Et Sanabitur Anima Mea
He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, yet cannot man find out the work that God hath wrought from the beginning even to the end. - Ecclesiastes 3:11 (1599 Geneva Bible)
A game about guilt, forgiveness, change, and supernatural horror.
Long Description
He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, yet cannot man find out the work that God hath wrought from the beginning even to the end. - Ecclesiastes 3:11 (1599 Geneva Bible)
—
Sagewinds is a town of sinners. The people, like all people, struggle with their relationships, their faith, their purpose. They struggle with being who they were meant to be through change and confusion and pain. They struggle to know what being a good person even means.
Sagewinds is a town of struggles. Surrounded by an inhospitable desert, there isn’t much to recommend the minor exit off of I-15; a bottom-quartile school, an urgent care, a gas station, the last two barely used by anyone who doesn’t live there and the first barely used even by those who do. For an outsider there is only one landmark: the Sagewinds mall, providing the town with jobs and a steady stream of hapless tourists who had forgotten how much nothing existed on this strip of I-15 with supplies
Sagewinds is a town of Faith. Most (though not all) of the residents are life-long Catholics, and their beliefs shape every interaction in the tiny town. Even the mall doesn’t open on Sundays until after mass, held in the old adobe church with an imposing belltower steeple and a large, brightly colored stained glass window forever-warmed by the desert sun. Sagewinds is the town’s heart, but Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church is it’s soul.
Sagewinds is dying.
The pandemic struck the heart, first slowly, then all at once, as shutdowns and travel bans winnowed the traffic along I-15 to a trickle and the tourists stopped coming and the mall closed down. And then the pandemic took the soul, closing down the church when the virus took town’s only priest, too sick for local care and sent to a distant hospital that promised a bed and a ventilator and a chance at recovery for a man struck down far before his time.
Still, Sagewinds is a town of Hope. The plants, animals, and people of the desert are God’s most stubborn creations, and have always thrived in defiance of a land without succor. Surviving against all odds is in their blood. This pandemic is merely one more obstacle in their way.
Sagewinds is a town of Love. Love for the desert, for their community, and for each other. Love for those who have left, those who have passed on, and those who have come to join. Every Sunday Father Justin preached a message of love, offered freely and without judgment, and the town followed as best they could.
And yet. Not everyone in Sagewinds has felt that Love. Or that Faith. Or that Hope.
Those who haven’t left, because they don’t want to, or because they can’t, gather once more outside the little adobe Church. They mill inside a hall that has been silent for months, some wearing masks, others still defiant of the regulations and restrictions that cost their community so dearly. Today is a rare day of celebration in the long shadow of a pandemic that took so much from Sagewinds.
Today, Father Justin is coming home. Alive, against all odds.
—
Please thoroughly read the CWs before signing up for this game!!!
Et Sanabitur Anima Mea is a game about guilt, forgiveness, and change, set against a backdrop of supernatural horror in a small and dying town. The primary focus is on around character development via inter-character drama, responses to trauma, and growth (or at least change). There are no guaranteed positive endings for any character, and several characters lean heavily towards negative endings to their story arcs. Character death is possible in the last portion of the game, or may be implied for characters shortly post-game. Elements of horror and the supernatural will be present throughout the game, but characters are not genre-savy.
Most of the characters are Catholic, and most of them hold their religious beliefs sincerely and deeply. This is not a game for players looking to bash Catholicism or organized religion in general, nor is it a game for players with triggers associated with Catholicism or organized religion. Deep knowledge of Catholicism is not required, but a willingness to read a setting document and internalize the basic tenants for four hours as to play your character is.
The LARP takes place in the modern era, in a small community somewhere east of Los Angeles and west of Las Vegas, in a town that has grappled with COVID and lost something in the fight. Character sheets will contain details about a character’s age, gender, feelings on religion, personal issues, and relationships with other characters both in the LARP and present in the setting (though not played by any player). Costuming for most characters is non-specific, though some characters may care more about their gender expression or dressing stylishly for their age group. One player will play the community’s Priest, and will be encouraged to dress appropriate to his station, or at least in all black to make him distinguishable in-game.
Casting will be handled via a multiple-choice survey with We will do our best to match casting to player preferences, but no preference (including character gender, faith, or age) is guaranteed. Casting will be conducted via multiple-choice survey, with an optional free-form box at the end.
This is the first run of a brand new game still-being-written by Sarah Judd and Liz Decolvenaere. Some content may be un-polished, including bad planning of time, untested mechanics, and errors or contradictions in character sheets. Casting may come out very close to the convention, though we expect character sheets to be 2 to 10 pages. This is a LARP focused on feels first, plot second, with minimal mechanics.