The Watching Book

The Watching Book is an artifact left behind by the oracles of The Singing Plain. It is a testament to their culture, homeland, and history as written by generations of their beloved spiritualists. It is a gateway into a place that is long gone, accessible to us now only through games. 

This Zine is set in the world of the Soothsayer board game. Much like its predecessor, the contents of this campaign are penned to be diegetic (in-universe) artifacts of a world long gone. This means the Zine is written from the first-person perspective of a variety of characters rather than presented as a module or dissertation. Through this Zine, presented as a “restored” and “translated” version of the original tablets, readers will discover a more in-depth and personal look at a society that worships the Wind.

The Zine itself is accompanied by Truth-Tellers, a ruleset for a game children would play while living in The Singing Plain. If you are an adult, fear not; the game has been played many times with adults of varying maturity levels. It is exactly as complex or as simple as the players choose to make it for themselves.

This Zine (and accompanying small rpg) was originally funded as part of Kickstarter's ZineQuest. As such the content is carefully curated to provide useful prompts for Game Masters to run games in the setting.

A breakdown of the files included: 

• The Watching Book.pdf: 36 pages of content including a deep-dive into their beliefs, information on the culture at large, surrounding worldbuilding, dangling mysteries, full-page illustrations, and helpful "author's note" boxes 
• Truth-Tellers.pdf: 3 pages of quickly parseable rules for a lighthearted mystery-solving rpg
• singing-plain-map.png: the full illustration by Ezra Rose, unbroken by page breaks

This zine is dedicated to my wife, Beckett Rowan, for whom the original Soothsayer is also dedicated. My heartfelt thanks to my parents and friends as well, as they supported this creation each in their own unique way.