Flamboyant Spark

Flamboyant Spark is a fabulistic exploration of life under the shadow of the future. Here we paint the space and wrestle with time, guessing all the way through as we assemble a patchwork reality and swim through it without any idea of our destination. Our characters are unexceptionally trapped in a present haunted on all fronts, same as anyone else.

We are not bound together by mere coincidence. Our lives are shaped and connected by an entity. It obeys several rules:

• The totality of it can’t be perceived all at once.
• It can’t act directly, only through other things.
• We can’t seem to escape it at all.
• It’s left a significant mark on our life.

Exactly what it might be isn't clear. Furthermore, it isn’t important for it to be clear. The shadow of the entity falling over us is enough to go on. Flamboyant Spark is a game about not knowing ahead of time, and letting your stream of consciousness take you where it will. Having answers ready to go is antithetical to the spirit of the thing.

It's not all existential terror, mind you. There's musical numbers, for one, and knives of cosmic import. There are tableaus painted detail by detail, and labyrinths of time where the past separates from the present. There are secrets to keep and people to love, and horizons to set your sights on. All this and more awaits you in the eternally transitional present time, which confines us with its possibility.

Flamboyant Spark is designed to be played by two or more people, ideally four. You can play it for as long as you like, though to get the full experience you’ll want to play it more than once. There is no GM and there are no dice, but some of its systems use Zener cards, once unsuccessfully utilized to test for psychic powers, for the purposes of elaborate guessing games. It is suitable both for standalone play and as a supplement to other games, and is particularly useful for mechanizing disappointment, important decisions and uncertain futures.

Background image: ChurchFog1, from Colin Spacetwinks' A Place Without Bodies