The Hue Directive
A Playable Folktale of Color and Return
Premise
In a world drained of color, where joy is inefficient and emotion a risk, workers drift through cubicle wastelands under humming fluorescents. Beige is the law. Beige is safe. Beige forgets.
But you remember—something. A feeling. A shade. A song not in the onboarding manual. And so you begin a quiet campaign to bring hue back to the world.
They will say you are inefficient. They will audit your heart.
Still, you carry your color forward.
Ritual Opening: The Compliance Briefing
Each player receives or imagines a memo from Infernal Resources. In it are reminders of what to suppress, what to wear, and how to behave. Then choose:
- One Muted Memory:
A childhood sketch, a defiant lunchroom laugh, the smell of pine on a weekend. - One Secret Hue:
A color only you still remember—chartreuse joy, cyan melancholy, magenta defiance.
Read these aloud, establishing your place in the cubicle wasteland.
Archetypes of Hue
Choose or create a persona that embodies how you carry your forbidden color:
- The Marker – defaces policy with reminder doodles
- The Spill – leaks laughter into mandatory trainings
- The Swatch – catalogs remembered emotions in post-it poetry
- The Fade – looks like everyone else, but dreams in vivid detail
- Arrow – the office dog, still dreaming in technicolor
Each player selects one Gift of Hue—a power that manifests when memory and presence align.
The Wasteland Map (Prompt Fragments)
Narrate traversals through these spaces of muted struggle:
- The Spreadsheet Expanse: every cell a trap of repetition
- The Open Office Echo Chamber: ideas vanish into noise
- The Beige Boardroom of Eternal Sync: decisions postponed forever
- The Server Closet Shrine: flickering lights, forgotten backups, unauthorized color
When entering each space, draw or roll a Color Event:
- A dying plant blooms in response to honest speech
- A forgotten tune leaks from a co-worker’s headphones
- A child's drawing prints spontaneously on the shared printer
- A sanctioned snack has an unsanctioned flavor—nostalgia
Let each event shift how color behaves in your tale.
The Glimmering Conflict: Audit of the Heart
Infernal Resources arrives in grayscale suits. They ask questions:
- “Why are you smiling?”
- “Who authorized this variance?”
- “What do you feel you’re contributing?”
You cannot fight them. You can only:
- Convince them of what they’ve forgotten
- Remind them of what they once carried
- Recolor the story before it ends
Resolutions
Choose one ending, collectively or individually:
- The Vivid Breakroom: You reach the heart of color and choose to return—carrying it forward.
- The Palette: You fade, but leave vibrant traces in your wake.
- The Fade: You forget everything—but someone else finds your hidden folder, labeled “Hope.”
Ritual Closing: The Highlighter’s Oath
Each player selects one moment or hue from the tale and states how they will carry it into the real world:
- A color they’ll wear
- A truth they’ll speak
- A system they’ll soften
- A person they’ll remind
Say it aloud. And then return to the world—with hue in your heart.
Tags: Playable Folktale, Resistance, Corporate Myth, Color, Angel Santiago, Anti-Severance
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA – Share freely, never for beige.