The Vanished Atlas — A Solo Journaling RPG of Places That Aren't There Anymore

Cartographer —  You are being written to because your name has come up on the list. The list is short and it is old, and it is not the list of the ambitious. It is the list of those who can be trusted with what is not there. You will be given, as your predecessors were given, a small stipend, a leather case, an inkwell, and thirteen commissions. Each commission is a place. Not a place the world will show you on any modern chart, and not a place you will be able to reach by any road we can print. These are places that have gone under water, or under mud, or under law, or under a name that isn't theirs, or under the quiet vote of enough people to say they were never there. We think it matters to draw them anyway. -  The Cartographer of Cartographers - THE VANISHED ATLAS is a solo journaling roleplaying game in which you take the role of a cartographer at a small guild that maps places which are no longer there. Over thirteen commissions, you will draw a map for each vanished place and write field notes beside it. At the end, you will have an atlas — a small handmade book of maps that don't correspond to any territory a living person could walk today. With the melancholic wonder of Studio Ghibli's Nausicaä, the wanderlust of Le Guin's Earthsea, and the intimate cartography-as-story tradition of Dyson Logos & Fell's Wanderings. WHAT YOU NEED → A standard 52-card deck of playing cards (any deck — remove the Jokers if it has them) → A notebook or a stack of pages to be your atlas → A pencil you like drawing with, and a pen if you like a heavier line for lettering → Six six-sided dice, or one die you can roll six times → Optional: a ruler, coloured pencils, an eraser, a cup of something warm, an evening without a phone You do not need dice-rolling apps. You do not need any other book. Everything the game asks of you is inside the PDF. HOW IT PLAYS Each of the thirteen commissions works the same way: → Draw the top card — this names the vanished place, using the Naming Table → Deal four more cards, one for each compass quadrant (North / East / South / West) → Read the four prompts they call up → Draw the map, roughly, in fifteen or twenty minutes — a boundary, four features, a small compass rose → Write three to eight sentences of field notes in the voice of your cartographer → Advance the Fog Tally — every Spade you drew adds one die's worth of fog The four suits carry different weights. Hearts: who was here. Diamonds: what was left. Clubs: what was worked. Spades: what was buried. Every Spade brings the fog closer. When the fog reaches thirty-five, one of the six endings is triggered — including one where a vanished place turns out not to be vanished at all, and one where a successor arrives to take your place at the Guild. WHAT'S INSIDE → 52 unique prompts, one per playing card, drawn from the four suits → Naming Table for the vanished place, keyed to card value + suit → The Fog Tally with five escalation bands and six endings → A full sample commission worked from card draw to signed field entry → Two-Cartographer Diptych variant for playing with a friend → Reflection prompts for when the atlas is complete → Suggested playlist and inspirations WHAT YOU GET IN THE ZIP → THE VANISHED ATLAS — full colour, 28 pages, screen-friendly → Printer-Friendly Edition — B&W minimal ink, easy on home printers → Field Sheets — 6 printable map templates (quadrant, concentric, coastal, ridge, freeform, reflection) → THE GUILD'S LEDGER — a bonus supplement with 26 extra prompts, three solo variants (Long, Small, Quiet atlases), a Two-Cartographer Diptych variant, optional artefact rules, and an archive page If you have played THE HEARTHKEEPER, THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER, or THE FOREST KEEPER, you will recognise the shape of this game — a standard deck, thirteen turnings, four prompts per turning, a small tally that rises with the darker suit. THE VANISHED ATLAS is a sibling to the Keeper trilogy. Fire, water, moss — now paper, ink, and mist. HONEST DISCLOSURE The cover illustration and interior decorative flourishes were created with the assistance of generative AI, then reviewed and hand-retouched. All game text — every rule, every prompt, every line of the sample commission — is written by a human author. If you prefer games made without any AI involvement, this isn't the right book for you, and we recommend the wonderful work of Spring Villager, Sealed Library, Mousehole Press, and Exeunt Press. FROM HEARTH & QUILL PRESS We make solo journaling roleplaying games and small tabletop supplements for people who would rather play than prep. If THE VANISHED ATLAS found something in you, you might also like: → THE HEARTHKEEPER — of duty, memory, and slow winters → THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER — of tide, lost ships, and long watches → THE FOREST KEEPER — of moss, vigil, and the sleeping gods All at comatador.itch.io. Draw slowly. The living have been careless with these places. You will not be.