Lichcraft: An RPG About Trans Necromancers

Lichcraft, our favorite TTRPG from Laurie O'Connel, is a way-too-real way-too-relatable satirical game about obtaining immortality so you can finally wait out the waitlist for trans healthcare. It's a gem among queer role-playing games and is way-too-cathartic to play with a group of friends that's been denied necessary medical procedures by insurance or doctors.

Content Warning: This game contains discussions of the difficulties surrounding obtaining healthcare, especially for transgender people>

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The Year is 2069...

The setting is Great Britain. The Tories have been in power since 2010. 

Due to National Health Service cuts, trans healthcare has become increasingly hard to access. The waiting list for a first appointment at a gender identity clinic is now 300 years. They don’t want to outright refuse you; that would imply that the health service is over capacity or underfunded. Instead they will simply add you to the end of the list and wait for you to die. 

But they are fools. For you have learned the secrets of immortality. And you will get to the end of that waiting list, even if it means waiting another millennium...

This is a game about spite, necromancy, being trans, and a 300 year long NHS waiting list. Although the game itself deals with serious themes, it is set up to be tongue-in-cheek, satirical, super queer, and intimate. 

Lichcraft is a rules-light tabletop RPG set up to be played with 2 or more players. The play is inspired by Forged in the Dark systems, with a simple D6-pool resolution mechanic. Instead of choosing classes or players, characters begin by choosing their politics, hobby, day job, and magical source, and use attributes from these to add to their dice rolls. 

Give this game a try if you like dystopian settings, collaborative world-building and play,  magic wielding queer characters,  interesting and individualistic ways of spellcasting, and undeath as a metaphor for... something.