What Dust Remains

Can you build a meaningful life – Can you leave a lasting legacy – Without sacrificing all that matters? What Dust Remains is a GM-less story game for 1 to 3 players. In this game, players build the life of a pioneer who is single-handedly focused on their legacy, moment by moment, life stage to life stage from youth to death. And oftentimes, at great cost and sacrifice: their resources, their happiness, and even their principles. Prompts form the backbone of this game, inspiring players to create opportunities for the pioneer to achieve their goals. Meanwhile, simple but intense dice rolls force players to face ever-desperate odds to progress on their legacy. At many points in the game, you will be asked: how much am I willing to sacrifice? If you want to write a narrative about a life doomed to regret; if you are not afraid, if you are willing to open yourself, if melancholy fuels you, then this game is for you. To play What Dust Remains, all you need are 4 six-sided dice, a deck of cards with the jokers removed, and online or offline writing implements. Trigger warnings unavoidable in the game: painfully growing old, fear of existential failure. Praise for What Dust Remains "Impassioned and intriguing card-prompted questions along with focused, intense moments of dice rolls that helped move the story along, What Dust Remains challenged me to discover, explore, and sit in moments of despair and desperation and had the whole table contemplating what parts of us are we going to sacrifice to leave a legacy that would be bigger than we could ever be behind." Danny Quach writing for Polygon—The best tabletop RPGs we played in 2023 "...one of the very best games I've ever played in my life." D. Vincent Baker, creator of Apocalypse World and Firebrands