Chiron's Doom

There is a monument at the edge of civilisation—an enigmatic structure known as Chiron's Doom. Nobody knows what it does, or who made it, or why. It has defied all previous attempts at understanding. Countless expeditions have torn themselves apart trying to learn its secrets.

There’s no reason to believe your expedition will be any different, but here you are: three explorers standing before the monument, driven to try where all others have failed. How much are you willing to sacrifice to solve the mystery of Chiron's Doom?

Chiron's Doom is a storytelling game about an ill-fated expedition to explore a mysterious monument. Designed as a solo journalling experience, Chiron's Doom can also comfortably accommodate up to 3 players. All you need to play is a deck of cards!

"I played with a friend and we ended up telling a brilliant story of planetary exploration, body horror, and reality alteration. Best of all, because of how the game is set up, I'm pretty excited at the prospect of taking it out for another spin to see what that expedition would look like and how it might differ."

- itch.io review for the original edition of Chiron's Doom

DETAILS	THEMES
Solo journaling OR   2-3 players   2-3 hours   Card-based prompts	Doomed expeditions   Uncovering secrets   Ratcheting tension   Choose your genre

Chiron's Doom was originally inspired by Diamond Dogs, a novella by Alastair Reynolds about an increasingly disastrous attempt to explore a sinister alien monument known as the Blood Spire. It also draws inspiration from numerous tales of strange, ominous and deadly monuments and expeditions, including the movies Cube, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Sunshine, and Event Horizon, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, and Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.  

Will your expedition be: 

• Beautiful and sad?
• Brutal and uncompromising?
• Strange and delirious?
• Filled with hope, despite it all?

This new and improved second edition of Chiron's Doom is 60 pages long, packed with the following features:

• Complete rules for launching doomed expeditions to uncover the secrets of an ominous monument.
• Optional rules to adjust your gameplay, including guidelines for multiplayer games and a set of four lavishly illustrated monument playsets.
• Play advice to help you get the most out of your games, including discussions on how to respond to prompts, your choice of narrator, and bringing thematic richness to your expeditions.

The monument playsets are designed to get you playing straight away. Each was written and illustrated by a separate team of highly talented game designers and artists:

• Ashes and Dust, by Galen Pejeau and me.
• Wasteland Divinium, by Vincentius Matthew and Becky Annison.
• Hope is a Lighthouse, by Caro Asercion and Thomas Manuel.
• Dreaming Oblivion, by Sam Tung and Rae Nedjadi.

This updated edition of Chiron's Doom was funded on Kickstarter during ZineQuest2023, generously supported by 325 driven explorers.

If you'd like to see the game in action, here are some fabulous actual play reports from members of the community:

• Speak the Sky's expedition to a baroque, spiralling tower in a black desert littered with shipwrecks.
• Craig Duffy's expedition to Array 03x65a, part of an enormous mega-structure orbiting a nearby star in Craig's Dyson Eclipse space opera setting.
• Luciella's expedition into a sunken and flooded filigreed palace. May the many sacrifices of John of House Smith never be forgotten!
• John Kemp's expedition to an alien Precursor facility, inspired by Joshua Meehan's awe-inspiring art for Ironsworn: Starforged.
• My own expedition to a ship-like structure breaching the surface of a barren, rocky world orbiting a dull, red star.

These actual plays are all based on the original edition of Chiron's Doom. Gameplay is improved in this updated edition, however the fundamentals are still the same!

"Picked this up in a bundle, downloaded it on a night when our gaming group was down two people. Very elegantly fit the bill for a 3-player, zero-prep, GMless game. Simple rules and good use of the cards as random prompts.I especially appreciate the characters' agency to quit prematurely ... and the way that shuffling in the problem decks can send the game quickly careening from nearly won to completely out of control. Would definitely play again."

- itch.io review for the original edition of Chiron's Doom.

Gameplay centres around your expedition deck, built from an ordinary deck of playing cards. When the expedition begins, the deck is mostly diamonds, representing the monument's secrets.

Each day of the expedition, you draw a card and respond to the corresponding prompt, either in your journal or by playing out a short scene. Each diamond brings you closer to final revelation, but if you draw a card from a different suit the expedition begins to unravel. When this happens, you shuffle a disaster deck into your expedition deck, diluting the pool of secrets and making it that much harder to reach your goal.

Explorers beware: the expedition can quickly turn lethal—whenever you draw a king from the expedition deck, an explorers inevitably dies. At the end of each day, the explorers may choose to abandon the expedition if it all becomes too much. But the temptation to push on a little further will always be strong...

"A well crafted game! I only played it solo so far, but I really liked how the rules build tension and conflict as the game progresses, while still keeping the element of randomness. Made for an enjoyable solo game with a satisfying story arc and conclusion."

- itch.io review for the original edition of Chiron's Doom.

Have you purchased Chiron's Doom in print? Are you looking for a copy in PDF? Just reach out to me with some form of proof of purchase (a photo always makes my day!), and I'll send you a download key.

Ready to share your monument's secrets? Join the ickbat games discord!