Unseen Voices – Intro

You walk down one of the many decrepit hallways of La Cage. You pass the busker, who fills the empty void with the melody from her guitar. A familiar face you’ve known since you were a child, and yet she’s barely aged.

You pass the flower seller who asks if you’d like to buy a rose for your love. Every day. The voices of La Cage filling the background. 

In front of you, a young teen, just coming home from a club. Do you maybe know them? Could they be the one you kissed when you were 17? Are they not the one you danced away the night with last weekend? A voice in your ear, a gentle touch like a breeze. 

ANOTHER ROUND OF DISCO? I KNOW YOU WANT IT. JUST REACH IN YOUR POCKET FOR SOME GLORY. 

You refuse it. You cannot fall back into your old habits. But there is a small baggy in your coat’s pocket, whispering temptation in your mind. 

HOW CAN YOU FULLFILL YOUR DESTINY AND LEAD YOUR PARTY TO GLORY IF YOU DO THAT? 

You shake your head, trying to dismiss the seductive voices. With determination, you reach into your pocket, retrieving the baggy of drugs. As you hold it in your trembling hand, you make a choice—a choice that defines your path.

ONE LAST DANCE. JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS. 

You grab the baggy. But you resist, throwing it into the next trash can, leaving the bickering voices behind. 

Description

The Unseen Voices are your innermost temptations, sins and virtues. They are your personified struggle in the game of 97 Poets of Revachol. 

They are 13 players who will play different Unseen Voices. They will have their own characters, each with their own personality. Each with an outwards appearance which will happily blend into the background, until they turn their attention to you. 

The Unseen use a meta-technique called the whisper. They will whisper temptation to you, and only you will be able to hear them, in your head. They can whisk you away into a special (blackbox) space where they unleash their full personality on you. 

However, the Unseen also have their own unique struggles and relationships. They are abstract things, concepts, but just like the mythical figures of old, they toy with the humans in their care, entrenched in a timeless competition whose purpose has been long lost.

Also, not all characters have their own Unseen. Some people have such clear convictions or will meet other types of weird play that they won´t need their personal inner voice, allowing the Unseen players to take care of a manageable amount of characters and really follow them and manipulate them.

Designer notes

The Unseen Voices are a big part of the surrealistic aspects of the game. They convey the characters’ inner feelings but also provide some weird and strange interactions in the world. 

Each Unseen has a handful of characters they know much more about than the others, their primary “playthings” with which they can steer and weave a story together. Their game is very much about their manipulation, creating scenes for them and playing with them.

When playing an Unseen, you will have a lot of insight into different parts of the game, will be a big part of the surreal atmosphere and have some responsibility for the play of others. While being fun and unique, it also means that you’ll have to steer more and have a bit less potential of playing very immersively. It is an outwards bound experience, maybe a bit closer to being the director than to the actor. 

How to play an Unseen voice

If you want to play an Unseen Voice, you will go through a special sign-up process, opening at the same time as the standard player sign-up.