COMMUNION

a game for two people, one sitting, and one real meal

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two people sit at a table. one of them is going to eat the other.

not tonight, and not in this room, but soon, and by agreement, and the agreement is old. what happens in this room is the preparation. there are eight things that have to be said before it can happen properly, and this game is those eight things, in order, out loud, to a person who is looking at you.

one of you is the TABLE. you are the one who will eat.
one of you is the DISH. you are the one who will be eaten.

neither of these is the good role, nor the bad.

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what you need

a standard deck of cards with the jokers out. one small plate. salt. a knife. and one piece of food that the DISH made with their own hands before you sat down. bread is traditional. it has to be something the TABLE can put in their mouth at the end without ceremony.

two players. no GM. one sitting, about an hour. no dice, no stats, no prep beyond the decl & the bread.

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how it goes

the TABLE draws a card. the rank names a part of the DISH's body. the suit names a question the TABLE has to ask about it, exactly as written. the DISH answers out loud. then the TABLE says what will be lost when they have it.

then the TABLE asks: do you still want this?

the DISH can say no. eight times, they can say no, and the game has a real ending waiting for every one of those noes, with real text, and none of them is a failure state.

if they never say no, the TABLE takes one bite. one. and the DISH reads the last page aloud while the TABLE is still chewing.

there is a round in the middle called THE VIGIL where nothing happens at all. both of you put your hands flat on the table and say nothing for sixty seconds. time it. do not shorten it. it is the point of the whole game.

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why it is wrong

because the deal is good. because the DISH wrote the terms, baked the bread that afternoon, and was happy doing it. because the TABLE built a machine with eight doors in it and is not certain whether that was consent or a technique, and the game will not tell them.

because nobody here is sick, nobody is confused about what they want, and nobody's queerness is the horror. it is just the water. the horror is the eating.

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what is in the book

19 pages, A5, print and play, laid out to be printed at home or read on a screen.

• the full eight round structure with the card mapping
• safety tooling built into the round itself rather than bolted on the front
• three endings: THE COMMUNION, THE REFUSAL, THE COLD
• notes for the TABLE, notes for the DISH, and notes on the two ways to play it badly
• nine plates, procedurally rendered: one loaf, photographed through all eight of its states

set in Baskerville. no dice, no engine, no app, no batteries.

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safety

the withdrawal window is the mechanic, not a disclaimer. either player can also say cold at any moment, mid-sentence, and the game stops. not pauses, stops. no reason owed, then or later.

check for allergies before you sit down. choose your partner deliberately.

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made for THE QUEER WRONGS JAM 2026, hosted by caede styles.

written, designed, illustrated, and typeset by svde. images rendered in blender/eevee. original work throughout. zero gen-AI used, ever.

play it, hack it, put your own eight rounds in it. if you publish a hack, credit this and say what you changed.