A game that mashes up the genre conventions of film noir with the legends and stories of fairy folklore. It’s a roleplaying game for one player. You’ll need a deck of regular playing cards (with jokers), two dice of different colors, a set of these rules, a victim sheet, a crime sheet, and some way to take notes. It should take you 30 minutes to an hour to play. PWYW.
“It was a fairyland case. I hate fairyland cases. Once magic gets involved in a case, you never know what is real and what is illusion. Who is acting on their own free will? Who’s been enchanted? It’s always a mess to sort out. But no matter how much I swear off the faerie cases, I always get drawn back in to another one.â€
Ratings
You have two ratings, tied to your two tones. Your Danger rating is tied to the Noir tone, and your Tribulation rating is tied to the Faerie tone. At the start of the game, Danger and Tribulation are both is set to 1. Over the course of the game, each will rise. If either reaches 6, then the criminal escapes and your detective protagonist suffers a terrible fate.
When narrating a Noir answer and your Danger rating is low, you might only narrate uncertainty, distrust and threats. When the Danger level is 3 or 4, though, NPCs might have guns drawn and be accusing you of crimes, working to have you arrested or killed. At Danger 5, then someone definitely is firing weapons at you. At Danger 5, you might clear a suspect of suspicion by finding them dead, or by killing them yourself.
When narrating a Faerie answer with a low Tribulation value, then the faerie world seems wondrous and beautiful. As the Tribulation rating reaches 3 or 4, then the magic of the Faerie tone should become more threatening. The costs and consequences of interacting with the magical realm begin to be seen. By Tribulation 5, then powerful magic is being used, the sort that could doom your very soul, or that could throw the world into chaos and madness.