Author’s note and license

This book is made to circulate.

In the snow of a city street, a man in a top hat and heavy cape stands still, hands joined on the head of his cane; behind him, the façades and a few passers-by are lost in the falling snow.

— a solo roleplaying game played by writing —

◆ Author’s note and license

This book is made to circulate.

What you may do without asking. Play it, print it for your , lend it, give it away, share it as it is, as much as you like, on two conditions: that nothing be sold along the way, and that my name travel with it.

What goes through me. Selling it, folding it into a paid product, publishing a reworked or translated version of it.

The system itself stays free. A way of playing cannot be owned. What I keep is this book (its words, its images, its layout), never the gestures it describes.

On the images in this edition. They are AI-generated (see below), and an image produced that way is, in several countries, covered by no copyright at all: I do not claim to hold more over them than the law grants me. The final illustrations, drawn by hand, will be mine for good.

◆ A note on AI

This book was written with an AI, and I would rather say it plainly than let you work it out: it produced text, and it produced the images — all of them.

What is mine: I had the idea, set the rules, played my games, corrected, played again. I read every line. I chose, discarded, rewrote, refused. Nothing enters here that I did not want, and what you are reading commits me entirely. I am its author; the AI is its co-writer and its co-illustrator.

This is not a settled state. The pages that still sound in a voice other than mine will be rewritten by hand, and the AI images will all be replaced by drawings. This is an ashcan edition: what it says about the game is true, what it shows of it is provisional.

I am alert to the impact of AI, on the environment as on the trades of art. Without it, today, I would not have known how to put this book in your hands. Let us use it with measure, and with interest.

◆ Your feedback

This edition circulates in order to be played, and what it still has to learn, it will learn from you: what started on its own, what resisted, the moment you closed the notebook.

Write to me at mikael.liseciel@gmail.com.

There is a public board as well: https://skyscribe.itch.io/askthesky/community.

Enjoy the read.