The Lighthouse Keeper — A Solo Journaling RPG of Tide, Lost Ships, and Long Watches

You are the keeper of a lighthouse on a black-rock peninsula at the edge of a small fishing country. The tower has stood for two hundred years. Twelve keepers have lit its lamp before you. You are the thirteenth. A long time ago, before the lighthouse was built, the village below this cliff lit false beacons on the rocks. Ships were lured in. Cargoes were taken. The richest of the wreckers, a captain named Calder, drowned the night he raised his last false light, and swore that the next light raised on this cliff would burn true forever, in atonement. The lighthouse was built the following spring from the timbers of his last ship. The pact is this: as long as the lamp burns and no ship founders within sight, the drowned of the false-light years stay asleep beneath the tide. If the lamp goes dark for a single night, or  a ship breaks on the rocks below, they will come back for what was owed. For thirteen great storms, that lamp is yours to tend. THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER is a solo journaling roleplaying game for one player. You play by writing in a notebook, in the voice of your Keeper, as the storms come and go. The game is about who reaches the cliff, who is guided past it, and what waits at the foot of the stairs at dawn. WHAT YOU NEED → A standard 52-card deck of playing cards (any deck — the kitchen-drawer one is fine) → A notebook and a pen → Thirteen small objects to be your oil jars (coins, pebbles, shells, anything) → Optional: a small lamp, a cup of something warm, an evening with the windows open You will not need dice. You will not need any other book. Everything you need to play is inside this 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 storm per night, like a long sea-read. Each storm, you draw four cards — one for each watch (Dusk, Night, Peak, Dawn) — and write a log entry for that watch based on the prompt the card gives you. There are 52 unique prompts: Hearts (those who  reach the cliff), Diamonds (ships in sight), Clubs (the work of the lamp), and Spades (what comes from below). Every Spade raises the Salt Tally, and the drowned captain grows restless. The lamp eats one oil jar per storm. When you run out of oil, the lamp goes dark — unless you choose to burn an entry from your log. There are six possible endings. The lamp goes dark. A successor arrives. The drowned captain comes for you. The Drowned Hour begins early. You complete thirteen storms and reshuffle, or close the log. You choose to walk down the stairs and leave the cape. Each is a different story. WHAT'S INSIDE → Setup ritual and character creation (name, coast, past, why you took the lamp) → Storm-by-storm play structure with full step-by-step guidance → All 52 card prompts, organised by suit → Four Beacon Nights (First Light Signal, Long Vigil, Counting Lights, Drowned Hour) → The Salt Tally with five escalation tiers — the world becomes more porous as the drowned wake → Burning the Log — a resource mechanic with emotional weight → Six endings, fully described → Three tone modes (Bright, Tidal, Drowning) for replayability → Safety tools and a content note → A full sample storm of play (Maren of Saltcaul, Storm One) → Reflection prompts for when the game ends → Suggested soundtrack → A log template you can copy → Credits and our other releases INSPIRED BY THE TRADITION The Lighthouse Keeper 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. A SIBLING TO THE HEARTHKEEPER The Lighthouse Keeper is a companion piece to our other solo journaling RPG, THE HEARTHKEEPER — written for the same kind of evening, but at the edge of water rather than fire. The mechanic shells are similar by design (one deck of cards, thirteen rounds, four prompts per round). The themes are different: fire and snow on one side, salt and tide on the other. If you have played one, the other will feel familiar in the hand and new in the heart. Play either alone, or both as a slow diptych. HONEST DISCLOSURE The cover and interior illustrations were created with the assistance of generative AI tools. 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 Hearthkeeper, The Hearth's Last Ember, 50 Tavern NPCs, 50 City NPCs, 50 Forest Encounters, 10 Fantasy Village Maps, and the 100 NPCs Bundle. The lamp is older than any of us. May yours burn truly. Roll well. Run brave. Keep watch.