Happy Friday, everyone! We've been planning the full BOOK OF HOURS production cycle this week - actually, we planned the whole Weather Factory plan to 2028, which I think you would really likeif I could tell you anything about it. But it seemed like a good time to post an update on what we've been up to.

The Lucid Tarot

(Also known as the BOOK OF HOURS tarot deck, the successor to Cultist Simulator's Tarot of the Hours.) Today I've reached an important milestone: all the Major Arcana cards are complete! Check out the Lucid Tarot page for a few larger versions of the below, or bask in the joy of seeing pockets of colour appear out of an inky blackness. I intend to go back and zhuz a few of these just before printing, but to give you an idea of the full set:
Each of these cards was designed, drawn and coloured from scratch, because obviously the Hours deserve as much love and attention as they can get. I wanted to put a more human spin on the Hours with this deck, as we already have a lot of gorgeous symbolism in the Tarot of the Hours. But what would you see in the chapel windows of the Church of the Bright Edge, for example? Or what would gaze semi-benevolently down upon the altar of the Temple Unceasing? I'd love for these to actually appear in the windows of Hush House in BOOK OF HOURS, but AK and I spent a lot of time talking production schedules this week and we havequite enough to get on with for that game already... Minor Arcana cards are more numerous than Major Arcana (56 Minor, 22 Major) but they'll deliberately harken back to cards you've mostly already seen in Cultist Simulator. You've seen the 10 of Swords already, for example:
The 10 of Swords represents martyrdom, victimhood and 'bottoming out' - so the Incursus seemed like a pretty good touchpoint for that. You can expect to see a Lucid Tarot reimagining of your Cultist cards in the next set of these cards you see - anyone want to guess who I've chosen for the Page, Knight, Queen and King of Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles...?

BOOK OF HOURS

Among many other things, AK's been thinking about skills this week. When I turn around, I see the silhouette of his fabulous hair against a terrifying sheet of incomprehensible data, like an adorable kitten slightly obscuring your view of the sun exploding in the sky. It has tabs in it like this
And notes in it like this
AK alleges it is all very well organised and self-explanatory. The game has been through a hell of a lot of reworking and rethinking since we first announced it, so it needs a bit of a monster framework. For example, AK says - The Illumination Wisdom: Mystical exercises to purify and illuminate the self and its surroundings. One of the skills in Illumination (and in Skolekosophy) started out life as the Four Regrets. This was an evocative name for a skill that deals with Edge and Winter. It referenced the Four Regrets in an original CS tome, The Skeleton Songs (yes, like the podcast), and it was one of a list of skills (Three Exuberations, Nine Disciplines) that sounded nicely esoteric. And it fitted into an elegant schema for crafting rarefied things about light and knowledge. But when I went back to the skills list after some time away, I realised its hopelessly confusing to have Four Regrets at level 5, and Nine Disciplines at level 2. I didnt want to change the whole scheme, so I tried out things like Crossroads Regret and Ninefold Practices. The numbers were still in there but less confusing. But Secret Histories stuff balances rather carefully between the allusive and the incomprehensible. If I call a skill Flame Enchantments thats boringly on the nose and theres no exploration to enjoy. But if I call it Articulations of the Laminar Secret it sounds great, but its bloody hard to work out what the skill actually does. Especially when youre crafting, like, a Wild Surmise into an Earthquake Intimation, or something. So I went back again, and I worked it properly into our web of references. So Four Regrets has ended up as Ragged Crossroads (alongside Disciplines of the Scar and Meniscate Reflections). That would still be absurdly bewildering for anything game that isnt about plumbing occult knowledge in a secret library. Even in BOOK OF HOURS, theyre the most obscurely named skills, compared to Drums & Dances or Lockworks & Clockworks. But anyone whos dug into the lore veteran, or newb ten hours in will be able to guess which Hours they connect to, and once they see the items in the game, theyll have enough to start figuring out what the hell they actually do.

[ 2022-09-23 13:23:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

For fifteen centuries, Hush House was a fortress of knowledge. Until the fire. The collection is ruined, and the last Librarian is gone. Only one with your unique talents can rebuild the library.

BOOK OF HOURS is an elegant, melancholy, combat-free RPG set in an occult library, from the creator Fallen London, Sunless Sea and the double BAFTA-nominated Cultist Simulator.

Enjoy the sweet peace of organising books and customising your new home, all while unpeeling centuries of history from the occult stones about you.

The Librarian's influence extends far beyond the walls of Hush House. It's up to you to determine how history is written.



In this 20 - 40 hour game, you'll:

◆ ACQUIRE, RESTORE and CATALOGUE occult books, scrolls and curiosities.

◆ STUDY the nine Wisdoms, and conquer the nine Elements of the Soul.

◆ GUIDE visitors who come seeking your assistance, choosing their paths and stories.

◆ EXPLORE the Secret Histories and the pantheon of Hours that rules them.

◆ RESTORE a vast crumbling edifice built on the foundations of an ancient abbey.

◆ WREST your past from obscurity. Choose from nine different Legacies which determine who you are. You might be a Magnate, abandoning wealth to seek peace. Or an Archaeologist, fleeing the curse you awoke. Or perhaps your origins are more esoteric, like the Symurgist, or Twiceborn? Each playthrough offers different opportunities.



Weather Factory is a two-person dev team supported by many brilliant freelancers. BOOK OF HOURS was partially funded by the European Union's Creative Europe Programme - MEDIA. Thank you, Europe! We love you. ♥