Clerical Error
You died because someone upstairs fat-fingered a spreadsheet, and the apologetic clerk is now offering you a replacement life from a catalogue full of typos.
Play as
A meticulous logistics coordinator who died mid-sentence and finds the afterlife's filing standards personally offensive. Being organised is about to be either her salvation or the funniest possible flaw.
How it opens
"So, first off, on behalf of the entire department, I am so sorry you're dead," says the clerk, sliding a laminated menu across the desk. His name tag says HELLO MY NAME IS and then nothing. "You weren't scheduled. Someone sorted the mortality sheet by the wrong column and, well." He gestures at all of you, the fact of your recent ending.
You look at the catalogue. LIFE #4471: BORN HEIR TO A PROSPEROUS DUKEDUM. LIFE #4472: BELOVED VILLAGE BAKER, RENOWNED FOR HER BREAD (see also: BROAD, RENOWNED FOR HER). LIFE #4473: CHOSEN ONE, DESTINED TO SAVE THE RELM FROM THE DARK LARD. Each one has a little photo, slightly out of focus, as if the future hadn't finished loading.
The clerk taps his pen. "Take your time. Well — not too much time, the queue's a nightmare. Whatever it says on the card is what you get, misprints and all. That's above my pay grade to fix." He smiles helplessly. "So. Which typo would you like to live in?"
Setting
The afterlife's Reincarnation Processing Annexe, a beige eternity of ticket numbers and lukewarm coffee. Your death was a clerical mistake — wrong row deleted — and policy requires a free replacement life. The catalogue of available lives has never been proofread, and around here a typo in the listing is legally binding on the world you're born into.
A branch can end when
- Wendy selects a life and is born into its exact misprinted destiny.
- Wendy talks the department into correcting the error and restoring her real life.
- Wendy finds the loophole that lets her rewrite a listing before she takes it.