Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is a dialogue- based RPG with a unique skill system and stellar voice narration. You play an amnesiac cop, then things get worse. It’s in my top three RPGs for quality of storytelling, and probably top 2 for mechanics.
I started writing this fanfic to continue the story of my scared-straight cop. It spoils the entire game. It’s a mostly gentle series of stories, episodic, featuring NPCs and minor OCs while my protagonist gets his brains in order and learns to live.
(Image yanked from game.)
I love writing the skill voices. One’s skills shape one’s personality: mine is PHYSIQUE/INTELLECT. He is weak in PSYCHE/MOTORICS. I play this through.
Spoilers below:
[ENDURANCE] — You stand and stretch. This sack of flesh doesn’t feel good, but much of the pain and sweating has passed. It has been twenty days since you realized you lost your mind for what you are terrified to think might not be the last time. Twenty days of devoted sobriety, truly the most epic undertaking you have ever dared. You feel weak, as though a storm has just passed. But you’re alive.
Harry hums while he dresses and showers, and pauses only where necessary to shave. In the twenty days of his life to date he does have one memory of karaoke. He was a little shaky, but he can do better given a better song.
[PERCEPTION (HEARING)] — A child cried.
[DRAMA] — From the exquisite pathos of the song. You’ve still got it.
He dresses neatly in his only civilian suit. The motions are simple, ritualistic. Sure, his memory is moving through a perforated darkness at glacial speed, giving him only glimpses of a terrible light. That doesn’t matter. Today is the day.
Not finding any specific woman day. Definitely not going up to the department in the converted silk mill day. Not walking down to Martinaise to where he can see the blood spatters day. These days are not on the schedule.
[VOLITION], failed — This thinking is healthy. Keep doing it.
[SHIVERS] — You inhale the city’s breath. All your answers are here. Your mind may reel away, but we have not moved.
[PAIN THRESHOLD], failed — It is a day for patrolling Jamrock, looking for a clue that doesn’t hurt.
[PAIN THRESHOLD] — Wuss.
My Disco Elysium fic begins with A Wellness Check: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64208134
It continues with Encounters: The Fates are at Home in the Dark: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64364977/chapters/165235837
With a bonus chapter, The Record and the Plate: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64623904
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