From the burned doorway of Rime House, a small crew and their dogs set out into a snowbound spruce forest.

Interior Alaska · January 1911

TheLast Relay

A winter survival roleplaying game

Forty-three miles. One working wire.
Everyone who walks has to come back into the count.

Look inside the book Follow the launch

Coming to Kickstarter from Deep Ark Games

The front cover of The Last Relay: a small sled party climbs a snowy slope while wolves watch from the rocks.
3–6
players and a game master
1d6
one die, complete rules
1–6
sessions: a one-shot to Hard Winter
158
illustrated pages
Inside the telegraph house on the night of the storm: a broken pole through the roof, firelight on the floor, two workers at the stair.
Night Zero The Black Stair · Rime House

The storm has already happened

The wire
is dead.

The storm took the roof, the wire and two of the dogs. Alder Fork Relay is forty-three miles east. Eight meals each are on the sled. Somebody has to carry a true report to a working key.

The Last Relay is a tabletop roleplaying game about ordinary working people carrying a message through a winter that does not care about them. One person runs the game. Three to six others play the crew of Rime House, a burned telegraph outpost in a fictional corner of Interior Alaska.

A district superintendent has quietly held back the team that should have come. The players decide who walks, what they carry, who they stop for, what they take from a cache that was left for someone else, and what they finally say when a live telegraph key is under their hands.

What makes it different

Small honest numbers.
Hard human choices.

01

The count is the drama.

Food, dog feed and fuel are tracked in the open, in small honest numbers. Every kindness on the trail is paid for by someone.

02

Danger you can see coming.

Costs are named before the die is rolled. The wolves are animals, not monsters, and they come for whatever the group leaves exposed.

03

People, not stat blocks.

Six workers with beliefs, bonds and a secret they have not said out loud. A secret said at the right moment changes the plan, and the ending notices.

04

An ending you argue for.

The last scene is a live exchange over the wire with the man who held the team back. What the crew carried decides what they can make him admit.

How to play

Name the cost.
Then roll.

Most of the journey needs no dice. Roll only when the outcome is uncertain and failure would cost something real.

Before the die, the table says five things out loud, and the game master never springs a cost nobody named.

  1. What you’re trying
  2. What success gives
  3. What failure costs
  4. What could soften it
  5. Who’s helping
Results of a roll, after modifiers
2 or lessFailure. Pay the named cost.
3–4Success with a cost.
5Success.
6+Success, and you name an advantage.

Try a roll

±0
HazardsDark, storm, no tool, injured, alone, Warmth 1 or less
0
  • Failure —
  • Cost —
  • Success —
  • Advantage —

Ready when you are.

Set the modifiers, then roll one six-sided die.

A day on the trail

  1. EatOne food per traveler, one feed per dog
  2. WeatherThe Storm dial moves
  3. ChoosePace, route, who carries
  4. TravelWarmth −1, or −2 in a storm
  5. CampRoof, windbreak, or nothing
  6. Write it downThe log is evidence

Four dials, all in the open

WarmthStarts at 4. Every travel day costs some; shelter gives it back.
CohesionSpent on trust, lost to plans made over someone’s objection.
Wolf PressureRises with food, blood or waste left out. Falls with careful nights.
StormSets the day’s weather, the camp it allows, and how soon help can come.
Three bundled workers test broken ice beside a collapsed timber footbridge in a steep winter gorge.

Day 2 · Kettle Narrows

The footbridge
is in the creek.

Old ice, new ice, and water moving under the snow. A rope, a probe, and someone willing to share the risk.

The workers of Rime House

Six people in a burned yard, and the things they have not said.

Each playbook has two sides. The front is public: a belief to argue for, a bond, a reason of their own to reach Alder Fork, the tool in their hands and one move only they can make. The back is folded over and private.

Prefer someone else? The book shows how to build your own worker with the same job.

The route

Two ways east.

Both routes leave from the far bank of Kettle Narrows and meet again in Blackwater Basin. One has a roof every night. The other is a day shorter and has no roof at all.

Map of Kestrel Reach from the book: the marked trail runs east from Rime House over Split Ridge and Lantern Cache; Raven’s Cut leaves at Kettle Narrows, passes Bell Hollow and rejoins at Blackwater Basin before Saint’s Teeth and Alder Fork Relay.
Kestrel Reach, from the book. Relationship sketch, not to scale.
  1. Night 0Rime HouseIce on the wire for two days, and then the pole comes through the roof.
  2. Day 1Burned Line CutTwo miles east. The first proof of what the storm did to the line.
  3. Day 1 · campWhite Spruce BendThe first reliable windbreak, four miles on.
  4. Day 2Kettle NarrowsThe crossing, and on the far bank, a company satchel half-buried in the ice.

The marked trail

Over Split Ridge

43 mi7 daysShelter most nights

  1. Day 3Split RidgeA narrow route, an exposed load and precious daylight. A line shack at the end of it.
  2. Night 3The meetingSomething steps in the snow beyond the door, where the lantern almost reaches.
  3. Day 4Lantern CacheFood, fuel, and a note left for the crew coming down behind you.

Raven’s Cut

Down the creek corridor

38 mi6 daysNo shelter, no cache

  1. Day 3The overflowWater over the ice under new snow. Fourteen miles that save five.
  2. Night 3Bell HollowA willow bend under a cut bank. A bell has been ringing since Kettle Narrows.
  3. Day 4The Timber GateHuge rough trunks across the creek like broken bars.
  1. Day 4–5Blackwater BasinWind-scoured, the markers thin, and in the lee of the far bank, a light that should not be there.
  2. Day 6–7Saint’s TeethNot a cliff: a tilted trail, widely spaced markers, and wind that moves the snow like water.
  3. ArrivalAlder Fork RelayA staffed relay, a sickroom, a dog yard, and a working key.
A frozen creek bend below a dark cut bank, with wolves along the ridge and a small crew far off in the snow.

Night 3 · Raven’s Cut

Somewhere along it,
the bell is still ringing.

A wolf at the tree line below a lit cabin doorway at night. Four lean wolves seen from above, crossing snow and rock.

The wolves

Animals,
not monsters.

You will meet them on the third night, even if you do everything right. Low Wolf Pressure changes what they do, not whether they come.

  1. 1–2
    The Watchers

    They stand at the edge of the light long enough to be counted. Stay inside, keep food and blood inside, and they take nothing.

  2. 3–4
    The Test

    They come in close, for something specific: the feed bag, a dog on its line, the harness left out to dry. Protect it, let it go, or close the camp around it.

  3. 5–6
    The Rush

    They have had too many chances. They come for the most exposed, and someone makes a wolf roll now.

Tight formation, a lantern or fire, a shot, the dogs with Jonah: each is a measure. A group that stays together can turn wolves away without killing them.

An operator at a telegraph key by lamplight in a small dark office, snow at the window.

Alder Fork · The climax

The wire answers.

The message goes out. Within the hour, the sounder starts again.

The last scene is a live exchange over the wire with the man who held the team back: three exchanges, an acknowledgement, an offer and the pressure. What the crew carried, wrote down and was willing to say becomes Leverage, and Leverage decides what he can be made to admit.

  • 3exchanges over the wire
  • 7endings, read from what is true
  • 1account that has to be honest

Three ways to play

One evening,
or the hardest winter.

One evening · about 4 hours

The Crossing

The whole journey as a one-shot for three to five players. Every major choice, none of the walking between them.

For first games, conventions, and groups deciding whether to commit.

3–4 sessions · about 3 hours each

The Last Relay

The full journey: both routes, every scene, the basin, the pass and the wire.

The standard game, for three to six players.

4–6 sessions

Hard Winter

The storm starts higher, the wolves come one tier harder and a second time, and death no longer needs a named cost.

For experienced tables who want the full weight.

Look inside

158 pages.
Every one at the table.

Rules, six workers, ten painted maps and every location in the order the trail meets them, with a field reference where every table is already calculated. These are actual spreads from the book.

Coming to Kickstarter

The whole winter,
in one book.

The Last Relay launches on Kickstarter from Deep Ark Games, the studio behind the Black Books. Dates and pricing will be announced when they are confirmed.

The Last Relay front cover.

The book

From the fire at Rime House
to the last message at Alder Fork.

Both routes, the wolves at full strength, the man in the basin and his three ways out, Saint’s Teeth, the live exchange over the wire, seven endings, the one-shot The Crossing, Hard Winter, and a field reference with every table pre-calculated.

  • 158 pagesThe complete game, illustrated throughout, with ten painted maps.
  • Player PacketSix double-sided playbooks, the rules in brief, a table card and six sheets.
  • PDF and printA PDF, and a printed book on demand through DriveThruRPG.
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Questions

Before you
set out.

When can I get it?

The Last Relay is coming to Kickstarter from Deep Ark Games, as a PDF and as a printed book on demand through DriveThruRPG. Dates and pricing will be announced when they are confirmed. Follow Deep Ark Games on Kickstarter to hear when it launches.

Do I need another roleplaying game?

No. The Last Relay contains its complete rules. Bring one six-sided die, pencils and the printed Player Packet. One person reads the book and runs the game.

How many players, and how long does it take?

Three to six players and a game master. The Crossing plays in one evening; the standard game runs three to four sessions of about three hours; Hard Winter runs four to six.

Can the crew survive?

Yes. The group can reach Alder Fork. Costs are named before the die is rolled, a group that stays together can turn the wolves away, and care is never earned: a hurt person or dog always gets water, warmth and a real choice.

What kind of danger should our table expect?

Cold, hunger, injury, animals hurt or killed, leaving someone behind, and the chance a person dies. The game is non-graphic by default. The Player Packet includes lines and veils, a pause card anyone can touch at any time, and access notes for how each player wants information given.

Is it historical?

The route, the company, the workers and the events are invented, set in a fictional corner of Interior Alaska in January 1911. The winter labor, shelters and stopping places draw on Hudson Stuck’s Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled (1914), and the book explains how it uses that account and its limits. No particular real community is portrayed.

Has it been playtested?

This second edition was rebuilt after a full review of the first: new result bands, the Wolf Pressure ladder, Raven’s Cut as a real route and the exchange over the wire. Human playtests at new and experienced tables come next, followed by a printed proof before print-on-demand opens.

How were the illustrations made?

The paintings were generated with OpenAI’s image tools, selected under the creator’s art direction, and placed in the layouts as generated, without repainting. The page spreads on this site come from the book itself.

A sled party climbs out of the dark spruce toward the pale sky over Saint’s Teeth.

The Last Relay

Stay together.
Get the message through.

Follow on Kickstarter Look inside

On the folded back of the playbook: what they have not said.