Valthorne: City of Living Law

Welcome to Valthorne—a desert gigapolis where justice isn’t delivered by force, but sung into being. Where the Law is alive, drifting through the city as psychic resonance. Where memory is carved into stone, grief hums beneath the streets, and constables serve not as enforcers—but as witnesses.

This is not a game about punishment.
This is a game about holding space.
About resonating instead of regulating.
About drifting through stories no one else will sing.

What's Inside

The Quickstart Pamphlet (4 pages)
A minimalist intro with everything you need to play a short one-shot, including:

• An on-ramp into the city’s song
  
• Core mechanics
• Sample folktale: The Griefstone Murmur
• Easy setup for new players

The Rulebook (48 pages)
A full guide to playing, narrating, and worldbuilding in Valthorne. Includes:

• Emotion-based conflict & ritual mechanics (TiGGR system)
  
• A folktale-inspired approach to story arcs and civic memory
• Tools for crafting WANDs, griefstones, districts, and Flow Tracks
• Sample folktales, district profiles, and speculative futures
• Optional rules for existential weirdness, undertow drift, and civic dreaming

Designed in an Airless Studio

Valthorne was created through a dialogue between human imagination and machine-assisted reflection—a humAIn design process that used language models as storytelling partners and session simulators.

No gatekeepers.
No playtest committees.
Just resonance, iteration, and late-night grief-logic.

What emerged is a world where the Law listens.

Themes & Influences

• Disco Elysium meets Ursula K. Le Guin
  
• Law & Order, if it mourned instead of convicted
• Belonging Outside Belonging meets Planescape, in a city that breathes
• Folklore as civic record
• Justice as resonance, not retribution

 Play it if you want to…

• Make meaning with your friends in a city that is beautiful, broken, and quietly waiting for you to listen
• Roleplay as poetic constables, memory-keepers, and drift-sensitives
• Build civic memory through ritual and song
• Explore justice without violence
• Tell stories where grief isn’t solved—but honored

Folktales, NPCs, and other content available at greyledger.org

Pay-what-you-wish.
No DRM.
Creative Commons licensed.
Share it. Drift with it. Resonate.