of rot into the stack of time.

I can improve the mass of flesh’s power and the way its appendices can apprehend possible futures. If I want to increase the number of cards I reveal from the top of the stack of time, I can at any time remove from play cards from the pile of flesh, of a combined value greater than the one I reached last time I made that choice; I can also shuffle the 3 next cards of the stack of rot into the stack of time.

In both cases, it allows me to reveal an extra card from the stack of time. I can then select one or several of those cards and shuffle the others back into the stack: they’ll show up eventually, as do any unpleasant things one tries to hide away, unsuccessfully.

I have lost the game if:
- I reveal a spades card and can’t push it away
- Only clubs cards remain in my stack of time and there’s at least one card remaining in the stack of rot
When this happens, I chronicle how, just before rot completely overcomes it, the mass crawls towards some unspeakable lair, inside which she doesn’t manage to fully die. It will come back, one day, if the world proves a bit more welcoming (allow me, from atop my tower, to laugh!).

I have won the game if all the spades cards have been removed from play. In an unfathomable way, the mass of slowly rotting flesh has found enough energy in the folds of its entrails to morph into something else. It might join the circle of the Last Immortals and do something meaningful of its existence, unless a cruel mage traps it into a crystal before it reaches this point…

In short (scribbled in the margins of the magician’s spellbook)
- Stack of rot = spades cards
- Stack of time -> reveal the first card
--- To reveal more than 1 at a time -> +3 spades in the stack of time or remove from play cards from the stack of flesh (each time of a total value higher than the last one)
-- hearts = memories. Combined with a club -> remove a spade from the stack of time (or the 1st one from the stack of rot) + the heart and the spade. No clubs: remove the heart from play + add a spade in the stack of time.
-- diamonds = victims. Add to the pile of flesh.
-- clubs = positive things. Swap with a diamond in the stack of flesh, or shuffle back into the stack of time.
-- spades = rot. Can be pushed away with a combination of heart + club or by discarding cards from the stack of flesh (total value > spade).
--- If removing the spade is impossible -> remove all the clubs from the stack of flesh + shuffle back the spade into the stack of time.
--- If removing a spade face card is impossible -> defeat
- If there are only clubs remaining in the stack of time + ≥ 1 spade in the stack of rot -> defeat
- If all the spades are removed from play -> victory