TEXT: Brendan Conway
  Brendan Conway
  
  A Chaos World
  by Brendan Conway
  The
  Cold Ruins
  of
  Lastlife
  
  Credits
  Written by Brendan Conway
  Developed by Brendan Conway and Mark Diaz Truman
  Edited by Eric Mersmann, Mark Diaz Truman, and Sally Christensen
  Proofreading by Shelley Harlan
  Art by Juan Ochoa
  Layout by Sarah Richardson
  Based on Dungeon World (http://dungeon-world.com/), the work of Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel, 
  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/
  licenses/by/3.0/).
  All text and images for The Cold Ruins of Lastlife are copyright 2015 by Magpie Games.
  All rights are reserved.
  First Printing: March 2016 
  The text was set in Lexington High, Ambrosia, and Adobe Garamond Pro. 
  
  Table of Contents
  Chapter 1 - Introduction
  Chapter 2 - Moving Through the Ruins
  Chapter 3 - Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  Chapter 4 - Struggles in the Dark
  Chapter 5 - The Cold Creatures
  Chapter 6 - Champions of Lastlife
  Chapter 7 - Relics of Bygone Days
  Chapter 8 - Bringing the Dead to Life
  Closing Thoughts
  Appendix
  3
  6
  17
  33
  72
  108
  121
  138
  144
  145
  
  Introduction
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  3
  Introduction
  Imagine grand cathedrals. Spires scraping the heavens. Statues of alabaster and silver. A 
  song echoing through stone corridors. The light of hope ensconced in a thousand torches, 
  keeping the darkest nights at bay.
  Then imagine it all fell. Grand cathedrals, silent and empty. Spires, crumbling and broken. 
  Statues dirty and tarnished. Song, forgotten and lost. A thousand torches, cold and dark. 
  That is the world of Lastlife.
  This book—along with Dungeon World itself—provides you with everything you need to 
  run a game in the ruined setting of Lastlife. Players take on the roles of the undead citizens, 
  caught in an endless limbo of cold death. They, and they alone, can restore the world’s  
  glory...or begin a new world in the shattered remains. 
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife provides details on the broken, fragmented pieces of a once 
  great world. Here you’ll find monstrous denizens. Relics that have survived past the end, or 
  have been created since. Paths to power open to any who would take them, paths that may 
  lead to greater darkness or newfound light. You’ll also find tweaks to the base Dungeon 
  World rules to better reflect the tone and nature of Lastlife.
  Inspiration
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is inspired by many different sources, but none more directly 
  than the video game Dark Souls by From Software. Dark Souls has a unique flavor and 
  tone, and while The Cold Ruins of Lastlife isn’t exactly the same, it carries much of Dark 
  Souls’s soul, as it were.
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife also owes debts to numerous other works, including but not  
  limited to:
   
  The Gormenghast trilogy, by Mervyn Peake
   
  Shadow of the Colossus, by Team Ico
   
  The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
   
  “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” by H. P. Lovecraft
   
  Pan’s Labyrinth, by Guillermo Del Toro
   
  Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
  What Is The Cold Ruins of Lastlife?
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  4
  Introduction
  Overview of the Book
  Here’s what you can expect to find in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife.
  In Moving Through the Ruins, you’ll find the major rules changes for Dungeon World that make 
  the system work for The Cold Ruins of Lastlife, including tweaks to the basic moves, 
  bonds, alignments, and the individual classes. 
  In Broken Castles and Shattered Statues, you’ll find setting information; descriptions of locations 
  and places that you can use to assemble a unique mix of ruins for your own game, with 
  questions about what secrets the ruins may hold; and special moves to make them matter.
  In Struggles in the Dark, you’ll find the fronts for a campaign in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife. 
  These fronts describe the overarching threats and issues in Lastlife, and give you the tools to 
  make the setting matter to your game.
  In The Cold Creatures, you’ll find the denizens and monsters of the ruins, each with stats, 
  moves, an instinct, and a description.
  In Champions of Lastlife, you’ll find the compendium classes of Lastlife, detailing many of the 
  paths to power open to the PCs in the ruins.
  In Relics of Bygone Days, you’ll find the artifacts of Lastlife, relics of great and terrible power, 
  waiting to be found in the ruins.
  In Making the Dead Ruins Come Alive, you’ll find all the Game Master (GM) tips and rules you 
  need to run a game of the The Cold Ruins of Lastlife.
  With all these pieces, you’ll be equipped for your own forays into the dark, shattered husk 
  of this undead world. Good luck on your delves into the mists—you’ll need it.
  
  Moving Through the Ruins
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  6
  Moving Through the Ruins
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is designed to work with the Dungeon World system, but with  
  significant changes. Dungeon World is designed for flexible fantasy adventures; The Cold 
  Ruins of Lastlife is a specific setting and context for those adventures. To make it work just 
  right, fundamental bits and pieces of Dungeon World have been altered. Here, you’ll find 
  those major alterations to the base rules and learn how to implement them at your table.
  Character Creation
  All characters created in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife are semi-amnesiac undead, trapped in 
  the limbo of the ruins of Lastlife for a time unknown to them. To reflect this, there are a 
  few key changes made to the character creation section:
  • Certain character classes—the Druid and the Barbarian—do not fit The Cold 
  Ruins of Lastlife; they are removed by default from the pool of available classes. 
  • Characters have looks taken from a universal pool for the ruins. They’re all undead 
  creatures; their look simply displays what kind of undead creature they are.
  • Characters don’t have the alignments listed on their character class sheets. Instead, 
  they have Drives, selected from a list (page 8).
  • All characters are undead; they don’t have any other race, so ignore that part of 
  each class.
  • Bonds are pulled from a different pool; each class can only have as many bonds as 
  are listed on that class, but the actual bonds themselves are different. Ignore the 
  bonds written on each class and select your bonds from the general list.
  Magpie Games will have a custom character sheet for Lastlife up on their website, magpie-
  games.com/chaos-worlds, for download in the future.
  Character Classes
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is a specific setting where certain character classes do not fit 
  and others need to be changed slightly to fit with the tone and themes.
  Remove the Druid and the Barbarian from the pool of available characters. They don’t have 
  a place in Lastlife. Druids are tied to nature—but the world is already all but dead. There is 
  nothing for the Druid to be tied to. Similarly, Barbarians in Dungeon World are outsiders. 
  This world is dead, and there is nowhere else to be from but these ruins.
  Some of the other classes have been changed slightly to fit them into Lastlife. These specific 
  changes to individual moves are listed in the Appendix at the back of this book (page 145). 
  Looks
  Instead of using the default looks built into the character classes, your players should choose 
  their characters’ looks from the following lists, taking one option from each category. No 
  two characters should have the same looks, to keep up the variety of the denizens of Last-
  life. They may create additional looks for their characters, as well, just so long as they are in 
  keeping with the undead, grim nature of Lastlife. 
  
  All of these looks should be interpreted openly; they’re here to guide the characters into the 
  tone and setting of Lastlife. As GM, you have final say with regard to whether or not any 
  additional looks created ultimately fit the tone of the game.
  For all of these looks, keep in mind that player characters are still functional, no matter 
  what it looks like. If their eyes are sewn shut, or they have empty sockets, they can still see, 
  in some capacity. If they have a nigh ethereal body, they can still be struck and cut by talons 
  or swords. These looks may change the fiction, just as any might—if they are bloated, then 
  it is a fair question as to whether they can fit through a tight space—but they do not change 
  the baseline traits of any characters. In fact, the question of how they can see despite having 
  only empty eye sockets, or how they can be hurt despite being nigh-intangible, becomes a 
  great mystery to play up in the exploration of the ruins.
  These looks are also all listed in the Appendix at the back of the book (page 145), for ease  
  of printing.
  Body: Bloated corpse, skeletal, unnaturally ghoulish, nigh-ethereal, rotting flesh, waxen  
  sallow skin, desiccated and thin, scarred and monstrous, pale and cold, stitched together.
  Eyes: Empty sockets, burning pinpricks, dead eyes, bright and gleaming eyes, jewels, black  
  eyes, milky eyes, lids sewn shut, mismatched eyes, weeping eyes.
  Garb: Encased in dark armor, tattered robes, moldy tunic, rags and shreds, strange  
  leathers, metal and spikes, rusted chains, animal scales, inscribed wrappings, shattered 
  jewels and finery.
  Markings: Faded tattoos, jewelry sewn into flesh, impossible wounds, ever-present faint 
  mists, a strange smell, an indecipherable brand, a constant cold presence, a voice without  
  a tongue. 
  The Escapists
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  8
  Moving Through the Ruins
  Drives
  Characters in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife don’t have alignments, as described on their char-
  acter classes. Instead, they have Drives. Drives entirely replace alignments. 
  At character creation, players choose a Drive for their characters. No two characters can 
  have the same Drive. As discussed below, when you reach the end of a session, rather than 
  marking XP if the character has fulfilled their alignment at least once this session, mark XP 
  if they have fulfilled their Drive. 
  These Drives are also listed in the Appendix, for ease of printing.
  Lastlife Drives
  • Destroy something corrupted by the fall.
  • Create a place of respite and calm.
  • Take advantage of past decay.
  • Try something crazy and new.
  • Adhere to tradition.
  • Create something brand new.
  • Restore something tarnished and damaged.
  • Teach someone about what once was.
  • Dramatically ignore precedent, tradition, and history.
  • Endanger yourself to protect something old.
  • Suffer greatly to destroy something dangerous.
  • Eliminate something new. 
  • Help someone or something to meaningfully change.
  • Defeat a dangerous or worthy foe from before the fall.
  • Defeat a dangerous or monstrous foe from after the fall.
  • Actively restrain something dangerous or chaotic.
  • Free someone or something from literal or figurative bonds.
  • Leap into danger without a plan.
  • Discover something about a mystery of the fall.
  • Discover a truth of the world before the fall.
  • Cause others to flee in terror from you.
  • Inspire others with hope.
  • Progress towards conquering the ruins.
  • Take something old and powerful for yourself.
  • Repurpose something powerful for yourself.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  9
  Moving Through the Ruins
  Races in Lastlife
  Once upon a time, in the glory days of this kingdom, peoples of all different races and cul-
  tures filled the halls of its great buildings, or walked the roads spanning its wilds. But now? 
  Everyone who is left is either a monster of some kind, warped and twisted by the end of the 
  world or by the terrible things that made it through...or, they are undead, half-alive, robbed 
  of their essence from the days before the fall. 
  In those glory days, player characters might have been elves, dwarves, or halflings. But now, 
  none of that matters. Player characters are undead. That is all they are and it will be a great 
  and terrible struggle to regain anything else of their essence.
  Because all characters are undead, they all share in the same racial move: The Dead Awak-
  ening. This move replaces the Last Breath move used in basic Dungeon World. For more 
  on The Dead Awakening see page 15.
  Bonds
  The connections between the denizens of Lastlife are strange and tenuous, clouded by lost 
  memory and the hazy endlessness of the ruins. The strongest bonds are the most likely to 
  have survived into the denizens’ current state, illuminating their knowledge of themselves 
  and of each other. The undead cling to these memories to define themselves even as the 
  ruins’ fog pulls and tugs at their minds to rob them of their identities. 
  The bonds listed on each character class are not used in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife. They 
  don’t reflect the relationships of the undead, or the stories of the ruins. Count the number 
  of bonds listed on each character class, however. That number still reflects how many bonds 
  a character will have.
  When your players get to the bonds part of character creation, they should choose their 
  bonds from the list of Lastlife-specific bonds below. Nobody can pick the same bond as 
  anybody else. Each player chooses one bond at a time, as per usual, until every player has 
  chosen the right number of bonds for their character class (based on how many were listed 
  on the class in the first place). They can fill in more than one bond with the same character’s 
  name, if they so choose, just like in basic Dungeon World.
  These bonds are also listed in the Appendix, for ease of printing.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  10
  Moving Through the Ruins
  Lastlife Bonds
  •                              saved my life from a terrible monster in the days before the end. I must repay 
  that debt.
  • I gave                              a token expressing my love for them in the days before the end. They 
  have the token, and my love, still.
  •                             nearly slew me in an illegal duel in the days before the end. I will exact ven-
  geance upon them for the slight.
  •                              gave to me my current weapon in the days before the end. I am sworn to use 
  it in their service; I will uphold that vow.
  •                              and I served our lord together in the days before the end. I trust and value 
  their opinion and company.
  • I envied the power of                              in the days before the end. I will pry from them the 
  secrets of their power. 
  • I remember the drive and rhetoric of                              in the days before the end. I will follow 
  them and their vision wherever they lead me.
  •                              once got me arrested in the days before the end. I’ll keep a close eye on them, 
  for their own sake, now.
  •                              was strange and foreign in the days before the end. Even now, I still find 
  them unnerving and discomfiting. 
  •                              once knew the deepest secrets of this kingdom. I will get those secrets from 
  them, somehow. I need them.
  • I know a deep and terrible secret about the crimes of                              from the days before 
  the end. I will never forget what they did.
  •                              does not trust me for the terrible things I did to them in the days before the 
  end. I do not blame them.
  •                              and I once cared for each other, deeply and meaningfully, in the days before 
  the end. That bond is strained now.
  • I have no proof, but I remember what                              was doing in the days before the end; I 
  blame them for the ruin that followed.
  •                              and I shared a bloodline in the days before the end; I choose to believe that 
  that bond still matters.
  • I remember what a danger                              was in the days before the end; I will not let them 
  become that way again.
  • I remember how weak                              was in the days before the end; I fear they will not 
  survive in these new ruins.
  • In the days before the end,                              stood by my side through terrible trials; I still feel 
  that I can trust them completely.
  • In the days before the end,                              was a noble soul, true and good; I fear the taint 
  of this place will corrupt them completely.
  • I put my life on the line to save                              in the days before the end; I will collect on 
  that debt.
  •                              threatened my home and my livelihood with their ideas in the days before 
  the end; I will strike them down if they threaten my plans now.
  • I stole something critical and important from                              in the days before the end; I 
  feel guilty, but I have it still, and I will keep it.
  •                              knows more about me and who I was in the days before the end than I do; I 
  will get them to tell me.
  •                              still seems to believe that the world is today as it was in the days before the 
  end; I will educate them about the truth of the new world.
  •                              and I once believed in the same faith in the days before the end; together, we 
  can reinvigorate this world with our faith.
  •                              and I once believed in the same ideals in the days before the end; we have 
  diverged now, and I no longer understand them.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  11
  Moving Through the Ruins
  Lastlife-Specific Rules
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife requires a few other changes and additions to the rules of Dun-
  geon World. Radiance and Memory are two new kinds of XP that tie into the hope for the 
  future and recovery of the past, pushing and pulling at each other in the ruins. Some of the 
  basic moves of Dungeon World are changed to better tie into the setting and the Radiance 
  and Memory systems. And finally, the Last Breath move is wholly changed to suit the 
  eternal nature of the undead throughout the ruins.
  Radiance & Memory
  Experience works as usual in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife. A PC gets an XP every time they 
  miss on a move, and they get XP from the end of session questions surrounding their Drive, 
  and from resolving bonds. Two additional tracks provide their own kinds of improvements 
  to your character: Radiance and Memory.
  Radiance represents a growing light within a character, as they stride forward into the 
  future. It represents building and creating a new world in the ruins of the old. Radiance is 
  about paving a new path, and carrying a lantern into the future to light it. 
  Memory represents recollections of the old world, before the fall, hints of the past drawing 
  them to rebuild. It represents the character’s attachment to history and to tradition, and 
  trying to restore that glory and wonder. It represents eliminating the amnesiac fog that 
  permeates the ruins, and truly rebuilding what once was.
  Every character has a track for Radiance and Memory. Each track is five boxes long. 
  Whenever they mark Radiance or Memory, they mark off one box in the corresponding 
  track. When they mark off the fifth box in the track, they clear that whole track and take 
  one improvement from the improvements list for that track, and cross off one improvement 
  from the other list, meaning they can never take that improvement. They can only take each 
  improvement from each list one time, if it is not crossed off.
  Example: Jason marks off his fifth box in the Radiance track. He then empties that whole 
  track and leaves the Memory track alone, and selects a single Radiance improvement to 
  take. He chooses “You raise Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 2.” Then, he chooses a 
  single Radiance improvement to cross off, indicating he can never take that improvement. 
  He crosses off “You discover how to steal the power of a terrible denizen of Lastlife,” mean-
  ing he can never take that Radiance improvement.
  All characters share identical Radiance and Memory improvement options to choose from. 
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  12
  Moving Through the Ruins
  Radiance Improvement
  The Radiance improvement list is:
  • You discover how to steal the power of a terrible denizen of Lastlife and put it into 
  an object of your choice, though it may not be easy; name the denizen and the 
  object, and the GM will tell you the steps and materials required.
  • You can seize control of a vulnerable piece of Lastlife’s ruins, and all who dwell 
  there; name the area, and the GM will tell you what you need to do to make that 
  place your own.
  • You raise Strength, Wisdom, or Constitution by 2.
  • You can touch other undead and bind them to your light. When you touch an 
  NPC denizen of Lastlife who has not yet been fully corrupted, roll + Radiance im-
  provements taken (max +3). On a hit, they become addicted to you and your light. 
  From that point forward, when you Parley with that NPC you may spend 1 Radi-
  ance to take a 10+ on the Parley without rolling. On a 7-9, your light also changes 
  them; they lose whoever they were before, and become someone new. On a miss, 
  the binding goes terribly awry, and they seek to consume you and your light.
  • You become something new and switch classes. When you switch classes, change 
  your damage die to the new class’s, change your max hp to the new class’s, gain all 
  the starting moves of your new class, keep all the starting moves of your old class, 
  and for each advanced class move you have, choose to either keep it or lose it and 
  take a new advanced move from your new class. 
  Once they have taken three of the above improvements and at least four total Radiance or 
  Memory improvements, they can take this:
  • Build a new kingdom atop the ruins of Lastlife. You claim a stronghold amid 
  the ruins, and denizens will flock to your banner, called to you naturally by your 
  shining light. They will build you what you ask of them. The remaining monsters 
  of the world will steer clear of your new radiant land.  
  When a player takes this last improvement, your game of The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is 
  coming to a close—the game isn’t about rulers and kings, but about undead heroes and 
  explorers. End the game when appropriate for your group, but taking this improvement 
  signals that the conclusion is coming. 
  Memory Improvement
  The Memory improvement list is:
  • You recall exactly where to find an ancient artifact of power; name the artifact, and 
  the GM will tell you where it currently resides.
  • You recall exactly how to purify and restore a corrupted area of Lastlife; name the 
  area, and the GM will tell you how to cleanse the land.
  • You raise Intelligence, Dexterity, or Charisma by 2.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  13
  Moving Through the Ruins
  • You gain an aura of memory that draws other denizens of Lastlife to follow you. 
  When you speak of your memories and the once-glory of Lastlife to an intelligent 
  undead NPC, roll + Memory improvements taken (max +3). On a 10+, they  
  become a hireling for you, made with 5-8 points (GM’s choice) as per the rules  
  on page 35 of Dungeon World, but with 3 of their points always allocated to 
  Loyalty. Their Cost is “Progress toward restoring the old world.” On a 7-9, they 
  may still become a hireling, but you must first prove to them that you can offer 
  them a return of the old world. They will accompany you to give you that chance. 
  On a miss, they hate you for reminding them of the glory now gone, and they seek 
  to destroy you.
  • You remember the truth of who you were, along with the full extent of your old 
  skills. Immediately gain one level.
  Once they have taken three of the above improvements and at least four total Radiance or 
  Memory improvements, they can take this:
  • Re-establish a stronghold in a recovered part of Lastlife. You choose a place that 
  the Memories call you to restore, and leave your mark upon it. Other denizens of 
  Lastlife will be called to this place, to assist you in restoring it and to resume their 
  lives from before the end. The remaining monsters of the land will either return to 
  whatever they were before, or will stay away from the past glory you’ve restored.
  The Executioner
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  14
  Moving Through the Ruins
  Just as with the final improvement for Radiance, when they take this improvement, it is 
  a signal that the game is coming to an end. They have become an avatar of the past and a 
  ruler of a restored kingdom, and they are no longer an adventurer. The game need not end 
  immediately, but both GM and players should begin searching for ways to end it. 
  Spouting Lore and Discerning Realities in Lastlife
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife demands different means of gaining information about the 
  world. In basic Dungeon World, when a PC wants to know more about something in the 
  world, they’ll either Spout Lore or Discern Realities. But in Lastlife, these moves are 
  changed to reflect the foggy semi-amnesia afflicting its denizens, and the strange circum-
  stances that surround its denizens at all time.
  Instead of Spout Lore, PCs in Lastlife can recall a lost memory of Lastlife.
  When you recall a lost memory of Lastlife, say what you remember and roll + Int. On a hit, 
  mark 1 Memory. On a 10+, your recollection is accurate and complete, and the GM will fill 
  it out with additional detail. On a 7-9, choose 1:
  • Your recollection is inaccurate; the GM will later reveal what you remembered 
  incorrectly.
  • Your recollection is incomplete; the GM will later reveal a critical truth that you 
  didn’t recall.
  Instead of Discern Realities, PCs in Lastlife can study the ruins of Lastlife.
  When you study the ruins of Lastlife, roll + Wis. On a hit, mark Radiance. On a 10+, ask 
  the GM 3 questions from the list below. On a 7-9, ask 1.
  • What happened here recently?
  • What is about to happen?
  • What here is wrong or strange? 
  • What here can be made into something useful and new?
  • How could I take control here?
  • What here is vulnerable to me?
  The above moves completely replace the original Dungeon World moves. Any move that 
  references Spout Lore or Discern Realities now refers to Recall a Lost Memory or Study 
  the Ruins, respectively. 
  Last Breath: The Dead Awakening
  The denizens of Lastlife are all undead, and when they are killed again, they do not pass 
  from this realm. They simply return and recur. Sometimes, their bodies are destroyed, and 
  they are left as spirits adrift, wandering and confused. Those who die too often are reduced 
  over the course of their many deaths, until eventually they are left mindless and shambling, 
  just another part of the ruins. 
  The Last Breath move of Dungeon World does not fit Lastlife. Instead, every undead PC 
  has access to their race move: The Dead Awakening. 
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  15
  Moving Through the Ruins
  The Dead Awakening
  When you lose your last hp in Lastlife, you die, falling where you stand. As long as your 
  body is not utterly destroyed, the strange mists of Lastlife will converge on you and carry 
  your body to the last place you rested. You will come back to yourself, but the circum- 
  stances may be dangerous. Roll 2d6. On a hit, you’re restored with half of your maximum 
  hit points. On a 7-9, pick one from below.
  • Permanently lose 1 bond.
  • Permanently mark a debility.
  • Permanently cross off both one Radiance and one Memory improvement; you can 
  never take those advancements.
  On a miss, you are restored with one hit point; pick one from the list, and know that the 
  mists have revealed your vulnerability to something dangerous that now hunts you.
  If PCs ever lose all of their bonds or permanently mark off every debility, they become the 
  mindless undead.
  End of Session Moves
  The characters in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife explore different issues than in a basic Dun-
  geon World game. Use these End of Session questions to better reflect the distinctive nature 
  of Lastlife.
  When you reach the end of each session, PCs still resolve bonds, as in the basic end of ses-
  sion move. As discussed above, instead of checking alignment, they next check to see if they 
  have fulfilled their Drive at least once this session. If so, mark XP. Then, they answer these 
  four questions as a group:
  • Did we destroy something corrupt and dangerous? 
  • Did we take liberate or create a powerful or useful treasure? 
  • Did we learn something important about the world before the fall?
  • Did we take a step toward building a new world in the ruins?
  For each “yes” answer everyone marks XP.
  Rations and Making Camp in Lastlife
  The undead denizens of Lastlife do not need sustenance. They do not need to eat or drink. 
  They may want to, just to experience something, some burst of flavor, but their senses are 
  dulled and gray, and they cannot enjoy food in the same way as when they were alive. 
  They also do not need to sleep. Their basic biological functions are removed, or suspended, 
  by their undead state. But they still need to rest, and put their heads down, think, contem-
  plate, be still. Constant action has as much of a risk to them as constant inaction, as they 
  lose themselves to the moment. Resting is especially important due to the nature of the 
  undead in these ruins; making camp determines the place where they will next awaken after 
  they die, as per The Dead Awakening move. 
  The undead PCs of Lastlife may still make camp, but don’t track rations. They’re irrelevant 
  for the undead. Otherwise, the rules, including the watch order, are the same. 
  
  Broken Castles and  
  Shattered Statues
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  17
  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  Worlds are born. They live, they grow, and they change. Then they die. Sometimes they 
  explode, consumed by flames, erupting into lightning. Sometimes they grow old and wither. 
  Sometimes they are slain, or are fed upon by the horrible Things From Outside that dwell 
  between the worlds, until there is nothing left. 
  No matter how worlds end, they do end.
  But sometimes...rarely...even after the end, something remains. Something weak, broken, 
  not even an ember of the burning light that once was. But...something.
  Such is the fate of Lastlife.
  What Remains
  The great world that once existed was not always called Lastlife. Now that is the only name 
  it knows. It is a massive sprawl of ruins and corrupted forests, forgotten tombs, and over-
  flowing crypts—its boundaries and borders unclear. Those maps that remain no longer hold 
  true; the geography of Lastlife warped as the world died. While new maps could be made, 
  those who are stuck in this dreary purgatory do not create easily, if ever.
  No one “lives” in Lastlife—they remain. Most of the inhabitants of Lastlife are undead, 
  afflicted by the same stasis, the same decay that fills the rest of the ruins. Their minds are 
  foggy and empty, their recollections blurred into nonexistence. They don’t know how long 
  they or the ruins have been here—sometimes they do not even remember their own names. 
  They are shadows of what they had been, and continue to exist as long as their dead world 
  persists. Each one is merely a fragment of a soul left in a husk of a body.
  There are exceptions, of course: creatures imprisoned from before the world’s end, or things 
  that have grown amid the decay. A few have found their way into the dying world from 
  outside. These are dangerous creatures, hungry and ambitious. To them, Lastlife is little 
  more than an opportunity to achieve their own ends, and they will gladly destroy anything 
  in their paths. After all, Lastlife is already dead.
  They are not the only sentient denizens of this ruined world; some of the undead hold on to 
  their minds through sheer will. Drives to some special end they have chosen sustain them 
  even in this broken land. They form up into groups of likeminded undead, all driven by the 
  same fundamental need. It keeps them together. Sane. For now. 
  The Ruins Themselves
  The ruins are a forgotten panoply of wonders and horrors. Nobody knows their exact 
  contents, and any learnings are quickly forgotten, lost to the unending cycle of death and 
  meaningless rebirth that has taken over. To speak of them as fact, a defined map, would be 
  senseless.
  But it is incumbent upon the sentient undead to strive to make sense of the senseless. To 
  explore the ruins, comprehend its contents, and build a consistent image of this world. 
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  As you play The Cold Ruins of Lastlife, you will discover the layout of the ruins. The PCs 
  will discover the contents of those ruins, merely by venturing out, and they will learn about 
  Lastlife through those discoveries. When you start, much is unknown, but the Drives of the 
  PCs will force them to investigate the ruins and make them real…and known.
  The setting information in this chapter is designed to give you enough of an impression of 
  a location that you can bring it into play in a useful and interesting way, without necessar-
  ily answering all of the questions about that place. In fact, every location described in this 
  section comes with a series of questions you can ask players during play to help fill in the 
  unique details for your own game. 
  Think of the bits of setting in this chapter as versatile puzzle pieces. They don’t have to go in 
  any particular place, and how you choose to fit them together will create different pictures. 
  That’s exactly as intended. Your Lastlife will be strange and uniquely yours. No two Last-
  lifes will ever be the same.
  The Hungry Canyons
  Barely visible petroglyphs cover the high walls of the canyons, strange runes and symbols 
  carved eternally upon the walls. Some may hear a strange humming, or feel an odd sen-
  sation of vibrancy and tension when they focus on those petroglyphs. They blend into the 
  walls, though, and are only seen when a traveler looks closely...or when the Canyons start to 
  feed—the hungry attention of the Canyons turns upon them. 
  “Hungry” is an understatement—in truth, the Canyons starve. 
  The Canyons crave anything. They crave life. They crave existence and mindfulness and 
  story, and any who pass between their titanic basalt walls is a potential meal. 
  The oppressive presence of the Canyons invades slowly—a faint tingling at first, then the 
  loss of feeling in your extremities. Then the walls of the Canyon take you into themselves, 
  transforming you into what they crave—a story, writ upon their walls in ancient symbols 
  and languages no longer spoken. You can stave off their famished walls with focus and 
  attention, but few have the strength of will to pass through unchanged.
  The oppressive hunger of the Canyons is not physical; their feeding is not some mere chew-
  ing of flesh. It draws on the very essence that gives the denizens of Lastlife their continued, 
  if ruined, existences. And what the Canyons take becomes new petroglyphs, engraved upon 
  its walls. 
  Custom Moves:
  When PCs pass through the Hungry Canyons, they choose whether to travel quickly or carefully.
  If you travel quickly, roll + Dex. On a 10+, you come through the other side intact. On a 
  7-9, you lose something of yourself. Choose one to say what you lose:
  • Lose hope (-1 Radiance) 
  • Lose yourself (-1 Memory)
  • Lose a possession (GM says what you lose) 
  
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  If you don’t have any Radiance or Memory to lose, then losing 1 more Radiance or Memory 
  forces you to cross off an untaken Radiance or Memory improvement; you can never take 
  that improvement. If you have no improvements to cross off and no Radiance or Memory 
  to lose, then you become a mindless undead, wandering the Canyons forever. On a miss, 
  the pull of the Canyons costs you dearly. Lose all your Radiance and Memory. Again, if you 
  have no Radiance or Memory to lose, you must permanently cross off an untaken Radiance 
  or Memory improvement.
  If you travel carefully, roll + Wis. On a hit, you stave off the hunger of the Canyons with 
  your own will, and study the petroglyphs on the wall along the way. Ask a question about 
  the past or future, and the stories on the wall will give you a true answer. If you ask about 
  the past, take 1 Memory. If you ask about the future, take 1 Radiance. On a 7-9, the  
  Canyons steal away a part of you. The GM will ask you a question and you must answer 
  honestly. The GM will tell you what part of yourself the Canyons take based on your  
  answer. On a miss, the Canyons catch you, and they feast upon you.
  Questions:
  • Why are they so hungry? Where does their hunger come from?
  • What carved out the Canyons?
  • What happens when the Canyons fill with petroglyphs?
  • How old are the Canyons? Did they exist before the fall of the world?
  The August Library
  An enormous cube of a building, built from marble and onyx. Like a carefully hewn block 
  of stone, dropped upon the ash-gray surface of Lastlife. The August Library has one en-
  trance on each side of the cube, at ground level: open archways, dwarfed by the sheer size of 
  the cube. 
  Inside, the August Library is a claustrophobic hive of shelves, all of them filled with books 
  upon books. Moving deeper into the Library, one finds other oddities, as well—gravity itself 
  shifts to accommodate the strange hive of the Library, to better fit the books. The Library 
  only opens up into a wider space in the very center of the cube, where there is a smaller cu-
  bic reading room, with tables and special tools for holding the pages of especially unwieldy 
  books. There are tables on all six inner sides and visitors can walk on any side of the room 
  without falling. 
  And the books. Oh, the books. Perfectly ordered, every shelf filled. Each in pristine condi-
  tion, not a mote of dust visible. Infinite knowledge hidden within this Library. Entire deep 
  histories and truths. 
  If only the fall had not changed the books somehow. Had not taken away the knowledge 
  of the language in which they are written. Had not sealed them off much more powerfully 
  than simple walls ever could. 
  Many undead wander the August Library infinitely, picking its books off shelves to stare at 
  them uncomprehendingly, desperately hoping—dreaming—of gleaning even the slightest 
  
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  20
  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  bit of information from their pages. But the Library and its books have not divulged their 
  secrets, and the history of the world remains locked away behind unintelligible scripts. 
  And none of this says anything about the Librarian itself, the keeper of these books. And 
  the terror it inflicts upon those who it deems as intruders upon its domain, mistreating its 
  books. (For more on the Librarian, see page 100.)
  Custom Move:
  When you try to read one of the inscrutable books from the Library’s shelves, roll + Int. 
  On a hit, you glean something from the indecipherable texts. Ask 1 question from the list 
  below. On a 10+, you can also ask a follow-up question of your choosing. 
  • Where can I find                             ? 
  • How could I gain the power to                             ?
  • What could destroy                             ?
  • What made                             ?
  On a miss, the book does not give up its secrets and you’ve alerted the Librarian to your 
  presence in the Library.
  Questions:
  • What is the true purpose of the Library? Surely, it isn’t just accumulating informa-
  tion.
  • What changed the language of the books? Why can’t the undead read them?
  • What happens when books are removed from the Library? Or destroyed?
  • What grand and decadent culture built the Library? What mind is behind its 
  purpose?
  The Iksythrys Cathedral of Manysong
  This name is known to the denizens of Lastlife. All of them. Ensconced within their minds, 
  for reasons unknown to them: the Iksythrys Cathedral of Manysong. As soon as their dry 
  and ruined eyes behold its spires, they know it. They feel it. 
  The Cathedral sprawls across the ground in the shape of a pentagon, with lines of spires 
  emerging from the five points of its shape towards its center, converging upon the enor-
  mous spire rising from the very center. The entire edifice is engraved with endless swirling 
  patterns, depicting heroes of the faith and their victories in patterns no longer resplendent in 
  the cold gray light of Lastlife. The stone of the Cathedral is a strange green, the seams of the 
  blocks hidden by expert craft, the jade blocks themselves nearly indestructible.
  Inside, the Cathedral is open spaces and vaulted ceilings, pillars lined with rows of kneeling 
  benches. Every spoke of the Cathedral, every long branch, is itself a sanctuary, connected to 
  the others only through hallways at its back. Each sanctuary ends at an altar at one of the 
  points of the pentagon, each altar a simple block of jade covered with old, dusty cloths. The 
  lines of spires, leading from the points of the pentagon to that central, tallest spire, are all 
  blocked off. There are doors that should lead to the center of the Cathedral, but all of them 
  are sealed, through magics and strange locks.
  
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  Walking through the Cathedral, echoes of songs drift gently through the air, emanating 
  from the engraved walls of the Cathedral itself: the Manysong. The walls of the Cathedral 
  hold within them echoes—memories—of every single song that the halls have ever heard. 
  The Cathedral is a monument to the songs of the days before the end. 
  But the decay of Lastlife has not left the Cathedral untouched. The notes sour. They turn 
  bitter, cold. They lose their luster. Beautiful chords strung together as pearls become dis-
  cordant. The music grows faint and dies, strands of the Manysong disappearing. To walk 
  through the Cathedral is to be filled with the pain of what once was, and hear it die with 
  each passing, still moment.
  Custom Moves:
  When you first pick out a single song from the echoes in the Cathedral, roll + Wis. On a 
  hit, you hear that song, and you can carry it forward with you; choose 1 from below. On a 
  10+, the song brings back a memory of your old life as well; take 1 Memory and say what 
  your memory is.
  • Sharing the song counts as leverage when you Parley with those who might care 
  about music, faith, or the Cathedral itself.
  • The song teaches you the historical weakness of any one person, entity, or place in 
  Lastlife, your choice.
  • Singing the song as a dirge when someone dies can give the deceased an easier way 
  to find their way back to their body, once; give them +2 to their Dead Awakening 
  roll.
  On a miss, the corrupted Manysong pours into your head and makes a demand of you; 
  honor it or lose Radiance.
  The first time you sing a new song in the Cathedral, roll + Cha. On a hit, your song is  
  added to the Cathedral’s Manysong. Choose 1 from below. On a 10+, take 1 Radiance,  
  as well.
  • The Cathedral physically changes to give you a gift based on your song. 
  • Singing your song in the Cathedral will bring forth the Manysong and quell the 
  violent impulses of any listening thereto.
  • The Manysong changes to call one entity to the Cathedral from anywhere in the 
  ruins, your choice.
  On a miss, the Manysong rejects your new song and the Cathedral itself acts to destroy or 
  eject you.
  Questions:
  • Who is Iksythrys? Why is the Cathedral named after them?
  • For what purpose does the Cathedral hold the music in its walls?
  • What lies in the center of the Cathedral? Why is it locked in?
  • Can the Manysong end?
  
  The Endless Corridors
  
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  The Endless Corridors
  The Endless Corridors is a monument to the power, artistry, and immense hubris of the 
  world before the end, designed to be an infinite city, ensconced within an enormous 
  webwork of corridors. But whether it was corrupted by the end, or the entire project was 
  doomed from the start, the Endless Corridors is not the beautiful, infinite fractal of struc-
  ture it was clearly designed to be. It is strange and tumorous, grotesque and self-recursive.
  From the outside, the Endless Corridors appears to be an odd, floating mass of buildings 
  and halls, all jumbled and folding back in on itself. Massive blue steel chains tether it to the 
  ground below, each one anchored at one of the strange corners of the Corridors. Some paths 
  extend up and into the nest of Corridors, for those daring enough to venture inside. It is 
  enormous, rising up over the horizon and walls of Lastlife on the approach, blotting out the 
  gray sky from up close. 
  The Corridors warp space and the rules of reality in strange ways. The walls are weightless, 
  a side effect of the space-folding magic necessary to even attempt to make them real; hence, 
  the need for chains anchoring the mass to the ground. But inside the Endless Corridors, 
  gravity still works, though it may pull to strange sides of each individual hallway. The 
  Corridors’ weird magic calls to the other denizens of Lastlife, pulling them into its own 
  labyrinthine innards, and changing them still further with its warped realities. Now the 
  Endless Corridors is full of monstrosities and guardians, its own mutant ecology. 
  What little memory or story surrounds the Endless Corridors speaks of the Heart of the 
  Corridors at its very center, though how you could possibly find such a place in that end-
  lessly space-warping structure is a question none can yet answer. But in the Heart of the 
  Corridors, a true artisan could reshape it. Could control the Corridors itself. Could trans-
  form it into a new city, unfolding down upon the ruins below: a new home for Lastlife. Or 
  could transform it into a perfect fortress, floating above the ruins forevermore. Either way, 
  the Corridors is a prize to those denizens of Lastlife with the awareness and will necessary 
  to brave its depths. 
  Custom Move:
  When you spend time exploring the Endless Corridors, roll + Wis. On a hit, you find what 
  you seek; choose 1. On a 7-9, you find what you seek, but you call the attention of the 
  guardians of the Corridors upon yourself as you do. 
  • You find a hub of the magical energies warping space in the Corridors.
  • You find a sanctuary for an artifact ensconced within the Corridors.
  • You find a dangerous path toward the Heart of the Corridors. 
  On a miss, you are overwhelmed by the call of the Corridors, and when you emerge from 
  the daze you are hopelessly lost, forever changed, or both. 
  Questions:
  • Who created them in the first place?
  • What, exactly, is the Heart of the Corridors?
  • Why are the creatures inside of the Corridors so warped and strange?
  • What has been storing artifacts inside the Corridors?
  
  The Lighthouse
  
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  The Lighthouse on Dark Waters
  There is an ocean at the edges of Lastlife. Enormous and expansive, stretching as far as dead 
  eyes can see. The waters: dark, impenetrable, black. The ocean scratches against a wall of 
  stone at the edge of the ruins, but the water itself is still, only gentle waves rolling across the 
  surface, lapping at the rock. Or so it should be. So it had always been.
  On a rocky promontory, jutting into that ocean, stands the Lighthouse. A towering struc-
  ture of obsidian and silver, interwoven with ancient runes and magics, the Lighthouse has 
  burned brightly in the ruins of Lastlife for as long as they have existed. A point of fire and 
  light, gleaming out across the ocean, right on the edge of the ruins. 
  But the light now wanes. It flickers and dims. Even in the unending, timeless limbo of the 
  ruins, the dark comes to take the light away. As it does, the waters stir. The waves grow larg-
  er. Bubbles rise from the depths. And the creatures the Lighthouse has kept asleep for eons...
  they awaken. They rise, and their coming may spell the true end of Lastlife. 
  The fire still burns, however feebly. It can be carried out of the Lighthouse, spread across 
  Lastlife, but only by those who brave this edge of the ruins, who climb the stairs, and who 
  speak to the last Keeper of the Light. 
  Custom Move:
  When you make a sacrifice to the waters beyond the Lighthouse and what dwells beneath, 
  say what you offer, what knowledge you seek, and roll. On a 10+, the things in the dark 
  accept your sacrifice and answer your questions with frightening but clear visions. On a 7-9, 
  your sacrifice is lacking, and the things in the dark demand more. If you surrender what 
  they demand, the visions are frightening but clear; if you refuse, the visions are confusing 
  and strange. On a miss, you receive only confusing and strange visions and the dark infects 
  you; you cannot gain more Radiance or Memory until you cleanse your undead body.
  Questions:
  • What truly dwells beneath the waves? How did it get there?
  • Who is the last Keeper of the Lighthouse?
  • Why, when, and how was the Lighthouse originally lit?
  • What lies on the other side of the ocean?
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
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  The Demon Pool
  The world before the ruins was a wondrous place, full of amazing achievements and powers. 
  It conquered all its foes and threats, and imprisoned so many of them, even those from 
  other worlds. It drew power from its imprisoned foes at will, and thought nothing more of 
  the danger of keeping such creatures imprisoned. The Demon Pool is just such a prison, and 
  now the denizens of Lastlife will pay for the hubris of the days before.
  It is a deep, wide pool of water, darkened in the cavern in which it sits. Surrounded by a ring 
  of faintly glowing green stones, each with sigils carved upon their surfaces. The pool and 
  the ring, together, are a cell. Holding within them the last demon trapped in this world, the 
  only demon left in the ruins of Lastlife: Oriaxanysoth. The Segmented Tear. 
  Oriaxanysoth’s power is enormous, and in the days before, the Demon Pool channeled 
  that power into countless mechanisms and structures. Now those connections are severed, 
  and the pool itself, like all the prisons of Lastlife, is waning in power with each passing 
  day. Oriaxanysoth’s day of freedom draws near. The creature still thrashes in the pool, still 
  contained beneath its surface...but now, it can extend pieces of itself, and its power, beyond. 
  It can spawn, creating many new young demons of its own flesh, squirming forth from 
  between the green stones surrounding the pool. 
  Perhaps one who remembers the truth, the secrets of the Pool, or who is possessed of a 
  nigh-divine drive towards artisanship and magical craft, might restore the Pool’s prison and 
  again derive from it the great power that the civilization before Lastlife once drew upon. 
  But until then, coming to the Demon Pool is an exercise in beholding what once was, both 
  in glory and horror...coming face to face with the dangers of this decaying world.
  Custom Moves:
  When you first approach the Demon Pool, roll + Dex. On a hit, you disturb nothing and 
  keep your wits about you. On a 10+, take +1 ongoing to deal with Oriaxanysoth and its 
  offspring during this visit. On a miss, you disturb one of the stones of the Demon Pool, 
  weakening the prison and allowing Oriaxanysoth to touch you—either through its off-
  spring or directly.
  When you ask Oriaxanysoth for a prophecy of your past or future, roll + Cha. On a 7-9, 
  it speaks the truth of your existence, which only demons and fools could know. Mark 
  Radiance or Memory as appropriate. On a 10+, Oriaxanysoth’s revelation answers a crucial 
  question of your being; immediately resolve and rewrite one of your bonds and mark XP, as 
  well. On a miss, Oriaxanysoth’s words are cutting lies; mark Stunned and Confused until 
  you prove to yourself that its words are meaningless.
  Questions: 
  • Who imprisoned Oriaxanysoth in the first place? Who built the Demon Pool?
  • What is the language used to inscribe the sigils on the stones?
  • What are the stones made of?
  • What was powered by the Demon Pool?
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  Griedhardt’s Grove
  A forest, built, planted, and constructed by some ancient master gardener. Griedhardt, one 
  presumes. It should be small, enclosed within alabaster walls. But the trees have grown here, 
  and have cracked past those walls, expanded out into the lawns around it. Now the Grove 
  stretches further and further out, a circle of strange plants and flowers, bizarre trees with 
  bark-like flesh. 
  The Grove is a force of a strange wilderness, a mutant nature growing within the fallen 
  structures of Lastlife, unkempt and untamed by any since the fall of the world. The plant 
  life of the Grove is unlike any other, and while it may hold secrets and powers for any brave 
  enough to hunt through its paths, it bears a terrifying set of threats and dangers. Those 
  foolish enough to pierce into the Grove without care can still be seen, held up amid the 
  branches of strange monstrous trees, the essence granting them unlife endlessly drained 
  from them as their limbs twitch and contort. 
  The greatest danger of the Grove, the creature with its own tendrils spread throughout the 
  neon flowers and bizarre spores, is the Tree Kraken. A creature whose recurrence is tied to 
  the world itself. In every other time it grew, it was cut down, artifacts and wonders crafted 
  from its wooden flesh. But now, it grows, free and uncontrolled. It spurs the Grove’s expan-
  sion onward, spreading its roots throughout the ruins. And soon...the Tree Kraken shall 
  drop another seed, and that may spell the fall of what remains of Lastlife to this unnatural 
  growth.
  The seeds of a new world may be found there. New plants and new life, capable of growing 
  amid the ruins. Extracts of flowers that might restore true life. Beauty, though strange and 
  poisonous. But the dangers may outweigh those benefits. If left untamed, the Grove may 
  grow to swallow the ruins whole.
  Custom Move:
  When you pass into Griedhardt’s Grove, the spores and strange perfumes of the plants 
  therein may overwhelm you. Roll + Con. On a 10+, you are strangely at home amid these 
  scents. Choose either to gain 1 Radiance as you adapt to the scents or gain 1 Memory 
  as you remember their true nature. On a 7-9, you barely resist the soporific effects of the 
  plants; take -1 ongoing until you have a chance to clear your head. On a miss, the scents 
  overcome you, and you are drawn into danger by the carnivorous plants emitting those 
  enticing aromas.
  Questions:
  • Who was Griedhardt? Why did they plant this grove?
  • Is there a way to tame the grove without destroying it?
  • What powers does the seed of the Tree Kraken hold?
  • What purpose does the Tree Kraken serve to the life of the world?
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  Castle Oblivion
  A towering edifice, with parapets and buttresses, with stained glass windows. Powerful and 
  strong. Impregnable. A magnificent construction, both beautiful and formidable. Its true 
  purpose lost, but one can only imagine that it was the center of a vast kingdom in the days 
  before the end. 
  Now, although all its towers still stand, while its windows are still whole, while the building 
  still seems to have withstood the end...it is a ruin. Denizens of Lastlife feel it, simply upon 
  approach. A place that has outlived itself. A still place, quiet and dusty. Its cavernous halls 
  darkened. Its paintings dulled. Its windows shadowy. Its portcullis stands open, and its 
  doors unlocked. Walking through it produces the feeling of nothing so much as  
  melancholic absence...lost memory and truth. 
  The denizens of Lastlife still in the Castle believe themselves to be living in the days from 
  before the end. They carry on with rituals that now are meaningless. They prepare food 
  from dust, and groom themselves in moldy clothes. They put on gaudy fragments of jewelry. 
  They have no memory of what happened, no memory of even who they truly are. They 
  simply repeat, ad infinitum.
  In the throne room of the Castle sits the Old Queen, the pinnacle of this lost memory, this 
  repetitive madness. She believes she still rules over a vast kingdom, though she could not 
  name it. She believes that all should bow before her royal bloodline, though she could not 
  tell you a thing about her lineage. She is a Queen who cannot remember anything beyond 
  that single truth. And the Castle Oblivion reflects her madness, her forgotten memories.
  Any who stay within its halls for too long risk the same fate.
  Custom Move:
  When you resist Castle Oblivion’s attempts to steal your memories, roll + Int. On a 10+, you 
  fight off the gray of the Castle. Choose 1: you recall truths about the Castle; or you recall 
  truths about yourself and gain 1 Memory. On a 7-9, the Castle steals from you the memory 
  of something precious and replaces it with a memory of the Castle itself; lose 1 Memory. If 
  you don’t have 1 Memory to lose, treat this result as a miss. On a miss, you take a new bond 
  with the Castle, representing what you now believe your place in the castle to be; the GM 
  will tell you the nature of the bond. Until you have resolved that bond, you cannot leave the 
  Castle of your own free will. 
  Questions:
  • Why does the Castle Oblivion steal memories more than anywhere else in Lastlife?
  • What is the real name of the Castle? Who built it?
  • Who, truly, is the Old Queen?
  • How did the Castle enslave its guardians? 
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
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  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  The Mired Land
  A swampy morass. Water washed into dirt, mixed with toxic output of countless arcane 
  devices, all run downhill, all compiled here. Poison, seeped into the very land itself, and 
  grown into decayed, horrible reeds, accompanied by a nightmarish stench of death and rot. 
  The Mired Land may once have been a plain, or an open field of flowers, or a river valley. It 
  is none of those things anymore, and they are lost beneath the viscous and noxious waters. 
  The Mired Land holds in its thick mud the bodies of countless lost souls. Those who fell to 
  the baneful substances in the air and the water. Those who fell to the monstrous creatures 
  rising out of the terrible swamp. Those trapped in the mud and sucked down beneath the 
  waters. It’s a watery graveyard, though many held in its muck are not fully dead. 
  The Mired Land is a place to be crossed in the ruins of Lastlife. It stands between other 
  places, in the valleys between the larger edifices, in the crevices and the chasms. And thus 
  does it plague those denizens of Lastlife who still try to move amid the ruins, stealing lives 
  and bodies, trapping them beneath its viscous surface. 
  Purifying the Mired Land, removing those contaminants, freeing those trapped with-
  in—dreams, held by those who would hope to restore Lastlife. After all, there’s an entire 
  population of undead denizens trapped in the muck of the Mired Land. With them, any-
  thing might be possible. But the task of removing the blight and corruption from the Mired 
  Land is nigh insurmountable, as the Land claims more unlives even as the undead struggle 
  against it. 
  Custom Moves:
  When you enter the Mired Land, roll + Con. On a 10+, the fumes and poisons of the 
  swamp bolster your undead form, take +1 to any attempt to dig into the bog. On a 7-9, they 
  leave you confused and disoriented; take -1 ongoing to study the ruins while you are there. 
  On a miss, mark the debility “Sick” until you have time to recover, outside of the Mired 
  Land, and take -1 ongoing to study the ruins. 
  When you dig into the mulch of the Mired Land, roll + Str. On a hit, you pull free some-
  thing valuable. Choose one:
  • A denizen of Lastlife, freed and grateful to you, offering assistance.
  • A relic of Lastlife, trapped amid the muck, blighted but useful.
  • A treasure of Lastlife, valuable and beautiful, lost in the muck, ready to be cleaned.
  • A remnant of the time before, reminding you of what once was; take 1 Memory.
  On a 7-9, the Mired Land sucks something away from you while you hunt. On a miss, you 
  are pulled bodily into the muck. 
  Questions:
  • What devices produced the poisons that now seep in the Mired Land?
  • Why are there so many bodies hidden in the muck of the Mired Land? 
  • Does the Mired Land have a will, a mind of its own?
  • Who would fight to keep the Mired Land as it is?
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  30
  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  The Narrow Streets
  A close-knit rat’s nest of streets and alleys. Once, the Narrow Streets were a town or a city, 
  crammed with people. These streets may have been claustrophobically tight, but they would 
  have been alive: smelly and cramped, but vibrant and bright. Now they are simply tight, 
  maze-like paths between walls of buildings, the doors all closed, locked, or rusted shut. 
  The Narrow Streets hide many horrors. Sometimes things look down from the windows on 
  either side of the streets, watching whoever streams through the thin paths below. Creatures 
  eager to feast upon the prey that comes so willingly into their domain. Predatory inhabi-
  tants of Lastlife, like the Hungry, use the Narrow Streets to stage ambushes to capture their 
  fellow denizens and take their unlives. The Narrow Streets hide many secrets and sharp 
  knives, and none who pass through them ever feel safe.
  This was once where the bulk of people lived, in the days before the end, and that press of 
  life has now turned into an oppressive feeling of death. The rats that once would’ve been 
  a commonplace truth are now large, festering abominations chittering down alleyways, 
  searching for anything to feast upon. The stray dogs and cats are now monstrous and feral, 
  ripping flesh from leather-skinned undead. And the people are either hiding, or mad with 
  their own hungers and pains.
  Passing through the Narrow Streets provides a shortcut, an alternative to passing through 
  the Mired Land. But the Narrow Streets have their own dangers. The strange groups of un-
  dead working together, hunting each other, using the Narrow Streets as their own personal 
  death mazes...they make traversing the Streets much more than simply unnerving.
  Custom Move:
  When you try to take a shortcut through the Narrow Streets, roll + Dex. On a hit, you get 
  where you’re headed in shorter time than any other path would take you. On a 10+, you also 
  catch wind of any threats along the streets before they have a chance to strike, and can avoid 
  them safely if you wish. On a 7-9, a threat is unavoidable, but you’re aware of it in advance. 
  Choose two to avoid.
  • A group of undead, mad with the pain of existence, or simply repeating the tor-
  tures they inflicted on travelers in life.
  • A wave of vermin washes through the narrow alleys, stripping everything from the 
  bones of those unfortunate enough to be caught by it.
  • A vicious trap, possibly set before the end, lies waiting to be triggered by anyone 
  foolish or desperate enough to pass by it.
  On a miss, you are caught unawares by the dangers of the Narrow Streets. Some combina-
  tion of the above—or some new horror—descends upon you without warning.
  Questions:
  • What was this place called before the end? 
  • Is there some force keeping the doors closed and the people trapped within?
  • Why do most of the citizenry of the Narrow Streets hide?
  • Do the paths of the Narrow Streets change?
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  31
  Broken Castles and Shattered Statues
  The History of Lastlife
  ...is lost.
  What came before the fall? Who built all these buildings? What was the government of this 
  place? Who were its rulers?
  None of those questions has an answer that anybody still remaining in the ruins knows. 
  When you play The Cold Ruins of Lastlife, you’ll fill in the answers and the history of 
  Lastlife. Some of it will come through the PCs’ bonds. Much of it will come from the new 
  move for spouting lore, recall a lost memory of Lastlife (see page 14). But the point is 
  that the majority of the details will be determined by you, at your table, for your particular 
  rendition of Lastlife. As they are revealed, the more they tie in to the different pieces in your 
  particular Lastlife, the better.
  There are only a few universal truths for the history of Lastlife.
  Before the fall, these were not ruins; they were magnificent and great. Then the fall came,  
  in some unclear capacity. The world died. It is now dead. How long it has been dead is  
  indeterminate, and unimportant. It’s functionally forever and no time at all. The world 
  limps on, barely alive, its life prolonged by the last few remnants of existence in its shell, 
  vultures and other carrion-feeders from across the spheres feasting upon its remaining flesh.
  Constructing Your Ruins
  When you play The Cold Ruins of Lastlife, you don’t have to use every single one of these 
  locations. You can use any combination of them. You can use your own locations, added to 
  the mix, as well. Assembling your version of the ruins is about putting together the pieces to 
  form a coherent whole. 
  When the PCs are traveling to a new place in the ruins, what do they have to pass through 
  to get there? That’s another piece of your ruins. How does having Griedhardt’s Grove next 
  door to the Castle Oblivion change the nature of your ruins? That’s an important question 
  to your specific version of Lastlife. Always be thinking about the overall picture of your 
  ruins, how the mysteries and opportunities of the different parts add together into a  
  single whole.
  A key to successfully constructing your ruins from the pieces here is to always draw maps 
  of how they connect, overlap, and lie with relation to each other. There is no definitive map 
  of Lastlife; the ruins are a shifting, foggy, forgotten limbo of fragments. Feel free to put 
  together these pieces in new and interesting ways that fit your particular game. If it makes 
  sense for the fiction of your game to have the Endless Corridors anchored to the very top of 
  the Castle Oblivion, then do that.
  
  Struggles in the Dark
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  33
  Struggles in the Dark
  There are currents in the dead places of Lastlife. Old hungers that drag onward to feed. 
  Patterns that repeat, until broken by decay, to the detriment of all. The ruins degrade, or re-
  build themselves into horrible new configurations. Without the intervention of the denizens 
  of Lastlife aware of the world around them, driven by radiance or memory, these forces will 
  overtake the ruins and reshape them into whatever they choose. 
  This chapter presents you with the fronts of The Cold Ruins of Lastlife. Each front is a 
  series of dangers that ultimately threaten to completely reshape the ruins in ways terrifying 
  and strange, ways that the PCs almost certainly would stand against. 
  When you’re running a game of The Cold Ruins of Lastlife, don’t use all of these fronts at 
  the same time; use the ones that come up, because you’re interested in them or because the 
  PCs stumble across them in their explorations. And if you need to, tweak or reshape these 
  fronts as desired; the ruins are mutable. If a front says that it primarily occupies a particu-
  lar area of the ruins, feel free to shift that if you really want to bring it in. In general, you 
  should only have about three or four of these fronts active at any given time; more than that 
  and it’s too much for the players and the PCs to deal with.
  These fronts are all set up like normal Dungeon World Adventure Fronts, with the Dangers 
  first, followed by the Grim Portents that lead up to the Impending Doom, and the Stakes 
  Questions about what’s truly at risk in this front. When using these fronts, though, keep in 
  mind that they represent forces in motion independent of the PCs; they keep moving, even 
  if the PCs don’t deal with them.
  The Hungry
  The ruins have little enough vitality to them as it is. Taking what little soul or motive force 
  is left in those weaker than you is monstrous, but is one of the only ways to alleviate the 
  pain of the undead existence. Those who hunt the other undead, who snatch up souls to  
  satiate their own cravings, are called the Hungry. They roam throughout the ruins, and 
  those with any skill only become stronger. 
  The older and more powerful they become, the more likely the Hungry are to hunt each 
  other. The oldest and strongest of the Hungry are powerful predators, no longer recogniz-
  able as anything else. All they feed upon are the souls of the other Hungry. 
  Even in this ruined world, they could bring a new doom, a worse fate still than the ruins. 
  Imagine one of them, grown enormously powerful after eons of the hunt. Grown fat on the 
  strength of those souls it stole. Grown into a strange, twisted god. The only being left in all 
  of the ruins, mad from its solitude, and powerful beyond measure. This is how a new mon-
  ster of the spheres is born. This is how the darkest god-things of the spaces between worlds 
  have come to be. If such nightmares come to pass, Lastlife would become little more than 
  an incubator for a new Thing From Outside. 
  
  The Hungry
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  35
  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Hunger
  Type: Ancient Curse (impulse: to ensnare) 
  The Hunger is the very thing that drives the Hungry to consume their fellow undead.  
  Everyone in the Cold Ruins can feel it, at least in part. Everyone knows its cold ache in  
  their hearts. But the Hungry have chosen to give in, and they lose themselves to it. It  
  becomes the whole of their being. 
  The Hunger is a drive from within and from beyond. It is the drive of self-destruction, for 
  the creation of a new monstrosity. The end result of the Hunger is the birth of a new Thing, 
  a new god-being of horror and terrible might. As well as the death of everything still, in any 
  way, shape, or form, alive in the ruins. 
  Danger: The Voidful Band 
  Type: Cabal (impulse: to absorb those in power, to grow) 
  The Voidful Band is a group of the Hungry, no more than 15 or so, joined in an alliance. 
  They will consume each other, if given a chance, but that is not why they band together 
  now. None can be assured of their triumph over the others, so they agreed to work together 
  to hunt others of the Hungry and the undead, to grow their own power. It is an arms race, 
  and they are all very careful about keeping up with their kin, so no one of them will ever  
  be able to consume the rest. In the meantime, they will happily consume everything they 
  come across. 
  As a band, they can do so much more than they can as individuals. Rituals. Joint attacks 
  and ambushes. Their danger to others is magnified exponentially. 
  Danger: Filth 
  Type: Power-Mad Wizard (impulse: to seek magical power) 
  Filth looks to be a boy, with dirty, mottled, pock-marked flesh. Rags hang off his thin 
  limbs. His shoes are ruined, and bony toes poke through. And yet, this undead boy is one of 
  the most powerful sorcerers stalking the ruins, seeking out prey and stealing lives. If there is 
  one of the Hungry most likely to win, to consume the rest and become a new god creature, 
  then it is Filth.
  He was given his name before the end. He was a kitchen boy first, and then a stable hand, 
  and then a beggar. He was kicked and trod upon. He was treated like his namesake—Filth. 
  He did have a name of his own once, and he would whisper it to himself as he went to sleep, 
  shivering in the cold and the dirt of the streets. But he has forgotten that name. All he 
  knows is Filth, and he has made it his own.
  In these lifeless days, Filth found a strength he never knew he had. He stole the cold life 
  from another undead, and another, and another, and in himself built a power that would 
  have rivaled any in the old world. All of Lastlife shall fall away before him, for he has no 
  mercy for the dead world that once tormented him so.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  36
  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Siphon Rite
  Type: Sentient Artifact (impulse: to find a worthy wielder) 
  The Siphon Rite is written upon a thin sheet of electrum, wrapped around the leg bone of 
  some long-forgotten sovereign from the world before the end. The words are etched in with 
  a pen made of wyvern’s tooth and ink made of distilled phoenix venom. An ancient oracle 
  caught in a trance wrote it, as images from beyond this sphere traveled through his hand 
  and onto the metallic page. A sacred artifact, it was seen as the key to saving the world at  
  its time of greatest need. It was hidden away, until it could be used to bring peace back to 
  this sphere. 
  Of course, all those stories are lies. The Siphon Rite is a trickled-in notion, a tiny embryonic 
  idea meant to blossom into a new form. 
  Some worlds the Things From Outside mean to eat. Others...they use to make more of their 
  kind. The Siphon Rite is an egg, planted into this world for that latter purpose. Along with 
  the press of the Hunger, which the Things use as a kind of reproductive urge, the Siphon is 
  there to help birth a new Thing. 
  Grim Portents
  • The Voidful Band locates the Siphon Rite in the Great Library. 
  • The Voidful Band retrieves the Siphon Rite. 
  • Filth decimates the Voidful Band and steals the Rite. 
  • Filth performs the Siphon Rite. He begins to absorb the life out of the ruins in an 
  ever-growing radius. 
  • The self-destructive urge of the Hunger responds to the Siphon and drives the 
  undead towards its pull, where Filth can absorb them. 
  • Filth has enough power to consume the whole of the ruins, and becomes a new 
  Thing From Outside. 
  Stakes
  • Who will use the Siphon Rite, if anyone? 
  • Will Filth become a new Thing From Outside? 
  • Will the Hunger grip the PCs? 
  Impending Doom 
  Destruction (The new Filth-Thing is born, and Lastlife is utterly destroyed, given over to 
  the existence of this creature.) 
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  37
  Struggles in the Dark
  The Prisons
  The world before Lastlife had conquered all its threats. It turned those dangers to good use, 
  imprisoning them and drawing from them, or treating them as strange objects to be viewed 
  for enjoyment. It treated monsters as art, abominations as generators. 
  But in Lastlife, those incredible constructions are broken; those viewing galleries, lost and 
  tarnished. All that truly remains of this gaudy hubris is the prisons themselves, holding 
  creatures of incredible power within. Lastlife has become a jail cell for them. Should they 
  escape their prisons, they would still be trapped inside the ruins themselves, this soulless 
  place beyond death as much a prison as any other. 
  These creatures seek escape. As much as any other denizen of Lastlife. And the costs of such 
  escape may be too high for this broken world to bear.
  Danger: The All-Dragon
  Type: Dark Portal (impulse: to disgorge dragons)
  Dragons are not from this world. Horribly monstrous, terrifying in power, fearsome in their 
  might and their intent. Whenever one died, another would be born, as they shared one 
  enormously powerful soul stretched between them. But the hero sages of the world before 
  found a way to defeat them, taking advantage of their joint soul to force them into a single 
  prison. 
  The All-Dragon is that orb-shaped prison. All the dragons in the world were forced beneath 
  its surface, in a ritual that took centuries to prepare and enact, and cost the world so many 
  lives. But it worked; the draconic threat was subdued, left as little more than a curiosity to 
  be periodically restored and refreshed with arcane rites. 
  An enormous structure ensconces the orb, which floats above a podium...all indications 
  that it came to be viewed as a thing to be observed, to be entranced by. An oddity, or an art 
  object. An indicator of the immense power of the world in the time before. To behold those 
  scales, those wings and claws, those terrifying serpentine eyes, all gazing out from beneath 
  the sphere’s surface with hatred and hunger...how could one not feel powerful and blessed?
  The All-Dragon still stands, the sphere floating above its podium, those scales and eyes 
  roiling just beneath the surface, brimming with endless hatred. But the maintenance of 
  the All-Dragon has ceased. The end of the world has weakened the prison. Now, a wingtip 
  emerges from the surface of the orb. A claw 
  stretches out for a brief second. A spurt of 
  flame or lightning or acid escapes the sphere 
  into the darkness beyond. The All-Dragon 
  is falling, and soon the dragons within will 
  be disgorged upon the world. A surging tide 
  of claw and wing, biting and snapping and 
  tearing whatever it can. 
  Dragon Names
  If dragons are released from the All-Dragon, 
  then you’ll need to give them names! Here are 
  a bunch to get you started:
  Ripclaw, Vertheriorax, Grax the Uncanny, 
  Qorhalloren Firetongue, Zirakkis, Nod  
  Hel Qren, Poisoned Eye, Jagged Hate,  
  Crolothus the Insatiable, Hatewyrm,  
  Feastfang, Sethenexis
  
  The All-Dragon
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  39
  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Demon Pool
  Type: Unholy Ground (impulse: to spawn evil)
  The Demon Pool was designed to channel the power of the creature held within into arti-
  facts and machines now long inactive and broken. It was both prison and generator. A ring 
  of green stones surrounded a pool of water, in which was held a terrifying demon—the only 
  one still on this plane of existence. 
  And now? Those stones are cracked, or shifted apart in the cataclysms that ended the world 
  and began Lastlife. Age has weakened the bindings of the Demon Pool, and the creature  
  inside has begun to exercise its power. Now, the Demon Pool stands not as a true prison, 
  but as a birthplace, from which Oriaxanysoth can send forth its own will and its power in 
  the form of its unending young, slowly corrupting all of Lastlife and its denizens to the 
  demon’s own purpose. 
  Danger: Oriaxanysoth
  Type: Demon Prince (impulse: to open the gates of its hellplane)
  Oriaxanysoth is the demon held within the Demon Pool. A massive creature, like some 
  abyssal insect or crustacean, all chitin and inhuman eyes, claws and antennae and hatred. 
  Oriaxanysoth has been imprisoned in the Demon Pool for eons, but it is an immortal crea-
  ture, and has bided its time, even past the ending of the world. And now it is seizing upon 
  its chance. 
  Oriaxanysoth craves escape from the Pool, and a return to its home, a horrible hellplane of 
  monstrosities and torture. But it also seeks vengeance upon this place, decrepit and broken 
  as it is; it will crush this plane that has served as its prison for so long. It will not simply 
  shatter its cage and return home; it will rip open a hole in this world, and it will lead its kin 
  here, to feast upon the residue of this world’s greatness and to torture all who remain. It will 
  exact its vengeance.
  Already, the bindings of the Demon Pool weaken, and Oriaxanysoth can extend its will 
  outward. It has begun to spawn, producing countless offspring in the Demon Pool. It sends 
  its offspring in wave upon wave at the wards and walls of the Pool. While countless of them 
  die, dissolved into nothingness upon those arcane runes, others make it past the Pool’s 
  bindings, and into Lastlife as a whole. Through its young, Oriaxanysoth can take over those 
  in Lastlife with enough power to finally break its bindings and free it. 
  
  The Demon Pool
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  41
  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Broken
  Type: Ancient Curse (impulse: to ensnare)
  The Broken are those who take the offspring of Oriaxanysoth into themselves. These off-
  spring, smaller versions of Oriaxanysoth, squirming out blindly from the Demon Pool to 
  seek out the denizens of Lastlife, do not appear dangerous compared to much in the ruins. 
  Though they carry forth the will of their parent, looking for power to break the Demon 
  Pool, they are small, and they bring their own boons. They offer immense might to those 
  they find. All a denizen of Lastlife need do is take the offspring into themselves and bind 
  with the creature, and then a taste of the godlike demonic might of Oriaxanysoth is theirs. 
  The new Broken is empowered, mighty, incredible. 
  And in exchange, the voice of the offspring sings in the Broken’s mind. The Broken is asked 
  to free still more of its parent, and still more of its siblings. A small price to pay, especially 
  since freeing Oriaxanysoth will only increase the power of those who take the offspring  
  into themselves. 
  Danger: The Escapists
  Type: Misguided Good (impulse: to free themselves from this plane no matter the cost)
  The Escapists are denizens of Lastlife who seek freedom. They believe, truly and deeply, 
  that this plane is lost. This world is over. And the only hope they have of finding anything 
  beyond the endless fog and despair is to leave this world behind, forever. They seek to pene-
  trate the barrier between this world and the rest of the spheres, and to find new life some-
  where else, far from here. They collect what arcane knowledge, power, and machinery they 
  can, all in hopes of assembling from it something that can pierce into the multiverse. 
  Though the movement as a whole is led by a denizen named Veena Endrada, they are all 
  separate and pursuing their own means of escape, only coming together insofar as they 
  realize they need each other to get out of Lastlife. And Veena has realized what she can use 
  to break free of this broken world.
  The offspring of Oriaxanysoth? Excellent for providing them the power they need to pierce 
  the unending void beyond this world. The Demon Pool itself? If they could harness it, it too 
  would serve their needs. The All-Dragon? Perhaps the Escapists could ask for a boon from 
  the great serpents after freeing them. Such a boon might make all the difference in learning 
  how to escape. 
  Veena sees in these failing prisons opportunities for her own escape, and she will guide the 
  other Escapists to follow her path.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  42
  Struggles in the Dark
  Grim Portents 
  • The Escapists find secrets in the Great Library, pointing to the rites necessary  
  to break asunder the All-Dragon, and the means to power them through the 
  Demon Pool.
  • Some of the Escapists become Broken, taking in the offspring of Oriaxanysoth,  
  to barter for the power for their rites.
  • The Escapists attempt to crack open the All-Dragon to call upon its power, and 
  succeed only in freeing a single dragon (choose a name from the list above).
  • Veena Endrada becomes one of the Broken, taking an offspring of Oriaxanysoth 
  into herself, to better guide and power the rituals.
  • Oriaxanysoth uses a now pliant Veena to lead the Escapists in successfully  
  breaking open the All-Dragon fully, claiming that it will also tear open a way  
  out of Lastlife.
  • In the devastation wrought by the freed dragons, the Demon Pool weakens, and 
  Oriaxanysoth escapes to tear open a portal to its hellplane. 
  Stakes
  • Will the Escapists and Veena Endrada find a way out of Lastlife, safely?
  • Will the dragons be released from the All-Dragon?
  • Who will take up Oriaxanysoth’s offspring and become Broken?
  • Will the Demon Pool fall?
  Impending Doom
  Rampant Chaos (Lastlife, and what little order and structure it had, falls beneath the 
  plague of dragons and Oriaxanysoth’s kin spewing from the hellplane. It becomes a hell-
  plane in its own right.)
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  43
  Struggles in the Dark
  The Final Darkness
  Lastlife is a world limping on past its own true end. It’s an anomaly in the vast variety of the 
  spheres, but not unknown. It should be over, gone, washed away entirely. As it is, only frag-
  ments of life and memory keep it staggering onward. A prison, a limbo, a repeating pattern 
  of death and fog and lifelessness.
  But that means that a truer, final end still awaits. Not a catastrophic end, an explosion that 
  takes away the world in a ball of flame; Lastlife is no longer deserving of such an apoca-
  lypse. No, Lastlife faces a fading away, darkness passing over all of its structures and peo-
  ples, until all of them melt away into nothingness. Forgotten memories lost upon the foam 
  of worlds. The Final Darkness. 
  Forces at work within Lastlife represent its own entropic tendency towards this umbral end. 
  They bring the true death of Lastlife ever closer, each in their own way, some without even 
  truly realizing it. And to those who live in the ruins, who might seek to restore the past or 
  start something new, these forces of the ultimate end are as great a threat as any.
  Danger: The Stalker in Ruins
  Type: Construct of Law (impulse: to eliminate perceived disorder)
  The Stalker in Ruins isn’t from Lastlife. It came from outside, pierced the deadened walls of 
  this plane with the sheer force of its trajectory, and landed here to serve its purpose: diag-
  nose Lastlife and its state. Determine utility. Terminate, or infest.
  The Stalker in Ruins is a creature of the Things From Outside, those massive creatures 
  living in the void between spheres, looking upon worlds as tasty morsels or as potential in-
  cubators. To them, Lastlife could be a perfect incubator...but it is an oddity. A dilemma. The 
  world should be passing on, to allow a new world to arise. A new world the Things could 
  consume. Instead, it lingers. And while it might serve as an incubator, the Things cannot be 
  sure. Lastlife shows strange signs of life.
  So they send into Lastlife a creature they crafted out of rules and structure, a creature 
  designed to study the ruins, to learn them inside and out, and to either plunge them into 
  nothingness, or prepare Lastlife to birth a new Thing. The Stalker in Ruins is this probe, 
  this living creature of the Things’ essence, studying the ruins and hunting out whatever 
  strange forces keep Lastlife lingering on. 
  It took very little time for the Stalker to determine that the forces necessary to transform 
  Lastlife into an incubator are well outside of its own control. Instead, it would seek to 
  plunge Lastlife into the final dark. If that means killing denizens of Lastlife looking to 
  restore the ruins, so be it. If that means finding a way to awaken the final bringers of dark-
  ness, so be it. The Stalker in Ruins will hunt and find a way to end this dead world, once 
  and for all.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  44
  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Dark Waters
  Type: Dark Portal (impulse: to disgorge demons)
  The Dark Waters lie beyond the Lighthouse. The endless sea, as far as the eye can see. Black 
  water, thick, impossible to view through, with clouds of fog roiling across its normally 
  gentle surface. The Dark Waters are a boundary of Lastlife, an end to the ruins, as definitive 
  as any. And the Lighthouse’s increasingly feeble light marks out that boundary for the rest 
  of Lastlife. 
  But the Lighthouse isn’t there to guide ships into port; it’s there to keep something at bay. 
  To keep something asleep. And as the fire in the Lighthouse wanes, the things in the waters 
  stir. The Dark Waters ripple and move. Things rise to the surface. 
  The creatures living beneath the surface of the Dark Waters are not easy to describe. They 
  aren’t just monsters. They aren’t even forces from outside this world. They are the death 
  of the world embodied. Fragments of the world’s doom that still remain, sunk below the 
  waves. They sleep, their job done, having ended the world. But as the Lighthouse’s fires die 
  and they come forth, realizing that their job is not finished, they will send Lastlife into the 
  shadows once and for all. 
  What’s in the waters?
  What do you think? Enormous giants of dead flesh. Horrible eldritch creatures of scales 
  and tentacles. War machines, titanic in size, the very weapons that ushered in the doom 
  of the world. Any of these and more could work.
  The key to the Dark Waters and what lies beneath them isn’t explicitly saying what 
  horrible things the Lighthouse keeps asleep; it’s just knowing that they are horrible, and 
  world-ending. That they represent the forces that ended the world once before, and they 
  will rise to finish the job. 
  If, over the course of play, you find out more about what ended the world in the first 
  place, then you should adapt whatever lies under the Dark Waters to fit that truth.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  45
  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Ruined
  Type: Plague of the Undead (impulse: to spread)
  The first Ruined were not like the other denizens of Lastlife. They were not trapped into  
  repetitive patterns, or suffering from the foggy memory loss that afflicted their kin. They 
  did not die and return, or awaken in a haze of foggy memory and lost purpose, as most  
  denizens did. They saw the end. It touched them. And it changed them. It lives in them, 
  now, in their hollow eyes, in their haggard forms, in their empty souls.
  The Ruined are mindless and dangerous, erratic and frightening. Some of the Ruined stand 
  in a single spot for eons, even as their garb disintegrates on their bodies and the sheer pres-
  sure against their legs leads their bones to snap. Some trudge in mindless circles, wearing 
  grooves into the cobblestones of Lastlife. Some run haphazardly at any other creatures they 
  see, desperately attempting to claw out eyes and hunks of flesh, unthinkingly. Madly. 
  All of them bear a much deeper threat than whatever dark, apocalyptic madness lives inside 
  the remains of their souls. The doom that made them what they are, that stole from them 
  even the half-lives of the other denizens of Lastlife...it can spread. It can leave them through 
  their fingers, through their poisoned breath, through their hatred and their venom. And 
  other denizens can find themselves brought down by this sickening doom, changed into the 
  Ruined, carrying their own pieces of the world’s doom inside them. Becoming little more 
  than crazed servants of a doom that never will return. Knowing, with every fiber of their 
  being, that they should be gone, should be vanished into the darkness...and knowing simul-
  taneously that they are not, and driven mad by that contradiction.
  Danger: The Ghost of the First Sorcerer
  Type: Power-Mad Wizard (impulse: to seek magical power)
  A creature of legend, even in the world before the end. The First Sorcerer, the one who 
  cracked the world just enough to let the magic seep in. An outsider, bound within the pris-
  on of mortal flesh, who reshaped the world to her own whim. Who created the First Sover-
  eignty and ruled with lightning and iron. Who plowed entire mountains and forests under 
  the force of her will. In myth barely remembered in the Cold Ruins, the First Sorcerer was 
  said to have finally fallen to the combined ghosts of all those who died at her hands. 
  And now, in Lastlife? The Ghost of the First Sorcerer returns, aching for power. 
  Is it truly the Ghost of the First Sorcerer? A resurrected figure of myth and legend? None 
  can tell. But it hardly matters either way. The Ghost desires to doom this world. To bring it 
  into a necroplane, where she might rule it as a spectral overlord. She has become an agent of 
  the world’s death, in exchange for the chance to take power over this place once more...or so 
  she believes. Whether there is such a place, beyond death, where she will rule, no one truly 
  knows. But she believes, and she has power, and that is all that matters. Her power extends 
  over the doom of the world, and all those who carry the world’s doom within them.
  The Ghost of the First Sorcerer sweeps out from her hidden tomb in the ruins, and she seeks 
  the might to bring the world to a close, once and for all.
  
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  Struggles in the Dark
  Grim Portents 
  • The Ghost of the First Sorcerer taps into the Ruined and begins to assemble a  
  true horde, infecting other denizens of Lastlife with the Ruined plague.
  • The Stalker in Ruins diagnoses Lastlife as terminal and pledges fealty to the 
  Ghost, serving her will to end the world.
  • The Stalker in Ruins finds the Lighthouse on Dark Waters and reports back  
  to the Ghost.
  • The Ghost advances on and destroys the Lighthouse with her horde of Ruined.
  • Monstrosities rise from the Dark Waters and reach Lastlife, destroying whatever 
  they encounter, including the Ghost of the First Sorcerer.
  • The Stalker in Ruins physically bonds with the monstrosities destroying Lastlife, 
  turning them into creatures of the Things From Outside and ending the world 
  once and for all.
  Stakes
  • Will the plague of the Ruined spread throughout Lastlife?
  • Will the Ghost of the First Sorcerer find a way to plunge the world into a  
  spectral afterlife?
  • Will the fire in the Lighthouse be rekindled, or extinguished?
  • Will the Stalker in Ruins find a way to doom this world?
  Impending Doom 
  Pestilence (The Ruined plague spreads throughout Lastlife as the world slowly but surely 
  falls to the monstrosities and becomes totally silent.)
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
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  Struggles in the Dark
  The Tumorous Growth
  Even amid The Cold Ruins of Lastlife, where the world has ended and all life simply 
  continues unthinkingly...there comes new growth. Strange growth. Abominable growth. 
  Creatures and things that flourish in this broken world, finding cracks into which to spread 
  their roots, and consuming whatever they need to grow larger. Lastlife is a dead place, but  
  a dead place with a cancer inside of it, and soon that cancer will grow to engulf the whole  
  of the ruins, changing them forever into something new...but perhaps more monstrous  
  than before.
  Danger: Griedhardt’s Grove
  Type: Elemental Vortex (impulse: to grow, to tear apart reality)
  The Grove was created in the days before the end, for reasons lost to most of the denizens 
  now. But it flourishes with an arcane power. Perhaps its herbs were meant to be used in 
  ritual and rite; perhaps it was simply magically supported. Perhaps it was a breeding ground 
  for new monstrosities. Whichever, the Grove has a strength to it that keeps it growing even 
  despite the death surrounding it on all sides in Lastlife. 
  And as the Grove grows, it consumes the ruins. Walls crack apart, their stones integrated 
  into the ground itself to provide more for the Grove to grow on. Buildings become trellises 
  for strange new vines. The denizens themselves become little more than mulch or fertilizer. 
  Griedhart’s Grove
  ,
  
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  Struggles in the Dark
  What drives this monstrous growth? It seems the true source of the proliferation, and the 
  power, lies in the Grove itself. It is the nature of this place, this strange verdant tumor, to 
  grow larger and larger, to expand with neon green vines and brightly colored poisoned  
  flowers amid the dank gray of Lastlife. To those denizens who care about new life in the 
  ruins, the Grove represents a kind of terrible, nightmarish hope; new life can spread, yes, 
  but what will it look like?
  Danger: The Tree Kraken
  Type: Elemental Lord (impulse: to tear down creation into its component parts and grow)
  Though the Grove is creating all new kinds of life, from plants never seen before in this 
  world to poor monstrous animals infected with spores and vines, there is at least one 
  creature making Griedhardt’s Grove its home that has been in this world for ages; the Tree 
  Kraken. A primordial thing from the earliest days of the world. At its greatest, it spread 
  its roots across miles, becoming a single, massive, networked forest of hunger and titanic 
  branches. The Tree Kraken could consume whatever it wished. It could watch over the 
  entirety of its being with eyes that sprung to life from knots on its trees. It was undefeatable, 
  a god ruling over its land. 
  Eventually it was brought low by the combined efforts of mythic heroes, the ones who 
  first started building the world from before into the great heights it would achieve. But it 
  left behind a single seed, and it grew back, only to be struck down once more. The cycle 
  continued for eons, the Tree Kraken leaving a seed, returning, only to be burned away once 
  more—until the heroes captured the seed. They locked it away, where it could not plant 
  itself. Where it could not grow.
  Until now. Whether it was planted in the Grove before the end of the world...or perhaps 
  the prison of the seed was the reason for the Grove’s existence...or perhaps the seed simply 
  escaped its prison, and through some terrible, alien will it drove itself here...none know. It 
  doesn’t matter. The Tree Kraken is here. It grows again, its roots and branches spreading 
  throughout the Grove. It consumes those it can, those poor denizens that stumble into the 
  Grove unawares. Meager meals, but it will take what it can get in these days. 
  It will spread itself across all of Lastlife, bringing down these ruins, and making itself once 
  more into the enormous plant-god of this place.
  Danger: The Carapace Fungus
  Type: Ancient Curse (impulse: to ensnare)
  It grows on trees, it creeps across rocks, emerging in strange sharpened plate-like forma-
  tions. Amid the mad vegetation within Griedhardt’s Grove, it might go unnoticed, just 
  another strange form of life amid the chaos. 
  
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  Struggles in the Dark
  But as intelligent creatures pass, the fungal protrusions bend and stretch toward them. They 
  beckon, with gentle wavings and vibrations. They call to the denizens of Lastlife that 
  venture into the Grove, and there’s something strangely hypnotic about their undulations. 
  All it takes is one simple exploratory touch for the fungus to leap across the boundary and 
  infect the creature. 
  The strange mushrooms and tubers may not appear immediately. They’re there, but they’re 
  small and unnoticeable. Given time, though, the fungus makes itself known. It especially 
  surges forth every time the creature it has infected is threatened, every time they are harmed 
  or killed, every time the mists take them and they return in the strange cycle of Lastlife. In 
  those times, the Carapace Fungus spreads like a virus, covering tracts of the infected being’s 
  skin with new, hardened mushrooms. Veins of hardened vegetation stretch across desiccated 
  skin, and each vein is harder than iron. A general sheen of the fungus’s strange red-green 
  coloration covers the skin itself, and penetrating that is like pushing through chain mail. 
  What a wonder, then, it would seem! The Carapace Fungus is a natural armor, strong and 
  light. A wonderful new lifeform of the Grove. Something to be fostered and cultivated. 
  The truth of the Carapace Fungus, however, is far more sinister. The fungus spreads, and 
  branches, and infects. Those it infects become powerful and invulnerable...but as the fungus 
  burrows into their bodies, the strange unlife that animates them becomes slave to the fun-
  gus. Their joints do not move of their own accord. Their body becomes stiff, except when 
  the fungus allows it to move, and indeed drives it to move. Eventually the entirety of the 
  creature is encased in the fungus, and its body, its very mind, is no longer its own.
  The fungus has yet to colonize many bodies to that extent. Most undead have such strength 
  sapped from them long before that point, falling in the Grove to simply join the fertile 
  ground, covered by still more plants. Those few the fungus does have hide themselves deep 
  in the Grove. For what purpose, none know. But that doesn’t change the threat the fungus 
  poses to Lastlife and its denizens. If the fungus were to grow its own army of infected, 
  controlled servants, the ruins would become little more than the domain of the Carapace.
  Danger: The Rose
  Type: Sentient Artifact (impulse: to find a worthy wielder)
  There are treasures scattered throughout Lastlife. Artifacts and wonders, buried deep or 
  ensconced within treasuries and vaults. Locked away, where the ruins and its trials cannot 
  destroy them. Some of them, great and majestic workings of invention. Some of them,  
  beautiful and moving pieces of art. And at least one of them, a true, glowing, shining  
  remnant of the last world’s wonder.
  The Rose is the only one of its kind in all of Lastlife. Even amid the cancerous growth of  
  the Grove, there are no roses. Flowers, maybe, but not roses. 
  
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  Struggles in the Dark
  The Rose grows, alone, in the middle of the Grove, surrounded by a circle of glass vines. 
  Each leaf is inscribed with runes whose magic keeps the Rose separate and safe from the 
  world around it, perfectly preserving its vibrancy and its power. 
  Whoever ensconced the Rose within this circle of glass vines may or may not have under-  
  stood what they were truly doing, especially in the face of the end of the world. But it  
  matters not; what matters is what happened. The Rose is not simply an isolated, saved piece 
  of natural wonder. It became a receptacle for the natural bounty of the world that was.
  Griedhardt’s Grove is a place of pure, unbridled, cancerous life.  And the Rose is life as 
  beauty, all contained in this single object.
  And as such, the Rose could be the bridle for the Grove. Its power, released and used, could 
  guide and control the Grove into new shapes and forms. The Rose itself seeks release, seeks 
  use as a controlling scepter for the Grove. To bring back the roses of the world, to bring 
  back hope. And of course the Grove itself, with its slow non-intellect, seeks to taint the 
  Rose. To bring it into the Grove and infect it with its own strange, new life.
  Grim Portents
  • The Tree Kraken’s growth disturbs the ground where the Rose is held; the circle of 
  glass vines is broken. The Rose repels the Tree Kraken’s further growth in the area. 
  • The Rose calls to powerful denizens of Lastlife, who push through the Grove to 
  get to the vault. 
  • The Carapace Fungus infects many of those denizens, leading the whole to grow  
  in intelligence and power.
  • The Tree Kraken and the Carapace Fungus merge into a single invulnerable  
  creature, the Kraken’s will guiding the fungus and those infected by it.
  • The Carapace Kraken uses its controlled victims to obtain the Rose and bring it 
  back to the Kraken’s main corpus, where it can be consumed. 
  • Griedhardt’s Grove grows with insane speed and force, guided by the Rose and  
  the Carapace Kraken, and quickly overwhelms the whole of the ruins.
  Stakes
  • Who will obtain and use the Rose? Will it survive the violence and horror  
  of Lastlife?
  • Will the Tree Kraken produce offspring?
  • Will the Carapace Fungus infect someone powerful or important?
  • Will Griedhardt’s Grove overwhelm the ruins with its growth?
  Impending Doom 
  Usurpation (The Carapace Kraken, in control of the cancerous growth of the Grove and in 
  turn all of Lastlife, rules the entire remaining world and turns it into a breeding ground for 
  new young Carapace Krakens.)
  
  The Deepwasp
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  52
  Struggles in the Dark
  The Abominations
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife are not simply home to the undead, the leftovers of the old 
  world, or those strangely revived by the mists. They are home to strange new life, and 
  imprisoned creatures, yes...but they are also home to horrible monsters, creatures that either 
  survived through sheer will and monstrous strength beyond the end of the world, or that 
  could only have been created in the ruined world of Lastlife. These abominations, these 
  nightmare monsters, only grow stronger as they stalk the ruins. Each one of them bears 
  within it the seed of a new doom, a new monstrous world, and it is down to those denizens 
  of Lastlife remaining with their own will to either slay these abominations, or to push them 
  to places where they can do little harm.
  Danger: The Frigid Knights
  Type: Corrupt Government (impulse: to maintain the status quo)
  There are very few pieces of the old world that truly survived into Lastlife. The Frigid 
  Knights, for better or worse, are one of them.
  They were slayers. Killers of eldritch abominations, of monsters vast in size and power.  
  Their blades were made of ice, and everywhere they walked, they brought with them cold 
  mists. Each bore a shard of the primal ice in their hearts, and they devoted themselves to 
  putting out the fires of the world. Bringing order. Seeking stagnation and frozen purity. 
  Soon enough they slew both human and inhuman monster. They slew nations. They were 
  hated throughout the world, turned out from cities and towns on sight. But they didn’t  
  care; the cold gripped their hearts fully. They had their own purpose.
  And here in Lastlife, that purpose persists. 
  The truth they do not understand, however, is the danger of the cold and the ice they call 
  upon. Their frozen might blooms in the ruins of Lastlife. Even as they tap into the primal 
  ice to form their unstoppable blades, they feed it more strength, and they freeze the world 
  around them. They push Lastlife ever further towards total and utter stagnation.
  Hasper Blight was the first of the Frigid Knights, the most in touch with the primal ice. 
  He still leads, but the Frigid Knights need no true leader or structure of their own. The 
  ice speaks to them. It tells them of what monsters to slay, what tasks to pursue...and the 
  Knights listen. To the potential icy doom of all of Lastlife.
  Danger: The Deepwasp
  Type: God (impulse: to gather worshippers)
  The Deepwasp is a bizarre being. It looks like an enormous wasp, sitting upon its fat and 
  heavy abdomen. Small hands emerge from the ends of its legs, and human eyes peer out 
  from its head. Its wings are gossamer and pearlescent, and couldn’t possibly lift the Deep-
  wasp into the air. It sits at the center of a strange cluster of architecture, buildings made of 
  odd materials, beautiful in their own way, reflecting the gray of Lastlife in peculiar bands of 
  chromatic light. Gems and old inscriptions adorn the pillar upon which it perches: the story 
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  53
  Struggles in the Dark
  of how it came to be, perhaps? Or of one of its accomplishments? If the Deepwasp can read 
  those inscriptions, it certainly isn’t saying what they hold.
  This strange creature, this strange monster, claims itself to have been with the world since 
  its very first day. The Deepwasp was there when this sphere was formed out of the inchoate 
  chaos of the cosmos, it was there when the world ended, and it is here still. It knows how to 
  restore the world; such is its infinite knowledge and wisdom. Its power is great, but limited 
  by rules only the Deepwasp itself understands. It cannot leave its place of power to go into 
  the ruins. Or so it says to the denizens of Lastlife who happen upon its lair.
  The Deepwasp’s plans are to revive Lastlife. To bring back the glory days of this world, 
  to return it to its amazing wonder. And upon doing so, the Deepwasp shall emerge from 
  its current home, and shall rise to become god of the world. And it shall of course richly 
  reward those who served it well in its endeavors, those who helped it to return the world  
  to glory, for it is a benevolent god.
  Simply listen to the Deepwasp and all shall be made right. Disobey, and doom shall fill  
  the ruins evermore. Strike at the Deepwasp, and it shall wield all its might and crush you 
  into dust. 
  Or so it says. The Deepwasp, though clearly powerful, is a creature of lies and confusing 
  words. Those who listen to it believe its words at their own fortune or peril.
  Danger: The Ruinworm
  Type: Force of Chaos (impulse: to destroy all semblance of order)
  The Ruinworm is a monstrosity never seen before the endless days of Lastlife. Segmented 
  plates. Mandibles. Multiple heads, more growing out from its main body. It moves through 
  dirt like water, and it moves through the air like a dancer, or a nightmarish bird of  
  unending grace. It slips through the ruins with ease when it aims to, but usually it smashes 
  into them, sending buildings and towers crumbling to the ground. The Ruinworm is a  
  creature of destruction and it destroys whatever it finds in its way, consuming those  
  shattered structures. It draws nourishment not from consuming the stone or marble, but 
  rather from consuming the destruction wrought on those materials by the fall, or by time, 
  or by the Ruinworm itself.
  With each successive meal, the creature grows larger. Grows another head. Grows another 
  pair of biting mandibles. And its hunger increases. 
  It shows no great intelligence, no overarching plan. Just an unending strength and vora-
  cious ferocity. It will crush the ruins of Lastlife into food for itself, and then, when it has 
  consumed all and it has grown titanic...then, one imagines, it will shatter its way out of this 
  world to find more to ruin.
  
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  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Unborn Nightmare
  Type: Chosen One (impulse: to fulfill or resent their destiny)
  The product of a mad wizard’s experimentations? Some eldritch thing from beyond the 
  world that slipped inside during the cataclysm? A living embodiment of nightmare, drawn 
  here by the dreams of countless sleeping undead? Memories of the creature are gone, if  
  they were ever there, so the denizens who see it can only wonder at its true nature. But the 
  creature exists, and cannot be denied, no matter how much the denizens of Lastlife would 
  like to leave it in some hole, to be forever ignored.
  The Unborn Nightmare is a giant, towering fifty feet into the air. Its head is strangely like 
  that of a babe, but one with dead skin, and black eyes like infinite pits. Its teeth are sharp-
  ened and jagged. Beneath its head is its body, skinless—massive muscles and sinew visibly 
  stretching with every movement of its limbs. Enormous steel rings embedded in its body 
  hold it together, jangling and shifting as it stomps through the ruins. 
  In truth, there is a purpose sewn into the Unborn Nightmare’s entire being, but it never 
  took form, never took shape the way it was meant to. It may have been a nascent god, or 
  some angel come to the world to help guide it away from its end. It may have been a demon, 
  here to doom the world endlessly. But either way, the cataclysm that ended the world and 
  brought on Lastlife changed everything, and the Unborn Nightmare never emerged into 
  that destined form. Now, it stalks through the ruins, a confused and disoriented creature.  
  A prophecy and purpose still embedded into its very being, but it is entirely unaware of that 
  function, unable to fulfill it. In its hatred, its rage and fear and pain, it seeks answers to its 
  purpose from any it encounters. And when they cannot provide it with the truths it wants, 
  it destroys them.
  Danger: The Executioner
  Type: Lord of the Undead (impulse: to seek true immortality)
  The Executioner is an embodied impulse. Perhaps it arose from a denizen of Lastlife,  
  carrying out their last remembered purpose, ending lives. But since then it has become 
  something much stronger. Much more powerful. And much worse. 
  The Executioner’s ever-increasing patchwork cloak of black fabric largely shrouds its body, 
  enwrapping the whole of it. Over where its head should be, it wears its hood pulled forward, 
  along with the metallic mantle of the Executioner from the days before the end—something 
  it found, maybe, or preserved in the ruins. The same fabric shrouds its arms most of the 
  time, but sometimes it reaches out and the fabric pulls away, and its victims can see its  
  true form. 
  In the place of its own arms, the Executioner has countless limbs, taken from its victims, 
  melted together into a thick whole. It holds its enormous axe in innumerable hands, each 
  one taken from someone it has slain. Countless heads make up its head; its eyes, all stolen, 
  dotting its face like glistening jewels. Its body is a patchwork of the bodies of those it has 
  executed, and it continues growing with each kill it makes.
  
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  Struggles in the Dark
  This impulse drives the Executioner—to kill, to execute, to remove threats and administer 
  the end. Not for justice, but just to fulfill its role. The Executioner. And it builds those it 
  kills into itself, taking some piece of the death it deals forward with it. Those denizens of 
  Lastlife that it slays and adds to itself are lost to the mists; they shall never walk the ruins 
  again.
  With every kill, the Executioner makes itself stronger, and pushes away its own end still 
  further. When it has killed every single denizen of Lastlife, and carries within its body a 
  piece of all of them, then it will have fulfilled its purpose...and it will be a creature immor-
  tal, beyond death, sitting upon a throne made of ruin.
  Grim Portents 
  • The Frigid Knights focus upon the Deepwasp, Ruinworm, Executioner, and  
  Unborn Nightmare.
  • The Deepwasp makes a deal with the Frigid Knights to help them slay the other 
  abominations in exchange for allowing it to survive. They agree, for now. 
  • The Frigid Knights lure the Ruinworm, Executioner, and Unborn Nightmare into 
  the ruins of Lastlife, driving them together.
  • The battle between the Ruinworm, Executioner, Unborn Nightmare, and Frigid 
  Knights ends with the Ruinworm, Executioner, and most Frigid Knights slain and 
  the Unborn Nightmare escaped.
  • Hasper Blight, the last Frigid Knight, murders the Deepwasp in vengeance for the 
  dooming of the Knights.
  • Hasper Blight engages the Unborn Nightmare in battle and kills it; the entirety of 
  Lastlife is plunged into eternal winter. Blight becomes the Frigid King.
  Stakes
  • Who will accept the primal ice into their heart to contend with the abominations?
  • What will the Ruinworm, Executioner, and Unborn Nightmare destroy?
  • Will the Deepwasp achieve the godhood it seeks?
  Impending Doom 
  Tyranny (Hasper Blight, the Frigid King, rules over a Lastlife frozen by the primal ice.)
  The Crimes of the Past
  Lastlife is not natural. It did not happen as the result of a normal series of events. It is the 
  result of crimes, transgressions, mistakes. The cataclysm that ended the world and brought 
  on Lastlife might have just ended everything, but the actions of those before the cataclysm 
  somehow preserved the world’s existence. The crimes of the past still haunt the ruins, even 
  though many of them are unremembered, even by those who perpetrated them. The victims 
  are often the ones with the strongest memories of what came before, and they seek ven-
  geance, even in this haunted dead limbo of a world. 
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
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  Struggles in the Dark
  Danger: The Seraph of Traevor
  Type: Choir of Angels (impulse: to pass judgment)
  In the days before Lastlife, there were many great heroes. Many who did amazing things, 
  deeds that would go down in history forever (or at least, until the cataclysm that stole mem-
  ory from the world). And she was one of the greatest. The Seraph of Traevor, they called her. 
  What was Traevor? That truth is lost in Lastlife. But Seraph they called her because of her 
  winged armor. Because of the silver of its steel. Because of her Godsword. 
  She was beloved, and noble. She defended the people from gods and demons. She fostered 
  growth, order, and justice. And eventually she died, not at the hands of some monster,  
  but of old age. She had done her duty for this world many times over, and her passing  
  was mourned.
  But then the powers-that-be, the rulers of that world, become concerned. They thought they 
  would need her still. So they began work to return her. They wove magic into her empty  
  armor, and they bound her soul to it. They equipped it with greater weapons than ever, with 
  a hammer that could break apart whole lands. They made her armor a behemoth of steel 
  and silver. And they summoned back her soul. Taking her from the rest that she had so 
  richly deserved and forcing her back into this world.
  What they created was a monster. The pain drove her, thirsting for vengeance against those 
  who had stolen her rest. She did not want to continue to exist, and her nature was broken 
  and weak. Those who made her tried to unmake her, and when it appeared they had suc-
  ceeded, they buried her armor in shame.
  Then came the cataclysm. And with it, Lastlife and the revival of the armor. They had never 
  fully broken the bindings that tied her soul to it, and in the mists and cold death of Lastlife, 
  her soul was pulled back here, into her armor. She burst forth through the ground, all rage 
  and grief, and sought vengeance upon those who brought her here. She hunts for them still, 
  soaring through the ruins of Lastlife, striking at those she recognizes. A hero, destroyed by 
  those she had defended. 
  Danger: The Hol’Jethariae
  Type: Religious Organization (impulse: to interpret and follow doctrine)
  The Hol’Jethariae are devoted to a single cause: the Kingdom of old, and its ruler. 
  Do they remember the name of the Kingdom? No. 
   
  Do they remember why it’s so important? No. 
     Do they know the parents of their Kingdom’s rightful ruler? No. 
   
        Do they know who their Kingdom’s ruler is? Yes. 
  It is the one truth that they can absolutely clutch, that they have a concrete reality for. The 
  Hol’Jethariae worship their ruler, an infant encased in a crystal orb. Untainted, untouched 
  by the ruin of Lastlife, but trapped forever. They believe, to the core of their beings, that at 
  the right time, the crystal will be shattered, and the rightful ruler of the Kingdom will be 
  
  The Hol Jethariae
  ,
  
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  Struggles in the Dark
  released, to make the Kingdom come alive again. They have no idea concept of when that 
  right time will come...but that does not shake their belief. 
  The Hol’Jethariae defend their future queen with every fiber of their being, the same way 
  that other denizens of Lastlife wander aimlessly, or repeat their patterns without thought. 
  But some of them, those capable of greater will, seek further means of bringing about the 
  rise of the reborn Kingdom. 
  Knight Rathis believes that placing the crystalline womb holding their infant ruler upon 
  the throne will cause the rebirth of the Kingdom. Which throne? Rathis is unsure, although 
  Castle Oblivion and the Old Queen’s throne seem promising. 
  Knight Morgaunt believes that perhaps pouring the energy of some other powerful force 
  into the crystalline womb will free her infant ruler, and so she seeks a power great enough 
  for her purposes. 
  Knight Brethra believes that obtaining more information is crucial, and that until the 
  Hol’Jethariae have pieced together more of the lost memories of Lastlife and their order, 
  they will know nothing. They don’t even know who encased their infant ruler in crystal  
  in the first place, or why. Brethra seeks the lost form of Hol’Jethari, the namesake of their 
  order, wandering amid the ruins, in hopes that his memories may inform them of what  
  to do.
  Regardless, however, the Hol’Jethariae act. They seek answers, and they form rules around 
  their ruler and their duties as they go. They believe themselves defenders of the true King-
  dom, and they will find a way to restore their ruler, or they—and all of Lastlife—will die in 
  the process.
  Danger: The Old Queen
  Type: Corrupt Government (impulse: to maintain the status quo)
  She presides over Castle Oblivion in all her regal madness, and she will never be ousted, for 
  her kingdom is eternal. Or so she says, and so she believes, in what memories and sanity 
  remain to her. The Old Queen is a skeleton, wearing the raiment of her position, sitting atop 
  the throne of Castle Oblivion, and imperiously commanding all those around her—her 
  subjects. She does not even fully understand the world in which she lives, does not realize 
  what Lastlife is. She may not even truly understand that she is undead.
  She commands fealty from those who come before her, and she uses her subjects to hoard 
  her power, to hoard the glories of her kingdom. The world is her domain, after all, and she 
  demands tributes from all across its width and breadth. Such is her power and the madness 
  of Castle Oblivion that those who swear fealty to her find themselves compelled by a geas to 
  obey their new liege, and they bring back to her treasures and prizes stolen from throughout 
  Lastlife. She hoards these in her treasures vaults, to which only she has access, as her just 
  due for rightful rulership.
  The more inhabitants of Castle Oblivion, the more knights she sends out on tasks, the more 
  her own strength seems to increase. It is unclear if she can be slain at all anymore. She will 
  
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  protect herself, her treasures, and her kingdom at any costs, amassing the past and making 
  it her own prize.
  Danger: The Memory of Doom
  Type: Abandoned Tower (impulse: to draw in the weak-willed)
  In Lastlife, there stands a tower in the center of a blackened circle of ground. The tower is a 
  simple thing, no adornments, looking like it were made from a single, perfectly cut cylin-
  drical piece of red stone. It rises up into the sky, and it stops abruptly with a perfectly flat 
  top. There are no windows in this tower, and there is but one open doorway at its base, past 
  which is darkness. The black circle of emptiness surrounding the tower is more than 100 
  yards in radius. Nothing grows there, and the dirt is charred and perfectly smooth. It smells 
  faintly of ozone and power. 
  The tower is called the Memory of Doom. Every creature in Lastlife knows this. And every 
  creature in Lastlife instinctively knows not to go there. 
  Denizens shy away from the blasted clearing. Monstrosities wander in other directions. 
  Flying creatures refuse to pass overhead. All of Lastlife bends away from the Memory of 
  Doom...but sometimes, a single denizen, possessed of will and thinking they can triumph 
  over the tower, can finally unlock its secrets, will trudge out across the clearing and pass 
  into that darkened doorway, and never be seen again. Though sometimes afterward, that 
  smell of ozone and power grows stronger.
  The Memory of Doom is the last holding place of whatever sin ended the world and caused 
  it to pass into this one. Whatever calamity created Lastlife instead of plunging the world 
  into nothingness, its memory lies inside that tower. 
  Exactly what is within, none can say. But perhaps there lies the key to saving Lastlife, and 
  undoing the sins of the past.
  Or perhaps it is merely the nature of the doomed to be lured in by such false promises.
  Grim Portents
  • The Old Queen learns of the Hol’Jethariae’s crystalline infant ruler, and sends her 
  own knights to collect it.
  • The Hol’Jethariae find and implore the Seraph of Traevor to defend their crystal-
  line ruler, blaming the Seraph’s fate and existence upon the Old Queen.
  • The Hol’Jethariae launch an assault upon Castle Oblivion, with the Seraph at their 
  side, hoping to strike down the Old Queen before she finds the infant ruler.
  • The Old Queen tells Seraph that her fate is the result of the line of kings the 
  Hol’Jethariae defend, and that the Memory of Doom provides a means to finally 
  end her torment. The Seraph destroys the Hol’Jethariae and flies to the Memory of 
  Doom, to free herself.
  • The Seraph of Traevor smashes apart the Memory of Doom, and the essence of 
  Lastlife is broken, along with her own. Much of the world drifts into nothingness.
  
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  • The Old Queen’s power preserves Castle Oblivion and surrounding environs, with 
  those denizens who pledge fealty to her the only ones who survive. She becomes 
  the true ruler of what is left of the world: a pocket kingdom, small and contained.
  Stakes
  • Will the crystalline infant ruler of the Hol’Jethariae ever be freed?
  • Will The Old Queen successfully extend her domain beyond the confines of Castle 
  Oblivion?
  • Will the Seraph of Traevor find peace, or simply destroy all of Lastlife?
  • What secrets does the Memory of Doom hold?
  Impending Doom 
  Usurpation (The Old Queen, maddened and powerful, becomes the god-like ruler of what 
  remains of Lastlife, and only those denizens who swear fealty to her can remain.)
  The Cacophonous Music
  Lastlife is a place of cold silence, except for the faintest murmur of mists and shuffling feet. 
  The periodic lonely cry that pierces the air. The sounds of battle, in short spurts of clashing 
  metal. Music is a rarity here in this dead place. But music has a power, all its own, and it 
  lives faintly, weakly, in some corners of the ruins. Perhaps when new music fills the air, and 
  songs reach the ears of the denizens, perhaps the world can truly be reborn. Or perhaps the 
  music released into Lastlife is a monstrous kind of growth all its own; a madness of sound 
  and fury, released to the detriment of this whole ruin. 
  Danger: The Maestro’s Violin
  Type: Sentient Artifact (impulse: to find a worthy wielder)
  A beautiful, strange, awful piece. The last creation of some ancient, magical music maker, 
  trying to create the perfect instrument. Creating an outlet through which the music in his 
  soul could pour into the world. But tainted. Made with bones and ribs. Made with mad-
  ness. Whether the ending of the world and the coming of Lastlife added that darkness to 
  the violin, or whether it was there from the beginning, is a mystery lost to the fogs.
  The Maestro’s Violin cannot break. Its strings never snap. Its bow never needs resin. The 
  Maestro’s Violin is eternal, undying. And it always beckons to a player. It aches to have 
  notes struck from its strings. It yearns to produce music.
  It takes no special knowledge to use the Violin. Its magic will guide your hands, send the 
  bow dancing along the strings, just so long as you have strength to propel it. The Violin will 
  coax the music of your existence out of you, into the strings, and then up and into the air. 
  In most hands, this is dangerous enough. Intoxicating songs cast out to entrance denizens 
  of Lastlife, even as the player loses their soul to the music.
  
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  But imagine, the Maestro’s Violin—an instrument of translation, of putting soul into 
  song—in the hands of some of the ruins’ greatest monstrosities. Imagine a black abyss of 
  a soul, transformed into an endless song. Imagine a monstrous soul of hate and hunger, 
  translated into a destructive aria. 
  The Violin doesn’t distinguish players. It simply seeks to be played.
  Danger: The Fiddler
  Type: Chosen One (impulse: to fulfill or resent their destiny)
  The Fiddler seeks the Maestro’s Violin. If the Maestro is the creature or being that made the 
  Violin, then the Fiddler is the being destined to play it. Blind, their eyes covered by growths 
  of bone. Lithe. Simple. The Fiddler seems like any other denizen of Lastlife, except for their 
  constant, unending sojourn for the Violin. They ache for it. They hear its songs, whenever it 
  is played.
  The Fiddler knows nothing about why they must obtain the Violin. The Fiddler knows not 
  what their destiny with the instrument may be. They simply know that they must obtain 
  the Violin, and they will kill all in their way to obtain it. 
  The truth behind the Fiddler’s destiny with the Violin is simple: The Fiddler will play the 
  last song of the world upon the Violin. The song will be beautiful. A majestic thing, grand, 
  amazing. The culmination of an entire sphere’s existence. And after that, sound and song 
  and art shall leave Lastlife, once and for all. One last part of the world, closed out, forever. 
  Denizens left without the drive for beauty. A world left without an appreciation for song. 
  Danger: The Cathedral of the Manysong
  Type: Place of Power (impulse: to be controlled or tamed)
  The Iksythrys Cathedral of the Manysong is a repository of sound and song. It pulses with 
  the power within the many rhythms of its walls. Perhaps, given the right means, given the 
  right power, all the songs within it could be released into the world, bringing back a kind 
  of life most denizens consider long gone. A player with the Maestro’s Violin, tuned into the 
  Manysong, could produce an endless bounty of beautiful music to reinvigorate the ruins.
  But this power is unwieldy. The Cathedral’s songs are heavily trapped in its halls by some 
  force, some sucking, aching vortex of sound in its walls. Releasing them is its own danger. 
  And then the Manysong itself bears a cacophonous power, capable of overwhelming those 
  who would tap into it. And those capable of harnessing the power of the Manysong, capable 
  of using its artistry to transform the world, to reshape the ruins, would stand against each 
  other for that prize.
  
  The Screaming Centaurs
  The Screaming Centaurs
  
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  Danger: The Screaming Centaurs
  Type: Vermin (impulse: to breed, to multiply, and consume)
  The Screaming Centaurs are monsters created before the cataclysm, seemingly to act as 
  alarms and guards, now transformed by the cataclysm and released into the ruins. For all 
  the horror attached to these monstrous creatures, all their terrible screaming and horrible 
  forms, the Screaming Centaurs bear within them a hunger even more nightmarish than 
  their being. The Screaming Centaurs consume sound. They consume song, and hunger  
  for delectable, eccentric noise. They pull the sound from the air, and produce more young 
  after every meal, vomiting forth new Centaurs in a stream of bile and shrieking. Each  
  new Centaur is capable of screaming with a twisted, nightmare version of the sound that 
  birthed them.
  The Screaming Centaurs will not stop reproducing until they have consumed all sound in 
  all the ruins, and they are a tidal wave of howling monstrosities, unstoppable and lethal. 
  Danger: The Sacred Audience
  Type: Thieves’ Guild (impulse: to take by subterfuge)
  Some denizens of Lastlife maintain their existence and their minds by repeating the rituals 
  they remember from the days before. Some simply give up, losing their minds to the fog of 
  oblivion, becoming little more than animated bodies. Some find new causes to drive them. 
  Create causes from the cold around them. 
  The Sacred Audience is a band of denizens fitting this last type. Each one has encountered 
  the Iksythrys Cathedral’s Manysong. Each one has heard it, if only faintly, and been pos-
  sessed by it. And each one has decided to pursue song and music. To bring it back into the 
  world. To revive it, in grand fashion.
  Symphony is their leader, their preacher. He sings, discordant and confused, but he sings, 
  and drives the Sacred Audience onward. Melody is his enforcer, a large denizen, strong and 
  powerful with a hammer made of metal, producing pitches of a violent song with every 
  strike. Harmony is his seeker, a small denizen, fast and stealthy, capable of stealing and 
  taking what they need. Together, the Sacred Audience seeks out noise, sound, and song,  
  and the things that produce it, and they take them. Quietly and quickly, they hoard song 
  for themselves. 
  Grim Portents 
  • The Sacred Audience finds the Maestro’s Violin.
  • The Sacred Audience brings the Maestro’s Violin to the Cathedral of the  
  Manysong. The Fiddler and the Screaming Centaurs follow.
  • The Sacred Audience release the Manysong into the air through the  
  Maestro’s Violin. 
  • The Screaming Centaurs consume every last sound from the Cathedral of the 
  Manysong, and become an unstoppable hoard. 
  
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  • The Fiddler picks up the Maestro’s Violin in the aftermath, taking it from the 
  corpses of the slain Sacred Audience.
  • The Fiddler plays the last song upon the Maestro’s Violin, and Screaming Centaurs 
  swallow it up.
  Stakes
  • Will the Fiddler play the Maestro’s Violin?
  • Will one of the PCs play the Maestro’s Violin?
  • Will the Screaming Centaurs overrun the ruins?
  • Will the Sacred Audience find the songs they are seeking?
  Impending Doom
  Impoverishment (Lastlife loses song, art, creativity, permanently. The world is forever less-
  ened, and will never rise to the same grandeur as before, nor will it ever find new beauty to 
  replace that which it lost. The Screaming Centaurs rage endlessly throughout Lastlife.)
  The Burning of the Future
  Lastlife is a cold place, nigh lifeless, dark with mists. But still, there is a chance to kindle a 
  new light amid its night. There are forces in it that still flicker with hope, or with the force 
  of change. There are still those who would take up those forces, and would ignite a new 
  future for Lastlife. Whether or not that future is one worth having...is a different matter. 
  Danger: The Wielder
  Type: Chosen One (impulse: to fulfill or resent their destiny)
  The Wielder is not undead. He is not stricken with the same unending nigh-life of all the 
  other denizens of the ruins. He is instead alive, endlessly and always, preserved by his 
  cursed purpose: to forever wield Razor Void, the sword melted into his body, bonded to him 
  through and through. 
  His form has grown large with the eldritch forces that pass through him, emanating from 
  Razor Void. He is wild-eyed and pushed to the brink of madness by his fate...but he is not 
  mad. He still understands the danger that the blade presents, and he is determined to never 
  let another wield it. Such is his destiny. He will remain with the blade tied to him for the 
  entirety of his existence, even unto the world’s fall into formless shadow. Then, and only 
  then, when Razor Void is entirely unmade by the death of the world, will he allow himself 
  to rest. 
  The Wielder seeks silence and solitude, but Razor Void calls to those who might take it from 
  him, and thus he always finds himself in battle against denizens of Lastlife. He slays them 
  thoughtlessly, an endless fight to keep the world safe by killing those who might try to take 
  this dangerous weapon from him. 
  
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  Danger: Razor Void
  Type: Sentient Artifact (impulse: to find a worthy wielder)
  Razor Void is a nightmare weapon. A piece of the inchoate abyss beyond the spheres, hard-
  ened and pounded into the form of a blade. It bears some dark intellect, perhaps some shard 
  of a Thing From Outside, perhaps some angry nascent world, stunted and vengeful. It takes 
  life into itself and leaves nothing behind, destroying even the ever-returning lives of the 
  denizens of Lastlife. 
  It seeks unending combat and doom. It will never be sated, and it would drive its wielder  
  to endlessly destroy and slay. It would rid Lastlife of all remaining creatures, and then it 
  would drive its wielder to find a new sphere, where it would repeat the cycle. Such is its 
  nightmarish hatred. It does not care who wields it, so long as they can wield it well, and 
  take the lives of those it faces in battle. 
  Its power might allow one to reshape the ruins. To truly slay many of the greatest monsters 
  of Lastlife, restoring peace to places otherwise lost to the fogs or the cataclysm’s aftereffects. 
  And thus, Razor Void seems like it might provide hope. But the blade would consume that 
  hope as much as any other life. A would-be wielder must beware the sword as much as any 
  foe.
  Danger: The Thearch’s Authority
  Type: Sentient Artifact (impulse: to find a worthy wielder)
  The Thearch is dead; long live the Thearch!
  The Thearch was the master of gods, a leader of a pantheon from the world before the end. 
  Some combination of head of religion, and divine master; both the earthly instantiation  
  of divinity, and its greatest source. All of which is moot, now. The Thearch is dead. His head 
  lies within a rose-tinted crystal ball, and his spine is the staff upon which his head sits. And 
  this artifact, made of the remains of the Thearch, represents all of the Thearch that survives 
  into Lastlife. It represents his power over gods and divinities. It is the Thearch’s Authority.
  A tomb ensconces the Thearch’s Authority, buried beneath the surface of Lastlife, where 
  none would find it. The power to rule over gods and godlings was not something to be 
  left out in the open. But since the cataclysm brought Lastlife into existence, the Thearch’s 
  Authority has come to glow ever more strongly with the power of the divine. The gods are 
  dead, but the Thearch’s Authority has become the receptacle for their power. It calls out to 
  the denizens of Lastlife, some of whom have taken to simply clawing and burrowing their 
  way through the stone, to get down into the tomb of the Thearch. 
  Soon, the Thearch’s Authority will see use in the hands of some undead denizens of Lastlife. 
  What shape the world will find itself in, as the will of a new would-be god reshapes the 
  ruins, none can predict. 
  
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  Danger: Arsoclinus the Inferno
  Type: God (impulse: to gather worshippers, to burn)
  Arsoclinus knows the power of radiance. It fills her. Her eyes are glowing white embers. Her 
  body emanates heat, even amid the bone-chilling cold of the ruins. She sees what this world 
  could be, and she seeks to burn away everything that remains until it has become some-
  thing new. Her might is the magic of the fire itself, and with the merest gesture, she can 
  summon forth a gout of flame to light up the fog-filled nights of Lastlife.
  Arsoclinus is not the name she held before the cataclysm, but she holds it now. She has 
  burned away all of whomsoever she once was. She is merely a vessel for the fire of the future. 
  And she will do the same to any who encounter her, burning away their pasts to leave only 
  the future. What future does she want? She cares not, so long as it is free of the chains of 
  what came before. Anything lasting from before the world, she will burn. Anything bearing 
  memory of the past, she will scorch. The denizens of Lastlife, she will scour clean of their 
  pasts, leaving them new beings who will follow her light into a new world.
  She is the Inferno, and the future is her domain.
  Danger: The Endless Corridors
  Type: Place of Power (impulse: to be controlled or tamed)
  The Endless Corridors float above Lastlife, a twisting, impossible mad nest of architecture. 
  The odd magics and the secrets and treasures held within the Endless Corridors draw in 
  denizens of Lastlife. Guardian creatures are called to the Endless Corridors, who protect 
  it from entrants, driven by instinct to keep the Corridors safe. Its purpose remains unclear 
  and unfulfilled, and it blots out the sky with no hope of change.
  But the Endless Corridors also represent potential. If it were controlled...if it were  
  unfolded...then the Endless Corridors could become something more. It could become  
  a new city. A new world, unruined, ready to inhabit. To make a new home. To transform 
  the ruins into a living place once more.
  The dangers within the Corridors are unending, and the mists of Lastlife do not make 
  incursions into the Corridors any easier. But the floating mass stands out as a temptation to 
  those who seek new futures.
  Grim Portents
  • The Wielder enters the Endless Corridors to seek silence and solitude, leaving a 
  swathe of destroyed undead behind him.
  • Arsoclinus the Inferno finds the tomb of the Thearch, trapped away deep beneath 
  the ground, but cannot get inside; Arsoclinus resolves to obtain Razor Void to cut 
  her way into the tomb.
  • The Inferno’s followers find evidence of the Wielder’s entrance in the Endless Cor-
  ridors, and descend upon the Corridors for their leader’s righteous cause. 
  
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  • Arsoclinus the Inferno defeats the Wielder and takes Razor Void.
  • Arsoclinus uses Razor Void to cut into the tomb of the Thearch, and take up the 
  Thearch’s Authority.
  • Arsoclinus the Inferno unleashes the Thearch’s Authority to take control of the 
  Heart of the Corridors, unfolding them into a new city over which she becomes a 
  new god.
  Stakes
  • Will Razor Void be freed from the Wielder’s grasp?
  • Who will take up the Thearch’s Authority? How will they reshape Lastlife?
  • Will anyone seize control of the Endless Corridors?
  • What will Arsoclinus the Inferno leave burned behind her on a quest for  
  the future?
  Impending Doom 
  Tyranny (Arsoclinus the Inferno becomes the new Thearch of a world built from the End-
  less Corridors, wielding both the staff and Razor Void, and none remaining in Lastlife have 
  any hope of escaping the Inferno’s rule.)
  The Artifice
  The world before the cataclysm was one of fantastic creations. Of wonders built and given 
  strange, artificial life. Of relics crafted from deepest magics. These pieces of artifice live on 
  into the Cold Ruins, and they present another form of life...another form of future... 
  another form of memory. And the future lies in creating new artifacts, new relics of great 
  power, new beacons of hope. Lastlife has a place wherein such wonders can be made, 
  though that place has dangerous forces vying for dominance over it, along with its own 
  powerful defenders. The fate of the ruins may very well be tied up in the struggle over the 
  means to produce new artifice. 
  Danger: The Maker’s Will
  Type: Place of Power (impulse: to be controlled or tamed)
  The Maker’s Will is a name true on many levels. It is the last will left behind by the entity 
  called the Maker, left for the world past the cataclysm that they foresaw. The Maker, some 
  great artificer and artisan, made the Will as their last creation, bequeathed to a dead world. 
  The Maker’s Will is a half-living representation of the Maker’s willpower, the Maker’s intent 
  and focus and drive. It is the capacity and intent to create, embodied in a structure.
  The Maker’s Will is a smithy, and a workshop, and a fabricator, all put together, hidden 
  within the ruins. It is a structure made to make, to invent new artificial creatures, new lives, 
  new relics, new powers. It is meant to bring new things into the world. It is operated by 
  hand, by the skill of artisans, and by its own intelligence. The Maker’s Will lives on in this 
  structure, driving the creation of new things, so long as there are denizens to work it.
  
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  The Maker’s Will may have lain still for much of Lastlife’s existence, hidden as it is. But 
  there are always those denizens driven to serve, driven to obey, to stave off the foggy 
  emptiness of their unending lives...and the Maker’s Will is nothing if not a haven for 
  would-be servants. 
  Danger: The Mightsword
  Type: Ancient Curse (impulse: to ensnare)
  The Mightsword is a massive weapon, a destroyer. It carries within it the strength of titans. 
  It crushes all who oppose it. And it crushes all who wield it.
  The Mightsword is an enormous weapon, heavy and razor sharp. It saps the mind of 
  whomsoever holds it, consuming their will and turning their form to its own purpose. The 
  Mightsword is a creation of the Maker’s Will, an artifact of great power, desiring of more. 
  It wants to crush. To destroy any who might stand up to it. It wants to seize ever greater 
  strength, and it has no interest in being wielded. It only craves to dominate.
  The Mightsword hasn’t yet found a vessel that can hold it to its true potential. Someone 
  strong enough to last for long under the burden of its might, someone capable of providing 
  it with greater access to power or domination. But it continues to search. The denizens of 
  The Mightsword
  
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  Lastlife scrounge from each other, especially those who hunt and kill. Any time a wielder 
  of the Mightsword is slain by some greater foe, the Mightsword almost always finds itself 
  transferred into the hands of that greater foe, where it has even greater access to power and 
  comes to dominate its new wielder.
  If the Mightsword were to ever gain dominance over true power, over a place of power...the 
  consequences could be dire for the ruins.
  Danger: The Crafted Lives
  Type: Underground Dwellers (impulse: to defend the complex from outsiders)
  The Crafted Lives are golems, mechanisms given life from the magic and artistry with 
  which they were made. Each one is different from the others. Some were made for a pur-
  pose, some were made to simply be works of art, some were experiments to see if they could 
  be made functional. But all of them are bonded by their nature; they are the only creatures 
  like themselves in all of Lastlife, and they will defend each other as best they can. 
  The Crafted Lives were most likely created before the cataclysm that ended the world, and 
  managed to survive by taking refuge in the forge that made them: The Maker’s Will. There 
  they remain still, hiding as best they can, defending that place from any denizens who wan-
  der in, or who seek its power. This is the only place where they can make more of their own; 
  the only place where they feel safe. 
  The Crafted Lives are intelligent; they can be communicated with, talked to, negotiated 
  with. But they are uninterested in the world that was, where they were merely things to be 
  made. They are only interested in a new world, one that might have a real place for them. 
  And some of them—a young Crafted Life named Emerald, for one—have begun to make 
  plans to use the Maker’s Will to craft ever more of themselves, and to make these ruins 
  theirs, one way or another. The Crafted Lives are not united in that purpose. They do not 
  agree that such would be the correct course of action. But they do remain united, for the 
  moment, in defending the Maker’s Will from any who might take it. And many a denizen 
  of Lastlife has fallen to their might.
  Danger: Colistriana Smithcaste 
  Type: Power-Mad Wizard (impulse: to seek magical power)
  Colistriana Smithcaste knows her name, and clings to it and its meaning. It keeps her sane. 
  It keeps her locked into this world. Without her name, without the drive it gives her...she 
  would be lost. The arcane forces flowing throughout her dead form would overwhelm her. 
  So she focuses on her name. Focuses on what she needs to fulfill the promise therein.
  
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  She is Smithcaste. She is a smith. A maker. She makes. She needs a forge. She needs  
  materials. She needs the power to pour into her workings, to make them come alive. She 
  is a smith. She is a maker. She will go to any lengths to obtain what she needs to make her 
  name come true.
  Colistriana Smithcaste has been wandering the ruins for all their existence, hunting for the 
  things she needs to make, to create, to bring to life. She has not found them yet, but the 
  hunt has kept her sane, while any who stood in her way fell to the arcane might at her com-
  mand. But now, she knows of the Maker’s Will. The memory came to her, or arrived in her 
  mind unbidden, planted there by something else. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care.
  She will find the Maker’s Will. She will make it her own. Her name is a promise, and the 
  forge will fulfill it.
  Grim Portents 
  • Emerald leads an expedition of the Crafted Lives out into the ruins and takes the 
  Mightsword from its current zombie-like wielder.
  • Colistriana Smithcaste comes across Emerald. She destroys the Crafted Life and 
  takes the Mightsword for herself.
  • Colistriana Smithcaste follows the other fleeing Crafted Lives back to the  
  Maker’s Will. 
  • The Crafted Lives fight Colistriana, but she and the Mightsword destroy them 
  with ease. They flee the Maker’s Will.
  • The Mightsword’s will overpowers Colistriana’s, and she becomes a servant to its 
  needs, working the Maker’s Will on behalf of the sword.
  • Colistriana begins to churn out new Crafted Lives, each tied to the Mightsword, 
  each with its power and its mind. The new army reaches out from the Maker’s Will 
  to take over the ruins. And then...beyond.
  Stakes
  • Will the Mightsword ever find a wielder who can match it?
  • Will the Crafted Lives find a new place for themselves in the ruined world?
  • Will the Maker’s Will create new wonders?
  • Will Colistriana Smithcaste be freed of the madness that plagues her?
  Impending Doom
  Usurpation (The power of the Maker’s Will is turned to the dark purposes of the Mightsword.)
  
  The Cold Creatures
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  72
  The Cold Creatures
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife are home to many: the living and the unliving, the remem-
  bered and the forgotten, the new and the old. They all call the ruins home, each with their 
  own purposes, each with their own curses. Here, you’ll find everything you need to bring 
  the dead and the dangerous of the ruins to life. 
  For the creatures you find below, you’ll also find questions and possible answers called out 
  for you. These are meant to only draw your attention to open spaces left in the monsters’ 
  stories, places where you can tweak and change elements to fit your own particular game. 
  None are definitive. Nothing is known. Everything can be remembered differently, discov-
  ered by your players over the course of play.
  The Denizens of the Ruins
  In this chapter, there are stats for many of the different kinds of undead you’d find in 
  the ruins. But if you need to provide stats for any given humanoid denizen of Lastlife 
  that doesn’t fit into anything provided in this chapter, you can generally get by using 
  the draugr (page 257), skeleton (page 261), or zombie (page 263) stats provided in the 
  base Dungeon World book.
  The Lost Souls of Lastlife
  The ruins play home to monstrosities, but also to the feeble remnants of the world  
  before the cataclysm. People, in myriad forms and manners. Many of them have lost their 
  minds, simply repeat their old behaviors without thought. But many others still retain 
  some amount of will, if not memory. They find purposes for themselves, drawing on what 
  little they can recall, or whatever they find in these cold, empty ruins. These are the largest 
  groups of denizens of Lastlife, formed around purpose and similarity of mindset...formed to 
  stave off the endlessness of the ruins’ unlife. 
  The Hungry
  (Weaker Hungry in a group)
  Qualities: group, intelligent, terrifying, devious
  Attack: Swords, hammers, axes, or claws: d8+2 damage, close, 1 Piercing
  10 hp 
   
   
  1 Armor
  (Powerful, solitary Hungry)
  Qualities: solitary, intelligent, terrifying, magical, devious
  Attack: Ancient blades and powerful magics: b[2d10]+2 damage, close, forceful, 2 Piercing
  14 hp 
   
   
  3 Armor
  The Hungry are undead who give into the desire to hunt the other denizens. To drink in 
  their unlife, their power, their very existence. Amid the cold fog of Lastlife, it’s a desire that 
  drifts in every denizen’s heart. The ache for just a little more soul-essence. And the Hungry 
  are those who let it rule them.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  73
  The Cold Creatures
  Truly, it’s an easy path to walk, here in the ruins. In other worlds, consuming the undead 
  requires enormous skill and strength, but here, where all are possessed of the same nature? 
  It doesn’t take any special arcane knowledge at first. All it takes is a devouring. A consump-
  tion, oftentimes literal. 
  But over time, the Hungry change. They grow stronger, more powerful with each life they 
  take. They take from their prey weapons and armor. They take knowledge. They learn to 
  take souls in easier ways than literally consuming the bodies. They learn to draw it out 
  through their fingertips. They shave their finger bones down into claws to better crack open 
  the body and get at the soul inside. They draw into their own bones the runes and sigils 
  necessary to better channel the souls they steal. They learn to ignore prey that will not sate 
  them, like the doom-infested husks of the Ruined.
  And soon enough, the denizen of Lastlife is gone. Only the Hungry remains. Whether they 
  take it upon themselves intentionally or not, their bodies reshape and change—no denizen 
  of Lastlife can ever miss a Hungry for what they are.
  Questions:
  • Where does the hunger come from?
  • What would happen if one of the Hungry devoured enough of its fellow denizens?
  • What power is it that the Hungry actually consume?
  Theory #1: Whatever force keeps Lastlife alive...it is indestructible, but not infinite. The  
  undead will die and rise and die again, unto infinity, as this force reinvigorates them end-
  lessly. But they will never be any more than such meat. Unless they take this strength of  
  undeath from their fellows. That means fewer denizens, but it matters little; those with 
  greater strength may be able to undo this limbo. The Hungry, and the hunger that drives 
  them are the force of Lastlife acting to break itself out of its own unending pattern, by 
  creating a new individual powerful enough, holding enough of this power of undeath, to 
  shatter the cycle asunder.
  Theory #2: The cataclysm lingers on in this world. What broke the world apart was no 
  single, massive explosion of force or devastation. It was a curse that drove folk mad, that 
  corrupted the civilization from within. That drove the people of the old world to consume 
  each other. And the Hunger is that cataclysm, the doom of the world, living on.  
  Manifesting itself now in Lastlife. As in all things in this ruined place, repeating the  
  cycle of what came before.
  Instinct: To feed on those weaker than itself
  Moves:
  • Consume the unlife from another denizen
  • Hunt with frightening skill
  • Reflect the soulless void inside
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  74
  The Cold Creatures
  The Frigid Knights
  Qualities: group, intelligent, terrifying, organized
  Attack: Blades of Ice: b[2d8] damage, close, 2 Piercing, Freezing
  10 hp 
   
   
  2 Armor
  The Freezing Tag
  If a weapon is Freezing, then it exudes enormous and dangerous cold. A Freezing weapon 
  can freeze any liquid it touches. Any being not immune to cold struck by a Freezing 
  weapon is slowed by the cold and the ice. 
  The Frigid Knights each carry within them a piece of the primal ice, from which the cold of 
  the world flows. They are an order from a time before the cataclysm, and they still hold the 
  same purpose: to slay monsters. To keep the world safe from those who would change it for 
  the worse. They do not seek thanks. They do not seek understanding or sympathy. They do 
  not aim to do what is right. They simply aim to keep things the same. To spread the ice and 
  its peace.
  In Lastlife, the Frigid Knights still wander the ruins, slaying what abominations they can. 
  Their armor is rimed with ice. Their eyes are black with cold. Their weapons are frost and 
  frozen crystal. And death spills from them onto whatever threatens the stability of the ruins. 
  Questions:
  • Where is the primal ice held?
  • What is the true purpose of the Frigid Knights?
  • Is there a way to destroy the primal ice?
  • Are the Frigid Knights capable of making their own decisions?
  Theory #1: The primal ice is one of the most powerful remaining pieces of the world, 
  anchoring the world in its current existence. It may even be the reason why Lastlife persists 
  past the ending of the world. The Frigid Knights serve this ice and ultimately act to defend 
  Lastlife from the things that would threaten it...but doing so will leave Lastlife a cold, frig-
  id, and empty place. Destroying the primal ice would require the release of pure Radiance.
  Theory #2: The “primal ice” is actually something from outside of this world, an extension 
  of the dark cold of the Things From Outside. The Frigid Knights are not direct servants 
  of those ill creatures, but their drive to rid the world of abominations only makes Lastlife 
  riper for the Things’ purposes. Once they take the “primal ice” into their hearts, the Frigid 
  Knights will never be free of the Things’ influence.
  Instinct: To slay whatever threatens stasis
  Moves:
  • Run through with icy blade
  • Cast forth the primal ice within
  • Shield with impenetrable ice
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  75
  The Cold Creatures
  The Ruined
  Qualities: horde, terrifying
  Attack: Claws and rusted weapons: d6, close
  4 hp
  The Ruined are infected with the doom of the world. They are mad, in a state far from the 
  endless repetition and memory loss that afflicts the other denizens of Lastlife. Where the 
  Hungry are driven purely by the need to consume the other denizens of Lastlife, the Ruined 
  are driven by the need to infect them, to share the world’s doom ever more fully. Their 
  weapons are shoddy, their armor is ripped or ragged, and they are falling apart, but this 
  horrible will to end the world one denizen at a time keeps them stitched together.
  Woe betide the denizens of Lastlife who face the Ruined’s claws, and become infected with 
  that same doom. 
  Questions:
  • Is there any hope of restoration for the Ruined?
  • What is the purpose of the Ruined in the ruins?
  Theory #1: The Ruined are nothing more than soulless bodies. Each denizen of Lastlife 
  infected with this doom is one more soul gone from this world, escaped into the chaos 
  between, where it might find some new life, or some strange existence, but ultimately— 
  freedom. This drive to soullessness will leave Lastlife an empty husk of a sphere.
  Theory #2: The mists rob denizens of Lastlife of their memories and their identities, and 
  it is the mists themselves that make the Ruined what they are. When the Ruined claw at 
  another denizen, the mists seep from their flesh into the flesh of their victims, and the curse 
  of the mists grows. The only way to restore the Ruined, to fight back their curse, is to undo 
  the curse of the forgetful mists at their source.
  Instinct: To infect others with the Ruin
  Moves:
  • Swarm with horrifying numbers
  • Infect with poisoned finger bones
  • Destroy something pristine and undamaged
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  76
  The Cold Creatures
  The Hol’Jethariae
  Qualities: group, organized, intelligent, cautious
  Attack: Dawnstars: close, b[2d8], messy, forceful
  8 hp 
   
   
  3 Armor
  Armored with the raiment and plate of the old kingdom, carrying the glowing morningstars 
  of their order, the Hol’Jethariae serve and defend even in these broken ruins. They have a 
  purpose that drives them endlessly onward: to defend and restore their ruler. They simply 
  lack the knowledge of how to do that.
  The Hol’Jethariae seek throughout the ruins for more on how to restore their ruler, even 
  as they stand guard over the crystalline orb in which their ruler’s infant form is held. They 
  hunt for memories and truths, and new hopes. While they are not inherently violent, they 
  will strike at those who stand against them, wielding the morningstars that carry within 
  them the strength of all the previous wielders. 
  Will the Hol’Jethariae ever find what they seek? If Lastlife is generous, perhaps. But Lastlife 
  is not known for its generosity.
  Questions:
  • Who put their infant ruler in the crystalline encasement? Why?
  • How can their infant ruler actually be freed?
  • Is there any other purpose for the Hol’Jethariae beyond the restoration of their ruler?
  • Where do the Dawnstars come from?
  Theory #1: The Hol’Jethariae bear a deep sin at the heart of their order. They stole the 
  child they protect, against the wishes of the true rulers, and intentionally encased the child 
  in crystal to protect it beyond the cataclysm. They thought they would be able to create a 
  new order in a new world, using the child as a rallying point; they did not anticipate how 
  dangerous the cataclysm would be. They were exiled, cast out, for their crime, but then the 
  cataclysm came and memory was lost. 
  Theory #2: The Dawnstars draw strength from the ruler encased in crystal. Should they 
  ever actually succeed in freeing their ruler, the Dawnstars will lose all power, and the 
  Hol’Jethariae themselves will lose their purpose and wither. In truth, the reason their infant 
  ruler was placed within the crystal orb in the first place was to power their weapons with 
  the child’s bloodline—that they might fight against the coming of the end, and restore the 
  world should it fall. Their purpose was confused and lost during the end of the world, and 
  they only retained that the child ruler was crucial—they deluded themselves into believing 
  they were meant to restore the child. If they ever do succeed in restoring the child, then 
  their order shall end. 
  Instinct: To seek memories of Lastlife 
  Moves:
  • Demand knowledge, information, or memory
  • Strike down dissidents or threats
  • Defend the old and the royal
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  77
  The Cold Creatures
  The Sacred Audience
  Qualities: group, organized, intelligent, hoarder
  Attack: Horns of the Manysong: d6, reach, near, far
  6 hp
  The Sacred Audience is a band of denizens united by the song in their hearts. They’ve each 
  heard the Manysong, and it calls to them, to be freed. So they hunt across the ruins, seeking 
  sounds, music, and the things that produce it, to hoard them within the Cathedral of the 
  Manysong and find a way to free the Manysong from that building’s walls. 
  They’re a scattered bunch, but they’re well armed, having gathered the instruments and im-
  plements of power from the ruins. They can pour the Manysong out of them, at heightened, 
  destructive volumes, if only for moments at a time. That’s all they need to destroy those who 
  would stop them from taking what they need.
  Questions:
  • Does the Manysong affect all denizens, and threaten turning any of them into 
  members of the Sacred Audience? Or is it only some?
  • Why are there so many musical instruments of power in Lastlife? Where did they 
  all come from? How do members of the Sacred Audience find them so easily?
  Theory #1: The cataclysm that ended the world trapped the life of this sphere into the 
  Manysong. The Manysong isn’t simply music, it is actually the native life force of an entire 
  world. The Sacred Audience, whether they understand it or not, are driven to release that 
  life force. But the only way it can come back into the world is through channels, like the 
  musical instruments played by the Sacred Audience. And in returning to the sphere fully, 
  the Manysong will burn out the Sacred Audience, leaving them all as charred husks.
  Theory #2: The Manysong is actually a sentient musical tune, trapped in another prison the 
  same as many of the other creatures in Lastlife. The Sacred Audience is made up of those 
  whom it has infected. The many musical instruments of power strewn throughout the ruins 
  were tools used by demon-binders and summoners to entrap dangerous creatures. The urge 
  to free the Manysong is the urge to break another dangerous prison; the consequences shall 
  be dire for the whole of the ruins.
  Instinct: To take implements of song and sound
  Moves:
  • Blast apart whatever stands in their way
  • Stealthily steal what they want
  • Announce their presence and make demands
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  78
  The Cold Creatures
  Crafted Lives
  Qualities: horde, magical, organized, intelligent, construct, hoarder, cautious
  Attack: Built-in weaponry: w[2d8] damage, 1 Piercing, close, reach, near 
  6 hp 
   
   
  2 Armor  
   
  The Crafted Lives are the artificial constructs inhabiting the Maker’s Will. Each one is 
  slightly different from the others. Some are bigger, some are smaller. Some work the forges, 
  some defend them, some find valuable resources in the wider world. Some are made of iron, 
  some of bluesteel, some of a shifting prismatic metal, the name of which is forgotten.
  The Crafted Lives do not seek death or combat. They wish only to survive, to find a place 
  for themselves in the world, where they will not be crushed or destroyed. Where they can 
  make more of their own in peace. But they will defend themselves, as best as they possibly 
  can. They will fight back against those who come into their own domain, no matter how 
  many of their own it costs. Although they are inexperienced and opposed to fighting, they 
  are by no means weak.
  Questions:
  • Who originally made the Crafted Lives? Why?
  • Were they made in the Maker’s Will, or somewhere else? 
  • Are the Crafted Lives truly alive?
  Theory #1: The Crafted Lives were made by an artificer hoping to have some kind of life 
  survive the end of the world. She expected that the coming cataclysm would kill all the 
  others, and so designed life that might persist. Of course, the changing of the sphere into 
  the Cold Ruins of Lastlife altered everything, and the Crafted Lives were no longer the 
  sole inheritors of a world capable of rebirth in the ashes.
  Theory #2: The Crafted Lives were made by an automatic artifice in the Maker’s Will, 
  churning them out without thought. But as part of the process, the souls of those who died 
  in the cataclysm were forced into the bodies of the Crafted Lives. In essence, the Maker’s 
  Will is acting as a lifeboat for those souls, giving them new bodies on the other side of the 
  end of the world. 
  Instinct: To defend their home and their place
  Moves:
  • Negotiate for peace and safety
  • Call for more of their comrades
  • Hit hard and fast to end the fight quickly
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  79
  The Cold Creatures
  Destroyers
  Even though The Cold Ruins of Lastlife are already past destruction, in a state of living 
  death, there are horrors amid them that would finish the job. They would crush whatever 
  remains. They would plunge this world into true death, into the state it is meant to occupy. 
  Some would do it for hatred, or vengeance; some, because it is simply their purpose.  
  But all threaten the tenuous existence of this sphere’s existence past the point of death. All 
  are destroyers.
  Oriaxanysoth
  Qualities: solitary, magical, devious, intelligent, terrifying, planar, huge
  Attack: Demonic Magic and Claws: b[2d10]+5, close, reach, near, forceful, 3 Piercing
  24 hp 
   
   
  4 Armor  
   
  Oriaxanysoth is a demon from beyond this world. A massive creature, like some ancient 
  crustacean risen from the deepest parts of the ocean. Claws. Antennae. Chitinous plates. 
  Black and red, striped. Inhuman eyes that glisten with hatred.
  The creature is trapped within the Demon Pool, where it’s been held since before the fall  
  of the world. But its prison weakens, and it seeks escape. A return to its home, but not  
  without destroying the world that dared to imprison it for so long. As punishment.  
  Righteous retribution.
  Oriaxanysoth currently can only talk to those denizens who come before it. It can speak 
  into their minds, and it can work meager magics upon them. But once it escapes—if the 
  Demon Pool’s prison is ever weakened—the devastation Oriaxanysoth will be able to wreak 
  upon the ruins and the denizens there will be unmatched. 
  Questions:
  • Who originally imprisoned Oriaxanysoth? Why? How?
  • Where does Oriaxanysoth originally come from?
  • Are there other demons like Oriaxanysoth in the ruins?
  Theory #1: The Demon Pool was crafted to act as a generator for impressive and powerful 
  mechanisms, and Oriaxanysoth was simply the most powerful demon they could force into 
  the prison. The one who imprisoned Oriaxanysoth was the lead arcanist in this world, long 
  before the cataclysm came. But it was all a terrible ruse; Oriaxanysoth was meant, from the 
  get-go, to corrupt that arcanist. The demon’s actions in doing so led ultimately to the cata- 
  clysm that broke the world. Oriaxanysoth was never meant to be imprisoned for so long, 
  and so its hatred is still great.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  80
  The Cold Creatures
  Theory #2: A massive horde of demon creatures like Oriaxanysoth once swept through the 
  space between the spheres and came close to this world. The greatest heroes and powers of 
  the time fought off the horde, and Oriaxanysoth was stolen as a child-demon. Already, the 
  creature was old and had enormous power, but it was far weaker than its parents. Oriax-
  anysoth still craves release, but when it gets that escape, the others of its kind will see its 
  stunted, runtish form and will search for their own revenge upon this world. And they are 
  even more powerful than Oriaxanysoth could ever hope to be.
  Instinct: To pursue its freedom through force or temptation
  Moves:
  • Offer corruptive power
  • Play upon wants, desires, and needs
  • Spawn Broken minions
  (once freed from its prison)
  • Smash, destroy, and rend
  • Tear open a portal to a demonic realm
  The Ghost of the First Sorcerer
  Qualities: solitary, magical, intelligent, spectral
  Attack: Spectral Magics: d10 damage, close, reach, near, far, ignores Armor
  21 hp 
   
   
  4 Armor  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  A spectral creature. She believes that she was the First Sorcerer, the greatest and most pow-
  erful magical master the world has ever seen. A creature from outside this world, bound into 
  flesh, remaking it to her whim. Conqueror. Ruler of an enormous empire. She remembers it 
  all, the truths ingrained into her very being.
  Of course, in this made place of lost memory, they could be simply stories the ghost latched 
  onto. They could be truths she adopted as her memory to give herself purpose, reason for  
  existence. They could be lies she tells herself over and over again to carve them into  
  her mind. 
  The truth of it is nigh irrelevant. This wraith who calls herself the First Sorcerer has enor-
  mous power: power over the ruins, power over magic and the doom of the world. She wields 
  that power according to her belief in herself, and those who face her experience no leniency 
  for any lies she might tell herself.
  The Ghost of the First Sorcerer seeks the power necessary to plunge this world into a 
  necroplane, where she might fully reform her empire. Where she might rule again. Such a 
  place might be just another lie she tells herself. But again, the truth of it matters very little, 
  when Lastlife will suffer the brunt of her actions.
  Questions:
  • Is the Ghost of the First Sorcerer actually whom she claims to be?
  • Is there a necroplane to which the Ghost of the First Sorcerer will be able to  
  send Lastlife?
  
  The Seraph of Traevor
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  82
  The Cold Creatures
  Theory #1: The Ghost of the First Sorcerer is actually exactly who she claims to be, but 
  even she has forgotten deeper truths of her existence. She is from the necroplane that she 
  plans to send all of Lastlife to, and she was forced into a human physical form eons ago by 
  the powers of this sphere. Her home is a place of ethereal being and spectral form, without 
  any physicality—none of the meat or bone of this place. She was driven mad when brought 
  here and forced into a body, and even though she is now free and in her native form again, 
  she cannot see that. Once she learns the truth of her nature, she could go home to her plane 
  and be free of this place, leaving it behind her to endlessly rot; but the longer she spends 
  in Lastlife, the more she is a creature of this place, and the more she is interested only in 
  destroying it. 
  Theory #2: The Ghost of the First Sorcerer is not at all who she says she is, and there is no 
  necroplane. She is instead simply a repurposed soul, trapped within Lastlife but made con-
  fused and useful by the powers-that-be outside of this sphere. They aim to ensure Lastlife 
  fully ends, safely, as spheres are meant to, and the Ghost is one of their means of making 
  that happen. The “necroplane” to which she will send Lastlife is actually just the  
  dimensional churn in which new worlds are born.
  Instinct: To grow in power and bend Lastlife to her will
  Moves:
  • Command those in Lastlife who have tasted the world’s doom
  • Reshape the ruins to her will
  • Pass through physical barriers without difficulty
  The Seraph of Traevor
  Qualities: solitary, intelligent, construct, huge, divine
  Attack: Adamantine Hammer: d10+7 damage, reach, forceful, messy 3 Piercing
  24 hp 
   
   
  3 Armor  
  She was once one of the greatest heroes the world had ever seen. Her legends glowed 
  throughout the history of the world, before the cataclysm. She lived a noble life, and she 
  died a saint. 
  And then she was resurrected into a massive suit of armor. Designed to give her greater  
  power than she had ever had before. Impregnable. With wings of steel, and a hammer the 
  size of a building. Her soul, pulled from whatever paradisiacal afterlife in which it had 
  found peace, was forced into the armor. 
  They thought they were serving their people. They thought they were reviving a great hero 
  that they needed. Instead, they were creating a destroyer. They tried to undo their work, 
  and they buried her armor. But when the cataclysm struck the world, she was brought back 
  again. And she rose into the air, screeching in pain and rage and grief, to strike down the 
  world that she had saved, the world that had so thoroughly betrayed her.
  She seeks now only to destroy. To bring ruin to Lastlife. And to end her own miserable 
  existence.
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  83
  The Cold Creatures
  Questions:
  • Who designed the prison in which the Seraph of Traevor is now trapped?
  • Why is the Seraph of Traevor the only hero who was resurrected like this?
  • What exactly is Traevor, and why is she renowned for her actions there?
  Theory #1: The Seraph of Traevor saved the world at Traevor in a battle against a dark sor-
  cerer by inadvertently tying the sphere’s life to her own existence. When she died, the world, 
  too, began to die, and resurrecting the Seraph was a measure of extreme desperation to try 
  to keep the world from falling to this ancient curse. When she was in pain, they simply 
  coaxed her into stasis, but still “alive,” so as to keep the world around. When the cataclysm 
  struck, in truth it simply freed her from her prison, and the world remained in existence 
  because so too did the Seraph of Traevor.
  Theory #2: The Seraph of Traevor never existed, not really. She is an amalgamation of 
  many stories and legends, of truth and fiction in equal measure. This composite mind is 
  thus an entirely new creature, further explaining her pain and anguish. There was never a 
  Traevor—it was an invented battleground where the Seraph supposedly triumphed over her 
  greatest foes. No others were resurrected like her because she was the test of a new kind of 
  artificial creation, and it did not go well. Were she to learn the true nature of her existence, 
  she might be able to find a modicum of peace...or she might grow still more enraged, and 
  cast all the world asunder.
  Instinct: To destroy the world around her, or herself
  Moves:
  • Destroy with titanic swings of her hammer
  • Take to the air on terrible wings
  • Blame those who once had power for her plight
  The Ruinworm
  Qualities: solitary, large, terrifying
  Attack: Mandibles: d12+5 damage, forceful, close, reach, messy, 1 Piercing
  20 hp 
   
   
  3 Armor  
   
  The Ruinworm is a creature of the ruins, a thing born of the world’s need to end, and its 
  failure to do so. It looks like a massive centipede hydra, its form covered in segmented plates 
  of glistening, hardened obsidian. Many heads and necks extend from its central body, each 
  one ending with its own vise-like pair of mandibles. It slithers across the ground. It burrows 
  through the dust and the dirt. It flies through the air. It is unstoppable in its hunger and its 
  strength.
  
  The Ruinworm
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  85
  The Cold Creatures
  The Ruinworm is a creature of instinct and nature, not of will. And that instinct drives it 
  to end the world. It will consume every bit of the ruins that it can, ending it one stone at 
  a time. And the Ruinworm grows larger, grows more heads, as it causes more destruction. 
  Eventually, the creature truly will be large enough to consume all of Lastlife, and all that 
  will be left is its titanic, corpulent, many-headed form. 
  Questions:
  • Where did the Ruinworm come from?
  • Is the Ruinworm unique to Lastlife, or is it a creature that could appear in any 
  world?
  Theory #1: The Ruinworm is the direct, living embodiment of the cataclysm that ruined 
  the world. Indeed, the Ruinworm is actually the offspring of the monstrosity that caused 
  the cataclysm, and while the titanic battle against that beast may have been successful, the 
  eggs it laid into the ruins did grow to fruition, and now the Ruinworm is free to continue its 
  parent’s work. When it has devoured the whole of Lastlife, the Ruinworm will have reached 
  full adulthood, and will be ready to pass from this sphere to others, just as its parent did.
  Theory #2: The Ruinworm is simply the current incarnation of an endless cycle of Lastlife 
  attempting to end itself. In times past, this death-urge of the whole world represented itself 
  by urges in the minds of its denizens, or by portals torn into the air. But now, it has learned 
  and grown. The Ruinworm represents the newest attempt by an unconscious, dumb, deaf 
  world to bring about its own end, directly, through monstrous consumption.
  Instinct: To consume the ruins and grow
  Moves:
  • Crash through the structures around it
  • Consume the contents of the ruins
  • Grow larger and stronger from feasting
  The Fiddler
  Qualities: solitary, magical, devious, intelligent, stealthy
  Attack: Haunting melodies: w[2d8] damage, close, reach, near, ignores Armor
  16 hp
  The Fiddler’s form is strange, even for a denizen of Lastlife. Bony plates grow across their 
  eyes. Their fingers are long and lithe, skilled, powerful, muscled and precise. Their form is 
  quiet, soundless and soft, capable of shifting into shadow without difficulty. Their mouth is 
  large, and their voice changes, capable of reaching any pitch and tone they desire. Their ears 
  are strange and extended, capable of hearing sounds imperceptible to the rest of the ruins. 
  Always, they hear the faint notes of the Maestro’s Violin, whether the instrument is being 
  played or not.
  
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  The Fiddler hunts for the Violin. They move, safely and silently, through the ruins. They 
  use stealth and quiet as their weapons to traverse endless smashed structures, to slip past 
  monstrosities and abominations. But sometimes, they let forth with song. From their throat, 
  they sing melancholy ballads of the world’s failure. If they find an instrument, they play 
  with immediate skill and terrible emotion. The songs they produce take on strange power 
  in the ruins, and rend apart listeners, even those that are mere monsters. Other creatures 
  cannot take the sadness, the tragedy, the failed hope within the Fiddler’s music. 
  And the world awaits the same fate, should the Fiddler ever get their hands upon the  
  Maestro’s Violin.
  Questions:
  • Who made the Fiddler? Why?
  • Who was the Fiddler before the cataclysm?
  • Which came first, the Fiddler or the Violin?
  Theory #1: The end of the world is tied into an incomplete spell; an incomplete symphony 
  of magic. The Fiddler is one of the few remaining sorcerers involved with that spell, capable 
  of finishing it. The Maestro’s Violin was the creation of the spell, intended to bring about 
  some utopian world, even greater than the one that came before. The Fiddler is driven to 
  finish that spell, but at this point, Lastlife may no longer be strong enough to support the 
  new utopia. If the Fiddler finishes the spell, then Lastlife may crack asunder...or may be 
  transformed by the power imbued in the Violin into a new, paradisiacal world. 
  Theory #2: The Maestro’s Violin is not from this world. It is a world-ending relic, and it 
  has traveled from world to world, fulfilling its purpose. In each world it visits, a Fiddler is 
  created, defined by that world and its truths, to play the Violin and bring the world to a 
  close. The Violin arrived in this sphere and the Fiddler arose...but then the cataclysm struck 
  the world, and the Violin could not fulfill its purpose. Now it is trapped here, disconnected 
  from its Fiddler and unable to move on to a new world. Perhaps, if one could only learn to 
  communicate with the Violin, one could make a powerful interdimensional ally capable of 
  bringing worlds to destruction…
  Instinct: To hunt the Maestro’s Violin by any means necessary
  Moves:
  • Slip through the ruins silently
  • Resist death with a song
  • Create music of haunting, painful beauty
  
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  Conquerors
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife are full of destruction and ruin, of tragedy and truths aban-
  doned to time. But they are also home, still, to beauty and wonder. To power. To majesty. 
  To utility. This sphere still holds great value to those with their own aims.
  These creatures are those that would not end the world...that are not a part of the ruin. 
  These are the creatures that would conquer it. That would make it their own. They seek 
  those wonders and beauties to possess in the pursuit of their own twisted desires. They seek 
  to own this world, for whatever dark purposes they might have. 
  The Tree Kraken
  Qualities: solitary, magical, devious, amorphous, huge
  Attack: Tendrils and Flowers: d10+5, reach, forceful
  27 hp 
   
   
  3 Armor  
   
  An ancient and horrible predator, always kept subdued and controlled in the world before 
  the cataclysm. Now let loose. Let free upon the ruins, to prey as it will. The Tree Kraken’s 
  seed has grown in Griedhardt’s Grove, and it extends its roots throughout the rest of  
  the ruins.
  The Tree Kraken’s heart is the seed that birthed it, hidden deep underground amid the 
  root structure of its being, ensconced within hardened wood. Above ground, it has many 
  tendrils, small saplings and vines that it can control with a vicious will. Its main body parts 
  above ground are thick, strangely scented glistening trunks of wood, with enormous knots 
  upon them. Those knots open up to reveal yellow, squid-like eyes, gazing out upon the 
  world as food. Its long, strong branches unfold into dangerous, poisonous flowers. And it 
  consumes those denizens foolish enough to come into its domain.
  Questions:
  • How, exactly, was the Tree Kraken defeated in times past?
  • Why was the Tree Kraken never destroyed before?
  • How was the Tree Kraken released?
  Theory #1: The Tree Kraken is a monstrous beast, and it does truly threaten the world... 
  but it is the remaining seed and power of the original worldtree that birthed this sphere. 
  Destroying it would mean killing off one of the main sources of life in the world. The  
  heroes of times past could not destroy the Tree Kraken without damaging the world. 
  Now, in a place past the end, the Tree Kraken is a source of possible hope. The life of the 
  Tree Kraken could reinvigorate the life of the world, if it is allowed to grow unrestrained 
  throughout all of Lastlife. 
  Theory #2: There are many Tree Kraken throughout the spheres. They infest whole worlds, 
  taking them over, growing infinitely across the surface, until they can send their seeds out 
  through the void between worlds. They are, in a way, true gods of the infinite spheres, and 
  they always—always—have worshippers. Here, in Lastlife, even past the end of the world, 
  there are some denizens who recall their worship of the Tree Kraken, and the seed that 
  
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  landed upon this earth. They have defended it. Ensured it could never be destroyed. And 
  released it into this broken place, to spread its divinity across the sphere.
  Instinct: To eliminate obstacles to its unending spread
  Moves:
  • Poison with vile sap and pollen
  • Lash with powerful branches and vines
  • Grow from the earth where least expected
  • Entrap with growth and paralysis
  The Mightsword
  Qualities: solitary, magical, devious, possessor, construct
  Attack: Blade Swing: b[2d10]+3, close, reach, messy, forceful, 1 Piercing
  10 hp
  [Note: the stats here refer to general stats for a denizen of Lastlife possessed by the Might-
  sword, wielding it in battle. The Mightsword itself is nigh indestructible.]
  Swords of power, of great and mighty artifice, were once the order of the day in the world 
  before the cataclysm. So many were created, each with their own purpose, their own intent. 
  Most have been lost, destroyed, abandoned, forgotten. The Mightsword was one of the last. 
  It would never allow itself remain lost or forgotten, though. It will survive and thrive, in any 
  circumstances, even past the ending of the world.
  The Mightsword is a huge blade, of enormous strength. Its power is such that it controls 
  those who grasp its hilt. It bends their minds to its will, sends them into battle on its own 
  agenda, even as it bestows upon them titanic might and endurance. And it forever seeks 
  stronger and stronger wielders, and more and more control. 
  The wellbeing of the Mightsword’s wielder is meaningless to it. A simple body to provide 
  force beyond the swing of the blade. When one dies, it will find another. And the blade 
  itself is too powerful, too strong of will, to be simply destroyed. 
  Questions:
  • Who crafted the Mightsword? Why?
  • Is there anyone in existence who might master the Mightsword?
  • What is the ultimate drive and purpose of the Mightsword?
  Theory #1: All the greatest rulers of Lastlife have had pieces of their essence sewn into the 
  Mightsword. It bears their strength, their will, their might. It was a weapon crafted to pro-
  vide a course of salvation, away from the cataclysm that would end the world—its wielder 
  should have had the wisdom and strength of will necessary to drive the sphere away from its 
  doom. But the power of the Mightsword was too much, and its purpose was corrupted in 
  the cataclysm. Now, it seeks unthinking sovereignty, the drive of all those whose essences  
  it holds. 
  Theory #2: The gods of Lastlife are gone, destroyed with the cataclysm—without the 
  memory of their existence, they were reduced to nothingness. But their divinity, their sheer 
  
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  power, was caught by some smith hoping to prevent such wonder from leaving the world. 
  And the Mightsword is the vessel for that divinity. Its purpose? To recreate godhood. To 
  recreate divinity. In the hands of one capable of rallying the denizens around a new god, the 
  Mightsword will find its match, and fulfill its purpose, even in these broken ruins.
  Instinct: To possess, dominate, and control
  Moves:
  • Dominate the weak or susceptible wills
  • Bestow strength and power
  • Destroy with powerful swings
  • Drive towards vulnerable objects and places of power
  The Broken
  (A swarm of demonic offspring)
  Qualities: horde, small, stealthy, devious
  Attack: Sharpened Limbs: d6 damage, close
  3 hp
  (A Broken attached to its host)
  Qualities: solitary, magical, intelligent, planar
  Attack: Mighty fists and demonic magics: d10+2 damage, close, forceful
  16 hp 
   
   
  3 Armor  
   
  The children of Oriaxanysoth. An endless swarm of miniature demons, birthed from the 
  Demon Pool in which their parent is trapped, and leaking out from the weakened ring of 
  stones. They spread out into the ruins, seeking nooks and crannies, places to hide, places to 
  grow, and hosts to grow upon. When they find a denizen of Lastlife they can possess, they 
  leap upon their target and bond with it, piercing it with their limbs and joining with it into 
  a single being.
  Those connected to one of the Broken can hear the voice of the creature. As the demon 
  grows upon its new host, it takes on its own intelligence, built upon their own deepest, 
  darkest desires. And together, the demon and the host grow ever more powerful. 
  Most of the Broken are faithful to their parent, Oriaxanysoth. They seek its escape, as much 
  as they seek their own increased power. They crave the demonic home dimension they’ve 
  never even seen. 
  But some of them...some go rogue. They seek their own fortunes, and their own power, in-
  dependent of Oriaxanysoth. It is these Broken which are perhaps even more dangerous than 
  those that remain faithful.
  
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  Questions:
  • What is the true purpose of the Broken?
  • Are the offspring of Oriaxanysoth each new demons?
  • Why can the Broken escape from the Demon Pool, but Oriaxanysoth cannot?
  • What is the true relationship between the demonic offspring and their hosts?
  Theory #1: Oriaxanysoth is a true demon, but its offspring are not...up until they bond with 
  a mortal. Only then do they become true demons, capable of accomplishing the same goals, 
  feats of power, and works of damnation as their parent. And when the Broken understand 
  this, understand their new place, they will realize that serving Oriaxanysoth does not serve 
  their new essence. They will break free, and they will seek their own power. Soon, a horde 
  of Broken demons will overrun Lastlife, becoming a new empire of devils, and transforming 
  the dead world into a new hellplane.
  Theory #2: The Broken are each monstrous demons in and of themselves, each demonic 
  aspects of their parent. To them, their hosts are expendable tools to be manipulated...but 
  unlike their parent, they cannot survive on their own. They are only capable of escape from 
  the Demon Pool because their power is not enough to allow them to survive for long on 
  their own. They are a monstrous infestation, and they will whisper sweet truths to their 
  hosts simply to live off the dark desires of those denizens.
  (A swarm of demonic offspring)
  Instinct: To offer power in exchange for corruption
  Moves:
  • Rip and tear with sharpened limbs
  • Bond with a new host
  • Scurry to safety
  (A Broken attached to its host)
  Instinct: To extend its own power
  Moves:
  • Attack with demonic magic
  • Rend with demonic strength
  • Pursue its basest temptations and impulses
  • Break free of mortal magic
  Filth
  Qualities: solitary, magical, intelligent, terrifying, small
  Attack: Necrotic magics: d10+5, reach, near, far, ignores Armor, messy
  20 hp 
   
   
  4 Armor  
   
  Filth looks like a child, about 10 years of age. He wears rags, tattered shreds of clothing that 
  were ruined long before the cataclysm struck this world. His feet are clad in ruined shoes. 
  His body is emaciated, his eyes hollow, his skin ragged and worn with sores down to the 
  bone. He looks meek and small. A mere child. Nothing more. 
  Except Filth is nothing of the sort.
  
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  Since the cataclysm, through some deep hatred, the discovery of some ancient knowledge, 
  or some other secret truth, Filth has become a sorcerer of deep and terrible might. The 
  child who was once a kitchen boy, someone to be ignored or kicked or struck, has become 
  a scourge of the ruins. An entity capable of stealing the power out of other undead, and 
  growing in strength himself until he might devour the whole of Lastlife.
  Looking upon him, one sees only weakness. But as soon as Filth’s eyes fall upon you, the 
  truth becomes clear. And you know your own doom.
  Questions:
  • How did Filth gain such power in the ruins?
  • Is there no one left in the ruins who might call Filth a friend?
  • Can Filth be saved from himself?
  • What was Filth’s real name? 
  Theory #1: Filth was to be sacrificed in a ritual meant to create a bubble against the  
  oncoming cataclysm. The mages involved would be protected inside, capable of forming 
  their own new kingdom in the ruins. But the ritual was corrupted by the cataclysm, and 
  Filth’s death was the first of Lastlife. He rose back up, absorbing into himself the powers 
  and knowledge of those mages that would have sacrificed his life. His name was lost to him 
  in the midst of all the magical knowledge. If the spirits of those dark sorcerers could be 
  extracted from Filth, he might be freed from his dark desires and purpose...but Filth doesn’t 
  want that to happen. He would fight to keep his power. 
  Theory #2: Filth’s hatred of the people who mistreated him, who tortured him as a kitchen 
  boy, drove him beyond the cataclysm with a strength of will far greater than nearly any 
  other denizen of Lastlife. Even with his small, weak form, he was vicious and brutal, and he 
  tore apart other denizens to drink of their power. In no time he was transformed into the 
  creature he is now, a monstrous nexus of dark magic, forever hungry. His nature is eternally 
  changed, and any who might have reminded him of what he once was were consumed by 
  him. He may have been one of the first Hungry of Lastlife…but now he is something far 
  worse.
  Instinct: To consume weaker than himself
  Moves:
  • Appear suddenly with no fanfare or warning
  • Unleash destructive and decaying magics to consume the area
  • Show the true nature of hunger and hatred
  
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  Reshapers
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife hold within them the faintest of sparks. The faintest of hopes 
  for a new future. A new world. They can be changed, though only through much pain, tur-
  moil, and anguish. But there are those who would take on that burden. They seek to remake 
  the ruins according to whatever vision or rules they hold. They are dangerous, but they may 
  be some of the only hopes left in Lastlife.
  Colistriana Smithcaste
  Qualities: solitary, magical, intelligent, devious, cautious
  Attack: Smithcaste Hammer: w[2d8]+2, close, forceful
  12 hp 
   
   
  1 Armor  
   
  Colistriana Smithcaste wears armor she polishes and repairs compulsively. She carries the 
  Smithcaste hammer at her side, a silver and electrum thing with the proper runes inscribed 
  in it for meaningful artifice. Her skin is stretched taut across her skeletal frame, and her hair 
  is wispy and barely present anymore, but she cares not. Upon her brow there still sits the 
  hammer tattoo of the Smithcaste. And with that, she knows what she is. She knows what 
  she must do.
  Her power is that of creation, invention, of the bestowal of new life. She can make dance 
  the inanimate, and she can forge wonders beautiful, impressive, and iconic. All she has left 
  to her, in these ruins, is that urge to create. To make. And she will always pursue more and 
  greater opportunities to practice her craft, pursuing the materials and machinery necessary 
  to create and create and create. She will remake the Cold Ruins of Lastlife, one creation at  
  a time.
  She is not a violent creature, but she will make constructs to defend her. And she will not 
  allow any to stand in the way of her artifice. 
  Questions:
  • What is the history of the Smithcaste?
  • Are there more hammers like Colistriana’s?
  • Can Colistriana revive the ruins with her creations?
  • Who was Colistriana Smithcaste in the days before the cataclysm?
  Theory #1: Colistriana Smithcaste is the only remaining member of the Smithcaste, the 
  group of elite creators and artificers from the kingdom before the cataclysm. But she was 
  never a master creator; she was only ever an apprentice. The knowledge she retains of how 
  to create is basic, and while she can make wonders even with that meager knowledge, she 
  is nothing compared to the skilled smiths of the past. Devoid of the knowledge of the past, 
  she will not be able to restore the ruins, or create more hammers, or pass on her knowledge. 
  She will simply create what wonders she can, ever more, unceasingly.
  Theory #2: Colistriana Smithcaste was the last and only member of the Smithcaste before 
  the cataclysm, and so she is still. She built many of the greatest wonders in the ruins, crafted 
  them with time and skill and magic. She could do so again. But that makes her the bearer 
  
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  The Cold Creatures
  of one of the strongest sparks of memory in all of Lastlife...and a beacon for creatures that 
  would love nothing more than to devour such power.
  Instinct: To create new life and wonders 
  Moves:
  • Bring to life the inanimate
  • Identify any valuable magics or materials around her
  • Strike those who threaten her creations
  The Carapace Infected
  Qualities: group, devious
  Attack: Razor-sharp mushrooms: d8, close, 1 Piercing
  8 hp 
   
   
  5 Armor  
   
  Imagine a world truly united. A world where all creatures lived in a dreamlike paradise 
  state, their minds connected through a subliminal network communicating through motes 
  in the air. No violence between them, no anger, no hatred. Their beings, their souls en-
  meshed into the ultimate community. Their bodies protected in the warm, loving embrace 
  of that same thing that unites them. The Carapace Fungus.
  Those infected by the Carapace Fungus live in this dream state, their minds given over to 
  that unity of purpose. The fungus is a single creature, a single mind, a single entity, and 
  those who carry it upon their bodies are tied into that massive whole. They lack the mem-
  ories, thoughts, desires, or ailments that drove them forward in days past; instead, they are 
  driven forward by the sole purpose of spreading the fungus.
  They stagger forward, shambling creatures covered in steel-hard and razor-sharp mush-
  rooms. And they will remake the ruins in their image.
  Questions:
  • Can the Carapace-infected be cured?
  • Where does the Carapace Fungus come from?
  Theory #1: The Carapace Fungus is completely new to this sphere, a creation that could 
  only exist or thrive in the world after the end. It grew in the strangeness of the mists and 
  magics in the Cold Ruins, and it is uniquely adapted to this place. The Carapace Fungus 
  cannot be removed from the denizens of Lastlife, not without changing their very nature 
  and the nature of the ruins themselves.
  Theory #2: The Carapace Fungus is left over from an ancient attempt to create magical 
  warriors, loyal, invincible, and implacable. They were to be ensconced within natural 
  impenetrable armor, their minds bonded through the fungus, ruled by the wizards who 
  created the strange life that covers them. The Carapace Fungus never quite functioned cor-
  rectly and was stored within the wizards’ troves. But now that it has escaped into the ruins, 
  only the codices of those wizards hold the secrets necessary to peel it off the infected and 
  free them of its curse.
  
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  The Cold Creatures
  Instinct: To spread the Carapace Fungus wherever possible
  Moves:
  • Break a weapon upon steel-strong fungus
  • Overwhelm with unified numbers
  • Infect with fungal spores
  Arsoclinus the Inferno
  Qualities: solitary, intelligent, magical, radiant
  Attack: Pyromancy: b[2d10]+5 damage, reach, near, messy, 1 Piercing
  20 hp 
   
   
  2 Armor  
   
  Arsoclinus wears a melted patchwork of armor over her dried out, leathery skin. Her head is 
  bald, and her eyes are pinpricks of bright orange light. Atop her head floats an ever-burning 
  crown of Radiance. Where she steps, small fires spring up around her. She is a living, burn-
  ing fire, a conflagration here with the will to destroy the past and bring about a new future. 
  She is not merciless. She seeks to spread her message, to convince the other denizens of Last-
  life to similarly join her in praising and serving the future, and ignoring the past. But any 
  who would cling to the past? She burns. Any who would restore the old ways or order? She 
  incinerates. Her fire leaps forth from her fingertips, her eyes, her mouth, and it consumes 
  memory and history.
  Questions:
  • Who was Arsoclinus the Inferno before the cataclysm?
  • Where did she pick up the name Arsoclinus?
  • Where does her power truly come from?
  • What will happen if she does successfully burn all the past away?
  Theory #1: Arsoclinus the Inferno is tied intimately to the cataclysm. She is somehow 
  responsible for it, in some fashion, but she has burned away that part of herself. She refuses 
  to remember the crimes she committed. The flames of Radiance that she calls up come 
  from whatever she did, the changes she wrought upon this world, but she has no interest in 
  exploring the reasons. She will simply burn away every single piece of the world that was, 
  the world she wronged. Whether or not a new world can truly rise from those ashes matters 
  very little to her. She only cares about ridding herself of the past.
  Theory #2: Arsoclinus the Inferno took her name an ancient figure in the world’s past, one 
  forgotten by all in these ruins. She found the name in a book in the August Library. The 
  original Arsoclinus fought against the existing order, seeing it as tyrannical and monstrous. 
  And the original Arsoclinus was defeated, destroyed, and relegated to text in history books. 
  The new Arsoclinus was no one, a simple apprentice knight of the old order. But here in 
  Lastlife, where she read of the past? It gave her a new drive. A new purpose. And her power 
  came from the truth of that myth, pouring into her, the spirit of the old Arsoclinus trans-
  ferred through the ages. She will remake these ruins, the way that the old Arsoclinus could 
  never remake his world.
  Instinct: To burn away the past
  
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  The Cold Creatures
  Moves:
  • Ignite something old
  • Call up flames around her
  • Offer hope, happiness, and warm dreams of the future
  Defenders
  Some creatures have found a place for themselves in Lastlife. Where most in the ruins stand 
  trapped in tragic echoes of prior lives, some flourish. They enjoy themselves. They can take 
  advantage of the mists or the deathlessness. They are served by the absence of memory. 
  These denizens will not change the ruins, or destroy them. They will defend them, defend 
  the stasis therein, unto the ending of their beings.
  The Deepwasp
  Qualities: solitary, large, magical, intelligent, hoarder, cautious, devious
  Attack: Poison Stinger: d10+3 damage, close, reach, poisonous
  18 hp 
   
   
  2 Armor  
   
  The Deepwasp is a large insectoid creature, sitting on a pedestal, its thorax swollen, its 
  stinger glistening and dripping poison. The designs upon its chitin are mesmerizing, as are 
  its strange, human-like eyes. At the end of each of its limbs is a human hand, with which 
  it gesticulates wildly while telling stories of the past and how this world could be restored. 
  How everything could be better. If only you would listen to it.
  The Deepwasp is a creature come from before the cataclysm that created the Cold Ruins, 
  and while it had power in those days, it certainly was not in the position it finds itself in 
  now. Wielding enough magic to protect itself, to project its will into the weakened denizens 
  of the ruins. Appearing as some strange, alien god creature, the only one with enough mem-
  ory to speak truth about what once existed. Offering hope of restoration. The Deepwasp 
  will use its position to send others out on quests, to accomplish its ends, to grow its power. 
  But ultimately? It does not want this sphere restored to what it once was. The Deepwasp has 
  power in these ruins. It would rather give quests unto infinity, and so it shall.
  Questions:
  • Where does the Deepwasp come from?
  • Can the Deepwasp leave its domain?
  • What does the Deepwasp truly want?
  • What wants to destroy the Deepwasp?
  
  The Old Queen
  
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  Theory #1: The Deepwasp was one of the first creatures in all the world. A being tied to the 
  very birth of this sphere. Its kin are all corrupted, changed, diminished, or destroyed; it is 
  the only one of those primordial creatures that remains in any form akin to its first. It was 
  always the weakest of its kin, the smallest and least capable of reshaping the world. But now, 
  in these ruins? It is the only one left, and this is its chance to rule. Its chance to be in com-
  mand, to give orders to its lessers. Of course, if it only understood that some small portion 
  of its kin still exist...and would love nothing more than to devour their tiny sibling.
  Theory #2: The Deepwasp is a fraction of an enormous hive of such creatures. A hive that 
  once dominated the entire world, rising above the horizon for all to see from miles away. 
  The entire hive was destroyed by the rising powers of the old world, and the Deepwasp’s 
  kin were all slain. But the creature itself survived, kept as a curiosity to be studied. It was 
  trapped where it still sits today by the magics of those old days. And what it wants more 
  than anything is ultimately to revive its own hive...a task it can best accomplish in these 
  Cold Ruins, where the world and its defenders are weak.
  Instinct: To pursue its own greatness
  Moves:
  • Offer a quest with a noble outcome and a shining reward
  • Deflect concerns, attacks, or fears
  • Manipulate minds with its god-like aura
  The Old Queen
  Qualities: solitary, magical, terrifying, intelligent, hoarder
  Attack: Darkbolts from her Regal Scepter: d10+2 damage, near, far, messy, forceful, 2 
  Piercing
  24 hp 
   
   
  4 Armor  
   
  Queen...Queen….
  What was her name?
  It doesn’t matter. The Queen, grand and mighty, ruled over a vast kingdom. It was hers. 
  Hers! She was its master, and all those who dwelt within its boundaries obeyed her. They 
  were hers to command, to control. She was almost a goddess. They venerated her for her 
  charitability, and her wise rulership. Whenever she fell ill, the entire kingdom would  
  become worried for their queen.
  No, that’s not it. That’s not quite right. She never fell ill, such was her mighty power and 
  strength of body and mind. She instead cured illnesses with but a touch. The people loved 
  her for it, though she never deigned to enter the dwelling places of the poor and the dirty, 
  for such places would not suit a queen like her. The poor came to her, lining up out of the 
  castle’s gate in a queue that lasted for miles.
  No, still not right. Her royalty, her imperial presence, was too much for the poor. They 
  couldn’t even stand to be in the room with her for too long, such was her radiant authority. 
  Understandable for those lessers.
  
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  She rules unto this day. Death itself is afraid to touch this great lady. Age shies away, so  
  as not to blemish her perfect skin. She is timeless, eternal, and only grows more beautiful 
  each day. 
  She is certainly not a mad denizen of Lastlife, bereft of her true memories. Bereft of any 
  details. Unsure if she ever truly was the ruler of a kingdom, except for the stories she tells 
  herself again and again and again. She is certainly not a walking skeleton, a corpse person. 
  She is certainly not unsure of even her own name. And none call her the Old Queen. None. 
  None. 
  Questions:
  • Was the Old Queen truly the monarch of an old kingdom?
  • What are the ties between the Old Queen and her throne? Her raiments?  
  Her scepter?
  • What is the source of the Old Queen’s power to take memory?
  Theory #1: The Old Queen was not ever a ruler of her kingdom. She was at best a cour-
  tesan, living in the court, close to those in power, trying to edge her way closer. But never 
  there. Never capable of coming closer. But that matters very little; being so close to the 
  court, she came to understand one thing. The one who claims the throne is the one who 
  controls the throne. And in the cataclysm, in the destruction and chaos and loss of memory 
  that followed, all she could think of was claiming that throne. Making it hers. The strange-
  ness of the cataclysm reshaped the castle, and with her upon the throne, it did truly become 
  hers. Its properties changed to suit her, and she became its immortal ruler with no memory 
  of the world that came before.
  Theory #2: The Old Queen is not herself. The clothes she wears, the scepter she holds, the 
  throne she sits in—these things reshaped a denizen of Lastlife to suit them, like a mold. She 
  has no concept of whomsoever she might have been, because now she is the Old Queen. 
  And any other denizen who took up those relics would find themselves forced into a similar 
  place. The relics seize the memory of those around them to ensure that they can mold the 
  denizens and the castle itself into some strange shadow of the kingdom they were once the 
  trophies of. 
  Instinct: To solidify, defend, and extend her regal authority
  Moves:
  • Make imperious demands
  • Cloud minds with lies and false memories
  • Demolish dissidents with magical force
  • Show the true face of madness
  
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  The Librarian
  Qualities: solitary, large, hoarder, stealthy, devious
  Attack: Rending and tearing limbs: d8+2 damage, close, reach, forceful, messy, 2 Piercing
  16 hp
  A horrible creature, come from a place none know. The Librarian is invisible to any who do 
  not already know what it looks like; the only place such knowledge lies is, of course, hidden 
  within the Library itself. The book describes a creature with a long body, with 12 different 
  limbs, each one powerful but slender, capable of clambering silently across the bookshelves 
  in which it makes its home. Countless tentacular appendages extend from its body, each one 
  ending in an eye. 
  The Librarian maintains the Library. It pursues order, perfect order, in all things, with the 
  books stacked appropriately and carefully. It hunts and destroys those who would disrupt 
  the August Library’s perfect order. And all because the Library is its breeding ground. This 
  invisible creature lays eggs within the books. Strange, extradimensional, invisible things, 
  twisting the content of the words inside, creating new life from a combination of ideas and 
  matter. The Librarian breeds new horrors in the Library. And in this place of lost memory, 
  who knows? Perhaps many of the greatest horrors that stalk these ruins came first from an 
  egg laid by the Librarian.
  Questions:
  • Where does the Librarian come from? What birthed it?
  • What creatures in Lastlife are the spawn of the Librarian?
  • Why is the Librarian drawn and connected to the August Library?
  Theory #1: The stories of the world—its histories, myths, and legends—became something 
  more with the cataclysm. They already possessed a power, of history or belief, but with  
  the coming of Lastlife they took on more substance. And the Librarian was the result. A 
  creature imbued with the belief in these stories. As memory of the contents of each book 
  faded from the ruins, the Librarian grew more and more real. And now it births the stories 
  into new life, in its own strange way. Many of the creatures believed to be ancient and  
  primordial are simply stories to which it gave life, and it will not stop until the August 
  Library is empty.
  Theory #2: The Librarian is a parasite, the likes of which regularly crawl their way into the 
  spheres. Normally, these parasites are weak, and small. They cannot get enough sustenance, 
  drawn from stories and words, to become anything more. They come close to libraries or 
  books, but the presence of living beings interferes with their feeding. But in Lastlife, where 
  the denizens are undead and amnesiac, the feeding is plentiful and easy. It has grown fat, in 
  a way that few of its kind ever have. And soon it will send forth its spawn out of Lastlife to 
  infest other spheres.
  Instinct: To protect the August Library and the books within
  Moves:
  • Strike at those who cannot see it
  • Birth a new horror from the Library
  • Reorder chaos with rapid speed
  
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  Wanderers
  And finally, amid the ruins, there are those abominations, creatures, monstrosities, and den-
  izens that are tied to no place, no clear cause, no clear motivation. They seek many things, 
  and they move across the ruins regularly. They are the wanderers. Some driven by their lost 
  memories, or by unexplained primal urges. All deadly. All dangerous. Nothing that wanders 
  the Cold Ruins could be anything but.
  The Unborn Nightmare
  Qualities: solitary, huge, terrifying
  Attack: Rending and tearing limbs: d8+2 damage, close, reach, forceful, messy, 2 Piercing
  16 hp
  An abomination of abominations. Enormous, 50 feet tall. With the head of an infant, but 
  with cold glistening black eyes, and rows of sharpened, razor-like teeth in its mouth. A 
  body, strong, tall, broad, but without skin: muscle and sinew exposed to the cold air. Rings 
  of iron embedded in its form, holding it together, or perhaps binding it with some ancient 
  magic. Its hands end in stubby fingers of torn flesh. Its wail is a roar of horror and a cry of 
  pain. The Unborn Nightmare is a monstrosity, and its arrival spells doom.
  The creature may have once been destined for greatness, and glory. It might have been a 
  destroyer. It might have been an angel or a god. But after the cataclysm destroyed the world, 
  the creature was changed, and its purpose never arrived. Now its entire existence is defined 
  by the monstrousness of its new form; the pain of its ever-unfulfilled nature. And the only 
  response the creature can have to such a tragedy is rage and destruction.
  Questions:
  • What was the original purpose of the Unborn Nightmare?
  • Can the Unborn Nightmare still fulfill that purpose?
  • Can the Unborn Nightmare be uncorrupted?
  Theory #1: The Unborn Nightmare was a creature of prophecy, a giant meant to redeem 
  the world from the corruption setting into its kingdoms and practices. It was to be a noble 
  creature, powerful, silver-eyed, tall and strong, bringing hope and upholding justice. And 
  when the world ended, there was no hope to be had. There was no justice to be had in a 
  place where none could remember sin. Its entire nature had been undone, and the creature it 
  became was the warped remnants of what it was meant to be. Until Lastlife itself is restored, 
  the Unborn Nightmare will never be anything more than its warped self.
  Theory #2: The Unborn Nightmare was called to this world to cleanse it of sinners, to act 
  as a champion for some great, terrible, and monstrous god of justice. But it was captured 
  and changed—it was purposely remade into a nightmarish abomination, to better serve the 
  purposes of those flesh-smiths who remade it. The change helped to unmake the solidity of 
  the world...helped to bring about the cataclysm. And the Unborn Nightmare will always 
  stand as a testament to the dark and horrible crimes of those who came before.
  Instinct: To smash, destroy, and flail in its pain
  
  The Stalker in Ruins
  
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  Moves:
  • Stampede through a large construction
  • Grab and consume something smaller than itself
  • Hunt for creatures to blame for its pain
  • Excruciatingly rip limb from limb
  The Stalker in Ruins
  Qualities: solitary, stealthy, devious, planar
  Attack: Living whips: d8+3 damage, hand, close, 2 Piercing
  18 hp 
   
   
  2 Armor  
   
  A servant of the Things From Outside. A creature made to explore Lastlife on their behalf, 
  and to determine if the world can be an incubator for a new Thing...or should be destroyed. 
  The creature is a thick, squat thing, clambering around on two legs with two strong arms. 
  Its head is a single, massive eye, and teeth line the pupil. In each hand, the Stalker holds a 
  living whip, snaking around with a fanged maw at the end. 
  The Stalker roves the ruins, looking for more information, exploring, examining, learning. 
  So far, the Stalker has determined that Lastlife is too much of an anomaly to be left alone; it 
  must be destroyed. It is too dangerous to be used as an incubator. But the Stalker lacks the 
  power to escape Lastlife and return to the Things, or to destroy this sphere itself. So it roves. 
  Looking for new routes to fulfill its purpose. 
  Questions:
  • Can the Stalker in Ruins be turned away from its purpose?
  • What are the Things From Outside looking for in Lastlife?
  Theory #1: The Stalker in Ruins, separated from the Things From Outside by the strange-
  ness of Lastlife, is becoming a new kind of abomination. A new creature. It is only a matter 
  of time until the Stalker is free of its masters, and pursuing its own ends...though what 
  those will be, only time will tell.
  Theory #2: The Stalker in Ruins, beyond seeing if Lastlife can act as incubator for a new 
  Thing From Outside, beyond looking for a way to end this interminable world, is looking 
  for more servants for the Things. More creatures that might be turned to their purpose. 
  Should it come across denizens of Lastlife capable and powerful and interested in escape 
  from this dead world, the Stalker would be happy to imbue them with fleshly shards of the 
  Things....in exchange for their service.
  Instinct: To escape or destroy Lastlife
  Moves:
  • Yank an object of power from the hands of its wielder
  • Slip into the ruins with surprising speed and silence
  • Suddenly attack vulnerable foes 
  • Examine and investigate the world around it
  
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  The Executioner
  Qualities: solitary, terrifying, amorphous, construct
  Attack: Executioner’s Axe: d12+6, reach, forceful, messy, 3 Piercing
  18 hp 
   
   
  3 Armor  
   
  Many spheres have their own specter of death. A creature that represents the terminus of 
  life, embodied into a physical form. Sometimes death is a benevolent presence; sometimes 
  a grim one. In Lastlife, a world beyond its own death, this creature is...different. Distorted. 
  Monstrous. The Executioner is death come to the ruins, and the truth that reflects upon 
  Lastlife is nightmarish. 
  Lastlife has removed itself from the grip of death, with the fogs and the constant resur-
  rection of its denizens. The Executioner exists to undo that truth—to make itself the sole 
  immortal creature in all of the ruins. When the avatar of death is the only creature that  
  can remain indefinitely alive, then and only then will the Executioner’s dark purpose  
  be fulfilled.
  The Executioner keeps its body largely hidden beneath black garments and fabric. Such  
  attire helps it to move more easily through the ruins without being spotted….and allows it 
  to reveal the truth of its form at the right moment. Underneath the fabric and whatever  
  other adornments it wears, it is an amalgamation of bodies. Limbs melted together into 
  arms and legs. Faces stitched cheek to cheek to form a head, all the eyes glassy and unfo-
  cused, but giving the creature countless angles of vision. Fists made of dozens of grasping 
  hands. The Executioner is made of every single creature it has killed, and it only grows the 
  more it kills.
  Fighting a creature that embodies death, that grows with each death it causes, is ever a los-
  ing proposition. But when the Executioner comes for you, what choice is there but to fight, 
  or die? 
  Questions:
  • Why does the Executioner take this form?
  • What ill force powers the Executioner’s existence?
  • What will the Executioner do once it has consumed all the creatures in the world?
  Theory #1: The cataclysm freed Death from its chains in this world. Once, it served end-
  lessly, visiting all living creatures at the time of their end. But now it visits none—death 
  is transient amid the mists, and it is free to take on the form it desires. In Lastlife, in this 
  twisted place, Death is hateful, and chose for itself the form of the Executioner. It takes the 
  physical forms of those it slays as compensation for its years upon years of endless service 
  prior to the cataclysm. And if it has its way, it will leave Lastlife and go to other spheres 
  amid the chaos, come to subsume their Deaths into itself, to become the Death of the 
  cosmos entire.
  
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  Theory #2: The Executioner is not truly Death, embodied. It is what its name implies; the 
  royal executioner from a time before the cataclysm. It was a mere mortal, whose purpose 
  was to end the lives of those who committed the worst crimes. But in Lastlife, the only piece 
  of itself it had to hold onto was its drive for death. Its job, in ending existences. It took from 
  that drive all the power and will it could. It builds its body with the corpses of those it slays 
  to better improve its ability to execute ever more. It is almost a machine at this point, and 
  no longer thinking—desiring simply to endlessly fulfill its purpose.
  Instinct: To kill and subsume its victims’ bodies
  Moves:
  • Regenerate by absorbing a slain body
  • Reveal the horrors of its full body
  • Cleave with unnatural strength
  The Screaming Centaurs
  Qualities: group, terrifying, construct, planar, large
  Attack: Doomscream: d8+1 damage, intimate, hand, close, reach, near, far, ignores Armor
  12 hp
  The bodies of bony, hairless, gaunt horses. The upper torsos of human beings, but where the 
  head should be, a gaping maw. No eyes, no ears, no nose—just an enormous mouth with 
  flat, blunted teeth. At the end of each of the horse’s legs is not a hoof, but a hand, and set 
  into the human torso are two oversized, watery eyes. Their screams accompany them wher-
  ever they go, like the sound of a life turned to death, of the world tipping into nonsense and 
  chaos, of people falling to their basest instincts. A scream of madness.
  They hunt sound. They consume it. Song, strange calls, voices. They eat all, and use the 
  nourishment to reproduce. And reproduce. And reproduce.
  Questions:
  • Who made them, and for what purpose?
  • What is the noise they are making? A song? A scream? 
  • What do they feed upon? 
  • Where do they flock to? 
  Theory #1: The Screaming Centaurs are the result of nightmarish magical experiments 
  designed to produce the perfect guards and alarms, fast and loud. Since the fall of Lastlife, 
  they have been freed from the laboratories they were intended to inhabit, and now they have 
  only grown more monstrous, becoming auditory gateways to worlds of horror and misery. 
  The sounds of an eternity of souls suffering an endless amount pour forth from them. As 
  they consume more sound, they reproduce. Soon enough, there will be so many, each one 
  a tiny interdimensional portal to a hellplane, that those paleocosms will seep through, and 
  Lastlife shall be swallowed whole. 
  
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  Theory #2: The end came to Lastlife at different speeds. Some places instantaneously, other 
  places slowly. It struck like the flash of a dagger into the orchestral hall, where the greatest 
  musicians of the land were performing a masterpiece. At the height of their music, when 
  the sound was mixing together into a textured tapestry, a succulent broth of song, the end 
  struck. The orchestra’s song was twisted, and as the song changed, so did the players. They 
  became one with their instruments, melding until each was a Screaming Centaur. Their 
  screams coalesced into the world’s deathsong. The audience, those not killed by the strike 
  of the change, were driven into death by the terrible melodies and cacophonous harmonies. 
  So the Screaming Centaurs still roam the world, screaming forth their endless, broken song, 
  seeking the perfect audience to appreciate their dirge, and consuming any other sounds in 
  hope of repairing their broken music.
  Instinct: To pursue delectable sounds
  Moves:
  • Scream a song of hell 
  • Gallop with shocking speed 
  • Bite with blunt teeth 
  • Consume sound and create spawn
  The Wielder
  Qualities: solitary, large, intelligent
  Attack: Razor Void: b[2d10]+6 damage, reach, 1 Piercing, messy, forceful
  24 hp
  The Wielder’s arm is molded with his sword: Razor Void, a terrifying blade of dark power. 
  He has sacrificed the entirety of his existence and his future in order to keep the sword 
  out of the hands of any who would abuse it. He is still alive, sustained by the power of the 
  blade—one of the only denizens of Lastlife left truly alive through the cataclysm. But he is 
  wild-eyed, and pained. His hair is long and dirty, and his body has grown enormous and 
  somewhat misshapen. Razor Void leaves no one untainted.
  The Wielder simply wishes to be alone with the sword, to hide it somewhere it, and he, will 
  never be found. But the sword calls to other denizens, brings them to him ceaselessly, and 
  so he has learned to never trust any of them. He destroys any who seem like they might 
  possibly take the sword, even if they are not even aware of Razor Void’s value.
  Questions:
  • Where does Razor Void come from?
  • How did the Wielder first come upon the blade? 
  • Why did the Wielder decide to take this burden upon himself?
  • Why is the Wielder still alive?
  
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  Theory #1: Razor Void is not truly an enchanted blade of doom. That is a story the Wielder 
  tells, and tells himself, to lighten the pain of the burden. The Wielder is a monster, a cursed 
  man, a perpetrator of many a violent, horrible crime. For his sins he was cursed to bear 
  them in physical form...in the form of the blade, Razor Void. A horrible, corrupted thing 
  ever aching to force him towards more crime. The only way he can bear this punishment is 
  by pretending he does so for some noble purpose, to save others from the same fate.
  Theory #2: Razor Void is the blade that set off the cataclysm. It bears within it the dark 
  forces that would end the world itself. The Wielder remains alive because his life is the only 
  means to restrain the blade, now—he is the one who originally summoned it into the world, 
  and without him, the blade would be free to finish its original purpose. To doom Lastlife 
  into nonexistence.
  Instinct: To destroy any who might take Razor Void
  Moves:
  • Cleave with Razor Void
  • Warn away other denizens
  • Reveal the dark desires of other denizens
  • Flee to places uninhabited
  The Wielder
  
  Champions of Lastlife
  
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  There are many routes to power in the ruins. Even as decayed as they are, strange mysteries 
  and dark magics abound and provide strength to those who know where to look. Tying 
  yourself to one such path will grant you the means to forge a way throughout the ruins. 
  Perhaps even to bring back the past, or to start a new future. But all these powers come at a 
  cost, and many denizens do not realize what they have given up until it is too late.
  The Hol’Jethariae
  The Keepers of the New Ruler. The defenders of the Unborn Sovereign, an infant trapped 
  within a crystalline orb. They are sworn to the cause, to restore the greatness of their king-
  dom. They will not allow any harm to come to their ruler, even at cost of their repeating 
  existences. They are charged with this righteous duty, unto the true ending of the world or 
  the restoration of the kingdom. 
  When you pledge yourself to restore the Once Kingdom and take the star of the 
  Hol’Jethariae upon your head, you may take the move The Dawnstar when next you 
  level up.
  The Dawnstar
  You are given a Dawnstar, a morningstar of the order of Hol’Jethariae. It is imbued with all 
  the power of its former wielders. It comes to your hand when called. It will not fail you, for 
  as long as you uphold the strength and responsibilities of the order.
  Whenever you return to the Unborn Sovereign and pledge your fealty, you will be given a 
  mission to accomplish, and you will hold 3 Stars. Spend 1 Star at any time to call upon the 
  might of the Dawnstar and take a 10+ on any roll that uses strength, endurance, or magical 
  power. You cannot hold any more Stars until you complete the mission.
  The Dawnstar is a weapon. When dealing damage while wielding it, roll your damage die 
  twice and take the highest result. Its tags are: close, messy, forceful, +2 damage, 1 Piercing. 
  The Dawnstar will always come to your hand when summoned, appearing there instantly in 
  a burst of light.
  If you ever actively subvert the mission of the Hol’Jethariae, or disobey the duties given to 
  you by the order, the Dawnstar will leave you, and you will mark all debilities until you 
  have redeemed yourself.
  After you have taken The Dawnstar, you can take any of the following moves when next 
  you level up.
  
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  In the Name of the Sovereign
  When you give someone a command based on your authority as a servant of the Unborn 
  Sovereign, you can spend 1 Star to make that count as all the leverage you need to make a 
  Parley roll. If you already have leverage, you can spend 1 Star to take a 10+ on the Parley 
  roll. When giving an order to another PC, you can spend 1 Star to give them a +1 ongoing 
  to following the order if they follow your command.
  The Paths of the Hol’Jethariae
  You are aware of secret paths throughout the ruins of Lastlife, known only through the 
  memories and traditions of the Hol’Jethariae. You can spend 1 Star to find a secret path 
  through the ruins to any place, person, or item you choose. When you walk such a path, 
  choose 1:
  • You arrive in a dangerous location, near your destination but not directly at it.
  • You attract the attention of something dangerous to the secret path itself.
  • You consume the magics of the path itself, closing it behind you.
  Devoted Servant
  Whenever you get Stars by devoting yourself to a mission, you can swear an oath to gain 1 
  additional Star. The oaths you can swear include:
  • I will not return to this place/person until I destroy a powerful enemy of the 
  Hol’Jethariae (GM’s choice)
  • I will not return to this place/person without a great gift for the Unborn Sovereign 
  (GM’s choice)
  • I will not harm any but the guilty or monstrous on my mission
  • I will not speak anything but the full truth while on my mission
  Breaking an oath is the equivalent of actively subverting the mission of the Hol’Jethariae.
  Defender of the Realm That Will Be
  When you stand in defense of a person, item, or location, you always generate 1 additional 
  hold, even on a miss. When you choose to spend your hold to deal damage to the attacker 
  and you are wielding your Dawnstar, deal your normal damage plus your level, instead of 
  dealing damage equal to your level.
  
  The Frigid Knights
  
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  The Frigid Knights
  An order of slayers, those who wielded blades of ice and walked shrouded in cold mists. 
  They each took into them a piece of the primordial ice in the heart of the world and devoted 
  themselves to putting out the fires that threatened life and being—to ending the lives of 
  monsters, human or inhuman. 
  The Frigid Knights brought down gigantic eldritch abominations and entire regimes of 
  mortal nations. And for their efforts, they became loathed throughout the world. They were 
  turned away from towns and cities, and people fled from them on sight. 
  Such reactions didn’t matter to them, however. The Knights were cold, utterly devoid of 
  the need for compassion or friendship or warmth. Over time, each one became a monster, 
  something less than human but still driven to control human affairs by ending the lives 
  of the tyrannical and the dangerous. The Knights did not care when others began to take 
  measures to hunt them down. They did not care that many saw them to be as bad as the 
  monsters they slew. They kept their numbers strong, as there were always those called to the 
  ice. Even unto the end of the world, did they fight. 
  And now, in the Cold Ruins, they still exist. An order of callous knights, self-tasked with 
  ending monsters, and living in a world with nothing but. They will not stop, and they will 
  not show mercy, and they will not rebuild. 
  When you take into yourself a piece of the primal ice in the heart of the world, you become 
  a Frigid Knight and take Blade of Ice immediately. The next time you level up, do not take 
  another move. 
  Blade of Ice
  The primal ice you take into yourself grows in your heart and oozes along your flesh,  
  creating a blade for you to wield against the monsters. You cannot lose this blade. When 
  you unsheathe it, it flows out from inside of you. When you wish to put it away, it flows 
  back into the ice inside you. While you have the blade out, you are immune to cold. 
  The blade starts out with the following tags, and you may choose a single favor from below: 
  close, +1 damage, 1 Piercing, Freezing. 
  At any time, you can give more of yourself to the ice in your heart to strengthen your blade. 
  If you do, then choose 1 Sacrifice from the list below to gain 1 favor. You may make the 
  same sacrifice more than once. 
  Sacrifice:
  • Permanently give up one Bond. 
  • Take a permanent -2 to Cha. (max -3). 
  • Take a permanent -2 to Wis. (max -3).
  • Lose all Radiance—you can gain no more. 
  • Lose all Memory—you can gain no more. 
  
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  Favor:
  • When you wield the blade, you now roll your damage die twice and take the best 
  result. The blade is also messy. 
  • The blade ignores Armor. If you choose, it is also Precise. 
  • Add Hand and Reach ranges to the blade. You can shorten or lengthen the blade 
  at will. You can take 1d4 damage to yourself to launch the blade as a spike of ice, 
  using it to Volley. You cannot mark ammo for the Volley move if you do this. Your 
  sword will automatically grow back in your hand after you launch it. 
  • If you whisper to the blade the name of a monster you hunt, it will point you in 
  the direction of that creature at any time. Take +1 ongoing to find and kill that 
  monster with the blade. 
  • The blade’s ice has extended deeply into your being. You are immune to pain and 
  heat, and you can pierce all illusions and mental manipulations. If you touch 
  someone with the blade as they speak, you can tell if what they say is the truth. 
  The Freezing Tag
  If a weapon is Freezing, then it exudes enormous and dangerous cold. A Freezing weapon 
  can freeze any liquid it touches. Any being not immune to cold struck by a Freezing  
  weapon is slowed by the cold and the ice. 
  Once you have taken Blade of Ice, you can choose from the following moves when picking 
  a new move upon leveling up.
  Sheathed in Cold
  Your blade of ice has grown, and now covers you in rime armor. Any time you call out your 
  blade, you are covered in icy armor that moves with your body. This counts as 3 Armor. It 
  does not stack with other Armor. 
  Freeze the Beast
  When you cast forth the primordial ice from your blade, roll + Dex. On a hit, choose 1:
  • You can encase one human-sized target in ice, temporarily immobilizing it.
  • You can create a structure out of ice, like a bridge, no greater than ten feet in size.
  • You can create a zone of cold, ice, and frigidity all around you.
  • You can put out any fire or source of heat, regardless of size or intensity.
  On a 7-9, the primordial ice will still do what you wanted, but it will grow beyond what you 
  had originally intended. On a miss, the primordial ice will still come forth, but it will do 
  what it wants, creating stagnation and killing monsters according to its nature.
  Cold Stare
  Your face becomes a mask of ice and cold hatred. When you are parleying with an intelli-
  gent entity, if you threaten their life, you can use +Str to Parley instead of +Cha. You can 
  always use “threatening their life” as leverage, if they can understand you and what you are.
  
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  Undying Ice
  When you lose all your hp, you do not have to use The Dead Awakening move. Instead, if 
  you immediately make 1 Sacrifice as for Blade of Ice, you can immediately restore yourself 
  to full hp, as the ice repairs your battered form. You still get to choose a new strength for 
  your Blade of Ice. After using this move once, you can never again use the normal move for 
  death, and must always make 1 Sacrifice for Blade of Ice when you lose all your hp. If you 
  ever have nothing left to sacrifice, you become a creature made purely of the primordial ice.
  The Carapace Infected
  Taking the Carapace Fungus upon your body leaves you tougher, more powerful, more 
  capable. It strengthens your body, protecting you from the ravages of this dead place. The 
  fungus grows plates upon your flesh and bone, and you are left a juggernaut, imbued with 
  this strange warped life and the power it conveys. Meanwhile the fungus eats away at your 
  will, at your very being, slowly transforming you into one of its servants. But while you can 
  keep the gnawing at bay, you are a titan in the ruins.
  When you embrace the infection of the Carapace Fungus, immediately take the Armored 
  Skin move, below. The next time you level up, you do not take a new move.
  Armored Skin
  The Carapace Fungus grows upon your body, protecting you from harm as its host. It 
  strengthens you and grants you far greater might than the other denizens might know.
  Every time you make camp, lose any Fungus you had and take 3-Fungus. Spend your Fun-
  gus one for one to:
  • Ignore the damage from a single hit.
  • Add +2 to a roll using Str or Con (choose before you roll).
  • Infect someone or something else with the fungus by a touch.
  • Create sharpened plates out of the fungus on your body (a new weapon, hand 
  range, +2 damage, 2 Piercing).
  Every time you spend a Fungus for one of these effects, roll + Wis. On a 10+, you resist the 
  call of the larger organism. On a 7-9, you are Confused, Stunned, or Scarred, until next you 
  make camp. (If you are already all three, Confused, Stunned, and Scarred, then treat this 
  roll as if you had rolled a miss.) On a miss, reduce your Wis (not your Wisdom, but your 
  Wis) by -1, permanently.
  If ever your Wis reaches -3, you become a mindless servant of the Carapace Fungus and 
  Griedhardt’s Grove. 
  After you have taken Armored Skin, you can take moves from the following list whenever 
  you would next level up.
  
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  Spores
  When you spend 1 Fungus to infect others with the fungus, you can exude spores of the 
  Carapace Fungus from growths on the armor that covers your body. When you exude 
  spores, they fill the air around you, infecting anything they fall upon and creating a new 
  growth bloom of the Carapace Fungus. If another PC would be infected, they can defy 
  danger to dodge the infection. 
  Any other (non-PC) creature that you infect with the fungus is then under your control. 
  Create it as a hireling with 5 points to distribute between skills as appropriate, a loyalty 
  score of 1, and a cost of “Growing the Fungus.”
  Mutable Form
  The Carapace Fungus is so integrated with your form that your flesh is falling away, and 
  you are becoming more fungus than person. The hardened plates on the very outside of the 
  fungus hide softer, fleshier fungal matter beneath, and you can use that form to change 
  your very shape, from your size to the form of your limbs. Fine detailed changes, like those 
  to your appearance or your face, are not within your grasp. When you reshape yourself, roll 
  + Con. On a hit, you assume the form you choose, so long as your mass does not increase. 
  On a 7-9, you must spend 1 Fungus (you do not have to make the roll + Wis in Armored 
  Skin) or become Shaken, Scarred, or Confused. On a miss, trying to reshape your body 
  goes horribly awry, and you suffer b[2d10] damage.
  The Carapace Fungus
  
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  Mind of Growth
  As the Carapace Fungus grows into your mind, you grow into its mind, as well. You can  
  detect the world through the fungus’s senses, allowing you to see wherever it is, hear 
  whatever happens around it, feel whatever touches it, and so on. You can peer through any 
  growth of fungus, or any creature infected by the fungus, allowing you to study the ruins 
  of Lastlife anywhere that the fungus grows, whether or not you are there. If you do, you 
  always ask 1 additional question, even on a miss.
  New Life
  You can grow small bodies out of your own fungal form. They are all barely intelligent and 
  barely functional, but they will serve you as best they can, lasting until they either die or 
  you next make camp. Spend 1 Fungus to create a new body, as a hireling. Spend 3 points on 
  the fungal-hireling’s skills. It does not have a loyalty skill—it will do whatever you ask of it. 
  The fungal-hireling only has 4 hp. 
  The Lightbearers
  Visiting the Lighthouse on Dark Waters, one can see the dwindling flame there,  
  glowing out over the endless ocean. And one can imagine what it might once have been 
  like, gleaming brightly, a beacon to hope and growth, keeping the darkness and the abyss 
  at bay. One can decide to serve that light, that fire, and take it into one’s self. Igniting one’s 
  own soul aflame with the fire of the Lighthouse. One can prevent it from going out in the 
  cold of the Lighthouse by spreading it out throughout the ruins. One can become some-
  thing greater than a mere undead creature. One can become a Lightbearer.
  When you take the light of the Lighthouse into yourself and set your soul aflame, immedi-
  ately take Ever-Burning Flame. The next time you would level up, you do not take a new 
  move. 
  Ever-Burning Flame
  You carry the flame of the Lighthouse in your soul, and a wisp of the flame always floats 
  above your head, gleaming out to the world around you and lighting up the dark. You can 
  share that light into the world, lighting fires in the ruins and changing them. Pushing back 
  the dark.
  When you light a new fire using the flame in your soul, only those creatures you allow can 
  enter into the close circle of the flame’s light. All others are burned by the heat and the 
  flame, taking d10 damage as appropriate until they leave the range of the light. The fire will 
  last only as long as the nature of its fuel allows. The more storied and historical its fuel is, 
  the longer it will last. A simple fire of wood and leaves will not last very long, but a fire lit 
  upon ancient texts of the world from before might last ages.
  Any time you make camp around a fire you have lit, you heal all hp, and gain 1 Radiance.
  
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  Shared Flame
  With a touch, you can kindle the flame upon other denizens’ souls. When you kindle the 
  flame in the soul of a PC, you grant them the ability to see a path straight to their heart’s 
  desire. They gain 1 Armor as long as they are still in pursuit of their heart’s desire. 
  When you kindle the flame in the soul of an NPC, they will go straight after their heart’s 
  desire with full force.
  In either case, after they have achieved their heart’s desire, take 3 hold over them. For 
  NPCs, you may spend your hold 1 for 1 to issue commands they must follow. For PCs, you 
  may spend your hold to issue commands that they may either obey—in which case they 
  receive an XP—or resist, in which case they must Defy Danger with Wis, where the danger 
  is the fire in their soul burning them. 
  Singing Flame
  The flame of the Lighthouse inside of you allows you to put to sleep the monstrous creatures 
  of this world. When you sing out with the flame on your tongue, roll + Cha. On a hit, you 
  can put to sleep any one creature possessed of darkness and corruption. On a 10+, it remains 
  sleeping for a long time after you finish singing, so long as it is not disturbed or harmed. On 
  a 7-9, it remains sleeping only for as long as it can hear your song. On a miss, singing with 
  the flame does not put the creature to sleep, but instead kindles its essence, empowering it 
  with the fire and sending it into a rage-filled rampage straight towards you.
  Purifying Flame
  The light emerging from the ember that floats above your head can burn away illusion, 
  deception, and corruption. When you want it to flare up with a purifying light, roll + Cha. 
  On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7-9, choose 1. 
  • You know the truth of the world around you—you can pierce through all illusions, 
  and know whenever someone is lying around you.
  • You can temporarily push back the corruption around you to restore something to 
  its uncorrupted state.
  • You can create a path of flame leading you to anything you desire. 
  • You can cleanse someone of harm, damage, and pain—heal them 1d10 hp. 
  On a miss, the fire within you is endangered by whatever you are trying to burn away— 
  you have to rekindle your own flame by alighting something ancient or returning to  
  the Lighthouse.
  Living Flame
  The flame of the Lighthouse inside of you restores you. You are now alive again, no longer 
  undead. You gain access to your normal race move, whatever that would be; when you take 
  this move, choose what race you are truly from and take that race move for your class. You 
  also now use the normal Last Breath move. Any time you gain Radiance, gain 1 additional 
  Radiance. 
  
  The Broken
  
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  The Broken
  Taking the spawn of Oriaxanysoth into yourself is a foolish thing to do. It is dangerous, and 
  it is unwise. But it comes with such power, such demonic might, such expansion of aware-
  ness...how can one resist? All in Lastlife are doomed, anyway. Why not bond your own 
  existence to that of a demonspawn? Why not allow its voice into your mind, to be made 
  greater, stronger, to be made more? What do you truly have to lose? 
  When you bond with a spawn of Oriaxanysoth and become one of the Broken, take the 
  move Broken Voices. The next time you level up, do not take a new move.
  Broken Voices
  The creature you are bonded to speaks in your mind, now, and gifts you with strength, with 
  knowledge of forbidden secrets, with power, and with corruption. All it asks for in exchange 
  is the power to do what it wants…
  When you ask for a boon from your bonded demon, choose 1 from below, and mark 1 
  Whisper:
  • Ask any one question about the world around you; the GM will answer it  
  truthfully. 
  • Perform any one physical feat; treat a roll to Defy Danger with Str, Dex, or Con  
  as a 10+.  
  • Shrug off a blow; take 0 damage from it.
  • Dispel any one magical effect; it cannot be recast or restored in your presence.
  • Deal your maximum damage automatically when you strike with a weapon.
  Any time you make camp, heal, or die, roll + Con. On a 10+, the bond between you and 
  the demon remains intact and even. On a 7-9, the demon has bonded still further with you, 
  and its voice grows louder in your mind. Mark 1 Whisper. On a miss, the demon makes 
  significant headway in your body. Mark 2 Whispers. 
  When you have 5 Whispers marked, clear them all and you lose control, and wake up some-
  where else, with no memory of what the demon did with your body while you were under 
  its control.
  After you have taken Broken Voices, whenever you level up you can take a move from the 
  following list.
  
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  Demonic Magick
  The demon attached to your body sends magic flowing into your body. All you need do is 
  listen to its voice in your head; it will tell you how to bend that magic, shape it, send it out 
  in whatever form you desire.
  When you cast demonic magick, say what you are trying to do and roll + Wis. On a hit, you 
  produce your intended effect. On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7-9, choose 1. 
  • You don’t mark 1 Whisper.
  • The demon can’t produce any side effects through the magick.
  • You don’t draw the attention of anything dangerous in the area.
  On a miss, the magick goes totally out of your control, and does whatever the demon wants. 
  Demonic Might
  The demon grows stronger by being connected to you, and you in turn can grow stronger 
  from the demon. When you take this move, add 4 points total, spread however you choose, 
  between your Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity. The demon only needs 4 Whispers to 
  take over your body now.
  Demonic Advice
  The demon you are attached to is no simple creature. The longer it remains bonded to you, 
  the more it becomes its own thing, not even a servant of Oriaxanysoth anymore. It grows 
  its own desires, its own interests...and more and more, it may be interested in working with 
  you, rather than against you. 
  Well. Working with you, as much as a demon can.
  When you ask your demonic parasite for advice, it will tell you the course of action it thinks 
  is best. Hold 3, and spend hold 1 for 1 to take +1 while following its advice. If you follow its 
  advice through to completion, take 1 XP. If you refuse to follow its advice, roll + Con. On 
  a hit, you may do as you choose. On a 10+, you may clear 1 Whisper. On a miss, you must 
  mark 1 Whisper or do what it wants, and you do not gain XP for doing what it wants. 
  Demonic Hatred
  The demon you are tied to is the offspring of Oriaxanysoth, and even as it might become a 
  different creature, it still bears a hereditary hatred for this world, for all the creatures in it, 
  for the prison that it represents. You can call upon that hatred.
  When you call upon the demon’s hatred for this world, mark 1 Whisper, and take a 10+ on 
  any move aimed at destroying or removing something from this world, permanently.
  
  Relics of Bygone Days
  
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  Relics of Bygone Days
  Lastlife is a place of remnants. Shards of former glory left scattered among toppled  
  buildings. Bits of artistry and amazing craft, lost amid the bricks and the shattered glass. 
  But some of these remnants still hold power, still call out to those who pass by. Still promise 
  wonder and rebirth, glory and majesty, destruction or domination. The relics of Lastlife are 
  not to be trifled with, for even in the ruins, their powers are mighty.
  Tools of Destruction
  These relics are defined by the destruction at their core. They are tools of removal, of death, 
  or of annihilation. They break asunder, they dominate through might and terror, they carry 
  the doom of the world in their every seam. They do not build. 
  The Mightsword
  An enormous weapon, towering in height, heavy to hold. Sharp as the dark, but gleaming 
  silver. No point at its end, simply two edges opposite each other, and an enormous hilt to 
  carry it by. The blade is gorgeous and deadly in appearance. And it calls to those who  
  approach it. It reaches out to them with tendrils of offered power, of temptation and  
  alluring strength. The Mightsword promises dominion to those who wield it. They simply 
  do not realize—the sword itself will dominate them.
  The Mightsword dominates and ruins the minds of those who take it up. It leaves them 
  weak, capable of doing nothing but obeying it. The sword wields them, over time, and that 
  is how it shall always be, it seems. None who have wielded the sword have yet been able to 
  resist its will, its craving for dominance, its incredible strength and power.
  Questions:
  • Who originally created the Mightsword? Why?
  • Can the Mightsword be destroyed?
  • What is the key to dominating the Mightsword?
  When you wield the Mightsword, it begins to take over your mind. While you have it on 
  your body, the Mightsword gains 1 Dominance over you every time you make camp, roll a 
  12+, or die.
  When the Mightsword has Dominance over you greater than your level, its possession of 
  your body sets in. The Mightsword can give you a command. If you fulfill the command, it 
  loses 1 Dominance. If you refuse to fulfill the command, then you must Defy Danger with 
  Wis, where the danger is the Mightsword overwhelming your mind. 
  When the Mightsword has Dominance over you equal to twice your level, its possession  
  of your body is complete, and you are its slave. 
  You can remove the Mightsword’s Dominance from you by sacrificing Radiance or  
  Memory. For every 2 Radiance or Memory lost, remove 1 Dominance. 
  
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  When you possess the Mightsword, all your stats count as 18 (with a modifier of +3). Your 
  damage die becomes b[2d10]+2. The weapon has the following tags: close, reach, 1 Piercing, 
  messy, forceful. 
  Razor Void
  Razor Void is the nightmare blade imbedded in the body of the Wielder. It was his attempt 
  to prevent the terrible weapon from winding up in the hands of anyone else, anyone whom 
  it might twist to its purposes, or who might use it for their own nefarious desires. 
  The blade is woven into the Wielder’s very arm, with veins and flaps of skin extending out 
  across its surface. But in its base form, it is a curved blade, large, and jet black. Staring deep 
  into the body of the blade, one might see a face rise up and scream, but only for a flash, 
  and never for certain. The sword curves around and creates a wicked hook. It is cold to the 
  touch, and blood does not stay on it, but dribbles off quickly and easily, sliding off—the 
  stuff of life cannot stain a blade like Razor Void.
  Razor Void is not a dominator. It does not undo the mind of those who wield it, in hope of 
  making them fulfill its own dark purposes. Razor Void is simply defined by its death- 
  dealing abilities. The weapon’s entirety is destruction and doom. Hate and murder.
  Questions:
  • Where does Razor Void come from?
  • What happens to lives absorbed into Razor Void?
  • Can someone recover from the taint of Razor Void?
  Whenever you kill something with Razor Void, take 1 Void. If you ever have 4 Void, reset 
  to 0 Void and choose either Memory or Radiance; whichever you choose, you can never 
  gain any more of. Once you have lost the potential to gain any more Memory or Radiance, 
  do not track further Void; you’ve already given up your ability to create any kind of future 
  for yourself.
  When you strike an NPC creature susceptible to the infinite void inside of Razor Void, roll 
  + Void. On a 10+, the creature is killed instantly, the essence of its soul absorbed into the 
  sword. On a 7-9, the creature suffers half of its maximum hit points in damage, in addition 
  to whatever damage the normal attack would deal. On a miss, the creature suffers no addi-
  tional damage, but is left weak and shaken by the pull of the dark void inside the blade.
  When a PC is struck by Razor Void, they roll +Con. On a 10+, they are left Sick, Shaken, or 
  Weak, attacker’s choice. On a 7-9, they take 1d10 damage in addition to whatever damage 
  they took from the normal attack. On a miss, they take 2d10 additional damage. If they die 
  and are not protected from the blade, their spirit will be absorbed into it before it has time 
  to reform in the mists. 
  
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  Black Gauntlets
  Swirls of memory and myth surround the gauntlets. Are they the weapons of the barely 
  remembered Onyx Duke, a horrible monster of a man who ruled over his duchy in the 
  old Kingdom by smashing all who might resist him? Are they the artificial hands granted 
  to the Deathly Huntress, who lost her hands in terrible battle with a monster from before 
  time began? Are they the possessed gloves of the Necromancer Shymrana, who put her own 
  soul into the items in an attempt to guarantee her continued existence? Simply looking at 
  them, thick black metal, seemingly seamless and smooth, liquid on your hands, with runes 
  inscribed around the wrists...they scream of histories and lost memory.
  But in Lastlife, ultimately, so many care only for what they can do. For the destruction they 
  wreak. And not for their history. 
  These gauntlets can strike the very spirit of those they pummel. They bypass the flesh and 
  assault the soul, and in a place like Lastlife, filled with the undead, such strikes are all the 
  more terrifying. But doing so comes at a cost. The gauntlets bind themselves to the soul 
  of the wearer, replacing the wearer’s own hands and becoming a part of them. If ever the 
  gauntlets were taken from the wearer, the wearer would waste away and become nothing.
  Questions:
  • Why can the Black Gauntlets touch spirits?
  • For whom were the Black Gauntlets originally made?
  • Are the Black Gauntlets cursed? If so, how could the curse be removed? 
  When you put on the Black Gauntlets, your hands are destroyed, and you become bonded 
  to them. If they are ever taken away from you, you lose 1 hp from your maximum hp every 
  hour, until you die permanently; if you go down to 0 hp from having the Black Gauntlets 
  kept away from you, do not make The Dead Awakening move. You simply crumble to dust 
  and nothingness. 
  While you wear the Black Gauntlets upon your arms, you can touch spirits and ghosts as if 
  they were physical. Your fingers can also pass through flesh and touch spirits directly. When 
  you hack and slash without a weapon, you can treat your attacks as ignoring armor and as 
  dealing +4 damage. 
  When you attempt to separate the spirit of an NPC being from its body, roll + Str. On a hit, 
  you separate the spirit from the body. On a 7-9, doing so costs you substantial effort and 
  leaves you weakened and vulnerable to the newly separated spirit. On a miss, your use of the 
  Gauntlets leaves you exposed, and you cannot resist if your target tries to take the Gauntlets 
  from you.
  
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  The Twin-Eye Axes
  The Twin-Eye Axes are a pair of axes, chained together in spirit and by a thin, gossamer 
  cable, barely visible to the eye. Each axe is made to wield in one hand, smallish but engraved 
  with heraldry and intricate patterns. And on one side of each axe, there is an eye. It looks 
  like it might just be another engraving, another pattern, but it is a real eye. Capable of  
  looking around, capable of observing and taking in the world. The eye on one axe is green; 
  the eye on the other axe is blue.
  What the Twin-Eye Axes are, what their purpose may be, is unknown. Perhaps they are 
  the eyes of some eldritch creature living beyond this world, attempting to see what happens 
  inside the sphere. The possibility makes sense with the abilities of the axes; they bear within 
  them a strange, eldritch existence, cutting through the matter of this world with frightening 
  ease, and burning it with a curious energy, some anathema to this world’s existence. 
  The Twin-Eye Axes grant another power to their wielders—those who hold the axes can  
  see through the eyes. Can see the world through alien sight. The strange things one sees 
  might drive a wielder to madness...were they not residing in place already so close to  
  madness and doom. 
  Questions:
  • Whose eyes are in the Twin-Eye Axes?
  • What is the cord that connects the Axes made out of?
  • What is the purpose of the Twin-Eye Axes?
  The Twin-Eye Axes count as a weapon with the following tags: roll twice and take the best 
  damage, close, thrown, 2 Piercing. 
  When you look at the world through the Twin-Eye Axes, you can study the ruins through 
  alien vision, and add the following question to the list of options:
  • What here is the greatest source of magical energies?
  • How might I unravel the magic of                             ?
  • What here is the greatest source of corruption?
  
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  The Death’s Hide Cloak
  There are many Deaths throughout the spheres. Many individual forms and shapes that 
  Death might take. The Pale Rider. The Sorrowful Lady. The Pleasant Dream. The Ravenous 
  Beast. Many forms of Death have visited this sphere, this place of ruin and death. But this 
  is not a safe place for those Deaths; in Lastlife, death does not stick. It does not have the 
  power it should have. Because here, in Lastlife, Death itself may die. 
  And the Death’s Hide Cloak is a garment made from the skin of a slain Death.
  A gossamer, thin thing, difficult to see, smooth to the touch, like silk. No friction to the 
  fingertips. Translucent, with the faintest patterns of bone and spine, of skull and sinew in its 
  fabric. Made of the very skin of Death itself. 
  The Death’s Hide Cloak is no mere invisibility cloak. Death travels through worlds without 
  difficulty without being seen, without being detected until the last moment. Wearing the 
  cloak gives one that same inviolability...and the same deathly nature.
  Questions:
  • Which Death is the Death’s Hide Cloak made from?
  • How exactly was the Death’s Hide Cloak made?
  • Can the Death’s Hide Cloak transform its wearer into a new Death?
  When you wrap the Death’s Hide Cloak around you, you become invisible and intangible, 
  capable of walking through walls. You can even defy gravity to some extent, though doing 
  so requires care and skill, almost certainly demanding that you defy danger. But while you 
  wear the Death’s Hide Cloak, anything that can affect spirits can affect you directly.
  Tools of Reinvention
  Some of the relics may be leftovers of the world that was, but they do not tie into that 
  world. They do not support it, or its rebirth. They are tools of creation, of invention. They 
  will remake this sphere, for good or for ill. 
  The Smithcaste Hammer
  The Smithcaste were masters of the forge. Their hammers were more than their tools; their 
  hammers were the instruments through which the Smithcaste channeled wonder and  
  majesty. Smithcaste hammers were, in and of themselves, wonders.
  Or at least, so go the tales inscribed upon the edges of the Smithcaste Hammer. The only 
  one of its kind in all of Lastlife, held by Colistriana Smithcaste, who may not even truly be 
  one of the Smithcaste. If they were ever truly something that existed.
  The hammer is a forge hammer, but it is silvered and gleaming, with runes inscribed all 
  along its surface, telling the story of the Smithcaste. It shows no sign of wear and tear, what-
  soever. Although it could be used as a weapon, it isn’t designed for such work. It is a tool of 
  creation, not combat.
  
  The Death’s Hide Cloak
  ,
  
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  Questions:
  • Where did the Smithcaste Hammer originally come from?
  • Can the hammer be used to create more like it?
  • Are the stories on the Smithcaste Hammer true?
  When you use the Smithcaste Hammer to forge an item, say what you are trying to make.  
  If you are trying to make something magical and powerful, the GM may tell you what  
  materials you need in order to actually make the item in question. When you set hammer  
  to forge, roll + Int. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2. 
  • The item you create is beautiful, impressive, and majestic; gain 1 Radiance. 
  • The item you create works exceptionally well.
  • The item you create is durable and strong.
  • The item you create is untainted by the ruins.
  On a miss, you create something that resembles what you had intended, but it has traits and 
  side effects completely unexpected to you.
  The Maestro’s Violin
  The Maestro’s Violin is a strange and horrible device, crafted perfectly to produce amazing 
  and wonderful music, while also covered in odd, sharpened bone. It’s an instrument of 
  beauty and music, of creating new and wonderful sounds. The magic of the Violin allows 
  any to play it, to produce music upon its strings, and to even pour their souls through it and 
  create the most amazing melodies to ever float through the air of Lastlife. But it takes from 
  its player, and the music it creates is dangerous all in its own way. And should the Maestro’s 
  Violin ever fall into the hands of the Fiddler, then it would crack the world asunder.
  Questions:
  • Who crafted the Maestro’s Violin? Who was the Maestro?
  • Whose bones are embedded in the Violin?
  • How does the Violin allow anyone to play music through it, regardless of actual 
  musical ability? Why?
  When you play the Maestro’s Violin, roll + Cha. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1. Spend 
  your hold 1 for 1 to name a listening NPC or creature that can appreciate your music and 
  choose one:
  • They must give you a worthy gift.
  • They must offer you their service.
  • They must offer you kindness, friendship, and support.
  • They must grant you information you require.
  • They must protect you from someone or something dangerous.
  
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  On a miss, they believe that you cannot play the Violin well enough, that it deserves a better 
  player. They must have it from you, to play it correctly.
  When you oil the bow of the Violin with your blood and play, roll + Cha and take 1d8 
  damage. On a hit, any who listen are held in rapt attention, intoxicated by the music. On a 
  10+, their trance is iron, and lasts as long as you play, no matter what else happens to them. 
  On a 7-9, their trance can be broken if they are jogged from their reverie. On a miss, the 
  Violin takes too much from you; you are left incapacitated and weak after playing, and none 
  are intoxicated by the music.
  When you use the Maestro’s Violin with any Bard move, take +1 to the move. 
  Ghost Nails
  The Ghost Nails are long, pointed pieces of cold, browned metal. Each one has a spiraling 
  pattern of lines running along its surface, so fine as to be nearly undetectable to a human 
  hand. The nails are made out of a metal none can immediately identify, some ancient      
  material used by the kingdom of old. Holding a Ghost Nail up to your ear allows you to 
  hear strange, endless whispers.
  The maestro’s violin
  ,
  
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  The Ghost Nails provide a strange form of change—about freeing one’s self from a body, 
  and allowing the denizens of Lastlife to choose their own demise, if they want. They  
  reinvent unlife...although in a way that is truly dangerous.
  Questions:
  • How many Ghost Nails are there?
  • Why were the Ghost Nails first created? 
  • What are the Ghost Nails made out of?
  When you hammer a Ghost Nail into a body, it hammers the soul out of the body, leaving it 
  free floating while the body slowly dies. The separation of soul from body overrides even the 
  restoring mists of Lastlife; if the body dies while the soul is free, then the two will remain 
  forever sundered from each other. 
  A free-floating soul can go anywhere, and still see or hear anything. Attacks that affect  
  spirits still affect free-floating souls. A body with a Ghost Nail in it continually loses hit 
  points until it dies; every time you make a move while a free-floating soul, your body loses 
  1d4 hp, ignoring Armor.
  The Voicegems
  There are many voicegems scattered throughout Lastlife. Each one small, perfectly cut, 
  pristine, smooth. Perfect. Each one beautiful, and in a world that cared about such things, 
  worth a fortune. Each one possessed of a single rune buried deep within their facets, a rune 
  producing a unique voice from the gem.
  Touch the voicegem to anything, and it can speak through the gem’s magical rune and  
  vibrations. You can ask questions of a ruined wall, or a chair. You can give voice to a mind-
  less creature. You can speak to ancient magics, or to books themselves and find out who 
  read them. The voicegems are truly useful trinkets, but they have a greater use, especially in 
  this broken world. 
  A voicegem embedded, permanently, in an object reshapes that object. After all, giving it a 
  voice gives it thought. Makes it alive, in a way it never was before. New life, created from 
  inanimate matter. Perhaps the key to reinvigorating these ruins.
  Questions:
  • Why were the voicegems produced?
  • Whose voices are inside the gems?
  • What is the true nature of life created by embedding a voicegem in an inanimate 
  object?
  When you touch the voicegem to an object, it can and will speak to you through the gem. 
  Take a +1 forward to study the ruins when studying an object speaking to you through a 
  voicegem. You can Parley with inanimate objects this way, as well, and the inanimate ob-
  jects will retain a level of self-control, enough that they can actually fulfill your requests.
   
  
  The Thearch’s Authority
  ,
  
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  The Thearch’s Authority
  The Thearch’s Authority is a staff, at one end of which is a glass globe holding the head of 
  a godking. The body of the staff is made from the godking’s spine. The head is perfectly 
  preserved and appears timeless, the godking’s beauty maintained eternally by the globe. 
  The godking was once the ruler of pantheons upon pantheons of gods; a master of the 
  divine forces of the world. Holding the Thearch’s Authority grants one that same status. The 
  divine right to rule over the gods themselves, and strange commensurate power. 
  How the godking’s head arrived in the globe, how the staff was made from his spine, no one 
  knows. And it is inconsequential. All that matters is the power of the staff. 
  One who wields it could, conceivably, order others into the creation of a new, divine order.
  Questions:
  • How was the godking slain and turned into the Thearch’s Authority?
  • What is the true nature of the godking?
  • Does the Thearch’s Authority truly hold full sway over gods?
  When you give someone a command while holding the Thearch’s Authority, roll + Wis. On 
  a 10+, they must do it or suffer 1d10 damage as the divine might of the staff overcomes their 
  fragile form. On a 7-9, they can instead choose to attack you or flee from you. On a miss, 
  the Thearch’s Authority cannot command them, but instead makes them intoxicated with 
  desire for it; they will stop at nothing to take it from you.
  
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  Relics of Bygone Days
  Tools of Restoration
  Some relics, for all their power and might, are ultimately not designed to change the world 
  or to reinvigorate it. They are items of an older age, and they all exist to lead the world back 
  to that state. For those invested in Memory, these are tools of great power; but for those 
  hoping to take the ruins forward into a new state, these are tools of the opposition.
  The Ancient-Eyed Spyglass
  It’s a long, silvered tube, retractable like most spyglasses. The silver is tarnished, the entire 
  thing scuffed and scratched. At the end where there should be a large glass lens, however, 
  there is a strange kaleidoscopic pane of ruby and emerald and sapphire, all forming the 
  shape of an eye. 
  Looking through the spyglass, you do not see the world around you. The magic and inscrip-
  tions within change what you perceive, allowing you to see into the past. The inscriptions 
  and strange lenses show you the world as it was. Look at a ruined building, and see what 
  it once looked like when the world was younger. Look at a corrupted monstrosity, and see 
  what it might have been before it was decayed by the end of the world.
  The Ancient-Eyed Spyglass is the best means of understanding the world that was in all the 
  ruins. To those devoted to Memory, there could be no more prized possession. 
  Questions
  • Who made the Ancient-Eyed Spyglass? Why?
  • How far into the past does the Spyglass see? Can its extension into the past  
  be controlled?
  • Is there a way to bring anything through the lenses of the Spyglass?
  
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  Relics of Bygone Days
  The Rose
  A simple thing. Just a flower. Beautiful. Brightly colored. A perfect, unburning flame amidst 
  the gray. Petals, soft. Leaves, green and perfect. Thorns, sharp.
  It might only be a perfect example of its kind if it were not the last.
  In a world past death, with life twisted and altered where it isn’t gone altogether, the Rose is 
  an artifact. A powerful relic of what could be—of life, ongoing, and capable of returning to 
  the world. Being the last carries a special power all its own, and the Rose thrums with hope 
  and with the faintest, warm glimmer of life.
  Destroying the Rose now would be a crime of the highest order, but would unleash the 
  finality of life. It would provide a power that many of the hungry dead in the ruins would 
  eagerly kill for. Holding the Rose—defending it—provides something in even shorter 
  supply: hope.
  Questions:
  • How was the Rose preserved past the dying of the world?  
  • Who holds the Rose now? Why? To what end?  
  • Where did the Rose come from?  
  The Rose
  
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  Relics of Bygone Days
  If you destroy the Rose, you immediately take a Memory advancement and lose all Radi-
  ance. From now on, whenever you gain one Memory, gain another Memory. You can no 
  longer gain Radiance. You are marked with the scar of the Rose’s thorns. Any who look at 
  you will know what you have done, and will hold you accountable for your crime.
  If you destroy the Rose as part of a ritual, then in addition to the above, you can ignore all 
  but one other requirement for the ritual.
  If you smell the Rose, it gives you a vision of the future that could be. Roll 2d6 + Wis. On 
  a 10+, ask 3. On a 7-9, ask 2. On a miss, ask 1, but the scent of the Rose is upon you, and 
  those who hunt for the artifact will come for you soon.
  • Where does the Rose need to go? 
  • Who hunts for the Rose? 
  • How can the Rose be made to grow? 
  • What can the Rose’s future give to me? 
  • Who can the Rose help the most? 
  Take +1 forward if you act on the answer. 
  If you act in defense of the Rose, take 1 Radiance. Only trigger this move once per session. 
  The Kissing Lantern
  Made of a dark brassy material, reflecting light, but with swirls of blackness throughout its 
  surface. A ring on the top to carry it. Its form is a trapezoidal prism, like a pyramid with 
  the top point cut off. But the entire thing is solid, through and through. No windows, no 
  seams, just a smooth hunk of metal, except for a single side of the lantern. 
  That single side has two perfectly contoured, somehow soft and full-looking lips protruding 
  from it. They are hard to the touch, the same metal as the rest of the lantern, until you press 
  your own lips to them. Then they part, and open to you. A kiss full of warmth and passion. 
  You must give yourself to it wholly, and it will take of you, and give back. 
  When you pull your lips away from the lantern, you leave your tongue behind in the 
  lantern. It can speak, then, using your voice. And speak it will. The lantern will call out for 
  help. It will try to seduce listeners with promises of power and sex and pleasure. It will make 
  impassioned requests, and it will rudely criticize. It’s possessed of a strange multitude of 
  wills and desires, like it has a hundred minds, each one speaking in your voice. 
  Meanwhile, you are given the lantern’s sight—a vision of the world all around, in full, de-
  fying light and sight. You simply know everything around you, a deep knowledge, and you 
  can react instantly. Falsehoods, illusions, untruths, they all dissolve away before you. It lasts 
  until you again press your lips to the lantern’s, and take your tongue back into your mouth.
  Perhaps this Lantern holds the key to seeing the means to restore the world...or giving voice 
  to entities from the past. 
   
  
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  Relics of Bygone Days
  Questions:
  Who made the Kissing Lantern? For what purpose?
  What happens if one leaves their tongue in the Lantern for too long?
  Why does the Kissing Lantern try to tempt listeners?
  When your tongue is inside the Kissing Lantern, you can see everything around you, no 
  matter the conditions or where you are facing. If anyone lies to you, you know. When you 
  study the ruins, you can take an automatic 10+. You cannot talk while your tongue is in  
  the Lantern. 
  The Infinite Codex
  The tome is large and thick, leatherbound. Its cover is a labyrinthine swirl of lines, some 
  strange mathematical language writ in patterns indecipherable to a mortal mind. It looks 
  and smells old. The leather of its cover and binding is from an animal unknown in the 
  ruined world of Lastlife...and maybe unknown to this sphere entirely. Its pages are made of 
  a yellowed, thick vellum, and each page is filled with scrawled writing.
  No two pages are the same. Different languages, different scripts, different meaning. Deci-
  phering the contents of the Infinite Codex is a challenge in and of itself. But the Codex  
  contains an endless string of knowledge. History, myth, skills, formulae, all are found 
  within the pages of the Codex. And flipping to the end of the book is impossible; the pages 
  never cease. They change and fluctuate. A skilled mind might be able to bring a particular 
  page to the front, to find needed knowledge.
  The Kissing Lantern
  
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  Relics of Bygone Days
  Questions:
  • Why is the Infinite Codex written in so many different languages?
  • Where did the knowledge in the Codex come from?
  • What would it cost to control the Codex?
  When you seek knowledge in the Infinite Codex, ask a question and roll + Int. On a hit,  
  you find the information you needed. On a 10+, it’s especially useful, and you can ask a  
  follow-up question. On a miss, you find the information, but it requires translation, inter-
  pretation, or further expansion to be useful.
  The Immemorial Banner
  Banners carry with them the weight and stories of those who bore them into battle. Their 
  heraldry and sigils spell out what they have done. In the amnesiac ruins of Lastlife, the ban-
  ners might contain the secrets of history, or at least something for the undead to latch onto. 
  The Immemorial Banner is the ideal example of the history a banner provides. A waving 
  rectangle of gold-embroidered fabric, creatures and heroes displayed all across its surface, 
  symbols of the military campaigns in which it was borne across battlefields. Marks of the 
  adventures on which it was carried by powerful legends. The stories woven into the Imme-
  morial Banner are legion, and pile upon each other in layer after layer. 
  While the history of the banner might call to those who serve the past, the Immemorial 
  Banner holds another great power for its timelessness. It survived countless impossible  
  situations, and the mere sight of it is enough to invigorate even the dead lives of Lastlife. 
  Carrying the Immemorial Banner into battle inspires and rallies, more strongly than  
  any words.
  Questions:
  • When was the Immemorial Banner first borne into battle?
  • How did the Immemorial Banner survive so many battles?
  • What secrets do the stories on the Immemorial Banner hold?
  When you bear the Immemorial Banner into battle, all allies get +1 ongoing as long as the 
  Banner continues to be visible and unharmed. Anyone who defends the Banner bearer auto-
  matically gets 1 additional hold on the defense move, even on a miss. Any attempt to Parley 
  with potential allies to rally them to your cause, or Parley with enemies to convince them to 
  surrender, while the banner is visible, can use Str instead of Cha. 
  If the Immemorial Banner is ever cast down or damaged in battle, whichever side it was  
  on is immediately demoralized and will flee (PCs have to Defy Danger with Wis to  
  resist fleeing). 
  
  Bringing the Dead to Life
  
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  Running a game in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is still fundamentally running a game 
  of Dungeon World, and you should be well-familiar with those Principles, Agendas, and 
  moves as much as possible. They’ll serve you well, even in this ruined place. But here are 
  some additional principles that should help guide you to make Lastlife its own unique kind 
  of location compared to a regular Dungeon World game.
  Principles
  Paint a Picture of Ruin
  The ruins are just that—ruins. Never let that leave your descriptions. Buildings are broken 
  or toppled. The beautiful is only a remnant of what it once was. Clothes are tattered and 
  decayed. Mists roll in over the buildings and in between.
  A large part of making Lastlife evocative and distinctive is this feeling of ruin, of a cold 
  place of melancholy and lost life. Emphasizing that as much as possible will make the ruins 
  come alive in their own way. Don’t forget this principle when you are making moves, either; 
  the ruins are precarious and break apart in the middle of conflicts. The mists roll in at the 
  worst possible time and obscure opponents. Terrible monsters, barely visible amid the dark-
  ness and the broken buildings, skitter just out of sight. 
  Build up how creepy, unsettling, frightening, strange, and broken the ruins are across the 
  board. NPC denizens of the ruins are never untainted; all of them bear the scars and marks 
  of the ruin. Where they might once have been regal knights or impressive nobility or kind 
  innocents, all of them now are off—unnerving, and ruined in their own way.
  Pit the New Against the Old
  A major theme of Lastlife is the tension between the two routes for getting out of the cur-
  rent state of the world. Do we remake it into something brand new? Or do we bring back 
  the old world that may have led directly into these ruins? If we bring back the old world, 
  how do we know it will actually be better? Might it not just lead right back to Lastlife? If we 
  create a new world, how do we know it will be better? How can we control what that new 
  world will look like?
  Push the conflict between the two mindsets, especially with reference to monsters and 
  NPCs, wherever possible. Make there be two sides to every conflict. When one monster 
  threatens to end the world, make another threaten to restore some old horrible order. When 
  one monster seeks to pull the life out of some new and incredible structure to rebuild an 
  ancient castle, have another defending that structure for the meager stability it brings to the 
  ruins. Every chance you get, represent both the past and the future—even if the future is a 
  desire for final death. 
  Don’t ever let the conflicts in The Cold Ruins of Lastlife become PC vs Environment, or 
  Monster, or Villain. They should always be triangular in shape—Monster vs PCs vs Mon-
  ster. The PCs are caught in the middle, but they are the deciding factor.
  
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  Remind Them of What’s Lost
  Instead of just emphasizing the ruin and the cold as a setting and tone, draw attention to 
  how this world cannot be left alone. Don’t let the PCs forget the oddities, the strangeness, 
  and the uncomfortable realities of their existences. They don’t breathe, or eat. Their bones 
  creak. Their sinews snap in the open air. They are not human, and not normal. They are 
  barely alive, and they do not remember at all who they once were. 
  When they miss on a move like recall a lost memory of Lastlife, don’t go straight to them 
  being wrong; it draws more attention to what they have lost if the situation has grown apart 
  from their memories—their recollection is incorrect because the state of the world is far 
  removed from those glorious days of the past.
  Constantly highlight what is lacking. The wonders of the past cannot even be created in 
  the world as it exists today. Offer up images of how things could be better, of what could be 
  regained or created, if only the PCs help move the ruins out of their current state. 
  Make promises to the PCs about power and wonder and rebirth, to goad them into  
  changing the world, one way or another. But do not allow them to make things static—the 
  stories of The Cold Ruins of Lastlife are about the characters who can actually shake the 
  ruins out of their current unending limbo, for better or worse. It’s your job as GM to help 
  provide impetus for that change. 
  Seek Answers and Questions
  Lastlife is full of mysteries and lost truths. The setting is defined by absences and voids,  
  especially in knowledge. Seek out those holes and ask questions about them. Aim your 
  fronts and moves at those holes and questions. 
  For example, if the PCs come to Castle Oblivion and encounter the Old Queen, then ques-
  tions all about the nature of the castle and its memory-robbing aura, what it once may have 
  been, who its rightful ruler is, all come to the fore. Your moves can aim at those questions, 
  at filling them in. When you make a hard move, reveal a dark truth that answers one of 
  those questions. 
  Lastlife is all about discovery and learning the truth amid the fog without memory. Play 
  up the discovery, and angle towards filling in these holes in your own way. Especially pay 
  attention to the questions and missing information surrounding the PCs themselves. Any 
  time you can relate a question about the world to something about the PCs, do so. Connect 
  their histories to the history of Lastlife. 
  
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  Bringing the Dead to Life
  Playsets
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is full of mysteries, monsters, and mists. You can put together 
  the different locations, dangers, relics, and compendium classes in any way that fits your 
  campaign and what your PCs are interested in. Generally, you should aim at whatever  
  pieces seem most related to the PCs—always seeking answers to their questions. That  
  said, these are useful playsets that put together many disparate elements into a somewhat 
  coherent playset. If you need to get an idea of exactly which elements to use, these should 
  help you get started. 
  The Monstrosities
  This playset is all about some of the worst monstrosities in all of the Cold Ruins. The  
  Hungry and the Abominations, all powerful and dangerous creatures, hunting and meant 
  to be hunted. Using this playset puts a large emphasis on battling against monsters, hunting 
  them down, learning about them, and setting up a means to slay them.
  Fronts: The Hungry, The Abominations
  Dangers: The Voidful Band, The Hunger, Filth, The Siphon Rite, The Frigid Knights, 
  The Deepwasp, The Ruinworm, The Unborn Nightmare, The Executioner, The 
  Seraph of Traevor
  Locations: The Hungry Canyons, The Lighthouse on Dark Waters, The Mired Land, 
  The Narrow Streets
  Relics: Black Gauntlets, The Twin-Eye Axes, The Death’s Hide Cloak, The Infinite 
  Codex, The Immemorial Banner
  Compendium Classes: Frigid Knights
  The Terrors
  This playset isn’t about hunting the monsters so much as dealing with them, encountering 
  them, understanding them, and attempting to avoid being overwhelmed by them and their 
  darkness. The emphasis here is upon creatures of titanic power, whether in their prisons, 
  hidden beneath waves, seeking their own way to end the world, or ensconced within their 
  bases of power. The compendium classes point at making deals with these powers and 
  strange forces.
  Fronts: The Prisons, The Final Darkness, The Crimes of the Past
  Dangers: The All-Dragon, The Demon Pool, Oriaxanysoth, The Broken, The  
  Escapists, The Stalker in Ruins, The Dark Waters, The Ruined, The Ghost of the 
  First Sorcerer, The Hol’Jethariae, The Old Queen, The Memory of Doom
  Locations: The August Library, The Lighthouse on Dark Waters, The Demon Pool, 
  Castle Oblivion
  Relics: Ghost Nails, Voicegems, The Thearch’s Authority, The Ancient-Eyed Spyglass, 
  The Kissing Lantern
  Compendium Classes: Hol’Jethariae, Lightbearers, Broken
  
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  Bringing the Dead to Life
  The Oddities
  Lastlife isn’t just a place of horrors and terrors, old or new. It’s a place of strange things, odd 
  things. Combinations of rot and decay and cancerous growth. This playset is all about this 
  strangeness. From the mad growth of Griedhardt’s Grove, to the strange doom of the world 
  embodied in the music of the Maestro’s Violin, to the attempts to create a new and odd 
  world made by Arsoclinus the Inferno, to the Crafted Lives living in the Maker’s Will, this 
  playset encompasses the strange and unnerving pieces of Lastlife, putting an emphasis on 
  learning about and exploring their mysteries.
  Fronts: The Tumorous Growth, The Cacophonous Music, The Burning of the  
  Future, The Artifice
  Dangers: Griedhardt’s Grove, The Tree Kraken, The Carapace Fungus, The Rose, 
  The Maestro’s Violin, The Fiddler, The Cathedral of the Manysong, The Screaming 
  Centaurs, The Sacred Audience, The Wielder, Razor Void, The Thearch’s Authority, 
  Arsoclinus the Inferno, The Endless Corridors, The Maker’s Will, The Mightsword, 
  The Crafted Lives, Colistriana Smithcaste
  Locations: The Iksythrys Cathedral of the Manysong, Griedhardt’s Grove, The 
  Mired Land, The Narrow Streets
  Relics: Mightsword, Razor Void, The Smithcaste Hammer, The Maestro’s Violin,  
  Voicegems
  Compendium Classes: Carapace Infected
  The Past and Future
  In Lastlife the lost past and the possible future are constantly in conflict. There are many 
  who would restore the world to the way it was before the end, and many who would rather 
  create a whole new world atop the ruins of the old. Both sides are powerful, and both sides 
  are dangerous. From the sins of the past still living in the ruins, haunting them, to the 
  potential tyrants and monsters of the future, this playset is all about the two sides and their 
  war over what The Cold Ruins of Lastlife will become.
  Fronts: The Crimes of the Past, The Burning of the Future
  Dangers: The Seraph of Traevor, The Hol’Jethariae, The Old Queen, The Memory of 
  Doom, The Wielder, Razor Void, The Thearch’s Authority, Arsoclinus the Inferno, 
  The Endless Corridors
  Locations: The Hungry Canyons, The Endless Corridors, Castle Oblivion,  
  The Narrow Streets
  Relics: Razor Void, Black Gauntlets, The Death’s Hide Cloak, Ghost Nails, Voice-
  gems, The Thearch’s Authority, The Ancient-Eyed Spyglass, The Rose, The Infinite 
  Codex, The Immemorial Banner
  Compendium Classes: Hol’Jethariae, Lightbearers
  
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  Bringing the Dead to Life
  The Many Dooms
  This playset is a bit of a “kitchen sink” approach to The Cold Ruins of Lastlife. It’s filled 
  with many of the greatest threats, monsters, and oddities from throughout the ruins. The 
  different pieces in this playset will help fill in the holes and mysteries around each other. 
  Use this playset if you’re going to start a larger campaign, but you want to have an idea of 
  how to limit the contents of this book enough to work with.
  Fronts: The Hungry, The Prisons, The Final Darkness, The Tumorous Growth,  
  The Abominations, the Artifice
  Dangers: The Voidful Band, The Hunger, Filth, The Siphon Rite, The All-Dragon, 
  The Demon Pool, Oriaxanysoth, The Broken, The Escapists, The Stalker in  
  Ruins, The Dark Waters, The Ruined, The Ghost of the First Sorcerer, Griedhardt’s 
  Grove, The Tree Kraken, The Carapace Fungus, The Rose, The Frigid Knights, The 
  Deepwasp, The Ruinworm, The Unborn Nightmare, The Executioner, The Seraph 
  of Traevor, The Maker’s Will, The Mightsword, The Crafted Lives, Colistriana 
  Smithcaste
  Locations: The Hungry Canyons, The August Library, The Endless Corridors, The 
  Lighthouse on Dark Waters, The Demon Pool, Griedhardt’s Grove, The Mired Land
  Relics: Mightsword, Razor Void, The Twin-Eye Axes, The Death’s Hide Cloak, The 
  Smithcaste Hammer, The Rose, The Kissing Lantern
  Compendium Classes: Frigid Knights, Carapace Infected, Broken
  
  Closing Thoughts
  
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife
  144
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is a horrible, horrible place. Monsters, mists, undead, ruins—
  it’s awful. And the characters that players make are going to seem just as nightmarish, too. 
  Enormous, black, spiked suits of armor with no visible eyes. Strange, bendy, thin undead 
  creatures, like ghoulish mummies. Skeletal sorcerers with their dusty eyes embedded in 
  their palms. 
  It’s easy to immediately think that The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is about monsters, in a  
  monstrous place, doing monstrous things. But don’t fall into that trap. There are plenty 
  of monsters in Lastlife, certainly, but the PCs aren’t there yet. They’re struggling. They’re 
  searching for some remaining piece of humanity, something to latch onto and bring them 
  back from the brink.
  The Cold Ruins of Lastlife is actually about hope.
  So when you’re looking at this book, or playing in a game set in these dark ruins, think 
  about where the hope is. A monster in Lastlife might have once been something beautiful, 
  and could be again. A broken down castle could be rebuilt into a new home. A corrupted 
  relic could provide light for many a lost soul. 
  At the end of the last book in the Chaos Worlds series, The Last Days of Anglekite, I 
  implored the readers to make Anglekite and the Crater Basin their own—to shape the world 
  by their whim and style. This time, I’m doing something similar, but more directed. When 
  you’re playing The Cold Ruins of Lastlife, ask yourself—where can we find hope? And play 
  to answer the question.
  This book offers suggestions, but not answers. Maybe the PCs will find their hope in  
  destroying monstrosities like the Unborn Nightmare. Or in restoring places like the Cathe-
  dral of the Manysong. Maybe they’ll even find their hope in escaping this place forever. It’s 
  up to you and them to play and find out. 
  I wish you the best of luck in your search, and I can’t wait to hear stories of your own search 
  for hope in these cold ruins. Good hunting.
  
  Appendix
  Looks of Lastlife
  Body: Bloated corpse, skeletal, unnaturally ghoulish, nigh-ethereal, rotting flesh, waxen sallow skin, 
  desiccated and thin, scarred and monstrous, pale and cold, stitched together
  Eyes: Empty sockets, burning pinpricks, dead eyes, bright and gleaming eyes, jewels, black eyes, 
  milky eyes, lids sewn shut, mismatched eyes, weeping eyes
  Garb: Encased in dark armor, tattered robes, mouldy tunic, rags and shreds, strange leathers, metal 
  and spikes, rusted chains, animal scales, inscribed wrappings, shattered jewels and finery
  Markings: Faded tattoos, jewelry sewn into flesh, impossible wounds, ever-present faint mists, a 
  strange smell, an indecipherable brand, a constant cold presence, a voice without a tongue 
  Drives of Lastlife
  • Destroy something corrupted by the fall.
  • Create a place of respite and calm.
  • Take advantage of past decay.
  • Try something crazy and new.
  • Adhere to tradition.
  • Create something brand new.
  • Restore something tarnished and damaged.
  • Teach someone about what once was.
  • Dramatically ignore precedent, tradition, and history.
  • Endanger yourself to protect something old.
  • Suffer greatly to destroy something dangerous.
  • Eliminate something new. 
  • Help someone or something to meaningfully change.
  • Defeat a dangerous or worthy foe from before the fall.
  • Defeat a dangerous or monstrous foe from after the fall.
  • Actively restrain something dangerous or chaotic.
  • Free someone or something from literal or figurative bonds.
  • Leap into danger without a plan.
  • Discover something about a mystery of the fall.
  • Discover a truth of the world before the fall.
  • Cause others to flee in terror from you.
  • Inspire others with hope.
  • Progress towards conquering the ruins.
  • Take something old and powerful for yourself.
  • Repurpose something powerful for yourself.
  
  Bonds of Lastlife
  •                              saved my life from a terrible monster in the days before the end. I must repay 
  that debt.
  • I gave                              a token expressing my love for them in the days before the end. They 
  have the token, and my love, still.
  •                             nearly slew me in an illegal duel in the days before the end. I will exact ven-
  geance upon them for the slight.
  •                              gave to me my current weapon in the days before the end. I am sworn to use 
  it in their service; I will uphold that vow.
  •                              and I served our lord together in the days before the end. I trust and value 
  their opinion and company.
  • I envied the power of                              in the days before the end. I will pry from them the 
  secrets of their power. 
  • I remember the drive and rhetoric of                              in the days before the end. I will follow 
  them and their vision wherever they lead me.
  •                              once got me arrested in the days before the end. I’ll keep a close eye on them, 
  for their own sake, now.
  •                              was strange and foreign in the days before the end. Even now, I still find 
  them unnerving and discomfiting. 
  •                              once knew the deepest secrets of this kingdom. I will get those secrets from 
  them, somehow. I need them.
  • I know a deep and terrible secret about the crimes of                              from the days before 
  the end. I will never forget what they did.
  •                              does not trust me for the terrible things I did to them in the days before the 
  end. I do not blame them.
  •                              and I once cared for each other, deeply and meaningfully, in the days before 
  the end. That bond is strained now.
  • I have no proof, but I remember what                              was doing in the days before the end; I 
  blame them for the ruin that followed.
  •                              and I shared a bloodline in the days before the end; I choose to believe that 
  that bond still matters.
  • I remember what a danger                              was in the days before the end; I will not let them 
  become that way again.
  • I remember how weak                              was in the days before the end; I fear they will not 
  survive in these new ruins.
  • In the days before the end,                              stood by my side through terrible trials; I still feel 
  that I can trust them completely.
  • In the days before the end,                              was a noble soul, true and good; I fear the taint 
  of this place will corrupt them completely.
  • I put my life on the line to save                              in the days before the end; I will collect on 
  that debt.
  •                              threatened my home and my livelihood with their ideas in the days before 
  the end; I will strike them down if they threaten my plans now.
  • I stole something critical and important from                              in the days before the end; I 
  feel guilty, but I have it still, and I will keep it.
  •                              knows more about me and who I was in the days before the end than I do; I 
  will get them to tell me.
  •                              still seems to believe that the world is today as it was in the days before the 
  end; I will educate them about the truth of the new world.
  •                              and I once believed in the same faith in the days before the end; together, we 
  can reinvigorate this world with our faith.
  •                              and I once believed in the same ideals in the days before the end; we have 
  diverged now, and I no longer understand them.
  Appendix
  
  Class-Specific Move Changes
  The Bard:
  • 
  Bardic Lore: This is a starting move for the Bard. Remove from the list of possible “areas of 
  expertise” the option, “The Dead and Undead.” Since the ruins are full of the undead, that’s 
  too general an area of expertise in these ruins. Everything else still applies.
  • 
  A Port in the Storm: This is a starting move for the Bard. The trigger is, “When you return to 
  a civilized settlement you’ve visited before…” Change it to, “When you return to a construc-
  tion or artificial location that you’ve visited, even before the end of the world…” You’ll still 
  tell the GM when you were last here and why, and they’ll tell you how it’s changed since then.
  • 
  Unforgettable Face: This is an advanced move from the level 6-10 list. The trigger for this 
  move is, “When you meet someone you’ve met before (your call) after some time apart…” You 
  can choose to apply this move to people who might have met you before the fall of the world. 
  You’re that unforgettable.
  • 
  Reputation: This is an advanced move from the level 6-10 list. The trigger for this move is, 
  “When you first meet someone who’s heard songs about you…” The understanding for this 
  move in the ever-unchanging ruins of Lastlife is that you have become so powerful, so great, 
  and have changed so much about the ruins that even in these unchanging realms, others will 
  have heard of you. Use the move as is, but keep in mind that this is especially rare and note-
  worthy, that anyone has heard of you — you’ve changed the ruins at a fundamental level.
  The Cleric:
  • 
  Turn Undead: This is a starting move for the Cleric. Change this move entirely to:  
  When you hold your holy symbol aloft and call on your deity for protection, roll + Wis. 
  On a 7+, so long as you continue to pray and brandish your holy symbol, no corrupt and ru-
  ined horrors can come within reach of you. On a 10+, you also momentarily daze such horrors 
  and cause weaker horrors to flee from you. Aggression will break the protection of your deity 
  and allow the horrors to act as normal. Anything that remains outside of your reach may still 
  find a way to affect you.
  • 
  Understand “corrupt and ruined horrors” as appropriate for your game. A cleric cannot use 
  “turn undead” to turn every single denizen of Lastlife, seeing as the vast majority are undead. 
  Instead, the cleric can only turn the worst, most horrifying and terrible of the denizens of 
  Lastlife. The things from nightmares.
  • 
  Deity, Divine Guidance, Commune: These moves all still work as appropriate. The gods of 
  Lastlife are mostly dead, or gone, or weakened...but belief in them still matters. Calling for 
  their aid can still bring down the last vestiges of their legacies, or call upon their might  
  from where they hide. And of course, it is always possible -- difficult, but possible -- to  
  restore those deities...
  • 
  The Scales of Life and Death: This is an advanced move, from the level 2-5 list. The trigger for 
  this move is “When someone takes their last breath in your presence.” Change the trigger of 
  this move to, “When someone rolls for the Dead Awakening move in your presence…”
  • 
  Cure Wounds: These cleric spells will work on the undead, simply mending their forms.
  • 
  Animate Dead: This third level spell works exactly as stated. Of course, the implications of 
  an undead denizen of Lastlife forcefully shoving a hungry spirit into a ruined corpse may be 
  slightly different than in normal Dungeon World....
  • 
  Resurrection: Instead of returning a body to life, this spell will rebind a soul fully to a 
  particular body, not creating an utterly mindless zombie like Animate Dead, but creating (or 
  recreating) a new denizen of lastlife. Since most of the souls of Lastlife have not, and cannot, 
  depart the world, you can almost always resurrect any corpse you come across, although the 
  costs may be high…
  • 
  Contagion: This fifth level spell inflicts disease. It still works on the undead denizens of Last-
  life. The disease it creates is a disease of the soul, penetrating the very essence of the person 
  upon whom the disease is inflicted.
  Appendix
  
  • 
  Consume Unlife: This ninth level spell will allow you to steal the life of other mindless un-
  dead denizens of Lastlife. You monster.
  • 
  Plague: Just like with Contagion, this spell inflicts a plague of the soul, that will still tear 
  apart the bodies of the undead it affects.
  The Fighter works without changes.
  The Paladin has no changes other than those already noted in the Cleric.
  The Ranger:
  • 
  Animal Companion: This is a Ranger starting move. Choose all the options as per normal, 
  but also detail exactly how your animal companion is ruined and undead, just as you are.
  • 
  Half-Elven: This advanced move is not available to take.
  • 
  Wild Empathy: This is an advanced move from the level 2-5 list. It is less applicable in Last-
  life, as there are fewer animals and more horrors, but you can still take it. There are always 
  ravens, and vultures, and other carrion beasts, feasting upon the remains of what once was. If 
  you take this move, interpret what is an “animal” liberally.
  The Thief:
  • 
  Poisoner: This is a Thief starting move. Assume that poisons still work as described on the un-
  dead — the poisons themselves have been ruined along with the world, and can touch upon 
  the same corruptive influence that fills the undead.
  • 
  Connections: This is an advanced move from the level 2-5 list. Remove this move from the 
  options available for the Thief. It depends upon there being a criminal underbelly for the 
  Thief to connect with, and there is no such underbelly in the ruins of Lastlife.
  The Wizard:
  • 
  Charm Person: This first level spell does work on the intelligent undead denizens of Lastlife.
  • 
  Sleep: This third level spell works on the undead denizens of Lastlife, essentially putting them 
  into a state of torpor if not exactly sleep.
  Radiance Improvements
  • 
  You discover how to steal the power of a terrible denizen of Lastlife and put it into an object 
  of your choice, though it may not be easy; name the denizen and the object, and the GM will 
  tell you the steps and materials required.
  • 
  You can seize control of a vulnerable piece of Lastlife’s ruins, and all who dwell there; name 
  the area, and the GM will tell you what you need to do to make that place your own.
  • 
  You raise Strength, Wisdom, or Constitution by 2.
  • 
  You can touch other undead and bind them to your light. When you touch an NPC denizen 
  of Lastlife who has not yet been fully corrupted, roll + Radiance improvements taken (max 
  +3). On a hit, they become addicted to you and your light. From that point forward, when 
  you Parlay with that NPC you may spend 1 Radiance to take a 10+ on the Parley without 
  rolling. On a 7-9, your light also changes them; they lose whoever they were before, and 
  become someone new. On a miss, the binding goes terribly awry, and they seek to consume 
  you and your light.
  • 
  You become something new and switch classes. When you switch classes, change your dam-
  age die to the new class’s, change your max hp to the new class’s, gain all the starting moves 
  of your new class, keep all the starting moves of your old class, and for each advanced class 
  move you have, choose to either keep it or lose it and take a new advanced move from your 
  new class. 
  Appendix
  
  Once you have taken three of the above improvements and at least four total Radiance or Mem-
  ory improvements, you can take this:
  • 
   Build a new kingdom atop the ruins of Lastlife. You claim a stronghold amid the ruins, 
  and denizens will flock to your banner, called to you naturally by your shining light. 
  They will build you what you ask of them. The remaining monsters of the world will 
  steer clear of your new radiant land.
  Memory Improvements
  • 
  You recall exactly where to find an ancient artifact of power; name the artifact, and the 
  GM will tell you where it currently resides.
  • 
  You recall exactly how to purify and restore a corrupted area of Lastlife; name the area, 
  and the GM will tell you how to cleanse the land.
  • 
  You raise Intelligence, Dexterity, or Charisma by 2.
  • 
  You gain an aura of memory that draws other denizens of Lastlife to follow you. When 
  you speak of your memories and the once-glory of Lastlife to an intelligent undead 
  NPC, roll + Memory improvements taken (max +3). On a 10+, they become a hireling 
  for you, made with 5-8 points (GM’s choice) as per the rules on page 35 of Dungeon 
  World, but with 3 of their points always allocated to Loyalty. Their Cost is “Progress 
  toward restoring the old world.” On a 7-9, they may still become a hireling, but you must 
  first prove to them that you can offer them a return of the old world. They will accom-
  pany you to give you that chance. On a miss, they hate you for reminding them of the 
  glory now gone, and they seek to destroy you.
  • 
  You remember the truth of who you were, along with the full extent of your old skills.  
  Immediately gain one level.
  Once you have taken three of the above improvements and at least four total Radiance or Mem-
  ory improvements, you can take this:
  • 
  Re-establish a stronghold in a recovered part of Lastlife. You choose a place that the 
  Memories call you to restore, and leave our mark upon it. Other denizens of Lastlife will 
  be called to this place, to assist you in restoring it and to resume their lives from before 
  the end. The remaining monsters of the land will either return to whatever they were 
  before, or will stay away from the past glory you’ve restored.
  Changes to Basic Moves
  Recall a lost memory of Lastlife
  (Replaces Spout Lore)
  When you recall a lost memory of Lastlife, say what you remember and roll + Int. On a hit, 
  mark 1 Memory. On a 10+, your recollection is accurate and complete, and the GM will fill it 
  out with additional detail. On a 7-9, choose 1:
  • 
  Your recollection is inaccurate; the GM will later reveal what you remembered wrong.
  • 
  Your recollection is incomplete; the GM will later reveal a critical truth that you didn’t 
  recall.
  
  Study the ruins of Lastlife
  (Replaces Discern Realities)
  When you study the ruins of Lastlife, roll + Wis. On a hit, mark Radiance. On a 10+, ask the 
  GM 3 questions from the list below. On a 7-9, ask 1. 
  • 
  What happened here recently?
  • 
  What is about to happen?
  • 
  What here is wrong or strange? 
  • 
  What here can be made into something useful and new?
  • 
  How could I take control here?
  • 
  What here is vulnerable to me?
  The Dead Awakening
  (Replaces Last Breath)
  When you lose your last hp in Lastlife, you die, falling where you stand. As long as your body is 
  not utterly destroyed, the strange mists of Lastlife will converge on you and carry your body to 
  the last place you rested. You will come back to yourself, but the circumstances may be danger-
  ous. Roll 2d6. On a hit, you’re restored with half of your maximum hit points. On a 7-9, pick 
  one from below.
  • 
  Permanently lose 1 bond
  • 
  Permanently mark a debility
  • 
  Permanently cross off both one Radiance and one Memory advancement; you can never 
  take those advancements.
  On a miss, you are restored with one hit point; pick one from the list, and know that the mists 
  have revealed your vulnerability to something dangerous that now hunts you.
  If you ever lose all your Bonds or permanently mark off every Debility you become a mindless  
  undead.
  End of Session Moves
  When you reach the end of each session, you still resolve bonds, as in the basic end of session 
  move. Instead of checking alignment, you next check to see if you have fulfilled your Drive at 
  least once this session. If so, mark XP. Then, you answer these four questions as a group:
  • 
  Did we destroy something corrupt and dangerous? 
  • 
  Did we take, liberate, or create a powerful or useful treasure? 
  • 
  Did we learn something important about the world before the fall?
  • 
  Did we take a step toward building a new world in the ruins?
  For each “yes” answer everyone marks XP.
  
  In this new Chaos World setting, written for the Dungeon World game system, 
  you’ll play undead adventurers trying to ﬁ nd something to ﬁ ght for—the past 
  or the future—in this cold and dreadful world. T is book contains everything 
  your group needs to play a game of Dungeon World in these haunting ruins, 
  including new rules for playing the undead in Lastlife; adventure fronts and 
  dangers for use in guiding your Lastlife campaign; a slew of monsters, magical 
  items, and compendium classes for this terrible place; and more. 
  The world is a ruin of mist and undeath.
  Broken castles poke forth from fog banks like giant’s teeth. Once-beautiful 
  tapestries rot upon cold stone walls. Beautiful statues of gods and heroes 
  lie toppled and covered in hungry red moss. Countless former citizens 
  of this once great land wander cracked streets and dead plains as their 
  bodies disintegrate and their minds dissolve. Lastlife is a corpse whose body 
  is still twitching.
  Yet there is still hope for a future. Which future...remains uncertain.
  Will you defend the infant heir to the throne of Lastlife, encased in 
  crystal before the end of the world?
  Will you join with the demonic oﬀ spring of the chitinous monster 
  imprisoned deep beneath the ruins, claiming its power to change 
  the world?
  Will you use such unholy relics as the Maestro’s Violin, whose music 
  calls for a true and ﬁ nal end to the world?
  Will you clear the ruins of such monsters as the Deepwasp, the Old 
  Queen, and the Unborn Nightmare?
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeon World (PbtA) [multi]/Other Contents/Supplements/Chaos Worlds - Magpie Games/The Cold Ruins of Lastlife.pdf