Week 2 - Spring

There is a disquieting legend about this place.  What is it?

The hunting lodge used to be a location where a lot of drug deals were done away from prying eyes, until one day there was a shoot out that left a lot of people dead.

ACTION - discover something new.  Aurora Valencia was exploring the woods and... discovered... a pit trap that someone or something built there.  Aurora is now recovering in the lodge.

Resources:
Abundances - animals
Scarcities - fuel, shelter

Personalities:
Aurora Valencia

Week 1 - Spring

You see a bad omen.  What is it?

A bunch of dead fish wash up on the shore of the river near the hunting lodge.

ACTION - start a project.  Huts are build for the community.  4 turns to completion.

Resources:
Abundances - animals
Scarcities - fuel, shelter

Setup

Before play begins, the map must be prepared.  You start with a piece of normal, blank paper, and then each player draws a specific terrain element onto the map.  Since this is a solitaire game, I have decided to start with three pieces of terrain, mimicking a three player game.  To keep from having to constantly take pictures of a physical drawing, I am using presentation software to "draw" terrain onto a blank map.  And by "draw," I mostly mean "insert pictures.  It'll work.  I am starting with a river, an abandoned hunting lodge, and a forest, as you can see below.

Once the map is set, you have to set starting resources, which will either be an abundance or a scarcity.  Resources are supposed to be items that are important to the community in some way.  As with terrain elements, each player is to contribute a resource.  To stay in theme with my starting map, I will list three starting resources:  shelter, fuel, and animals.  I randomly determined which one will be in abundance (you start with one) and got animals.  The resources, whether in abundance or in scarcity, are represented on the map.  This gives us the map below, and we are ready to start the first turn!

Resources:
Abundances - animals
Scarcities - fuel, shelter

What Is This?

The Quiet Year is a map drawing game for two to four people.  I have owned the game for a few years, but only recently played a slightly house-ruled version of it at DieCon.  I really enjoyed that experience, so I wanted to try it again.  However, none of my friends I play games with have any interest in playing the game.  So I decided to see if I can play it solitaire.  The purpose of this blog is to keep a record of the turns in the game.  I am really doing this for myself, and if nobody else ever sees these posts, that is okay.  However, if someone else sees this and gets interested and seeks out the game for themselves, I won't be offended.

The basic structure of the game is that there is a small community in a post-apocalyptic setting.  This community has a bit less than one year to get as strong as possible.  Each week is represented by a different card from a deck of 52 cards.  Each card introduces a new element to the community.  In a multi-player game, the different players would take turns interpreting how the card impacts the community and taking specific actions.  I will obviously be doing all of that, but I will be randomizing actions and choices to add some variety to the game.  Where it seems appropriate, I will roll random events from the Mythic Game Master Engine to help with adding new elements to the story.

So, with that, shall we begin?

For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals.  Now, finally, we've driven them off, and we're left with this: a year of relative peace.  One quiet year, with which to build our community up and learn again how to work together.  Come Winter, the Frost Shepherds will arrive and we might not survive the encounter.  This is when the game will end.  But we don't know about that yet.  What we know is that right now, in this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.