Feather, Beak + Bone

Beak, Feather and Bone is a Zinequest 2 “map labelling” storygame that is influenced by things like the Quiet Year. It provides a map of a city containing various buildings. The city is inhabited by humanoid flightless ravens (kenku to D&D fans) and the players take on a faction or segment of raven society.

The players then take turns to draw a card from deck of playing cards and use it as inspiration to label a building on the map and explain its purpose and role in the city. There’s a framework for creating the description of the building to help overcome creative paralysis.

There aren’t any game mechanics as such the outcome is random. After each round the players can choose to end the game and each player totals the value of the cards they drew. The player with the highest total is the dominant faction and can claim the central building, creating it and reflecting their faction’s influence over it and what happens there.

There is an interesting variant provided which introduces the Traveller a singular character who is exploring the city. When the landmarks in the city are created they are described in the voice of a single character (The Traveller) who is exploring the city.

The zine explicitly mentions using the city that is created in the game as the setting for a further campaign or scenario using a more classically structured RPG.