Year 1: Tangled Blessings Playthrough

I was so thrilled to finally play Tangled Blessings after receiving my pdf copy of the kickstarter I backed at the beginning of the year. Magic, horror, possible romance, and witchiness are my jam! This was right up my alley AND I know from past games that Cassi Mothwin is one of the best creatives out there.

Tangled Blessings is a solo journaling or two-player RPG inspired by dark academia media, ghost stories, and graduate school. Featuring a wizarding college, wandering specters, assigned houses, curses, devils’ bargains and more supernatural flavor, Tangled Blessings blends horror and the fantastical to help players craft a story that spans their time at the academy — culminating in one final showdown against their rival.

Content Warnings

Tangled Blessings is a horror ttrpg and as such, the following playthrough will contain dark themes
Also warning for a depiction of aftermath of sexual assault, snakes, and more
Take care of yourself.

Without further ado, here is my playthrough – Year 1 (years 2-4 to follow).

My Character – Atossa Wells [she/they]

I’ve always been weird. Perhaps even among the weird I still am.
Before I knew I had magic, I was always able to talk to plants. I knew which were poisonous, my house plants grew and grew so much we were constantly giving them away. Then, when we moved to a house with a yard, I got an abundant garden. I’ve always felt how plants, animals, and other people were feeling in my own body. It made it hard to deal sometimes.
My House: Dahlias – growth, endurance, and vibrancy through careful nurturing. creativity, perfectionism, or obsessiveness

My Rival – Dae-Seong Shin [he/they]

The gift of sight is one of the rarest, so of course your Rival is blessed with seeing what may come to pass. During your first encounter, Dae-Seong gave you a double take before letting their gaze linger on me for too long. My new friend, Jayden, of the House of Celestials, and my roommate, Shari, told me he comes from a long line of powerful magic users. A long line of criminals as well…

He has yet to tell me what flashed before their eyes during those moments; however, the future is never locked in place and what has been witnessed can still be reversed. At least, that’s what the instructors told him when his visions painted his grisly death. Dae-Seong never seems afraid though, often marching into danger with confidence.
My Rival’s House: Panthers – observation, punctuality, or ruthlessness (Note: They chose Panthers instead of Elements – cleverness, hunger, or negligence, which their wild card father who broke magical law was part of.)

Autumn

I was forced to partner with Dae-Seong while performing divination work. The idea was that first years would do a very simple divination spell to see what the year would bring. The energy of the classroom was light hearted and giddy as we mixed our witch’s ointment of mugwort, clary sage, and a single datura seed. I was very aware of Dae-Seong next to me even though he barely uttered a word. Across from us, I watched Jayden and Shari and wished we could have had a trio instead.
Once the ointment was complete, we turned to each other and applied it – a dot between the brows on the third eye, a dot on the throat, and one on each wrist. I was very aware of how Dae-Seong’s skin felt, the shared breath between us, and his dark eyes on me. Was I shaking? Was the ointment runny because my hands were sweating? Was this ridiculous to have a divination exercise with what was likely the most powerful seer in the school? Why did he even bother with the ointment? He could probably already see everything going on anyways.

The vision came slowly at first…
I gasped as pain wracked through me then was gone followed by a vision of a professor I’d seen in the hall only once yelling at me to try harder! Dae-Seong in front of large doors with a silver padlock swinging open. A snake coiling around my body.
Then the vision twisted and seemed to travel a long ways. I must have moved or flailed at the sensation of vertigo because Dae-Seong grabbed my hands, holding them tight as we spun through the ether.
The vision turned to chess pieces moving between us. Shadow and blood swirled around each piece. A strange voice in the shadow saying, “Lets swim in the smoke.” Dae-Seong in the vision so close our lips brushed each other as he hissed, “I will destroy you.” Lightning. Pain…
Then the vision ended.
Dae-Seong and I were gripping each other’s hands so hard our nails made bloody crescents in each other’s flesh. It took a moment to let go. When we did, I got up and left the room.

Jayden and Shari found me in the bathroom, throwing up breakfast. Their vision was benign in comparison – laughter, tears, lovemaking with blurred face bodies of partners they didn’t know yet…I envied them.
Professor Volur recorded our visions in a book, told us that these things were often largely symbolic and not to dwell on them. “Sometimes attempts to avoid a certain fate brought us to its door faster.”
I looked at Dae-Seong who’s expression was solemn and wondered if he believed that.

I didn’t have many class interactions with Dae-Seong after that and I told myself I was grateful.

Sacred Geometry and Magical Geography however was a required course for the areas of study we both were taking. While my focus was on plants, theirs seemed loftier, already testing out many of the basic courses. Most of the school was talking about Dae-Seong’s academic achievements when I saw their power in action.

Portal Magic wasn’t something that came easy to me. Dae-Seong, of course, did it like he had been opening rifts between time and space since infancy. We all gathered and watched as he raised his hands and bent the world to his hands, a 6 foot oval appearing before him in the safe zone drawn by Professor Gladstone.
“Very good, Shin. Very good!” The professor praised as we all looked on. The portal was dark at first then light began to penetrate the space.
It was a hallway, not unlike those in the school. However, rather than portraits of professors and historical figures, busts of classic sculptures, and floating lights this one was sparse and the one decoration looked like a family portrait. The resemblance was obvious and we could all guess this was the Shin family home.
Someone muttered the word “homesick” and Dae-Seong raised his hands, closed the portal, and left the space. I didn’t think it was anything to be embarrassed of but then again I wasn’t the one that was being stared at and perhaps made vulnerable by my own magic.

By the time I was creating tiny folds in space and time, Dae-Seong was traveling in his portals. Until…one day when he stepped through one and didn’t come back.
Portal travel for students was usually quick.
Create portal. Step through. Make note of where the portal opening was at and if it was close to where you intended. Sometimes retrieve an item if you are advanced enough. Sometimes bring someone through with you if you’re really good. Step back into the classroom. Close portal.
Simple.
Only Dae-Seong stepped through…and the portal slammed shut behind him.

It was the talk of the school. Professor Gladstone and Professor Volur along with other members of the staff had to scry Dae-Seong’s location. They found him and he was recovered but it took over 24 hours. Rumor was, when he came back he had injuries. When I saw them the following day, they indeed had a split lip and a bruise on their cheek that was healing quickly thanks to our in-house healer.
Dae-Seong didn’t return to portal creation…

Winter

Jayden and Shari shared with me that they found a summoning ritual for an incubus. I laughed at first at their flushed cheeks and whispered voices in the back of study hall. However, the gleam in their eyes told me they were serious.
Apparently Shari got it from the restricted section somehow. I dare not record the means in case this journal is read.
Shari asked if I wanted in and I declined. A demon orgy in the sub-basement ritual rooms didn’t seem appealing. Besides, we were hardly well-versed in ritual summoning to do such a thing safely.
Jayden seemed convinced that this was a bad idea but Shari was begrudging in her promise not to try it. I felt like I’d been invited to a party and popped all the balloons but Jayden told me later she was grateful. As fun as it sounded, it was a bad idea.

Shari must not have been convinced.
I woke on the new moon to find her bed across from mine empty, her ritual cloak missing, and the book from the restricted section on the bed with the ritual for the incubus missing.
Not wanting to get her in trouble, I went after her, hoping I wasn’t too late. Hoping that I’d run into her in the hallway and we’d bitch at each other and then she’d come back to the room and tomorrow we’d make up over breakfast.
One would think, months of hoping I could open a portal properly or not get bitten by a carnivorous plant in the greenhouse would have taught me that hope is pointless.

I found her in the third sub-basement ritual room I checked. Red candles lit the space and I was hit fast and hard with the smell of cinnamon, galangal, and sex.
Shari was in the middle of a ritual circle, naked, and unconscious. A man stood and stared at me but there was no light, no whites, no irises in his eyes. He was beautiful and if Shari didn’t look like she was dead on the ground, I might have paused.
Instead, I began what little I knew of a banishing ritual.
At first the incubus only laughed at my attempt but then…something changed.
I saw blood between Shari’s legs…too much blood…and began acting on instinct.
There was no ritual, no words of power, no wrote hand hand movements for what I was doing. I was reaching into the ethers and grabbing pure magical energy. My hands tingled and I felt like electricity buzzed through my whole body. Through space and time, I folded the worlds and without stepping away from the door, grabbed the incubus, and shoved him out of our dimension.

The problem was…the energy didn’t stop when the incubus was gone. I was amped, wired directly in, and mainlining pure magic. It burned through me and I was screaming when the professors found us.

I woke in the healer’s wing. The world felt…muffled at first. Like I had a head cold or was trying to see and hear and feel through a quilt. The room was bright and I could hear movement outside the door but something was wrong.
Seeing me awake, Professor Kaldera came to my bedside along with Headmaster Elvas. They gave me the news in soft, solemn voices.
My link to magic was gone. Burned out by accessing too much energy at once. It would likely come back…but they had no idea when. Otherwise I was healthy and I’d saved Shari who was home now, healing and getting therapy.
I would also be sent home…Brackroot had no place for those without magical ability.
But don’t worry, they told me. When my magic returned, so could I.
At least I didn’t cry when they were looking at me. The tears came later.

I had a few days to get my affairs in order before Professor Gladstone would portal me home. I stayed in my room most of the day, not wanting to see or hear the other students going about their magical days with their magical classes…it hurt.
Jayden visited once but when I wouldn’t respond to them beyond a few nods, they left and didn’t come back. It probably hurts to even look at me. No one wants to admit they could lose their magic…even in service to a friend.

I returned my library books at night. Magical students don’t keep set hours and the library is always open. The library was silent as I handed her my books and I was grateful. My leaving should be quiet…solemn…funerary.

I ran into Professor Yakov Berezin at the library doors. He glowered down at me and I rememberd my vision from the beginning of the year – him shouting at me in ritual space. It hadn’t happened…perhaps I was lucky.
Rumor was he was only substituting for another professor who was dealing with a ritual injury – something I’d now learned wasn’t uncommon. Before coming here, he was said to be a powerful war mage. A mercenary hired by different countries to help their battles over oil, religion, whatever. With his scarred bald head and dark eyes…I could believe it.

He asked me something strange however. “Do you love magic?”
I asked what he meant and he looked annoyed. “Do you love magic? Would you give anything for magic?”
Something about the question broke me. All the pain and anger and sadness of the past few days came boiling up and I unleashed it on him.
I screamed and ranted. It wasn’t fucking fair! I told that bitch not to do the fucking ritual because we weren’t ready and she was so stupid and I was so stupid! What good is helping someone if it gets you like this? What good is magic if they can’t even fix me, someone who did everything right, who was trying to help?!
Yes! I screamed. I loved magic and I was dying now without it. I was a walking corpse and this, this world without magic, was worse than death.
I was sobbing by the end of it, kneeling on the marble floor, and not caring that the librarian and other late studies were looking at me in my outburst. I didn’t care that Dae-Seong was among them, looking at me, not with pity or fear but…understanding.

Professor Berezin helped me up, put an arm around me, and guided me away. I figured he was probably taking me to Professor Kaldera. Give this raving bitch a sedative.
But instead we headed down into the basements. A ritual room was set up, thankfully the candles were black and white, not red.
Berezin sat me in the floor outside a chalk drawing that wasn’t closed yet for ritual work. I watched him go to a side table and when he came back, he carried a shot glass. “Here. Is Ukrainian vodka so is good.”

I drank it. It burned going down but that was good. Better than salty tears in my throat.
“What is this?” I asked, my throat cracking and I sounded like one of the cane toads that made their way into the green house.

“You tell me.” He said, taking back the shot glass and gesturing to the chalk drawing.

I wasn’t in the mood but looked. I could make out the sigils, runes, and pictographs from my studies. The circle looked both free-handed but meticulously perfect.
“Its a ritual casting for raising energy.”

Berezin nodded. “And?”

I was annoyed but continued reading the ritual space. After a moment, I frowned. “This doesn’t make sense.” I pointed to the inner circle and the outermost. “These aren’t the sigils for the higher self.”

“Very astute for a little idiot.”

I didn’t have the energy to defend myself so I just stared at him.

“This ritual isn’t to draw down the higher self but to raise the lower self. Your school focuses too much on the celestial. Stars and higher selves and holy daimons, that is all nice and sweet on paper. Gives you a good pat on the back and tells you that you are a good person, a white magician, and you will do only good things. Ignoring the body, the ego, the lower self…that is how you get yourself in this position, little idiot. That is how you burn up with celestial fire.”

We stared at each other for a long while in silence.

“No argument? This is good. You learn to shut up. After all that crying upstairs, I began to wonder.” He stepped over and held out a hand. I took it and let him help me off the floor. He then gestured to the circle. “You will raise your lower self, little idiot. Then we can work on the higher.”

I shook my head. “I don’t see how this will work. I leave tomorrow.”

“I thought you said you loved magic.”

“I do.”

“That you were dying without it. That you wanted to stay here and learn magic.”

“I do.”

“Then do it, little idiot.”

“But…”

“This. This is why you are little idiot. Only little idiots let big idiots tell them what they can and cannot do. Do you want to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Then stay. I will teach you.”

I stared at him too long after that. “You’re going to heal me?”

“No. You are going to heal yourself. But remember, little idiot, healing hurts.”

And so our lessons began.
They were harder than any other lessons I had. Berezin was less a professor and more a drill sergeant. I memorized my texts rather than referred to them. I drew ritual castings over and over until my joints were locked and my back ached and my kneels were raw from kneeling on marble for hours.
I sat in meditation all night, then got back to work studying. I couldn’t cast so I didn’t attend regular classes. I ate my meals while I worked, when I remembered or I was so hungry I was dizzy. I moved like a ghost through the hallways – library, ritual room, bedroom for an hour or so of sleep…

It was late one night when I ran into Dae-Seong again. I was in the back of the library, avoiding other students as I memorized another text on the astral body.
I heard movement, and saw him entering the side hall that led to the restricted section.
I don’t know if I was curious, or just desperately needing a break from staring at old parchment – I followed.
Surprisingly, they didn’t turn to the restricted section but kept walking the long hall to the end – a set of stairs leading down.

It was dusty and dark and lacked the climate control spells the rest of the library used to protect the manuscripts. The stone wall was damp under my hands. After a few twists and turns, I realized we had to be under the sub-basement ritual rooms. I had no idea the school went this deep.

“Just like we saw,” Dae-Seong said. Their voice reverberated through the stone corridor. “Just like I dreamed.”

The doors with the silver padlock stood before us. Under Dae-Seong’s lamplight, I could make out the carvings of snakes on the doors – not unusual as snakes within the magical world often represented wisdom, healing, and transformation so they were common motifs. The fact that the padlock gleamed when everything else down here was dusty and damp was interesting.

I joined Dae-Seong in front of it since he already knew I was with him. We stood there a long moment before they spoke again.
“I heard Professor Berezin is helping you get your magic back.”
I nodded though I wasn’t sure he could see me.
“Is it working?”
I paused. “He says it is.” He also called me a little idiot on the daily…but I didn’t share that.
After a long moment of silence, Dae-Seong said, “Good.”

It was strange, being down there with him. Dae-Seong was teh first person besides Professor Berezin not to look at me with pity and a trace of fear. It was nice…
But the door’s existence reminded me of our shared vision and Dae-Seong’s mouth against mine. I will destroy you, the vision Dae-Seong said…and if the doors were true, so was that.

Winter Break

I stayed at school for winter break, healing. Dad asked if I was ok and I told him I was…I think we both knew I was lying. He sent me a care package and I cried in my room during Winter Solstice. Berezine came and yanked me out of bed and put me back to work.
Dae-Seong went home for winter break. I told myself I was glad. I also didn’t return to the doors in the bowels of the school.

Spring

Before the other students returned to the school, I was able to raise energy and access magic again.
It was excruciatingly painful, like each mote of magic was searing my veins and running electric shock through me. I screamed in pain and triumph when I finally was able to touch magic again.
Berezin barely acknowledged my breakthrough. He put me to work, harder than before. Any complaint I made about how bad it hurt brought rebuke so I learned to bite back the tears. Its amazing what a body can endure when the mind is persistent.

I returned to herbology and potions classes. Jayden started talking to me again and I found that I had missed them. They filled me in on all the gossip, romantic trysts, rivalries, and more. I borrowed their notes. It felt normal.
“Did you hear about Dae-Seong?” Jayden asked.

Apparently in level two Alchemy, Dae-Seong was paired with Aimee Rodenbecker, another student from a long line of magic users who were Brackenroot alumni. Good, I said. They paired well. I ignored my own instinctual interest and told myself I wasn’t jealous.
Well apparently, it wasn’t good. Aimee told everyone that Dae-Seong hadn’t contributed to their joint presentation, that she’d done all the work alone.
That didn’t sound like Dae-Seong and I said as much. Jayden agreed but apparently Aimee has more pull. “I heard she asked him out and when he turned her down, she decided to get back at him.”
Professor Herrera made Dae-Seong do a second, solo project. Despite Dae-Seong blowing that project out of the part with what Professor Herrera called perfection…the level two students were shunning them.
“It doesn’t look like Dae-Seong cares,” Jayden said in disbelief. I remembered how Dae-Seong looked when we stood in front of teh doors from our vision, their face when I had my breakdown in the library, when they returned from their portal incident, and the vision…I will destroy you. No, Dae-Seong probably didn’t care about Aimee Rodenbecker and her petty squabbles.

By the end of the year, I was doing better but it still hurt to pull on any magic. I spent more time than I care to count crying in the greenhouse when no one was around. The plants weren’t much help. Lavender. Rose. Mugwort. Yarrow. Thyme…they soothed but didn’t take away the electrical shock of magic that zinged through me.

I was ready to accept that this would be my fate. I said I would do anything for magic, and apparently that meant constant pain. Professor Kaldera, during my monthly check up since the incident, told me that this happened sometimes. That usually magic moved through our nervous system smoothly but the burn out I’d had might have essentially stripped my nerves and made it so that I felt magic more acutely than others.
It was true. I was in a building full of magic and it brushed over my skin like electrical current at all hours. Sedatives became necessary to sleep. Professor Kaldera didn’t like it but when I showed no interest in quitting despite the pain, they recommended I added additional grounding exercises and a salve made of dandelion, burdock, and oak roots to my daily ritual regimen. Berezin agreed.
So far, an ass covered in earthy smelling salve didn’t seem to make a difference.

I found my familiar – a docile demon sworn to me – on a rainy day when the isolation of studying was wearing me down.
The ritual was a basic one but not always productive. Some students didn’t care for the form their familiar took, others didn’t like bonding with another creature so closely, much less a daimon. Still others said that familiars were old fashioned and out of style. I didn’t know about that last one, many students had birds, spiders, frogs, cats, and more that lurked in shadows.

Exis came to me with an ease that was jarring. It was like they were waiting for me this whole time.
Not only did they come to me readily and willingly, but they came ready to help.
You must shed your skin, the snake whispered, to heal.

Berezin helped me with the ritual. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to find the protocols or get access to some of the potent ingredients.
Skin shedding is dangerous, but so is banishing an incubus using pure energy and so is rebuilding your own astral connection to magic. This was par for the course and I was ready to do anything to access magic without going mad with pain.

Humans aren’t made to shed skin. Our skin is pretty attached and much less it doesn’t grow in the same way as a snake’s. Exis was insistent however and Berezin was equal parts amused and intrigued.
After completing the ritual and hours writhing on the floor, naked and raw with nothing but a small snake for company…the pain stopped.

I rose with the ability to pull on magic as much as if not more than before but no pain. Magic moved over and through me as if lubricated…silky and slick as the snake that coiled around my neck.
I laughed and cried and lay there – my new skin pink and soft as an infants. My hair was gone, but it would grow back. I didn’t care either way.
I was healed.

Summer Break

Summer, I happily went home to my dad and my garden.

Dae-Seong went somewhere for summer but not home, not again…

Wrap Up

I hope you enjoyed this playthrough of Year One of Tangled Blessings.
Be sure to go get your copy of the game. It can be a solo or a duet ttrpg. I look forward to playing with a partner in the future.
For more on this play through, please feel free to comment encouragement (or join my Patreon to support my writing and work). I will upload year 2 when I have a minute to type it up.
Thank you so much for reading.