🎲 How to play Echoes in the Deep solo missions

juin 14, 2025 B.N. 0 Comments

Hello everyone!

We’ve received quite a few questions about how to play the Solo RPG part of our new Echoes in the Deep Kickstarter project. Here’s a short article that will hopefully shed some light on it for you.

During the Echoes from the Deep adventure, you play as Peridot the thief, who roams every corner of the Free City to prepare his revenge against one of the thieves’ guilds.

This is the main storyline, written in numbered paragraphs like traditional gamebooks. But he’ll need allies and resources, which is why, at five points in the story, you’ll be prompted to play these “solo missions” that change up the gameplay.

Once you’ve earned a minimum amount of reputation (the equivalent of 5 missions, though you can play many more if you wish), you can return to the choose-your-own-path narrative.

Choose or randomly draw one of the iconic locations from the Free City, among the first five districts (each solo phase unlocks 4 new districts, which grant advantages if you recruit allies who live there).

The city map and stickers included in the box will help you track your conquests! The deck of cards lists all the items and locations featured in the book’s tables—you can draw from it or use it as inspiration without needing any dice.

Each solo phase grants access to 5 new missions, which you can replay as many times as you like afterward.

For example, I choose the Old Necropolis district. I read its description to get a feel for the mood and history of the place:

I don’t forget to choose my gear for the mission. I’m allowed a certain number of items (3 common items, 3 magical ones) that grant bonuses to my skill checks and magical effects. I could even call on an ally for an advantage on my rolls… if I had one, which I don’t—yet!

Oh, and I take out my lovely notebook to write down my adventure ;)

In this district, 10 missions are available, with varying difficulty levels. I choose one of the first 5 missions, which have "average" difficulty (this determines the target score for skill checks and the number of rewards I can earn—here, 2).

To raise the stakes, each mission offers 3 types of rewards (out of about a dozen possible), along with gold coins that can be used to gain allies, build your reputation, and progress in the main storyline. I must choose two rewards before starting the mission.

The three rewards for this mission are "Information, Blackmail, or Rumor." Let’s go with “Rumor,” defined as "Spreading damning or misleading information to weaken or distract your enemies." I also choose “Information,” to obtain some juicy secrets (that I will myself improvise).

Here’s the mission "prompt" that tells me what I’m doing here:

Since I chose “Rumor” and “Information” as my rewards, I already imagine that if I follow these two figures into the catacombs, I might gather enough to accuse my enemies of looting graves or prove that they’re desecrating ancestral tombs—perfect for a diversion!

In short, those are the questions I’ll need to answer using my imagination. Unlike the main story, there are no numbered paragraphs or pre-written choices guiding the consequences of my actions or the answers to those questions. It’s up to me to invent them based on the Dictionary of Eana or other book content, and to structure my story according to the three phases of a mission (which are always the same—we’ll get to that later).

If you feel overwhelmed by the richness of the lore, don’t worry—you won’t need a huge book by your side. The Dictionary of Eana Kickstarter Stretch Goal is just being added as an appendix, and if you’re both the GM and the player, no one’s going to scold you for deviating from official lore. After all, this is Peridot’s subjective tale—he might get things wrong or exaggerate!