Azrael's Smile

This game ran at Ambercon UK 2005. It is only here for nostalgic reasons.

In six days, they say, the world was created.
In three days it died.
One day for society to crumble.
Two days for TV, Radio and government to fall silent.
Three days for everyone you know to die.

And on the fourth morning the birds were singing but the roads were silent; their only occupants wrecked cars and decaying bodies. The cities vast charnel houses; their houses tombs…

Except for you. For you no coughing; no paralysing weakness; no delirium; no death. For you the infinitely harder course — to live on, and, perchance, to found a new age of Humanity.

The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

And in that inverted Bowl we call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help — for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

Earth could not answer, nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn.
Nor Heaven with those Eternal Signs revealed
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.

While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink;
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee — take that, and do not shrink.
— Omar Khayyam

On the first day you go into work only to find it closed. Only half the shops are open, and most of those close before the evening. By mid-afternoon there is continuous news coverage of the epidemic that is sweeping the globe. The hospitals are already hopelessly overwhelmed; official advice is to stay at home and limit your exposure to other people. By evening martial law is declared with a twenty-four hour curfew.

On the second morning the mass media is obviously working a bare skeleton staff. A few interviews show that nobody understands how this disease spread so fast; it goes against everything known about contagion. The only fact known for certain is that it has a 100% death rate, usually within twelve hours of the first symptoms appearing. Somewhat suprisingly this news does not seem to trigger riots. That evening the TV and Radio stations start to go off the air.

On the morning of the third day there are still a last few radio stations and a few emergency vehicles on the roads. Now and again you see someone on the street, but by evening all that has ceased.

Of course if you have any family (or friends) they all die over those three days.

So… Where are you, and what are you doing?

Matters Arising

Character Design mentions 10 points for Chaos. That should be 15 points for Chaos of course, counting up from Human. It probably isn't going to be important.

This is an Amber game, set somewhere within the books' sequence, although I've obviously changed things somewhat.


Add a New Comment
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License