I'm going to play through Princess with a Cursed Sword this week. I've had it in my collection for a while, but haven't experienced it yet.
"PRINCESS WITH A CURSED SWORD is a journaling role-playing game for one player. It requires a tarot deck and can be played in half an hour or more. And it fits on one printed page."
I'm playing Princess with a Cursed Sword with a pair of coins and an art nouveau tarot deck that I keep at my work desk.
Princess Clara stood on a broken stone tile, just metres from a crumbling stone gate. She clutched an old sword in her right hand, not that she had any choice but to hold it. She looked down at the red collar of her otherwise verdant gown and remembered the family motto it represented, "Always Giving".
She felt the dry dirt under her bare feet. She had handed her shoes to a student from another land just that morning. She had met the new arrival when she left through the city gate to walk to the ruins. No one would study without necessities in her kingdom.
The sun shown down from directly above her as she stepped resolutely through the gate. Small clouds of dust followed in her wake.
She steped into an overgrown garden, with flowers visible through leaves and crowded branches. In the centre of the garden was an old fountain that was partially obscured by vines, but she could see it depicted a happy family. She was reminded of her own happy childhood as she glimpsed smiling children behind large roses. She felt the sword quiver and the words "more of this" echoed in her head. Those thoughts were not her own.
Princess Clara continued out of the garden and, after traveling down some passageways, arrived at a tomb. She recognized the name of her great-grandmother and dynastic founder, Queen Tiffany, on the archway. She opened the heavy door and was faced with the spectre of Queen Tiffany.
"You have my blood. Why do you disturb my rest?" said the queen, who leaped forward swinging a crystal club.
Clara raised the sword too late and feebly to deflect the blow and the crystal club thudded into her left shoulder. The pain drew a cry from her and the blow took her off her feet. She scrambled away from the spectre, dragging the sword and herself along the ground before she regained her feet. She spotted a hallway and dashed into it, calling back, "I was brought here by this cursed sword. I need to return it and thought it belonged with you. It wants a better kingdom."
Clara burst into a library lined with towering shelves. She stumbled over the remains of a chair and continued to the far wall. The queen advanced slowly in her footsteps, and her voice carried into the room. "I have been sleeping, knowing that my kingdom will become better with each generation. Only a fool would look to the past to build a better future. Find our faults and fix them, because the past was rarely better. Let us sleep and dream of your acts. Or die and let someone worthy rule."
"I should have known. We have always changed the kingdom to better care for its people," Princess Clara shouted as she raised the sword and charged forward. "My father ended landlords. His mother opened schools in every community. We have done everything we can think of to care for the people who live here. We don't look back longingly," she gasped out as her leaping slash shattered the club and banished the ghost of her great-grandmother.
After hours of reading and exploring the library, Clara found a staircase hidden behind a bookshelf. She ascended the stairs until she reached a room atop a tower. One wall had crumbled and left an opening through which she could see the sunset.
She stepped to the opening and her foot became caught in some fallen, tattered tapestries. She tripped and fell through the opening and into the air. Only the fabric wrapped around her foot saved her from falling to her death and she heard it ripping.
Clara could not drop the cursed sword and her left arm was weak from the blow of the club. She desperately tried to pull herself up the tapestry, and wrapped it around her right wrist. She scrambled for purchase with her feet on the wall. She pushed the blade into a crack and took her weight off the tapestry. Her movement dislodged another piece of the wall, which fell and shattered far below. Finally, she pushed herself back up into the room and fell in a scraped and bruised heap on the floor.
Princess Clara fell asleep on the floor. She dreamed of the tall woman in the billowing blue dress who had appeared at her birthday party and handed her the sword. The woman was all sharp lines, and had stood out among the guests at the party. When she pressed the hilt into Clara's hand she had whispered, "Return this sword to where it belongs and find your purpose. You can not lead without knowing how to change."
Suddenly the woman disappeared in blue smoke, laughing so only Clara could hear.
Clara's dream continued and the strange woman appeared in front of her again, this time in the crumbling tower room where she slept. "I think you are starting to understand. Remember who has your shoes," said the woman with warmth in her voice. She turned and walked out through the hole in the wall on a bridge of smoke.
Clara woke and continued to explore the ruins. At the end of winding passages and many stairs she entered into an underground chamber. In the middle of the chamber stood a gigantic, unrecognizable beast with a form combining the shapes of many creatures. "I will not let you open up this place. We are meant to guard our ruins and our land," it bellowed out.
Clara raised the sword and advanced. "I will clear out this place and renew it. It's time to open up the kingdom to the world."
The beast and Clara battled for what felt like hours, both parrying and sneaking in attacks that exhausted both combatants. With a final, desperate attack, Clara drove her blade into the heart of the beast. The corpse and its spreading blood covered the ground in front of her and she knelt to catch her breath and assess her many wounds.
Clara spotted a statue at the far end of the chamber. It was made from copper, had a green patina, and depicted the woman in the blue dress who had appeared at her birthday party and in her dreams. The statue held out its arms with palms up. Clara placed the sword so it rested in those hands, closed her eyes and bowed her head.
"I will rebuild this place to be home to many people. I will invite the world to our kingdom and continue to make it better with all the voices we can bring together."
When she became Queen Clara, she was true to her word and rebuilt the ruin as a welcoming complex for new arrivals to the kingdom. She opened the borders of her land and sought advice from every quarter for how she could continue to improve the lives of everyone. The sword rested, content with an increasing and increasingly happy population surrounding it.
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