The Shell: An Interstitial Playbook

The Shell is a playbook for Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined, by Riley Hopkins.

Layout by Isiah Games

Everything you were was stripped from you, and now you’ve been left a Shell, dealing with how your very being has been twisted into a fun house mirror of itself. Some people revel in the emptiness, using it to fill themselves with what they have wanted all along. Some desperately try to regain some semblance of normalcy and their lives from before. However you no longer are yourself, that is without question, and you no longer have the trappings of your old life to support you. Adrift and alone, what will you become when you grow out of your Shell?

This playbook is about playing a character who’s been, potentially, irreversibly changed from who they once were and are discovering that they are unrecognizable and saddled with new abilities that they don’t know or understand. Things in the vein of curses, werewolves, vampires, nobodies and mutants. This playbook can deal with themes of dysphoria, fear of change, fear of prejudice and fear of isolation so GMs allowing The Shell in their games should speak to their players as a whole about their comfort including such a character. Remember to use safety tools such as the X,N and O cards as well as the communication tools included in the Interstitial Book and communicate at the table regarding play and comfort.