The Hearthkeeper — A Solo Journaling RPG of Duty, Memory, and Slow Winters

You are the keeper of an eternal hearth in a small mountain village. A hundred years ago, a wanderer froze to death outside these doors after being turned away from every house. The village made a pact: a hearth that never goes out, in exchange for the spirit's rest. As long as the fire burns, the spirit sleeps. For thirteen winters, that fire is yours to tend. THE HEARTHKEEPER is a solo journaling roleplaying game for one player. You play by writing in a notebook, in the voice of your Hearthkeeper, as the years pass at the fire. The game is about who comes to your door, who leaves, and what you choose to keep warm. WHAT YOU NEED → A standard 52-card deck of playing cards (any deck — the dusty one from your kitchen drawer is fine) → A notebook and a pen → Thirteen small objects to be your fuel tokens (coins, dried beans, pebbles, anything) → Optional: a candle, a cup of something warm, an evening with no interruptions. You will not need dice. You will not need any other book. Everything you need to play is inside this 34-page PDF. HOW IT PLAYS A game lasts between two and four hours, played in a single sitting — or you can spread it across many evenings, one in-game year per night, like a long winter read. Each year, you draw four cards — one for each season — and write a journal entry for that season based on the prompt the card gives you. There are 52 unique prompts in this book: Hearts (love, family, warmth), Diamonds (travelers, news, the wider world), Clubs (work, duty, the village's daily life), and Spades (cold, the spirit, fear). Every Spade you draw raises the Cold Tally, and the spirit grow restless. The fire eats one fuel token per year. When you run out of fuel, the fire goes out — unless you choose to burn a memory. There are six possible endings. The fire goes out. A successor arrives to take your place. The cold thing finally comes for you. The Long Night begins early. You complete thirteen years and reshuffle, or close the book. You choose to leave the village and walk away. Each is a different story. WHAT'S INSIDE (34 pages) → Setup ritual and character creation (name, village, past, why you took the hearth) → Year-by-year play structure with full step-by-step guidance → All 52 card prompts, organized by suit → Four festival days (First Light, Heart's Day, Last Harvest, The Long Night) → The Cold Tally with five escalation tiers → Burning Memories — a resource mechanic with emotional weight → Six endings, fully described → Three tone modes (Hopeful, Melancholic, Haunted) for replayability → Safety tools and content note → A full sample year of play (Vesna of Black Anvil, Year One) → Reflection prompts for when the game ends → Suggested soundtrack → A printable diary template page → Original interior illustrations throughout → Credits and our other releases INSPIRED BY THE TRADITION The Hearthkeeper is indebted to the long line of solo journaling RPGs that came before it — Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings, Alone Among the Stars by Takuma Okada, The Wretched by Chris Bissette, Apothecaria by Sealed Library, and many others. If you enjoy quiet, character-driven solo play with strong atmosphere and writing prompts, this is for you. CONNECTED TO OUR ADVENTURE LINE The Hearthkeeper is a companion piece to our one-night D&D 5e adventure, THE HEARTH'S LAST EMBER, which tells the story of one specific Hearthkeeper in a specific village, on a specific night, long ago. You  can play either game without the other. But playing both is its own quiet pleasure. HONEST DISCLOSURE The cover and interior illustrations were created with the assistance of generative AI tools (Google Imagen 4.0). The game text — every rule, every prompt, every line of the sample play — is written by a human author. If the use of AI imagery in a journaling RPG is something you would prefer to avoid, please return through itch.io's normal refund process. FROM HEARTH & QUILL PRESS We make tabletop supplements for Dungeon Masters and solo players who would rather play than prep. If you like this, our catalogue also includes the 50 Tavern NPCs, the 50 City NPCs, the 50 Forest Encounters, the 10 Fantasy Village Maps, and The Hearth's Last Ember. The fire is older than any of us. May yours burn warmly. Roll well. Run brave. Keep warm.