In my end is my beginning is a one-page role-playing game about the final moments of life. You take the role of any character you like, and recall your most vivid memories.Most RPGs contain death. Lots of death. But they treat it as a technical issue, as something for players to avoid (unless they're inflicting it on someone else). There's rarely any space to consider what life and death mean in the real world. In the last few years, I have made friends with undertakers, have lost my father very suddenly, and have enjoyed seeing one of my closest friends publish an astounding novel about death.
By drawing our attention to death, this game explores what makes a good life.
Oddly, I felt the need to add "content warning: death". I've never seen that in any other game, despite the trauma that death can trigger.
In my end is my beginning can be played with 1-3 players, although 2 is the recommended number. If you have 3 players, I'm afraid that one of you will end the game still living, with only ghosts left to talk to.
You will need a regular deck of playing cards.
I would like to thank Rupert Callendar, of Callendar, Callendar, Cauty & Drummond Undertakers, and Salena Godden, author of Mrs Death Misses Death, both of whom have been such an inspiration. Without them this game would not exist. I'd also like to thank my dad, without whom I would not exist.
The title is taken from a quote by Mary Queen of Scots, "En ma Fin gît mon Commencement", although I initially encountered it in TS Eliot's Four Quartets (also reversed: "in my beginning is my end"). I subsequently encountered it embossed around the firepit at Sharpham Natural Burial Ground.
Content warning: death
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