Text RPG quests in your browser
Hour-long quests that read like a book and play like an RPG: choices that matter, dice you can see, fights, loot and endings to find. And a forge that turns your story into a quest you can send to your friends.
Two ways onto the road
Some come to play. Some come with a story of their own. There is a plan for each, and a free account to start.
For players
Every quest in the library opens for you, and so does every quest our Storytellers publish. A new road almost every week.
Build your own hero with any perk, carry legacy perks from one quest to the next, keep three saves per quest and collect every ending.
$4.99 a month. Cancel any time.
For storytellers
Tell your story in plain words: who the hero is, what they want, what stands in the way. The forge asks you a few questions, then writes it into a full interactive quest.
Chapters, choices, dice, fights and several endings, tested thousands of times so it plays fair. Share the link with friends (they play free) or publish it to the library.
$19.99 a month, with 3 new quests every month and everything in Adventurer.
How it plays
Each one is a whole story you finish in about an hour. Start with the free one; it is complete, start to end.
A Warrior, a Rogue or a Bard, each with a perk that changes how scenes go. Adventurers build their own.
Risky choices roll two dice plus a stat, in plain sight. Fail, and the story goes somewhere new instead of ending.
The reed causeway runs a mile across the fen, and the reeds on either side stand taller than you, whispering. Ahead, Hollowmere crouches on its stilts over the black water of the Mere. You know every board of this road. You left it nine years ago. In your pocket is your sister's letter, two lines in Ilse's square hand: The bell is ringing. And under it, smaller: Come home.
The library
Each one stands alone, with its own village, its own trouble and up to four endings.
folk horror · mystery
A village that forgets. A bell that remembers. One night with no moon.
Your sister's letter says only: "The bell is ringing. Come home." But when you reach Hollowmere at dusk, nobody remembers you. Not even her.
about 60 min4 endings
The forge
You bring the story. The forge does the rest of the work a game writer would.
Write it the way you would tell it to a friend: a few paragraphs is enough. Add the characters, places and endings you have in mind.
The forge reads every word and asks up to three questions about what the story leaves open, with suggestions to pick from.
It plans the chapters, writes every scene, choice and fight, plays the quest thousands of times to make it fair, and has an editor read it.
Play it first. Then send the link to your friends, or publish it to the Storytellers’ library. Want changes? Ask, and it rewrites.
A storyteller writes
“My grandmother kept a lighthouse on an island that is gone now. In my story her granddaughter goes back the night the lamp lights itself, and has to decide whether to let the sea have the island, or keep the promise she made as a child…”
The forge returns a quest
An example of what one story becomes. Writing takes about ten to thirty minutes; we email you when it is ready.
Put a friend in a story full of the people and places they know, and send it to them on the day.
Turn last year’s tabletop campaign into a quest your group can play again, and choose differently.
Let readers walk through your novel’s first chapter as its hero, and find out where they would go.
The tale your family tells at every holiday, as a quest the cousins can argue about for years.
What you carry
Every check shows the roll, your stat and the number you need. Nothing is hidden behind the curtain.
What you did in the first chapter waits for you in the last. A failed roll moves the story instead of ending it.
Each quest has up to four endings. Adventurers keep a gallery of every one they find.
Finish a quest and earn a small enchantment that your custom characters carry into the next one.
Start on a laptop, finish on a phone. Your place in the story follows you.
Story, Normal or Hard. Choose the text speed, the font size and one of three terminal themes.
Pricing
Every account plays the free quests from start to finish, and any quest a friend shares.
Try the road
$0
Everything there is to play
$4.99/ month
Cancel any time from your account.
Write your own quests
$19.99/ month
New quests refill on each renewal.
Questions
Lantern Saga is a library of text RPG quests you play in your browser: interactive stories of about an hour, read in a terminal-style screen, where you make the choices, roll the dice on checks and fights, and reach one of several endings. Storytellers can also write their own quests from a story told in plain words.
Yes. A free account plays the free quests with any of the three ready-made heroes, one save slot per quest. The Adventurer plan ($4.99 a month) opens every quest, including the ones written by storytellers.
A web browser on a computer, tablet or phone. There is nothing to download or install. Your saves follow your account from one device to another.
About an hour for one playthrough, and every quest has two to four endings, so most players come back for another road.
A check rolls two six-sided dice and adds one of your three stats (Might, Wits or Charm). Meet the target and you succeed; fall just short and you get a partial success at a cost; fall far short and the story takes another turn. Failing never stops the story.
Adventurer costs $4.99 a month and unlocks everything there is to play: every quest in the library, every storyteller quest, custom characters with any perk, legacy perks carried between quests, three save slots per quest and the endings gallery.
More in the questions and answers.
The Drowned Bell is free with any account. It takes about an hour.