DATE: 01/17/3728 Time: 1523
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

Today marks my first week in the CHVLR program, and is the day of my first deployment to the field. My SCS was installed three days ago, and I’ve run a few training simulations, but it’s the first time I’ve even been in the cockpit.

The Colonel says there is no other choice. The enemy is here and I have to stop them.

Paladin initializing. Systems green. Forrest McCoy, signing off.

DATE: 01/18/3728 Time: 0613
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

I couldn’t do it. There were already troops on the ground, fighting the enemy, and I just… locked up. There was an enemy CHVLR rampaging through the armored vehicles and swatting air units out of the sky, people screaming for help over the comms, the sudden strain of actually being linked to my own CHVLR for the first time pressing down on me… and I just refused to keep going past the hangar doors.

The Colonel screamed at me, but you can’t really scruff a CHVLR by the neck and throw it where you want it to go. Some of the soldiers that survived the battle found my room afterwards though.

The doc says nothing’s broken, it’ll all heal and fade fast enough. The one sergeant listing out all the names of all the people she’d lost to that enemy mecha, though… that’ll stick.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: 10C

DATE: 01/27/3728 Time: 1347
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

Well, I got my first actual taste of combat. I took Paladin pretty deep into enemy territory, but the target was a fuel dump and I hit it while we were a little too close. Functionality started to drop like a rock, but a repair crew wasn’t sent along for the mission and none of the ones back at base were going to be able to reach me. I did my best to switch out the spare heat sinks, and I got moving again, but I’m not convinced I didn’t mess it up somehow.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: JC

DATE: 02/2/3728 Time: 0429
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

Howling alarms woke me up tonight, sounding throughout the base. I was already stumbling towards the hangar with a crowd of mechanics, half awake, when I realized that armed guards were running with us.

And the Seigyo Control System plugged into the back of my neck, my connection to Paladin, was starting to feel electrified.

We interrupted a mechanic from the second division trying to start it up without a control system, having already hacked the cockpit’s locks and gotten inside. It was the first time I’ve ever drawn my sidearm outside of mandatory range time. I didn’t have to pull the trigger though, none of us did. Once we caught him he broke down crying; I guess the enemy got to his family, held them hostage. The guards hauled him away.

I haven’t been able to get back to sleep. Can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched, and I keep feeling phantom tingles from the SCS.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: 3C4S

DATE: 02/7/3728 Time: 1801
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

We sent a hostile armored column packing today after they got into the city. It should be more difficult to pilot a CHVLR in urban combat, and I know from prior experience that it is, but… New Bulwark completely adapted to the war machines that the base at its heart sends marching out. Buildings move to let me pass, and any weapon I ask for is just there, either to pull from a fake building or suddenly hauled into reach by a crane.

It makes me feel a bit like a god, striding through a world that molds itself into what I need.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: 4D

DATE: 02/21/3728 Time: 2351
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

Another sleepless night.

I was just doing status checks this afternoon, linked up with Paladin and sitting in the cockpit while the CHVLR was in its maintenance alcove, when this… voice started running through the status of every single one of Paladin’s systems. It seemed familiar somehow, even… familial? Like a brother, or something.

Without my input, I felt… something in my connection to Paladin. Suddenly I wasn’t seeing the main screen in front of me in the cockpit, I was seeing directly out of Paladin’s eyes.

I still see that point of view every time I close my eyes.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: QC2C

DATE: 03/05/3728 Time: 0613
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

Engagement in a forest outside of Fallback yesterday. Enemy CHVLRs. Bad lines of sight, and no convenient cranes delivering extra weapons.

My rifle jammed. 90mm semi-automatic weapon that cost an amount of money that could be used to put two families in standalone homes, easy, and it just stopped working. No time to clear it, enemy CHVLR closing in, so I closed in, drawing my sonic knife. As the enemy took a step back, there was… something in the back of my head. I knew that the step back was because of surprise. I knew the other pilot was suddenly frightened, unsure, panicking. I dodged their rifle, thrown in haste, like I had known it was coming… because I did know.

I haven’t mentioned this to anyone. What would I even say?

I almost missed the fright turning to outright terror as I started to carve into the enemy’s chassis, because Cara died. Her links had started to flash red as I charged, and I was still halfway through killing my opponent when a railgun round punched through her reactor. She… she smiled at me over the comms unit. “Well, hope you get the rest of my good luck, Forrest. I didn’t-.” Then she was gone and the world went white for a few seconds.

When those of us who had survived our ‘victory’ were clearing the town, we came across a shelter. Full of bodies, no survivors. And no combatants, either. I just sort of sat there while the medics confirmed and laid out the bodies to be claimed by relatives. By nightfall, they were all still there. Nobody came. The Colonel said there was going to be a service before the flame unit would come in, but I didn’t bother.

Instead I went back to the mecha who’d kept me so busy I hadn’t been able to do anything for Cara. Or those people. And I pried open that cockpit and pulled the helmet off of what was left of the miserable bastard inside. And I had one of the mechanics bolt it to one of Paladin’s shoulder pauldrons.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: 7C2H7H8DQS

DATE: 03/22/3728 Time: 1800
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

The bizarre thing about this war is that we don’t really know what the enemy even want. We know how they got the resources to start overthrowing smaller countries, we know how they developed the SCS and CHVLR tech that everyone uses, but why? When I look through Paladin’s eyes like they were my own, I wonder about my implant, and wonder if forcing everyone to become one within machines is the entire point.

That oneness makes it easy to forget that I’m not just strolling through a miniature model world. While on a mission in orbit near one of the stations a targeting lock sounded out and I dodged to the side, smashing through a shuttle that might as well have not been there. On the way back, though, I saw an arm floating in the void. Not a military vacsuit model. Civilian. I saved my own life with that dodge, but Paladin’s strength comes at more than one kind of cost, and I can’t let myself forget that.

It was a rough mission across the board, really. My cockpit took a hit and I lost the environmental controls. I had only minutes of oxygen in my pilot suit, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was already choking. Then the enemy deployed an SCS disruptor. Hurt so much I couldn’t see, and when I disconnected from Paladin I was flying blind and slowly suffocating. I think I got lucky more than anything with that last burst of fire. The void killed the enemy pilot more than I did.

Once we got back down the gravity well, I was allowed to call my dad. It was… nice, but stiff. He had fought to keep me out of being drafted into the CHVLR program, so talking to him is a weird mix of censoring what I say so I don’t make things worse and trying to get things off my chest. I think he senses that, but he doesn’t want to push me.

The call got cut off because of another alarm coming in. New model tore through another team. I threw everything I had at it, and I don’t blame Skyward Squad for going down. Every shot pinged off, the sonic blade just shattered. I had to tear through its shielding with Paladin’s bare hands, even alarm blaring, every joint groaning, and ‘my’ vision going red.

Dad tells me not to push myself too hard. I pushed past every limit that’s supposed to stop me, today.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: 6S4C9C8C9HAS

DATE: 04/02/3728 Time: 1236
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

I saved Kieran’s life today. I wish I felt better about it. The enemy ambushed us, dropped Carter’s CHVLR with a pulse beam through the knees in the first ten seconds. Kieran was about to go down to a pike, and I only had the 360mm beam bazooka ready to go at the time. I vaporized the enemy machine. I also vaporized a residential block that was in between us. I can’t imagine it was empty.

I stay away from the mandatory counselors as much as I can and tell them less – the Colonel will just use their reports against us. But I found myself talking to this mechanic, another draftee like me, one of Carter’s. Bao’s… nice. Likes to chat while he’s working on her CHVLR, always encourages me to talk, never shares anything I say with anyone else.

Cute.

What kind of life am I living, where I save one life, probably end a bunch of innocent ones, and then have my first kiss all in the same day?

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: 5D6H

DATE: 04/17/3728 Time: 2205
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

It’s a quiet night, heavy rain dropping visibility almost to nothing. It’s a good night for sentry duty. Not even the enemy will try to fight their way through this. You can sit in the cockpit and think. Dad. Cara. Carter’s constant mishaps and Kieran’s awkward attempts at reaching out. Bao’s smile. Of course, not all thinking is good, some isn’t even bittersweet. That arm in the void. The list of names.

I can just barely make out the surf lapping at the coast from here, bright blood red waves lapping at the sand. Dad says it used to be blue. I can’t really picture it, Or imagine anything being alive down there.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: 10DQD

DATE: 05/07/3728 Time: 2016
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

I had to bail out of Paladin’s cockpit on another orbital mission today. I was just… floating above the planet. Random space debris could have cut me in half, never mind what the enemy could manage. I might as well have been naked outside of my CHVLR and I was surprised by how… angry that made me, a knee-jerk reflex, like how dare the universe put me in this position after everything?

Right as I was able to get back into the cockpit after the mechanics got to it, we were ordered to stand down. News of a cease fire, they said. War could be over at any moment, they said.

I stumbled coming out of the cockpit once we’d returned. I waved the Colonel off, but the truth is I can’t feel my fingertips any more, and I struggle to walk more every day. It started the day I first synchronized with Paladin, i think. Funny thing, once I connect with my SCS all the feeling and dexterity comes back.

So, I got back into the cockpit as soon as I could. Systems checks are as good a reason as any, and hey, making out with Bao is easier to manage with a sealed hatch. There was just a weird glitch with the comm systems, though, and all of a sudden I was hearing enemy chatter. Once we both realized who we were connected to, I asked them something.

“Why are you attacking us?”

“Because leaving you alone is more dangerous.”

Then mission control caught the transmission and cut it.

Forrest McCoy, signing off.

Log Data: JDAHJH3S

[*][][][][][][][][][]

DATE: 06/05/3728 Time: 0732
DESIGNATION: 09272024
UNIT: Paladin CHX-01

So much for a ceasefire, seems like. We’re back in another fight and I just lost a damn booster. Now it’s going to be that much harder to make an expeditious retreat, but to be honest I’m more frustrated at the increased difficulty of keeping my guns on the enemy.

Everything I target is overlaid with the memory of that damn teleconference of the Colonel’s that I walked in on, shadowy figures on each screen. I couldn’t tell who they were, but they were all muttering about how they refused to truly entertain the  ceasefire proposals. Instead, they started to talk about lowering the CHVLR program draft age from 13 to 10.

Damn, enemy CHVLRs. We’re fighting in the rubble of Esperanza. It’s more crater than city at this point, building foundations jutting up like bones from a harvest feast main course. It was probably really pretty here, once, before-

WARNING: CATASTROPHIC CHVLR SYSTEM FAILURE

SIGNAL LOST

Log Data: 10C7D9D

[*][][][][][][][][][]

---

Written by Susanah Grace, CHVLR (pronounced like chevalier, “shuh” + “VAL” + “ee” + “ay”, sorry that had to come up so late) is a  single player Wretched & Alone game wherein you take on the role of the newest recruit to an experimental military program, barely into your teens, cybernetically implanted to better use your giant robot and thrown into the fray with little to no training. So, you probably know the score by now: a deck of cards that give you prompts and tell you to pull from a tumbling block tower, the Ace of Hearts and removing ten tokens from it is the only real way to ‘win’,  and if the tower falls or if you draw all four Kings you ‘lose’.

It is also the first W&A game I’ve played ‘publicly’ here on CHG, so I want to take a moment to do a little system micro-review while the Paladin’s wreckage is still glowing white-hot. I can’t really overstate how inevitable your demise gets, how quickly. I rolled a lot of high numbers on that die, and realistically Forrest was likely already doomed by the time the Ace of Hearts was drawn and he could even start to maybe kind of hope to see the end of the war.

There’s also something about the base SRD and The Wretched itself that I’ve become more aware of as I look at more of the games that use the system and explore its overall ecosystem: they present a second way to win in the book, but declare the book itself to be an ‘unreliable narrator’ and reveal at the end (hopefully, from the book’s perspective, after the player has finished the game) that it was totally bogus, and how the “player’s own hope creates delusion” as a feature.

That’s, uh… kind of garbage, honestly. The book of a solo game in many ways is the GM, laying out the boundaries for the player. If GMs pull ‘gotcha’ narrative red herrings on the players and serve as unreliable narrators themselves (not the same thing as them roleplaying an NPC who is lying, or keeping secrets to reveal as part of the story), then we would typically call that out as bad GMing behavior. I find myself very glad that the W&A games I’ve read have eschewed this type of thing, CHVLR among them.

Anyways, back to the game at hand. Aside from dodging the above-mentioned bullet, in terms of mechanics CHVLR would seem at first glance to be a pretty bog standard iteration of the Wretched & Alone form – totally fine by the way, it’s not a form that demands a lot of mechanical work when adapting to a new premise, W&A games mostly stand on their writing – but there are a few interesting little mechanical changes. Most dramatic is how the game handles the player opting out of the optional tumbling block tower mechanic. In my not-universal experience a lot of W&A games simulate the tower being around by declaring that once you’ve drawn a certain number of cards that tell you to pull a block, the game ends. 11 is the number that comes to mind the most. CHVLR simply says that without the block tower, you’re much less likely to perish via catastrophic CHVLR failure – the only game failure mechanic at that point is drawing all four Kings, the method of your demise being determined by the last one.

With there being so many pull cards, if I’d been towerless and CHVLR used the 11 card mechanic poor Forrest would have died quite a bit earlier, so I think I favor this option!

Despite this, there are some ways in which CHVLR makes things slightly harder. An Ace shuffling one of the Kings back into the deck, and thus staving off the Oops-All-The-Kings failure state for a bit longer is present, but in other games you hang on to that Ace and can discard it later to do so. As written, CHVLR’s version of this Ace gets discarded like any other card, so if like Forrest you haven’t drawn it’s related King yet then you’re out of luck. There is also no option presented to the tune of placing the Ace of Hearts on the top of the deck before play starts, allowing you to start attempting to resolve the successful ending from the get-go. That would have given Forrest twelve rolls of the dice instead of the three he got; probably doomed anyway, it’s W&A, but it might have been nice to have the option.

Obviously you could just go ahead and do so, but that might not occur to a player for whom CHVLR is the introduction to W&A.

The only quibble I have with the writing involved the nature of the Ace of Hearts prompt – that of being ordered to lower your weapons because a ceasefire has been called. Other W&A games tends to have the Ace of Hearts prompt be something that’s a little less immediate, like sending a distress signal or Clever Girl‘s raptor player figuring out a way to get to the human but still needing to actually navigate it. Hearing rumors about a ceasefire maybe getting called sometime soon would have fit that. Here, it felt kind of jarring because you then have to have a minimum of ten dice rolls to see it come to fruition and you almost assuredly have to raise those weapons on the next card draw.

Then again, I imagine that a ceasefire suddenly being broken right as you have a moment of hope is pretty jarring itself, so maybe this one is working as intended. Also, the Ace of Hearts prompts a tower pull when drawn that, if the tower falls, leads to you not following the ceasefire order and charging onwards to your death, one of the most poignant results the game can get that I wouldn’t dare discard.

As I get Solitaire Storytelling back off the ground, I’m having some thoughts on what makes a good solo game, or rather tips for making one, and CHVLR hits one about production values: it doesn’t go over the top but the art it has is very eye-catching, the layout is clean, and there are some choice quotes from Gundam characters that relate to CHVLR’s themes.

Overall, I hope Forrest’s logs have conveyed the most important thing about CHVLR. It’s a very well written entry to the W&A pantheon, every prompt made me think or feel something, and I was rooting for Forrest to survive even thought I knew he was almost certainly doomed.

You can get your own SCS implant and board a digital CHVLR at DriveThruRPG or itch.io for $10.00, and you can bond with a physical one at Black Cats Gaming and Modiphius for $16.41 (PDFs and Print version are sold separately).

Like what Cannibal Halfling Gaming is doing? You can chat with us at cannibalhalflinggaming@gmail.com, through Mastodon via @CannibalHalflingGaming@dice.camp, through BlueSky via @cannibalhalfling.bsky.social, and in the Tavern of our Discord. You can also use one of our fine and elegantly crafted links the next time you want to visit DriveThruRPG, which helps earn us credit that we use to get more games to check out – which is exactly how we got a copy of CHVLR!