Six and a half million Brits went to bed on the 2nd of September, 1752. They woke up on the 14th. The Calendar (New Style) 1750 Act had been passed earlier on that year to bring Britain's calendars into line with the Gregorian calendar that had been introduced more than a century and half ago — or so the story goes.
The truth is far more insidious. At the dawn of September the 3rd, in the year 1752, mankind awoke to a new world. A gift had been delivered unto every man, woman, and child. It was beautiful. It was terrible.
It was as if all peoples were fed the bounteous fruit of the Tree of Knowledge at once. Some would call it Enlightenment. Some, Transcendence. But the precious few who understood knew it by another name: Gnosis.
The eyes of the world were opened. As one humanity beheld Truth. Restored to our lost godhood we ventured out to see the cosmos unraveled before us and we fled from the sight. Humanity had not been ready to face Truth. As one, Humanity averted its eyes.
Now the year is 2020 and mankind lives on in its collective hallucination, its unanimous denial of Truth. The modern world, a fabrication built on the back of Truth too terrible to accept.
But eyes are beginning to open.
Truth will not be denied.
The clock has struck midnight on the First day.
Details
When joining a game that is run in the Eleven Days universe, you can expect the following:
Mindfuckery: High — Eleven Days is a setting with gothic and cosmic horror themes. You can expect a lot of mind-bending people, places, and events not to mention unsettling or uncomfortable imagery in the narrative of the game. Religious/eschatological imagery and symbolism will be prevalent in the games, but none of them will be preachy or evangelical in nature because the GM is not religious. Whatsoever.
Roleplay: High — Games run in the Eleven Days setting will put a much higher emphasis on roleplay than normal. Combat will be minimal and should be undertaken only when absolutely necessary as many of the creatures that will be introduced are more than mere mortal humans can deal with.
Exploration: Medium — A good portion of games run in Eleven Days will involve exploring the many locations therein, as characters have no hope of surviving the events that will transpire in the games if they do not explore and study their surroundings to take note of places where they can obtain supplies and places where they can barricade themselves in against the horrors that stalk the streets.
Gravity: Medium — Games run in the Eleven Days setting, with its horror and grimdark themes, will have a much higher level of gravitas than normal. However, occasional humour is not unwelcome and is in fact encouraged when appropriate.
Player Buy-In: If you like grimdark, horror, and religious/eschatological themes, then Eleven Days might be up your alley. You can expect games to be gritty, and they will always be a race against the clock, trying to scrounge together enough to survive from one moment to the next.
Setting: Games played in the Eleven Days setting will commonly begin at the
Grey City, a bleak, barren city built around a crumbling
Cathedral.
Character Creation
While the "hook" of the story might lead you to believe that the game will be set primarily in Britain, that is not the case. Your characters would have been living in the modern world (year 2020) and can come from anywhere in the world, not just Britain, or Europe for that matter. None of the games will be played in the modern world, and as such the modern world is relevant
only to character backstories as characters will
not be returning to the modern world after the game starts. Transitioning to the "true" world is a one-way trip barring extenuating circumstances, and this fact should be taken into consideration when creating a character.
There are two elements of backstory that are important to creating a character in the Eleven Days setting:
The Catalyst
Your character has been living in a lie. The modern world is nothing but an elaborate illusion fed by humanity's collective denial of Truth. But the illusion is imperfect. The Catalyst is something that your character sees or experiences that makes them aware of the existence of the "True" world. It could be something minor, like finding a book by a well-known author that looks extremely legitimate and yet does not exist on any database. It could be something major, like staying at a hotel only to wake up one day to find that all the staff are faceless.
Whatever form it takes, the Catalyst is only the beginning. Over time after the initial experience, the character will begin to see more and more aspects of the "True" world. This often happens in flashes of vision that are harrowing and distracting and will, inevitably, lead to the second element of character creation for Eleven Days:
The Awakening
As a character's awareness of the "True" world increases, the length and vividness of the visions that hit them will become almost too intense. The Awakening is a death experienced by a character as a result of the visions. It is the event that marks their transition from the false, modern world, into the "True" world that humanity averted its gaze from in 1752. This death can be the result of anything, running away from a vision resulting in a fatal fall, or maybe being on the road, driving, when a particularly horrific vision hits, making them swerve into oncoming traffic. In any and all cases, the Awakening is the last event that a character will remember before the start of the game.
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