I'm a warrior seeking peace and an end to bloodshed. I'm on a pilgrimage to the Temple to No Gods in the distant City of Gulls. I have a long knife under my shirt and a vast and deadly patience. 

The next leg of my pilgrimage is over the Barrowlands, through the Sky River, and then on to the Cadaveryards. These places are inhabited by serene cannibal traders, fever-ghosts, and the half-eaten remnants of giants. My goal is to pass safely through, rest a short while at the Cadaveryards, and continue on my pilgrimage. There is still a long way to go to the City of Gulls.

You, DREAMJAMMERS, play the world. Your goal is to make life complicated, interesting, and beautiful.

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Pilgrim’s Price is a long-form, episodic adaptation of Vincent Baker’s PbP game A Doomed Pilgrim in the Sundered Land. Instead of battling over whether or not the pilgrim survives, the World players instead add colour, mystery, and danger to the world the Pilgrim player navigates through. The game is divided into Legs of the journey, each of which covers two regions and one settlement at which the Pilgrim plots the next steps of their pilgrimage. The goal of this playtest is to hopefully get through one Leg before the Jam finishes!

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Here are some suggestions:

1. People can be monsters.
2. Monsters can be people.
3. Strange is not necessarily bad.
4. Familiar is not necessarily good.
5. The Pilgrim is a stranger in a strange land.

And here are the ground rules:

1. Only respond to my prompts.
2. If you don’t know how to respond, make something up.
3. Keep your responses short.
4. If your response is disruptive, I’ll ignore it.
5. Earlier responses take precedence over later ones that contradict them.

The form of each prompt will tell you how to respond:

• If it ends with an ellipsis (…) it’s an invitation that allows contributions. Anyone can post a short piece of description that helps to build the pilgrim’s world. All contributions are true.
• If it ends with a question mark (?), it’s a closed question that requires a single answer. Anyone can post an answer to the question, but only the first will (and must) be accepted as true.
• If it ends with an ellipsis followed by a question mark (…?), it’s an open question that solicits choices. Anyone can post a short description of a choice the pilgrim could make in that situation. All the possibilities are true, but I will only choose one.
• If it ends with a dash (--), it’s a shock that demands resolution. Anyone can post a twist or resolution to the uncertainty, but only the first will (and must) be accepted as true.

Any prompt in quotation marks (“”) should be responded to likewise with communication, verbal or otherwise.

At certain times I may defy your responses, but this comes with its own risks.

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I’ve been travelling for days now through this pale and undulating land - the Barrowlands. The chalky soil blends too well with the mist and sometimes I feel as if I’m wandering in circles, but I have yet to pass the same burial mound twice, so surely I must be making progress. Still, I am tired now, and the suffusing grey glow of sunlight is fading, so I should find a place to rest my head – or so I think, but that’s when I see the things ahead, jutting from the mist.

 Something arouses my curiosity. What intrigues me about this place…?

For days it seemed like all color was gone from the world, only white and gray as far as the eye could see. But now all you can see is the blood-red piece of cloth, it draws your eye as if through magic in this desolate uniform landscape.

The moon's light started slightly early-not odd, sometimes the moon and the sun coexist in the sky, in the hazy dawn or dusk. But the moon seem fae, magical, mystic. Like a curse... or a blessing?

A blood-red trailing flag, fluttering and flicking out of the mist in a breeze that isn't there, like a tongue tasting the still air of the Barrowlands. A curious thing. I return to the path - if it can be called that - and carry on towards the cloth, drawn almost as if by a magnetic pull.

What silhouetted thing does the flag lead to?

A burial mound. The cloth is tied to a sword on the grave, stabbed into the earth. It is a long, slim blade. The moonlight seems to shine on the sword in an strange way.

A monument? A memorial? An oath's final symbol?

I approach the sword through coils of moonlit mist that seem to alight on the earth and heavy air, revealing things not seen by daylight...

The sword has what appears to have a note attached to it.