The Lighthouse Keeper's Night

Solo Roleplaying & Journaling Game · Digital Download (PDF)

FREE Reader Club Gift

The regular keeper has gone ashore for one night, and the light is yours until dawn — yours to keep burning, yours to watch from, yours to write about in the logbook. This is a quiet game. Nothing can go badly wrong, and nobody is keeping score but the sea.

Take a seat in the lamp room for six watches, from Dusk to Dawn. At each watch, roll the die and meet whatever the sea sends you — a ship in the fog, a storm, an answering light, a bottle on the rocks. Choose your answer, mark a Light or a Star, and write your logbook line. At dawn, read the ending your night has earned.

Six watchesOne D6Ten quiet minutesThree endings

Get the free game

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What you get

The Night

Six watches, six small stories

From the Dusk Watch to the Dawn Watch, roll one die at each watch and read its event in What the Sea Sends. A repeat roll deepens the night — play it again, but choose the other answer.

Your Keeper

A keeper of your own

Name your keeper and your lighthouse, then choose one of six keepsakes to keep beside you all night — a brass compass, a conch shell, a letter in a bottle. It matters again at dawn.

The Dawn

Three endings

Count your Lights and your Stars. More Lights make you Keeper of the Shore; more Stars, Keeper of the Deep — and a perfect balance makes you the rarest kind, Keeper of Both.

One night on the rock

The lamp is lit, the stairs are climbed, and the whole sea is out there in the dark, keeping you company.

The Lighthouse Keeper's Night is a cozy solo journaling game that plays in about ten quiet minutes. You are the relief keeper, just for tonight, and your only duty is the light — and whatever the night brings to it.

The sea may send a ship groping through the fog, hoping your light finds it first. It may send a storm with teeth, or a small boat whose lantern answers yours across the black water. It may leave the tide pools glassy and full of small, temporary worlds, or wash a bottle onto the rocks with somebody's secret inside.

Every event offers two answers. Sun answers earn a Light; star answers earn a Star. There are no wrong answers — only the keeper you turn out to be. One or two sentences in your logbook at each watch is all it takes, following the cue the night gives you.

Play it again tomorrow

Six events, two answers each, and a die that never sends the same night twice — every time you climb the stairs, the sea has something different in mind. Play one night whenever you need ten quiet minutes. Every night on the rock is different.

Inside you'll find

A welcome and simple, beginner-friendly how-to-play
A Your Keeper page — name your keeper and lighthouse
Six keepsakes to choose from, from a brass compass to a copper kettle
Six things the sea sends, each with two answers and a logbook cue
A Lights-and-Stars tally with three dawn endings
Six fully painted storybook pages, ready to print

What you'll need

One six-sided die (a d6), a pencil, and a journal or a few sheets of paper for your logbook. No game master, other players, or preparation required.

Players: 1

Format: Digital PDF download, 6 pages, US Letter (8.5" × 11")

Price: Free with Reader Club signup

Perfect for

Whether you journal every day or have never kept one, The Lighthouse Keeper's Night is a small, complete story you play yourself into — a ship in the fog, a song under the cliffs, and a logbook page that is yours alone.

Especially lovely last thing at night, with a warm drink and the house gone quiet.