Lichoma

CONTENT WARNINGS: fascism, body horror, self-harm, addiction, nonconsent and more. 

Tread carefully.

The Wen — a still-twitching carcass of a city that hasn’t yet realized it’s already dead. A population forever laboring beneath the dead weight of the Companies. All that remains is meat. Bodies are grafted together pieces of shit that solely serve as meat-machines to perform labor. It doesn’t matter anymore who you are. Nothing matters. The system never changes, only demands more. For meat is all, and all is meat. 

Will you be the one to kill this cancerous cyst of a city? Or will you join everyone else in submission and death?

What if Silent Hill grew into a sprawling metropolis and its denizens were stuck in thankless jobs until they choose to join weird revolutionary factions? ... A rabbit hole dive into a tarot reading gone horribly wrong.  - Evlyn Moreau

Lichoma (pronounced Laikoma, meaning body, or alternatively a portmanteau of lich and carcinoma) is an upcoming artpunk tabletop roleplaying game, centered around the miserable lives of the inhabitants of the Wen; a megacity grown beyond its own control.

Lichoma is a political, dystopian RPG defined by ecological collapse, social strife, and body-based economics and technology. Character concepts and abilities are based on their cards but are otherwise freeform and interpretive, not bound hard and fast by classes or mechanics. This creative aspect is complemented by an intuitive, streamlined system. The core rules fit on a single card and include fast procedures for non-combat Challenges and violent Conflicts. Additional, optional rules allow groups to add more depth and nuance to fit their preferred play style.

It is designed by Strega Wolf van den Berg, with additional writing by Tessa Winters, Walton Wood and Michael Mars, and editing by Walton Wood, Ian Long and Ashley Kronebusch.

• 2 – 5 players (more with additional decks)
• Create and modify your character using 6 suits of body parts (eyes, torsos, hands, arms, legs, feels)
• Interpret card text and images to define PCs and their capabilities
• Simple, streamlined d6-pool mechanics
• Designed for one-shots and campaign play

A note from the creator: Lichoma is made out of my own experiences towards the world as a queer and traumatized person. It is a dark satirization of how the world perceives me and vice versa. It is heavily inspired by Marxist, post-humanist, and Dadaist philosophy,   and by the fucked up shit going on in the real world.

The Wen consists of 6 seperate factions, which come with 5 cards each of their correlating body parts, consisting of Legs, Eyes, Hands, Masks, Limbs and Torsos.

During character generation, the players pick a faction they want to play as, and then make their Representative, consisting of 1 card from each body part. Players can then freely swap cards from their faction deck to their body deck.

Conflicts and Challenges are resolved through using a pool of d6 generated by body parts relevant to the task at hand.  Each relevant card, whether that is through metaphor, symbolism, direct interpretation, visuals, or anything else the GM agrees on, adds a die to the dice pool.

If a player loses a Conflict or Mission, they lose a card from their deck. These get added to the faction they lost against, or get thrown into a burn pile if there's no discernable faction to choose from.

Through the killing of Cunts, the rulers of the Wen in charge of the Companies, players can harvest more body parts for their card deck.

When a faction deck runs out of cards, that faction collapses and is no more. If a player's faction collapses, they choose a new faction. When only one faction remains, the game ends.

Lichoma comes jampacked with character generation flavor tables as well. For that, you can use our Meatsack Spawner.

https://itch.io/embed-upload/6424572?color=000000

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/08ZjVTbi27wxLVlgHBMQjD?utm_source=generator

Bogfolk is an international co-op of cool people making tabletop RPG stuff and trying to make a cool space. We want to make art, make rent, and help others do the same. All members are worker-owners that each receive an equal vote in the democratic process of our set-up. Our mutual desire is fair pay for all. We intend to work thoughtfully and sustainably as well as with kindness and empathy. We prefer and prioritize a human-focused approach, we emphasize that creative work is still work, and we strive to support small creators and platforms. 

Strega Wolf van den Berg is a non-binary neurodivergent artist and designer, making art for rough people in rough situations.

Tessa Winters is a trans screenwriter, rpg enthusiast, Internet Radio Host and woman of violence, trying to be incredibly Irish at all times.

Walton Wood is blogger at Liber Ludorum and co-founder of Ex Libris RPG. He’s edited (or co-edited) CY_BORG, Frontier Scum, Hell Night, and many other indie RPG titles.

Ashley Kronebusch is an editor and proofreader extraordinaire who brings her years of experience from the grimdark world of Academia. The Bogfolk Café is her second co-op endeavor along with charity webstore Blaseball Cares.

Ian Long is Cannibal Curator of Ex Libris Mörk Borg. Confidential consultant on numerous Mörk Borg 3p products. Part time game designer. Part time game reviewer. Always hungry.

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