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.
The modern world lacks a bit of magic. Two-player RPG On the Way to Chrysopoeia hopes to return a bit of that wonder and awe to the world by turning players into alchemists who transform their everyday sights and experiences into something fantastical.
In this gorgeous epistolary game you work with your partner as either master or apprentice as you try to finish your great work while using real world inspiration to create a beautiful, magical world. Translation, companionship and letter writing are all here.
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.
The campaign has funded the English translation and printing of the game.
Thanks to our backers, we are also going to translate the Floating Archives, an endless repository of new places, characters and prompts coming from the community of dreamers that have ventured On the Way to Chrysopoeia. A player-built bridge between worlds.
