Mists & Memory
An Anthropomorphic Noir TTRPG
Mists & Memory is a noir game about an agency of cunning anthropomorphic Investigators seeking their fortunes—and their memories—on the streets of a city perennially being destroyed and created, surrounded by a malevolent Mist called by some the Aether. It is a world in which you have to assemble yourself, day by day, from the scraps left behind by yesterday.
Based on the Illuminated Worlds game system made famous by Candela Obscura, Darrington Press, and Critical Role, we have obtained licensing to use their system while adding our our unique spin on the system in the form of Memories. Memories are the keystones to who your character is--but they can be stolen. Eaten. Changed. Corrupted. And as they are changed, so are you.
The town is displaced in time as well as in space. While it’s roughly set in what for we humans of Earth would be the 1910s to 1930s, several aspects of its technology have lagged behind. While pistols and even rifles are available, there are few Tommy guns. While there’s no Prohibition to keep people from their martinis or moonshine, the technology level is approximately that of this liminal stage of human history.
The Mists that surround and periodically engulf the city slowly corrupt and corrode self and identity. They erode memory. They destroy form and shape.
Occasionally, new buildings appear in the city after the Mists have swirled in. Complete with residents, sometimes shops, sometimes businesses. After a week or two, most residents forget that these buildings weren’t here before.
Occasionally, buildings disappear from the town, leaving empty, open lots and perhaps a few pieces of debris. Their residents sometimes disappear with them—if they were inside at the time, anyway. It’s certainly possible to have been out for an evening meal, only to return to find you no longer have an apartment at this address.
And to wonder where you would be now—perhaps even who you’d be now—if you’d been home at the time.
After a week or three—a month at most—most people in the Town forget that those buildings were ever there. That those people ever existed. But not you.
You remember.
That makes you different, important. Special. It makes you curious. Capable of wondering at the mystery of the world around you.
It’s what makes you an Investigator
For the Core Rulebook of Mists & Memory, please see:
PDF: DriveThruRPG
Hardback: IngramSpark
Softbound: Amazon
Kindle: Amazon Kindle Store
About the Authors
We are Deborah L. Davitt and Jason W. Davitt, a married couple who met because of tabletop role-playing games. Our story begins in 2000, with Baldur's Gate 2 and a forum dedicated to that game, and the role-play and stories that spawned from it.
Deborah grew up in Nevada, received her MA in English from Penn State in 1999, and worked as a technical writer for seventeen years on multiple projects, including work as a NASA subcontractor. She is a notable science fiction and fantasy writer, as well as a poet. Her work has appeared in Lightspeed, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Analog, among other venues; her poetry collections have been nominated for the Elgin, a prestigious award offered by the SFPA. She's published five novels and has four poetry collections available.
Jason served in the Coast Guard, and is currently a systems engineer, working in the oil & gas industry. He designs complex programs for the PLCs that keep backup power running for oil platforms, hotels, power plants, and more. His work has taken him all over the world, from Angola to Korea to Nigeria to Honduras and more. His favorite project, however, was working on the solar arrays on Richard Branson's private islands of Necker and Moskito. If there's a complex system you want to work? You call Jason. He's also a talented artist in his own right.
In Memory’s Shadow
The Tie-in Novel
ISBN-13: 978-0-9860916-8-1
Published: October 14, 2024
As a tie-in novel for the TTRPG Mists & Memory, this novel tells the noir tale of four anthropomorphic investigators as they struggle to regain their memories and control of their lives in a city that's continually being destroyed and recreated by a malevolent Mist.
Private investigator Cory Anderson has a problem--he's missing pieces of his memories, slivers of his self . . . and he doesn't even realize it yet. His day-to-day investigations of humdrum cheating husbands and wives take a turn for the more intriguing when he starts to look into the death of the partner who taught him the business, Sam Hornsback. This investigation takes him through the twisty, secretive back streets of the city, and lands him in the middle of a massive conspiracy that's . . . out to save reality as they know it?
Gradually, Cory gathers allies--the Dog police detective, Jack Shepherd, the Crow Librarian, Branwen Kinley, and the Cat assassin, Laila Meriten. And together, they search for their memories and their selves on the streets of a city where malevolent Mist threatens to unmake reality on a daily basis.
The Webcomic Prologue!
The first chapter of the tie-in novel was also rendered in webcomic format by Jason W. Davitt.