Last Warm Days

You play a small animal in a wood at the end of autumn. You have twelve warm days at most. Each day you roll for the weather, roll on the Larder to see what you find while foraging, and roll to see which neighbour you run into. Then you write a few lines about it on that day's page. A twelve-leaf Frost clock fills as the weather turns, and a few favours cost you an afternoon too. When it fills, or when day twelve ends, you curl up for the Long Sleep : three winter nights, rolled against how ready you made yourself. Every neighbour you helped can get you through one bad night. Pick one of six creatures. Each builds a different den and has one habit that changes the rules: The hedgehog builds a leaf nest, and blustery days bring the leaves to it. The badger digs out a sett and can give a whole day to digging. The dormouse eats its stores to lay down fat. The otter stays awake all winter and keeps watch while the others sleep. The bat forages at dusk while the moths are still flying. The toad digs down below the frost line, and rain makes it easier. The 28-page book has the rules with a worked example, a 36-entry Larder, six neighbours with two favours each, the weather table, four endings, a Den sheet, twelve day pages, a Long Sleep sheet and a one-page reference. You need two six-sided dice and a pen. A day takes about fifteen minutes. It's cosy, with some sadness in it. Nothing in the wood is cruel, but winter is real.