The Hanged Man
A Different Perspective, Getting Stuck, Caught in a Snare Trap, I Woke Up Like This, Hangin’ Out
With a name like “The Hanged Man”, this card sounds way worse than it is. I mean, it’s still bad, but the fella in the picture, here, is hanging by the foot, which is a darn sight better from the kind of hanging you might have been imagining, given the name “The Hanged Man”.
This card instead carries meanings like “a change of perspective”, on account of The Hanged Man looking at everything upside-downwards. He has a totally different viewpoint. If we were in Australia1, he would be right-side up and you would be the foolish one. The halo ringing his head also lets us know that this change in perspective is working: he’s unlocked some kind of wisdom from this fresh position2.
The Hanged Man is definitely trapped, and that unwelcome stasis is an important theme of the card. Whether he is trapped by his own devices or trapped by external forces isn’t entirely clear, but the one thing that is clear is that he is not going anywhere quickly.
Friends & Foes
The Contented Royal needs to be convinced that there’s a problem that needs fixing in their domain, but they are too blinded by their own comfort to engage with the idea.
The Frustrated Creative has been writing and rewriting the first few chapters of their novel for the past eleven years3.
The Sherlock Holmes4 is eccentric, with an unusual viewpoint that makes life difficult for themselves and the people around them — but they are brilliant at their chosen field.
The Obstructive Bureaucrat has seemingly just the one goal in life: not to help you unless you have jumped over every concievable hoop put between them and helping you.
The Rat Deserting a Sinking Ship has determined that their own side is not as likely to win, and so has already concocted a plan to defect and reap the rewards.
The Trapper is an indirect, defensive foe with a two part strategy. First: a lure, something irresistible to their prey5. Then: the trap, something elaborate and carefully planned.
Hooks
Your players need to file a W8 form to get their B9 certification before they can enter the city.
A small town is caught in a Time Loop. At the end of the day, everything starts again from scratch, and only by unravelling the mystery of the Loop can your players escape.
Locations
The Licenses, Certifications & Permits Office6 is a place where time itself seems to come to a standstill as functionaries very slowly receive, process, and reject forms.
The Tarpit can be anything that pulls people in and doesn’t let go — quicksand, ooze, a portal, even just a big hole.
The Trap-Filled Mausoleum was designed, long ago, to discourage intruders. It is filled with the corpses of grave-robbers who underestimated its defenses.
The Nazca Lines are a location with long, seemingly meaningless lines virtually everywhere. These lines only make sense and resolve into an image when viewed from a specific angle.
The Wall7: a large, well-guarded barrier between your players and their intended destination.
Treasures
The Writer’s Block is a large cedar wood block that absorbs the creative and intellectual energy of people around it, like a sponge, rendering them frustrated and ineffectual. When burned, it releases all of the captured creative energy in a manic, hallucinatory explosion of loose ideas.
Names
Aang, Hank, Strawberry, Jimothy, Crabitha, Bort, Giniphyr, Wendeigh, Moon Unit, Dweezil, Zeppelin, Onyx Ice, Ashtrae