AmaZINE — Lis Toski’s ‘pickup: STYX’ Explores Mortality Through Mythology
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table,
In the webwork of mythos and folklore, the psychopomp holds a unique status among those entities that serve the dead without necessarily judging them. The word psychopomp comes from the Greek psychopompós (ψυχοπομπός), meaning “guide of souls.” These entities typically take the form of creatures who usher the souls of the newly dead from the world of the living to whatever afterlife they may be destined for.
That act of service, paid or not, is fascinating as it crafts a narrative in mythos; that there are things beyond our comprehension whose task is serving recently departed souls that are lost or disoriented.
As someone who ponders mortality hourly, I give a great deal of thought to these creatures and all the forms they are represented in within our culture’s lexicon of mythology. Typically, the one I ponder the most is Charon, the ferryman of the Greek underworld who transports the souls of the deceased across the rivers Styx or Acheron to the realm of Hades. That could be because of my love of copper coins, shadowy skeletal figures, or the idea of subterranean rivers. It may also be because of the way Mike Mignola depicts them or the fact that a great majority of the media that I love across multiple platforms has some incarnation of Charron represented.
For those reasons, it immediately sparked my interest when my friend and first-time game designer Lis Toski launched her solo-tarot journaling role-playing game titled pickup: STYX. Let’s get into it.
In pickup: STYX, the player takes the role of a ferry operator on the River of the Dead to help guide souls to their final destination. It’s a fascinating proposition for a player, and one I have tasked a whole table with for a multi-month campaign back when my table was playing Pathfinder 1st Edition regularly.
The introspection was heavy at the table, but in a solo-journaling RPG, this self-reflection becomes even more intimate. It brings more weight to the reflective nature of the role of a psychopomp than what one might be able to explore in a communal storytelling session.
The mechanic in pickup: STYX has players using both the major and minor arcana in a tarot deck to interpret the life of a newly-boarded soul who has questions on their recent departure and reason for taking this short journey to their afterlife.
There is an element of chance and the natural inclination to compare rolling dice to bones. However, the elegance of an augury being found in questions and answers prompted by a tarot deck adds a delicious meta level of interaction to the storytelling element in a way that feels so lived in. The conversation of what grief feels like, how it is processed, and the weight of giving any kind of conversation, comfort, or closure to an NPC serves as a reflective moment for the one playing the game and engaging in the experiences of solo RP.
“I’ve been in constant conversation with grief my entire life,” said Toski on creating pickup: STYX. “pickup: STYX sort of began development when I was 4 years old, under my parents’ coffee table and waiting with my elderly cat so he wasn’t alone in passing. Somewhere between those conversations of personal loss and ones I’ve had in various gig hospitality roles, floated this idea of the comfort we seek from and provide to strangers in our most vulnerable moments. My hope is for this work to serve two types of players: those looking to explore their own grief through gentle journaling, art, and familiar practices of tarot, and those who use the game as a tool of character design within their own works. It’s a little game on the surface, but the waters run deep.”
You can find pickup: STIX as a free-to-download digital ashcan edition on itch.io under Chapel Crone. Toski hopes to release a revised full-printed version later this year.
Until next time, if you are curious about solo journaling games, heavy conversations with yourself, or exploring unique ways to look at grief, you would be doing yourself a disservice to miss this opportunity to pick up a thought-provoking game from a thoughtful creator who I believe is just beginning their journey on the path as a game designer.
