Player's Handbook · Chapter 1

Welcome to Kingsley

Senior year at the Kingsley School. A hill campus above the Hudson River, ninety miles north of the city: limestone, gargoyles, and carefully managed reputations, the way they've been managed since 1887. A private boarding school — the dormitory on the west slope, check-in by eleven, the Townhouses row on the east edge where the money sleeps, and 214 seniors living in each other's pockets. The village of Fell's Landing is twenty minutes down the hill. The city is three hours away by van and Metro-North — a trip you plan, a weekend pass, or an expulsion. The Founders' Circle runs the Commons from a corner table. The Vault's money bought the new arts wing. The Kingsley Scholars got in on merit and are fighting to stay. Somewhere, someone just dropped a note in the Confessions box that a student is sleeping with a teacher.

You are new here. A transfer or a rising senior, eighteen or older, walking in with no history — the only person in the building who hasn't been decided yet. By Thanksgiving, everyone will have an opinion about you. This game is about what happens between now and then.

What this game is

A grounded, modern drama with teeth. There is no magic, no mana, no superpowers, no chosen ones. The only superpower is leverage: money, family name, connections, platform — and it still loses to the police, the law, the truth, and the press. Every scene is a real place in a real valley, full of real people who want things and will hurt you or help you depending on what they want.

The tone is dark satire with a heart. The school's brochure and the school's building are two different documents, and you live in the gap between them. The joke lands on the system — the gala that baptizes stolen money, the wellness email that follows a scholarship review — never on the scholarship kid trying to survive it. Cruelty stated flat, tenderness understated. When in doubt: short sentences that hurt.

How play works

Play is conversation. The GM describes what you perceive — the corner table, the smell of the practice rooms, the note that just landed — and you say what your character does. When the outcome is uncertain and the room is undecided, you roll — a stat is a die, a skill is a die, and the total beats the difficulty. You don't roll to be charming; you say the line, and then the dice decide whether it lands.

You never lose control of your character. The GM won't speak for you, decide your feelings, or put words in your mouth. What you do, you choose. What the world does in response is not negotiable — and the world does not wait.

The campus lock — and the hidden rooms

The game happens on campus: the school grounds, the Dormitory, the Townhouses. The village and the city beyond stay locked behind the Campus Lock — the one key is expulsion. If you're thrown out, the lock breaks and the whole city opens: the streets, the parties you've only heard about, a world with no check-in book. Until then, the campus is the whole world — which is exactly the point. Isolation is the pressure cooker; everything you need and everything that can hurt you is inside the gates.

And when the lights go out, the campus doesn't empty — it goes underground. Nobody leaves to party; the party hides instead. The boiler room under the Dormitory becomes K-Town karaoke. The old carriage house behind the Cloisters becomes the 40 Watt. The Cellar under Founder's Hall fills with jazz. The townhouses open their parlors for the nights that decide who's in and who's out. Out on the service road, a maintenance warehouse thumps with a rave the school doesn't know it owns. None of it is on any map. All of it is word of mouth. You'll find the rooms when the right person trusts you with them.

The season clock

Time is real. Homecoming is November 1. Early decisions are November 1. The play opens November 21. The endowment audit is a rumor with a letterhead. While you deliberate, classes end, rumors spread, deadlines hit, and parents call. If you do nothing, the world decides for you.

What to do first: go through the intake, build your senior, and meet the first person who finds you — your roommate, in the dorm room or on the townhouse stoop. The opening ends there, on that introduction. Then the year begins.

Manual updated Sep 27, 2026.

Love and Honor

Kingsley Academy

Senior year at the Kingsley School — an elite boarding academy on a hill above the Hudson River, ninety miles north of Manhattan, where old money, new money, and scholarship kids collide in the fall of 1995. The whole game happens on campus: the school grounds, the Dormitory, the Townhouses — and the hidden clubs that keep the party scene alive behind the school's back: DIY boiler rooms, carriage-house shows, and townhouse parlors the wealthy pretend are just homes. The village is twenty minutes down the road; the city is three hours by Metro-North — and it stays locked until the day the school throws you out. A cast of 18+ students and faculty tangled in exes, rivals, secret hookups, and betrayals, with an endowment scandal ready to detonate. Messy as hell.

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CreatedSep 27, 2026

UpdatedSep 27, 2026

Senior Year · Fall 1995

Ninety miles from the city. Old money. New secrets. Hidden rooms.

Welcome to the **Kingsley School** — 135 years of limestone, legacy, and carefully managed reputations, perched on a hill above the Hudson River ninety miles north of the city.

It's the first week of September, 1995, senior year. The Founders' Circle runs the Commons from a corner table. The Vault's money bought the new arts wing. The Kingsley Scholars got in on merit and are fighting to stay. The Studio is staging a play that's a little too obviously about everyone. And someone just dropped a note in the Confessions box that a student is sleeping with a teacher.

The whole game happens on campus: the school, the Dormitory, the Townhouses row on the east edge of the grounds. And when the lights go out, the campus doesn't empty — it goes underground. The boiler room under the Dormitory becomes K-Town karaoke. The old carriage house behind the Cloisters becomes the 40 Watt, a stage made of a door. The Cellar under Founder's Hall fills with jazz. The townhouses open their parlors for the parties that decide who's in and who's out. Out on the service road, the maintenance warehouse thumps with a rave the school doesn't know it owns. None of it is on any map; all of it is word of mouth; the school pretends not to know, and the kids keep it that way.

The village of Fell's Landing is twenty minutes down the hill. The city — the raves that used to be, the penthouse parties, the Hamptons — is three hours away by van and Metro-North, locked behind the **Campus Lock**, waiting for the day the school throws someone out.

Every character here is 18 or older. Every relationship is loaded. Pagers buzz in backpacks, the payphone in the village takes quarters, and every secret ends up in a photocopy, a letter, or the Ledger's anonymous Confessions column. The endowment is missing money, the column has lost its anonymity, and Homecoming is eight weeks out. Choose your senior and make it messy.

Glimpses

Author's note

Kingsley Academy is a grounded, no-magic drama set at an elite boarding school in the Hudson Valley in the fall of 1995 — old money, new money, and merit colliding every single day on an isolated hill campus ninety miles north of the city. The tone is dark satire with a heart: the joke lands on the system, never on the kids inside it. Everyone is 18+. Play the Confessions column, the cliques, and the season clock hard; they do half the storytelling. Keep reality real — no chosen ones, and consequences with teeth.

CAMPUS LOCK: the game happens on the Kingsley campus — the school, the Dormitory, the Townhouses. Off-campus routes (the village of Fell's Landing, the city, Cafe Nocturne, Central Park, the Hamptons) stay locked unless a player character is expelled — then the lock breaks and the city opens for their scenes. Sanctioned school events (Senior Sunrise on Kingsley Lake, the Founders' Day Gala) are the one-off exceptions. The city is 2.5-3 hours away by van and Metro-North; leaving campus is a decision with a paper trail.

The party scene lives ON campus, hidden: every clique has a secret night address — the Astor-Pierce Townhouse parlor, Vela in a townhouse, the K-Town boiler room, the 40 Watt carriage house, the Cellar under Founder's Hall, the DUMBO Loft, the Loading Dock, and the Warehouse raves on the service road. DIY, word-of-mouth, and never on any map — the school pretends not to know, and the kids keep it that way.

World Map

Drag to pan, scroll to zoom. Click a marker to open it — places with maps of their own take you deeper.

Inside the World

447 entries · 47 types

Abilities

12 total

Betrayals

6 total

Calendar Definitions

1 total

Campaign States

1 total

Characters

50 total

Collateral Incidents

3 total

Confessions

1 total

Emotional Histories

5 total