The Letter Office

The tray on the desk — the shallow one with the chipped lacquer, you will see it — holds thirteen letters I could not resolve. By tradition and by the small-print of your appointment, these pass to you. You are the new Sorter at a one-person branch of the Guild's fifth wing — the small bureau that  handles correspondence that can no longer be delivered. Your predecessor has resigned. On the desk is a tray of thirteen envelopes. Each has a short slip pinned to it, in his hand, explaining why he could not do with it cleanly. You have thirteen vigils to empty the tray. For each envelope you have three choices: Burn it (and record the burning). Re-send it (and find a hand that can hold what it asked for). Keep it (and let it sit on the back of the desk, with the others you could not bring yourself to release). What you choose, across the thirteen vigils, shapes which of six endings closes your tenure. The  final envelope has your own name on it, in your own hand, sealed, empty. ── What's in the game ── • A single-sitting, self-contained solo journaling RPG. Playable in one long evening, or in thirteen short ones, as you prefer. • Thirteen envelopes, each with a sender, a recipient, a context, three paths, and a prompt for your ledger. • One mechanic — the brass seal of the Office, a standard deck of cards, a six-sided die, and two running tallies: The Backlog and The Return. • Six endings, shaped by the two tallies and by what you did with the final envelope. • 46-page PDF, print-friendly, written in the Hearth & Quill tradition of The Vanished Atlas, The Hearthkeeper, and The Long Night. ── The Letter Office in the Guild ── The Office is the fifth wing of a slowly-widening Guild. The first wing — the Cartographers — are known to you from The Vanished Atlas. The second — the Archivists of Hands — from A Register of Vanished Hands. The third — the Keepers of Rooms — from The Vanished Atlas II: Small Rooms. The fourth — the Clerks of Vanished Suppers — from A Book of Vanished Suppers. The Letter Office is the newest and the thinnest. You do not need to have read any of the other books to play. If you have, there are moments in the thirteen envelopes you will recognise. One of them is from a Keeper you may already have met. ── Author's note ── The thirteen envelopes are drawn from the kinds of letters I have thought about not writing, and the kinds of letters I have thought about not sending, and the one letter I did send five years ago, which was not quite in time. The last envelope — the empty one — is the one I wanted the game to be for.