An Atlas of Unfinished Things — A Solo Journaling RPG of Things Begun and Not Completed

Cataloguer — You have been transferred, on your own request or on ours, to the Archive of Unfinished Things. Welcome. Take a chair. The kettle is somewhere. You already know a little of the Guild's work. Its cartographers walk into the fog with a leather case and thirteen commissions and come back, most of them, with an atlas of a country that no longer exists. The Second Bureau does the same at smaller scale, and maps the rooms. The Archive is a different wing. We do not map what was and is gone. We catalogue what was begun and was not completed. The letter written but not sent. The house whose second storey was never framed. The song that has a chorus and two verses and no third. The apology rehearsed in the car and never spoken aloud. The manuscript in the drawer. The child's name that was chosen and then not given. The move to another country decided upon in October and quietly abandoned in February. Each of these has weight. The Archive believes that unfinished things do not disappear. They accumulate. They shape a life, sometimes more than the finished things do. — The Keeper of the Archive AN ATLAS OF UNFINISHED THINGS is a solo journaling roleplaying game in which you play a Cataloguer at the Archive — a small quiet office attached to the Guild that maps what was, and to the Second Bureau that maps the small rooms. Over thirteen entries, you will write a short honest account of an unfinished thing, decide where in the ledger it belongs, and, at the end, you will have a small atlas of things begun and not completed. WHAT YOU NEED → A standard 52-card deck (any deck) → A notebook to be your ledger (a hardback if you have one) → A pen you like the feel of — ink, not pencil, for this work → Six six-sided dice → A small slip of paper for two tallies (Debt and Grace) You do not need a printer. Everything the game asks of you is inside the PDF. HOW IT PLAYS Each of the thirteen entries works the same way: → Draw the top card — this names the unfinished thing, from the 52-entry Naming Table → Roll a die to see whose thing it is (yours, a friend's, a stranger's) → Deal four Aspect Cards → ♥ Hearts tell you WHO CARED — and raise Grace → ♦ Diamonds tell you WHAT REMAINS → ♣ Clubs tell you WHY IT STOPPED → ♠ Spades tell you WHAT IT COSTS STILL — and raise Debt → Write three to eight sentences of honest field notes → Decide where it belongs: Completed (✓), Buried (✕), or Left Open (~) TWO TALLIES → DEBT rises with Spades — the weight of what remains unresolved → GRACE rises with Hearts — the peace of what has been laid down honestly Your two tallies, and the shape of your ledger, decide together which of six endings is yours. SIX ENDINGS → The Archive Accepts the Ledger — a clean atlas, filed at eye height (baseline) → The Ledger Overflows — a second volume is prepared → You Complete a Thing That Was Not on the List — the work has moved you → You Give the Book to Someone — the atlas is not yours to keep → The Archive Closes — the Bureau folds while you are still working → The Cataloguer Closes the Ledger — you cannot continue You do not simply choose. Your two tallies and the marks in your ledger decide, together, which is yours. 52 UNIQUE PROMPTS The Naming Table lists all fifty-two unfinished things — from "The Letter Never Sent" to "The Life You Considered But Did Not Live." Every card is a different prompt. Multiple playthroughs will give you multiple ledgers. FOUR ASPECT TABLES Every one of the four suits has its own 13-entry table for the aspects you draw. Fifty-two possible details per aspect card. Nothing about a given entry will repeat in another. WHAT'S INSIDE → A single PDF (screen-friendly), plus a printer-friendly edition (both included) → 29 pages of playable material with five painted interior illustrations → Full setup ritual and Cataloguer creation (name, desk, why you came, personal object) → Thirteen entries with a fixed structure and free content → The Naming Table — 52 unfinished things, one per card → Four full Aspect Tables (♥ Who Cared, ♦ What Remains, ♣ Why It Stopped, ♠ What It Costs Still) → A worked example (a friend of your mother's, a letter never sent) → Six mechanically-earned endings → Notes on distance, pace, safety, and what counts as unfinished THE VANISHED ATLAS CYCLE This is the third solo journaling game in what has come to be called the Vanished Atlas cycle: → THE VANISHED ATLAS (2026) — maps countries that no longer exist → THE VANISHED ATLAS: SMALL ROOMS (2026) — maps rooms that no living hand can walk into → AN ATLAS OF UNFINISHED THINGS (2026) — catalogues things begun and not completed Each book stands alone. Read together, they compose a small quiet portrait of a Guild that catalogues loss at three scales — country, room, and life. INSPIRATIONS → Takuma Okada — ALONE AMONG THE STARS → Chris Bissette — THE WRETCHED and the Wretched & Alone SRD → Anna Blackwell — APOTHECARIA → Tim Hutchings — THOUSAND YEAR OLD VAMPIRE → Spring Villager — LAST TEA SHOP → Bachelard's THE POETICS OF SPACE HONEST DISCLOSURE The cover illustration and five interior atmospheric images were created with the assistance of generative AI and hand-composed. All game text — every prompt, every entry, every ending, every table — is written by a human author. If you prefer solo RPGs made without any AI images, we recommend Sealed Library, Mousehole Press, Spring Villager, and Exeunt Press. FROM COMATADOR / HEARTH & QUILL PRESS If AN ATLAS OF UNFINISHED THINGS found something in you, you might also like: → THE VANISHED ATLAS — the first, at country scale → THE VANISHED ATLAS: SMALL ROOMS — at pocket scale → AN ALMANAC OF THE SMALL COUNTRY — a fifty-two-week year-long solo journaling RPG → THE LONG NIGHT — a solo journaling RPG of cold hunger and warm doors → 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 → KINDRED — a queer solo journaling RPG of chosen family and sanctuary All at comatador.itch.io. Write carefully. Unfinished things are more fragile than vanished ones — they can still be hurt.