Thursday, September 04, 2025

Ascension Address: Welcome to Lumon

You awaken on a conference table, disoriented, sleepy, and without any recollection of how you arrived here. The room is small, has blandly colored walls, sterile lighting, and a single door for entry. A short, plastic conference speaker rests on the table inches from your face, blinking with a cold red light. 

A voice greets you through the speaker— polite, but detached — and begins asking questions: your name, your birthplace, the color of your mother’s eyes. You try to answer, but the answers aren’t there. Whoever you were before this moment has been forgotten.

This is orientation. You’ve been hired to a position on the severed floor of Lumon Industries. By your own consent, your memories have been surgically split in a procedure known as severance. One part of you — your Outie — lives in the world above, free to shop, sleep, and love. But here, in this place, you are only your Innie, born the moment you stepped out of the elevator, and forgotten the moment you ascend again.

Your memories are now spatially bound. The separation is total and irreversible. You will never know who you are outside these walls. And the one out there will never know what you do in here.

What remains is the work. It is important, even if you don’t know why. There are quotas to meet. Rules to follow. Rewards to earn. You are not alone — but you are severed.

Now report to your department. Orientation is complete. Productivity awaits.





Change the term “Truck” to “Innie”, and “Yard” to “Board”. Change the gamestate tracking page to “The Ledger of Progress”.

Set the Building Blocks “Bounties” and “No Private Communication”

My Imperial Styles will be Guide/Dungeonmaster/Powerhouse/Scam-Neutral/Guarded/Wildcard/Solitaire/Considerate

I generally encourage all players to refrain from introducing major spoilers for those who have not seen the show Severance but to simply introduce mechanics and content that is line with the general feel and aesthetics of the show.

Comments

DoomedIdeas: he/him

04-09-2025 05:44:10 UTC

Interesting! Having not seen the show, I’m excited to see what the mechanics of this game will be!

Chiiika: she/her

04-09-2025 05:46:48 UTC

I’m with DI - I haven’t seen the show, but I’m excited!

Lawnomos: he/him

04-09-2025 05:54:26 UTC

Haven’t seen it either

Josh: he/they

04-09-2025 06:32:19 UTC

I would definitely encourage putting the TV show completely out of mind when considering the gameplay of the dynasty - games based on media products tend not to do too well here.

Kevan: he/him

04-09-2025 08:20:27 UTC

Also haven’t seen the show.

Pop culture dynasties are tricky for players who don’t know the source material: they can’t tell what’s important (if a fan of the show proposes office door numbers, is that core to the TV show therefore worth investing in a good one right away, or just a throwaway idea that might be unimportant?), and may be deterred from proposing new ideas in case they are (in a perfectly mild and friendly way) voted down by fans of the show for not quite fitting the show’s lore or aesthetic.

If you’re happy for the narrative to just be “bland office setting, commute each way involves amnesia” and to see where that goes, though, we should be fine.

eternalservererror: Board

05-09-2025 21:02:42 UTC

> If you’re happy for the narrative to just be “bland office setting, commute each way involves amnesia” and to see where that goes, though, we should be fine.

Yes, very happy with that. I’m only wanting to set a tone here.

eternalservererror: Board

05-09-2025 21:11:37 UTC

In fact, I probably should have just left out any direct reference to Severance. The intro I gave is enough to set the scene.

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