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Cerebos: The Crystal CityClick to magnify

Cerebos: The Crystal City

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"The concept of 'strange lands' (like that of 'home ground') has some holes in it, presents new questions. Are 'strange lands' an objective geographic reality, or a mental construct in constant flux?"
—Robert Bolaño, "Exiles"

Cerebos: The Crystal City is a tabletop roleplaying game about exploration and self-actualization. It’s also about crossing a surreal desert by train, visiting improbable cities, and experiencing sublime understanding among uncommon vistas. It’s about homesickness and lumpy beds and brand new stew and finding a coda for the broken song in your heart.

The player characters are travelers from the City by the Sea, bound to mementos of the past. Even after their identities have been worn away by the endless desert, they seek Cerebos. Through motion, reflection, and the actions of their fellow passengers they rediscover who they were and decide who they will be when they reach the Crystal City.

The travelers meet at a railway terminus. They experience flashbacks, overcome unexpected events, and ride the rails to the world’s beautiful imperfections. Trust doesn’t come easy when the dining car is infested with chandler beetles and the sister cities of Orm and Calyx are competing for sacred fools, but maybe it’s the only thing that will keep everyone going.

The train’s conductor moves the travelers along, setting the journey’s tone and modifying the rules. An adventurous conductor guides the travelers through a world of danger and megafauna, cataloging the limits of human experience, while kindly ol’ Mr. Wumpus is more suited to cozy, rabbit-shaped hijinks.

Cerebos is inspired by games like Sunless Sea, stories of fantastic cities like Invisible Cities and Kino’s Journey, Infinity Train, family road trips, prog rock album covers, purgatory, and quarter-and-mid-life crises. These stories fuel a robust engine for telling stories about change, hope, stability, risk, stagnation, want, giant crabs, vichychoisse, and comfortable cushions.

Cerebos: The Crystal City includes:

  • A 90-page core rulebook, in PDF, EPUB, and zipped HTML formats.
  • A pair of 26-page compendia of Stops and Events – fantastical cities, deadly tourist traps, fellow travelers, stone giants, and other  happenings and destinations to punctuate the journey to the Crystal City. These compendia are provided in the form of random dice tables, print-and-play cards, and as image files for use in virtual tabletop apps.
  • Five print-and-play quick reference cards, containing a summary of the framework of play (with page references to the relevant portions of the core rulebook) and listings of any special rules that apply to journey's chosen Conductor.
  • Printable and form-fillable character sheets.

Note: the print-on-demand version of this core rulebook does not include printed Stops and Events Decks. Printed card decks can be ordered separately here:

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Product Information
Copper seller
Author(s)
Rule System(s)
Pages
142
ISBN
978-0-9936940-5-9
File Size:
74.21 MB
Format
Original electronic Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

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For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
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Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Last Updated:
October 31, 2021
This title was added to our catalog on April 10, 2021.
Publisher
Penguin King Games
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