The compass spun today. Actually spun. Like a top. Made the ship's boy laugh. Then it stopped. Pointed straight down into the hold.
What matters is this:
The party must stand in a circle, each holding a different "north" (a memory, a desire, a fear). The Echo Compasses will attack anyone who hesitates. The only way to win? Admit you are lost. CHAPTER 4: SAMPLE JOURNAL PAGE (Player Handout) Day 47 of the Ash-Transit. broken compass rpg pdf
We opened the crates. Inside: nothing but mirrors. Each one showed a different version of us. In one, I was king. In another, I was drowning. In the third, I was smiling.
The needle is pointing to a sunken city that doesn't exist on any map. Because it exists between maps. The city is the corpse of the First Navigator, a giant whose bones are lodestone. Whoever reaches the heart of the city can recalibrate one compass in the world—just one—to always point true. The compass spun today
I haven't smiled in ten years.
Ships that sail east wake up in deserts of clockwork sand. Explorers following a bearing find the same village three times, each time more decayed. The only reliable direction is the one your gut gives you—and your gut is terrified. Made the ship's boy laugh
But the city is guarded by the : ghosts of dead explorers, each one convinced they are the real north.
The compass is back to pointing at my heart.