Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Solo Liminal Horror Part One

You can purchase Liminal Horror here
You can purchase Jeansen’s Machines here
You can download the Liminal Horror Solo Starter here

Liminal Horror is a game born out of a long series of deviations and hacks that started with the OSR game Into the Odd. Elements of that game were combined with rules-light fantasy RPG Knave which created Cairn. Cairn has become an all-purpose foundation for several other systems – Tunnel Goons, Eco Mofos, Into the Grasslands, and more. Liminal Horror is a modern horror system using these mechanics that lends itself to SCP-style stories, but it is not limited to that subset of horror.

Characters in Liminal Horror have just three abilities: Strength, Dexterity, and Control. Each ability score is created by rolling 3d6 which means the highest any of them could be is 18. When a character takes an action they roll a d20 against the relevant ability score. If the roll matches or it is under the score you succeed. If you roll over it’s a failure and damage is dealt to your HP (Hit Protection). If that reaches 0 then damage is dealt to the ability which will deplete. Physical harm is dealt to Strength or Dexterity while Stress is what takes down Control. 

Liminal Horror is only 44 pages in length and is part of a growing tradition of zine style games that don’t provide lore or worldbuilding per se. This is a rules framework built around the idea of its genre. There is also a lot of wiggle room for GMs to make decisions at the table based on their interpretation. That looseness actually makes Liminal and its brethren prime candidates for solo play. With a good GM emulator you can play a game that moves along at a steady pace and provides a rules framework when you aren’t sure if your character will succeed or not. 

The game is very sensitive for mental illness, something horror tabletop RPGs have traditionally been rather tactless about. The result of critical stress is Fallout, which are supernatural effects that linger with the player rather than mental health conditions like in a game such as Call of Cthulhu. Most Fallout can be removed over time like Detached Shadow (your shadow becomes a separate entity that travels with you) or Psilocybin (you start manifesting hallucinations and your vision wavers). There is Legacy Fallout that sticks with the character forever. That might be Paranoia (you constantly believe you are being watched) or Hunger (you develop an unnatural hunger and if you don’t feed within 24 hours you take a tag that does harm). These Legacies aren’t all downside, they often provide a mechanic that (after a week or so) you roll and if the result is higher than a current ability or your HP you get to take the new result. That’s about the only way you can upgrade a character, though.

For my game, I chose to use the three RPG Machines written by Jeansen (Game Emulator, Scene Emulator, and Plot Emulator) and they work fairly smoothly to provide some rough elements to frame both individual moments and the larger story. 

Going through the character creation mechanics I ended up with the following protagonist for my game:

Cristian Taylor
Background: Therapist
Aesthetics: Casual comfort
The Abyss Stares Back: You read something not meant for mortal minds
Ideology and Beliefs: You believe in fate and it directly impacts your life
Physique: Ample body | Face: Chiseled | Speech: Accented
Virtue: Cautious | Flaw: Rude | Misfortune: Discredited

I also rolled up two NPCs, as per the game rules, but also on my word oracle to get some inspiration for what role these characters might play:

Julia Savage – Casual acquaintance – Oracle: Follow Innocence
Albert Baldwin – Family member – Oracle: Clash Burden

The unofficial solo rules include tools to roll up a scenario which gave me this:

Location: nature (a forest, a desert, a mountain)
Event: authorities (police roadblock, lockdown or curfew by the government or a government agency, an official investigation)
Oracle: Surprise Healthy
Background problem: Belief: Religious oppression, holy war, inquisition, extremists, prophecies, divine
Plot hook: Terrible event | The mission: Destroy an objective, object, or location | Motivation: You have no choice, it has to be you

I mulled over these details for a couple days before sitting down to play, letting them gel just enough, but not too much. Here is the first session I have played in this series.

Prologue

Cristian sits on the floor of the living room. It’s the early morning hours, nearly indistinguishable from night except for a slight bit of sunlight just cresting the mountains. Cristian is a therapist and was helping his cousin Albert. Albert had been using drugs since he was a kid, and it was linked back to his mother’s death in a car accident. He had been in the back seat when it happened. Albert saw what happened to her body when the semi-truck smashed through the front half of the car. Cristian decided that if he had a degree and a thriving practice, he should be able to help his own cousin. 

Echo Regression therapy. Patients would have key events in their life replayed for them while in a hypnotic state. The therapist would employ audio triggers to amplify the response and cause the patient to truly feel like they were living through the experience. The result would be that the intensity would leave the patient numbed to the emotions attached to that moment and able to move on from it. Cristian had read in-depth about the method and was fully aware that it was banned by most of the world. He’d read the police reports. However, he looked deeper and decided there were flaws in how the method was implemented in these instances. Cristian wouldn’t make those same mistakes.

Cristian proposed to Albert on a Saturday afternoon. He invited his cousin to his home and explained echo regression, leaving out its illegality. He didn’t want to cause Albert more anxiety than he was already feeling. Cristian’s honey-smooth voice put Albert at ease. He must have let the facade drop momentarily, always showing his true feelings on his face through a furrowed eyebrow or clenched jaw. Albert studied him, and Cristian let a smile crack through; his cousin’s shoulders dropped. 

The plan was to go up to the family cabin in the Smoky Mountains a month from then. Cristian spent that time reading and re-reading. Gathering audio cues that matched the car accident, even finding video footage of actual car accidents, and extracting the soundtrack for this purpose. Cristian drove him and Albert up to where they spent so many summers as kids with their now-deceased grandparents. It had been Grandmother and Grandaddy who had raised Albert after his mother died. Even as a child, Cristian could see how troubled his poor cousin had been. He would fix that this weekend.

Things would start well enough, and then Saturday night came. Cristian got everything ready and took Albert down this journey. It went smoothly at the start. Albert’s voice sounded more childlike as he lay on the couch, eyes closed, describing sitting in the backseat of the Camry, paging through a Hulk comic his mom had purchased for him at the supermarket. Cristian tapped his phone, which was connected via Bluetooth to a set of speakers he had set up in the living room. Sounds of a busy grocery store followed by sliding doors, a car door closing, and an engine turning over.

When the crunching crush of metal played, Albert shrieked like an animal. Cristian dropped his phone and quickly snatched it up, resuming the script he read aloud to guide his cousin. The weeping man on the couch started to convulse. Cristian felt light-headed. The sky had gotten dark so fast. The therapist’s eyelids felt heavy as a powerful drowsiness swept over him. He kept trying to read the script and play the next sound. His head weighed a ton, and he gave into the darkness.

Cristian felt the cold first. He pushed himself up and felt the stone on his hands. He was in a cave. A shaft of light poured through a hole in the ceiling, which looked out on a starless night; only a full strange moon hung in the black sky. Sitting on the ground where the moonlight touched the stone floor of the cave was a thin book. Its cover was decorated with a single image: a simple drawing of an androgynous face with a veil hanging over it.

Cristian picks it up and opens the book. The words are neatly handwritten across the pages. The therapist notices the text outlines psychological techniques for peering into the “layers” of consciousness hidden from human perception. However, as he progresses, the text addresses Cristian directly, revealing personal fears and secrets. He drops the book when he gets to a section detailing the echo regression and Albert. It says he woke up to find his cousin missing, but there is no trace of him in the cabin. The final pages are blank, but Cristian feels he glimpses his name as he flips through them, only to discover nothing. There’s something else….words about what he should do now, going somewhere, killing someone…

He wakes up on the living room floor. It’s the early hours of the morning. The sun is just peeking up over the mountains. Albert is gone. He’s not on the couch. Cristian searches the whole cabin. His cousin is completely missing, and the car is still parked outside. A throbbing headache surfaces in Cristian’s temples. He staggers to the kitchen, making tea and rifling through an old first aid kit for ibuprofen, hoping it’s not expired.

A knock at the door…

Scene #1 – A Mysterious Visitor (Exposition 1/3)

• Have the mysterious visitor arrive at his cabin.
• Modified Proposal: Cause confusion, doubt, question
• The GM asks you to…Remind what exactly brought the characters here.
• Guest – Bray
  • Someone who: They aren’t exactly a person
  • Impression: Intimidating, bully, bad guy
  • Intent: Show or give you something

Cristian goes to a window at the front of the house & peeks out of the curtain. He sees an elderly woman standing there patiently. Her face betrays no emotions, she stares straight ahead at the door. She looks well-groomed, so she is not some hermit living in the mountains, most likely. Cristian tries to think of the closest house. It’s too far to walk here, and Cristian’s car is the only vehicle parked outside.

“Hello?” Cristian says from inside the house. The woman looks at him. 

Oracle question: Does she speak? Yes, but…Enemy/Danger
“Mr. Taylor. If you would let me in, please,” the woman begins. “It’s freezing out here, and from the looks of the clouds, I expect it will begin to rain at any moment. I also don’t want to be seen by them. Unlock the door, now.”

There’s something authoritative and teacherly about this old woman. She knows his name. Is she someone Cristian knows, he’s just forgotten due to the current stress?

Oracle question: Does Cristian recognize this woman? Strong no
Cristian has definitely never met this woman. He tells her he’ll open the door in just a minute. He grabs the revolver he brought in his bag, checks that it’s fully loaded, and tucks it into the back of his jeans.

Cristian opens the door to let his guest in. She pushes past him, walks to the center of the living room, stops, and scans the area before sitting on the couch, hands in her lap, looking up at Cristian and waiting for him to sit down. “Take a seat, Mr. Taylor. I don’t have all day,” she finally says.

“I think I’ll stand,” replies the therapist. He’s incredibly irritated with how this woman barged into the cabin like this, acting so familiar.

First impression: They seem to…behave neutrally, very cold, kind of lacking emotions
She rolls her eyes. “Suit yourself. The Promethean Fire will be meeting in these mountains tomorrow evening. Go to your back deck. Look towards the west. You will see police cars in the valley below. They have closed off the roads.”

Cristian keeps an eye on the woman and goes to the sliding door onto the back deck. He orients himself with the sun as it briefly peeks out from behind growing clouds. Sure enough, there are police below. It looks like they have barricaded the road with sawhorses. He wonders if they will see if any cabins between here and the mountaintop are occupied.

Cristian goes back inside and attempts to get this guest’s name and for her to break from this neutral persona. He says he will make some tea and tries chatting the woman up about what she does for a living, whether she is local here or visiting like him.

Action: CTRL check 11 vs. roll: 16 – Failure – Take 5 stress to HP – Current HP now: 4
The woman sits silently; Cristian feels like she’s glaring at him. Did she happen to see the gun tucked in the back of his pants? Cristian keeps his back to her as he enters the living room with two cups of tea.

NPC Plot Contribution: Doesn’t contribute a lot, tries to help, though
“Mr. Taylor. The police will probably be visiting you within the next two hours. I would suggest you hide or dispose of your cousin’s belongings. If they see you are alone, but there are personal items for two, it will draw suspicion. You must not leave this mountain yet, and they will surely take you if they can.”

The woman looks down at the cup of tea on the table before her. She doesn’t pick it up. She looks back at Cristian, then past him at the window facing the back deck.

“The rain is coming soon. I should get back.” She stands.

Cristian moves towards the door to help her out. “I didn’t catch your name, Miss…?”

“Bray,” she responds tersely. “Remember to get rid of your cousin’s things.”

Cristian opens the door and watches as the woman sets off on foot. She walks deeper into the woods. Within minutes, he loses track of her, realizing he’s staring at a stationary tree trunk in the distance. The police are near. Maybe he should hide Albert’s things?

Doom Clock #1 – The Police Arrive (0/4)
Doom Clock #2 – The Promethean Fire (0/6)

Scene #2 – Under the Cabin (Exposition 2/3)

• Play a triggering plot catalyst – Point out a new location
  • New Location – Purpose: imprisonment, dungeon, torture, guarding
• Exploration scene: Damaged, falling.
• Skill test: crawl, squeeze, climb, swim
• Circumstance: distracting elements – Oracle: Domain/Land, Sunny/Smiling
• The GM asks you: Indicate with what or who characters interact

Cristian recalls the crawlspace under the cabin. He and Albert would play there as children. At the time, it was tall enough for the boys to walk around underneath the cabin while standing. He suspects that today, he’ll need to hunch over. It would be the best place to hide Albert’s things if the police stopped by. They’ll definitely look in the car and through the house, but deep in the crawlspace would not be likely. 

Cristian gathers up Albert’s things & a flashlight and, walks around to the back of the house, and crouches to get under the back deck. Up against the house’s foundation is a wooden door with a deadbolt lock on the outside to ensure large, wild critters don’t get inside. He slides the lock away and lets the door creak open to the dark chasm on the other side. The flashlight’s beam cuts through it, revealing some wood scraps leaning against one wall. The light can’t reach a certain point, and the deeper parts, near the front of the house, are entirely black.

The further he goes inside, the more Cristian notices the ground is descending at a very subtle incline. At one point, his foot slips, but he is able to steady himself. The ground is becoming looser and damper, more like mud than packed earth. He looks back, and the crawl space door looks far too distant, but he keeps moving ahead, pulling Albert’s bag with him. Then, he reaches the other door.

Cristian doesn’t remember another door down here, but he also doesn’t recall the crawlspace being so large. He thought it would all seem smaller down here, but that’s not the case. A quick pull on the handle of the door opens it halfway. The door is wedged at a 45, and Cristian shines his flashlight inside. He stops panning across the inner room when he illuminates a large bronze sun, a decoration hanging on the wall. An unsettling smiling face is part of the design. He wracks his head, but the therapist can’t recall ever seeing this or having his deceased grandparents mention it. He attempts to push himself through this gap in the door.

Action: Push through the wedged door – 11 vs. roll: 10 – Success. 
Cristian pushes into the inner room, pulling Albert’s bag with him. 

Doom Clock #1 – The Police Arrive (1/4)
Doom Clock #2 – The Promethean Fire (0/6)

Scene #3 – The Inner Room (Exposition 3/3)

• Random: Put a character in a situation – best-case scenario occurs
• Exploration scene: elevation, or steep
• Skill test: can’t go frontally, overwhelmed
• Circumstance: Costs wealth, resources
• The GM asks you to: Mention the weather or atmospheric conditions

The boom burst of thunder roars from outside. Then, the patter of raindrops splashing outside can be heard muffled from the inner room under the cabin. Cristian steps forward.

Oracle question: Is this inner room finished? Answer: It’s complicated
Oracle: moving, grim, circular
Cristian feels his shoes land on the tiled floor with a click of the heels. The flashlight reveals a dingy bathroom-style tile that covers half the floor; the rest is unfinished and remains dirt. A closer look at the bronze smiling sun reveals that it’s bolted to a pillar-like support beam in the middle of the room, rounded off and polished. He catches something out of the corner of his eye, and a shape moves. The flashlight beam frantically sweeps across this unfinished room, but whatever is moving is just out of view. Cristian feels unnerved. He wants to get out of here as soon as possible. 

Action: Get out of the inner room – 11 vs. roll: 9 – Success
Cristian catches his breath on the other side of the wedged door. He feels lighter and realizes he dropped Albert’s bag in there. He did need to hide it, and he doubted the police would look in there. Cristian pushes the door closed again and exits the crawlspace.

Oracle question: Did Cristian remember to deadbolt the crawlspace? Answer: Strong No

Doom Clock #1 – The Police Arrive (2/4)
Doom Clock #2 – The Promethean Fire (1/6)

Read the next chapter here