On the Way to Chrysopoeia is an epistolary roleplaying game. Together with a partner you will be writing a four-handed adventure, first by inventing its two protagonists and then by leading them on a legendary journey. It’s a different way to make up a story in your head: you’ll be reinventing objects and places you see every day, turning them into crucial ingredients for a Great Work of alchemy. Reality itself and your daily life will bleed into your characters’ fictional journey. What if your favorite museum was the headquarters for a league of mad scientists? What if the path you’re strolling along lead to an unknown city…?
The journey is narrated through the exchange of letters between two characters: the Master and the Disciple. They walk the way of the Athanor— the alchemical Crucible, the pot where explorers melt their research and experiences. Each one is the keeper and judge of their partner’s progress.
They share a single, ambitious dream: bringing a Great Work to completion and finding Chrysopoeia on the way.
On the Way to Chrysopoeia is a long-form, intimate experience for anyone who loves letter-writing as well as drawing, taking pictures or even cross-stitching, because it has a strong focus on attaching keepsakes to each letter. It invites you to take your time and bring magic to everyday life.
Dreamed in France
Morgane Reynier is an independent designer. Depending on the weather she is sometimes an author, sometimes a storyteller, sometimes a poet and always a gamer. Based closed to Paris, she is a game master and in love with travel accounts. Chrysopoeia was born from this all, somewhere on the path of dreams.
Marion Bulot is a concept artist, illustrator, and the art director of the animated series Runes. She has put all her talent into Chrysopoeia. A travel guide would be nothing without the sketches and dreams of travelers: Marion’s colors transmuted this notebook into nothing short of an explorer’s journal.
Come true in Italy
NessunDove is an Italian RPG design & localization lab(yrinth). We’re the game studio behind Crescendo Giocoso and 2021 Indie Groundbreaker Award winner Crescendo Giocoso Ritornello. Aside from producing our own games, we like to put our skills in service to other authors, working on many Italian adaptations and beyond.
A unique experience that will lead you alongside the alchemists in the game, helping you learn many things about your partner and yourself.
A world of fantasy, vast, hazy, and tender. A blend of Nineteenth-century technology and rural charm. It feels like a sun-drenched, warm, ever-changing landscape.
The book is very accessible, with clear, coincise and detailed rules, and a universe that gives us the freedom to dream without burying us beneath a mountain of conventions.
It is unquestionably beautiful. Everything is studied in detail. (…) Its delicate designs, its effective layout, show a willingness to create something splendid and to work so hard on it, that it is itself a Magnum Opus.
The campaign will fund the English translation and printing of the game.
