Choir of Flesh Part 1: Early Access and Character Creation

“And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal,/Silence covered the sky.” 

-Enigma, Rivers of Belief. A description of Revelation 8:1-5. 

It is the year of our Lord 1000.  There is a crack in Heaven.  Light and Song erupt from the spiritual wound in the sky.  Seven Trumpets sound, breaking the Seven Seals, which pour out the Seven Bowls of God's wrath.  The eschaton has come.

Revelation is at hand!

But not Salvation. Oh no.

The Celestial Choir descend from above and their Song reshapes the flesh of those who hear it. New mouths sprout from mortal flesh, gasping in eternal prayers and psalms. Bones resonate in synchrony with the Song and those humans who bow to the Will of their Celestial masters become remade into fleshy abominations called Penitents.

But that is not the worst. Oh no.

Something ancient, Evil and Silent climbs from the abyssal spaces of the Earth. Flooding from the once proud city of Toledo, now engulfed by the Earth; The Flesh That Feeds has come and it unmakes all, human, and Nature alike.  Forests are converted to flesh, mankind is respun into the Unmade; all touched with a terrible unstoppable hunger. 

These two unnatural eldritch forces clash and the survivors of the last civilization of humanity must eke out a meager existence, stuck between twin apocalyptic forces.  

This is the world of the Choir of Flesh, the latest brainchild of Alex T. from Blackoath Entertainment.

I am a Patreon member of Blackoath Entertainment (Order of the Black Oath) at the Evocatus level, and as lovely consequence I have obtained the Beta 1 release of the Choir of Flesh solo focused RPG game. As of the time of this writing, the Beta 1 of Choir of Flesh was released about 20 hours ago.  In addition, for full disclosure, I am a member of Alex T’s discord and have corresponded with him. 

At the moment, early access to the Choir of Flesh Beta is only available through Patreon membership to the Order of the Black Oath. The full public release of the game is expected to occur at the end of September 2025. 

The current Beta document is a hefty 221 pages. I have read the first 45 pages. And yes, I am starstruck. Along with the evocative introduction, the first section includes: a description of the Core Themes, Character Creation, base-building mechanics called Your Settlement (options are included for playing Lone Wolf, or without a community to protect), description of mechanics for the core d20 Checks, and rules for the Humanity stat and the Anguish stat.

I find it interested that each character has to balance Anguish (which increases upon significant physical mental or spiritual shock) and Humanity (which decreases as the character is subjected to otherworldly forces of the Choir or The Flesh).  It creates this sort of push-pull claustrophobic feeling to the mechanics.  As an old Call of Cthulhu Game Master (Keeper), I think this is better than just a Sanity score that erodes over time. I can’t wait to try it out in game.  

Inspired by History

Historical research is a wonderful rabbit hole to dive into. Doubly so when one can adapt fascinating historical events, ideas and characters for use in a fictional world like Choir of Flesh.

Since I do not know too much about world history, and specifically Western Europe, in the run up to 1000 AD, I found this lovely Oxford Reference Timeline of the 10th century. 

The following are some choice historical excerpts and my speculation on how they may fit into the world of the Choir of Flesh.

“911, The Vikings settle in France, as Normans, when Rollo the Ganger is granted feudal rights over the region round Rouen.

Circa 981, Eric Thorvaldsson, or Eric the Red, sails to Greenland when he is exiled from Iceland.

Circa 1000, Leif Ericsson claims to have made landfall at three places in north America, one of which he names Vinland - the land of wine”

Choir of Flesh is focused on Spain in the Middle Ages but with the above data, one has an excuse for including Norse explorers into the apocalyptic world as Player Characters or NPCs.  Yes I am angling for an excuse to shoehorn Vikings into this setting! In particular I see Norse explorers as working in Choir of Flesh because the very seas have been taken over by The Flesh That Feeds and perhaps, they are tirelessly traveling to the epicenter, Toledo, to fix the problem.

“Circa 950, Medieval Europe's first institute of higher education is established, with the founding of the medical school at Salerno.”

Universities are filled with myth and legends.  Perhaps with 50 years of medieval medical research, where spirituality, religion, science and alchemy really did not have defined boundaries, some unspeakable cosmic secret was reveled at Salerno and caused either the opening of the Seals by the Choir or the quickening of The Flesh to plague the world.  

“Circa 900, With the end of iconoclasm, the screen between the nave and the altar sanctuary becomes covered in icons in Orthodox churches.

929, Wenceslas, a prince of the Premsylid family, is murdered on his way into church - and becomes Bohemia's patron saint.

Circa 960, Harald Bluetooth is baptized a Christian and unites the whole of Denmark as a single kingdom.

965, Mieszko, pagan chieftain of the Poles, marries a Christian Czech princess and brings all his people into the Roman Catholic fold.

975, The Hungarian king Gezá and his family are baptized as Roman Catholics, beginning a long link between Hungary and Rome.”

This is just a sampling of interesting historical religious changes and evolutions that occurred prior to 1000 AD.  For your Choir of Flesh game, your GM (or yourself if you are playing solo) could make any of these inciting incidents relevant for the development of the coming apocalypse. 

Alternatively, each of these events of religious significance could have revelations surrounding these events, that when pieced together, offer some sort of hope to defeat the Choir, The Flesh or seal the hole in Heaven.  Also, perhaps one has Unbroken who come from Hungary, Denmark, Poland, Bohemia or even from as far away as the Orthodox churches.

Character Creation

Without further ado, let’s make a character, called an Unbroken.  I rolled 4d6 for each Attribute (six times), dropped the lowest die and summed the remaining numbers on the three dice. Got the following numbers: 10,11, 9, 9, 14, 7.

I then assigned these numbers to my six Attributes, resulting in:

• STR 10
• DEX 9
• CON 11
• INT 14
• WIL 9
• PRE 7

So, this character has a +1 modifier to Intelligence rolls and a -1 modifier to Presence rolls.

With this Attribute profile a story begins to take shape. A mostly average gent who is sharper than normal uses his observational skills to stay one step ahead of the scourge of the Choir and The Flesh.  Shy by nature, this has only been exacerbated in the apocalypse where community ties and interpersonal communication are that much more important to survival. Will he learn how to navigate this new landscape or will he rot?

Next up this gent’s Defense Rating is +0 (currently), his Carrying Capacity is 10 and Initiative bonus is +0.

I am tired of calling him a gent at this point so I roll on the Random Name table on page 26 and get Malik.  Maybe Malik has a bit of an Arabic background.  I also settled on the idea that he came from a city (and wisely ran away when The Flesh came calling) and has an interest in medicine, but a bedside manner that leaves a lot to be desired.

Weapon and armor proficiencies are Spear and Gambeson. I figure his first spear was a makeshift thing that was his trusty dagger tied to a washerwoman’s pole. I’m getting the sense of a lucky survivor from this character.

Malik’s Feat is Lucky. It just has to be based on the story that is emerging from this character. Lucky allows one reroll of any check once per session.

Jumping ahead in the sequence of events for Character creation, I am choosing Malik’s Occupation as a Healer.  His skill from being a Healer is Healing (INT), gain +2 Mastery to checks related to healing, which makes sense. His Burden will tie into his shyness.  His craft as a Healer is now seen as witchcraft by the desperate.  A fact he does not correct because he is too embarrassed to admit he did not adequately pursue his medical studies before the apocalypse hit, and he is unsure about how effective he really is.  

Malik’s four other skills are: Brace (STR), once per combat, you can make a Hard STR check to ignore all damage from a single source; this is a Reaction. Perception (INT), gain +2 Mastery to checks related to general perception and awareness. Disease Resistance (CON), gain +2 Mastery to checks against disease. Quick Feet (DEX), Malik has two Move Actions each round.

Yes, Malik is shaping up to be a canny survivor.  I imagine him like a wary scavenger looting the outskirts of supernatural incursions…and the less lucky bodies of Unbroken who tried to be heroic. Perhaps he made some of those Unbroken into bodies himself. Time will tell.

For Malik’s Sin, or core of his character, I rolled randomly and came up with Wrath. This is fascinating given the somewhat scavenger, almost cowardly bone picker I was envisioning.  I imagine that Malik keeps this secret close to his core and is more of a silent calculating fuming monster than an explosive berserker.  As to the focus of his Wrath and the inciting incident that caused the deep insult that wounded him in this world of cosmic horror, I am going to leave that for another time.

The Shard of the Old World that Malik carries to remind himself of the world that was is A Shard of Stained Glass.  I’ll say this is a fragment of a golden saint’s halo and an edge of a cerulean blue sky. A reminder of better days when the world was not turned upside down by insanity.  Perhaps Malik keeps it to remind him that beauty was once labored over and possibly could be created again? Or perhaps Malik used this shard of glass as the blade for his first makeshift spear that was used to escape from a city in the grip of terror.  In any case, he has an almost totemic obsession with it.

Malik’s Doom is the hope that he holds close to keep from bowing to the Choir’s song or accepting dissolution in the Flesh’s embrace. Rolling randomly, I get 10, The Divine Conductor.  Malik is somewhat educated and experienced religious music.  He is smart enough to realize that a song requires organization or else it becomes nothing but a cacophony. He believes the Choir has some sort of conductor, physical or supernatural, or maybe some sort of written musical plan. If Malik can find that plan and destroy it, maybe, just maybe the Choir will dissolve. Hope springs Eternal. 

Afterword

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it and exploring the development of the character Malik in this unique apocalyptic world of cosmic horror made by Alex T of Blackoath Entertainment.   I want to thank Clay TN on the Blackoath discord and link to their blog for inspiring me to write this.