Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Everspark Part One

You can purchase Everspark here.

I was planning on playing a different game. I had read through it. Then I sat down to play. I quickly became overwhelmed by how many resources and other things needed to be tracked. What made it worse was that the game did not have a single page that outlined the game loop. Rules were spread across 140 pages in a PDF that had not been bookmarked or indexed fully. After trying for an hour, I realized I wasn’t having fun, which defeats the purpose of playing any tabletop RPG, solo or with a group. I tossed it away. I pivoted to one of my favorite creators, Cezar Capacle, who authored two of my favorite RPG things from 2024: Random Realities and Against the Wind. That game is the one Capacle is currently raising funds for, Everspark.

In this part of my review/actual play, I’m focusing on the character & world creation systems. In the next part, as I enter the adventure, I’ll discuss the systems that make up Everspark’s game loop. Everspark is a game that plays solo well but is not limited to that. If your group is up for it, they can play this game, too. Be warned, this is the antithesis of the crunchy OSR type of game. It is almost all pure narrative focus, yet includes advice for running a game that I feel applies to any system.

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The first step was creating your world, which involved rolling for four inspirational words. I rolled and got Tournaments, Monstrous Beasts, Iron Ruler, and Imperial Forces.

I sat and thought about this for a bit and came up with this description:

A kingdom that has been under siege for generations. The Imperial Army has been pushed back into defending Kingshold, a grand walled city, leaving the outer cities to fend for themselves aside from quarterly resources being sent to them. The cause of this isolation are massive Monstrous Beasts that roam the land, their origins unknown. Lugal Apogee, the kingdom’s Iron Ruler (Fae), refuses to listen to anyone but himself regarding solutions. He’s decided the solution is an annual tournament where the populace (half by choice, half by lottery) are tossed outside the city to see if they can take down one of the creatures.

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Character creation involves roles across your ABCs – Ancestry, Background, and Career. My results were Capybarian, Scholar, and Strategist. Each of these comes with questions or general details about what you could do. There are ZERO numbers on the character sheet or ability scores. Instead, these three things should be used to create presumptions about the character when performing actions. Their ancestry helps to understand their culture’s influence on them, while the others inform us about what they know and how they use that knowledge.

As a Capybarian (Yes, a humanoid Capybara) comes with three questions, which I answered below. To add even more randomness, I rolled on the Action tables in Mythic to get some inspirational words.

• How do Capybarians balance their placid nature with the need for self-defense or conflict resolution?

Oracle: Acquire Reassurance
It may look like a bunch of Capybarians standing around in silence, but the quarterly gatherings between villages involve a complex system of body language and gestures that have helped avoid major internal conflict for generations. Loud noises alert predators, so silent agreement is the best solution.

• How do you merge your communal instincts with your adventures? What do you miss the most when you are away?

Oracle: Lure Wound
Cypress is intent on spreading the Capybarian way to the outside world. He sees the Iron Ruler as a step in the wrong direction and seeks to prove his way is correct by helping vanquish the deadliest beasts.

• What are the major Capybarian settlements, and what can other ancestries learn from their distinctive dwellings?

Oracle: Conceal Disadvantage
Slumbering Bay is the main settlement. What can be learned from this place is that there are always two ways in and out. The door is obvious, but every home has a hidden burrow leading to the water nearby. Because most attackers can’t hold their breaths as long, Capybarians find these escape hatches invaluable.

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My career as a Strategist came with questions as well, which I answered below:

• What kinds of tactics are your specialty?

Oracle: Truce Investment
Finding a mutually beneficial outcome is always the goal, as long as the party you are in conflict with believes in the dignity of all living beings. Most conflicts emerge over a tug-of-war over resources; thus, we must find ways of sharing them. However, Cypress has been known to use deceit when necessary.

• What victory came at too high a cost, and how has it changed your approach?

Oracle: Refuse Danger
Cypress was aiding in transferring sacred stones from a distant mountaintop to the vaults of the royal treasury. A druid who was the caretaker of the stones warned him not to move them, but Cypress believed he knew better. The stones never made it to the vaults due to the horrible injuries and even deaths among the people involved in the transport. They were left in the middle of a swamp.

• What personal dream have you sacrificed in pursuit of your strategic goals?

Oracle: Lure Energy
Cypress’s studies had initially pointed him toward unlocking new forms of magic-based renewable energy for Slumbering Bay. However, the Iron Ruler announced the tournaments and a generous prize of gold coin for taking down the most dangerous beasts in the kingdom. That gold could do a lot for Cypress and his community.

• What’s the most unconventional strategy you’ve successfully employed?

Oracle: Celebrate Individual
Cypress staged a fake parade for a fictional war hero to help a group of Draconic people escape captivity from the Ice Raiders in the northern barrens. 

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I was also asked to add some detail to this world’s Adventuring Guild, which involved creating two NPCs: Brundele Stoneskin, the Gnomish leader of the Guild, and Yog the Turtlekin, a retired Rogue (his slowness made him the perfect stealthy thief) and now patron of the Guild.

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Capacle provided a method to create a map by tracing fingers on a sheet of paper, which I did, and then I took a photo of it to add details with my computer. You can see that map below. Once I had the map, I went through rolling my Adventure Hook. I placed those words in the sentence template provided, which gave me this:

A Colossal Beast wants to Conquer an Artifact located in the Whispering Mountains. I must Explore Enemy; otherwise Disturbance Idea.

Sitting with that for a bit, I fleshed it out and shaped it to make both narrative and grammatical sense. That gave me my hook:

Qazid Icebreath wants to take control of the Crown of Titans in the Whispering Mountains. I must explore the Goblin Kingdom of Murkspire to harness the power of unceasing swamp fire; otherwise, Icebreath will assume mind control of all the colossal beasts in the land.

We will begin the adventure in our next session, and I will discuss the mechanics of play.

Here’s the map of my world. Read part two here.