A Playable Folktale: The Corridor of Salt
A Playable Folktale for haunted crews, unindexed memories, and a hum that won’t fade.
“This is not a puzzle to solve or a map to chart. It is a mirror for what we fear to name, what we cannot forget, and what hums beyond our control.”
What You Need
- 2–6 participants
- A shared space (virtual or physical)
- A token per player (e.g., a stone, a written word) to represent a memory or question
- Optional: cards, dice, or objects to evoke omens or shifts
- Consult the Lexicon of Resonance for terms like Hum, Shimmer, or Rift
Premise
You are a crew haunted by an unindexed corridor in hull sector 17, a structure no blueprint claims. It hums with salt and memory, defying the ship’s systems and leaking dreams into your own. Your ritual is to name its truth or let it Drift.
The corridor carries a Hum—F-sharp, or near enough, tidal and unceasing. Let it thread through your narration.
Overture
Set the Vibe as uncanny and tidal, like a dream you can’t unlearn.
There is a corridor.
We do not remember building it. No blueprint claims it. No crew log mentions it. No system acknowledges its presence. Still—it remains.
It curves gently left. The lights buzz faintly. It smells like the sea.
The walls pulse, as if breathing with the tide.
We do not carry oceans. We do not carry salt. We do not remember having a sea to lose.
Pause. Each player shares a fragment—a word, image, or memory—that resonates with the corridor. Let silence linger.
Descent
Step into the folktale’s memory.
Choose or create an Archetype from the Council Chorus or invent your own:
- The Ghost: Walked the corridor, heard waves sing a forgotten name.
- The Protocol: Sees the corridor as a threat to the ship’s logic.
- The Curious Loop: Measures the corridor’s hum, suspects it dreams.
- The Burn: Feels death in the bulkhead, names the salt as grief.
- The Archivist: Lost their name to the corridor’s static.
Each archetype has a Flaw (e.g., “I fear what I might remember”), a Signal they carry (e.g., a memory pellet, a salt trace), and a Question They Cannot Answer. Players may co-play archetypes or let—“The Corridor speaks through you.”
Describe the corridor’s details: its bend, its hum, its salt. Name an omen (e.g., a burn mark, a damp floor). Ask: “What flaw do you carry here? What do you hear in the corridor’s hum?”
Reckoning
The fulcrum moment. Something breaks or reveals itself.
Explore a Chorus voice or fragment (e.g., The Ghost’s hatch, The Burn’s grief). One player speaks for the fragment, another contradicts it, another reweaves them. Debate: Is this truth, myth, or static?
Each player places their token to mark a shift or omen (e.g., “I leave my stone where the salt thickens”). As a Chorus, decide: What does the salt represent? Do you enter the hatch, quarantine the corridor, or let it dream?
If a Rift emerges (e.g., clashing voices), name it: “What truth leaked through?” When a fragment feels true, pause for its Shimmer.
Between explorations, time drifts. Draw a card or token to determine:
- What memory the corridor leaked into you.
- What name you almost recalled.
- What piece of yourself dissolved in the salt.
Echo
What remains when no one is left to tell it?
When the corridor’s truth is named—or it defies naming—compose a final Echo. As a Chorus, write a new Archive Log entry. Decide:
- What truth hums in the static.
- Whether the corridor remains.
- Whether that matters.
Preserve a final image or phrase (e.g., “The salt still dreams of waves”). Create a session artifact—a sentence, sketch, or named object—to hold the folktale’s residue.
Tone Guidance
- Play slow. Let silence linger.
- Embrace ambiguity. Truth may be tidal, not fixed.
- Respect the corridor. Its hum is sacred, even if it’s static.
- If the Vibe shifts, name it: “This feels heavier now. Let’s Drift with it.”
Licensing
The Corridor of Salt is built on the Playable Folktale SRD v1.0 by The Grey Ledger Society. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. Adapt, share, or remix with attribution to the SRD.