Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is a story game about a group of passengers on a ship traveling across the universe. The voyagers come from different worlds and have different reasons for making the journey; all will go their separate ways after the craft has landed, but during their shared time of the massive ship come to learn a little about one another.

Each player creates two pictures before the story begins, and passes one to the player to her left and one to the player to her right. These can be doodles or rough sketches, abstract or representational. The two pictures play a role in each character’s origin and destiny.

After the pictures have been swapped each player spends a moment introducing her character. Incorporating one of the pictures she describes traits like the character’s name, a little about her personality and appearance, or something about her background and her home planet.

Each turn one character becomes the focus of the voyage. The other players may each ask one question. These can be general (“Are you running from something?” or "Tell me about an adventure you've had during the trip") or asked in-character (“What secret do we share?”).

After every character has had a turn the players go around the table describing the destinies of their characters. The destiny incorporates the second picture held by the player, and can range from something that happens as soon as the ship lands to an event several years in the future.

Inspirations

The seeds of Pilgrimage first appeared during a car ride discussion with Johanna Haas about ways to work sketching and doodling into a narrative game, and Silas Marques de Lima’s accounts of teaching story games to groups of teens in counseling sessions.  Silas has also crafted a wonderful Portuguese version of the game.   A couple of games also played key roles in helping the idea take shape, including Colin Fredericks' Beyond the Beyond, Matthijs Holter's Archipelago, and Maracanda's Alienòr.