This is a playtest version of move Close the Gate.

Close the Gate

(Advanced move with a roll)

Close the Gate gets triggered when the characters are trying to expel a dangerous Echo phenomenon like a Burrow from the reality, and are in the process of performing the very steps necessary to do that.

While the process varies, it does typically involve something actual or symbolic to appease the Echo and its cause.  It can be as simple as witnessing and saying aloud the injustices the dead here have suffered, or it could require an occult ritual. (the player triggering the move decides what the character does or has to do).

Closing a Gate of an active Burrow will cause everything still inside it to vanish. The characters inside a closed Burrow might slip eventually back to the real world. Their return, however, is not instantaneous and does not happen without Harm to the characters left inside the Burrow.

Each Harm the character has adds Advantage Dice instead of Challenge Dice to the dice roll. Each additional character beyond the one making the roll involved in the effort must describe how they are helpful, and if the GM agrees it is useful, they add an Aspect Dice to the roll.

“As planned…”

The Phenomenon vanishes. Anything still inside the Echo is gone. Any effects the Echo had on the real world stop, but injuries and damage caused by it remain. If the Echo had a Threat Track associated with it, remove the Track from the game.

If the characters do not know what exactly created the Echo, this effect can be temporary, and the Echo will find another way to our world after a while (with an addition of a new Threat Track). The GM should be clear on if and why the characters can or can not expel an Echo for good, at a certain point of the game.

“Only if… it’s sated. Now.”

The Phenomenon is taken down, but with a price. Maybe something slips through and stays in the real world for a moment (or more). Or someone has to stay behind to keep it shut on the other side. Perhaps the closing is a violent anti-birth, and the characters have to run before the psychic shockwave kills them all. The characters Closing the Gate must accept whatever the Echo tries to throw at them, and take a Harm. This Harm should be supernatural and extremely disturbing in nature – a personal haunter, a constant unexplained feeling of loss, something creeping under the characters’ skin.

“…And it awakens.”

Something wakes at the other side. The Phenomenon is gone, but the thing it woke is not. The thing might be another more dangerous Echo or a Thing from Beyond.

The woken thing is attached to the characters in the scene and has its own deadly threat track.  

Perceived Threat level

Due to the danger, this move entails, it’s foolish to try the move when there are multiple threat tracks open. In game fiction, the characters are aware whether there are still stuff to uncover, or if Closing the Echo is relatively safe. The perceived threat should not stop the characters from trying this move regardless of the threat – for a really good reason, or if they just happen to be foolhardy enough.