Toil and Trouble

It is 1634 and you live in a small village in the County of Essex, England. You are Catherine Ryton, an 18-year-old girl in a middle class family. Your family runs a bakery, and you have six siblings, some younger and some older.

Although you live with a roof over your head and enough food in your belly, you know that, come illness or famine, you could lose everything.

Unfortunately, that's only one in the long list of your worries. Included in that list are the witch trials, overseen by your local magistrates to combat heresy and witchcraft. Those found guilty of such would be executed.

There have already been many trials and executions in Essex in your lifetime, and you have seen many women (and few men) hanged for their transgressions.

But it should be easy to avoid that fate, right? Just don't be a witch. Good luck...

***

Toil and Trouble consists of many rounds where each round is one year of your life. In each round, you choose an action to focus on for that year. Your choice will impact your wealth, skills, and status.

Each round also has the potential to trigger a random event that will impact your life. How you choose to live your life and what fate bestows upon you will determine how your story ends.

Will you reach old age and pass away peacefully, or will you be prematurely taken by plague, hunger, or the gallows?

***

Created for my Performance Project in HIST 2C at UCLA.