Ooh, this is a NICE theme. Do you plan on revealing or hinting at what happened to the other keepers? I'm not sure whether it should become at all clear. Are you planning on hinting at it, spelling it out, or making the player invent it? Or something else?
Perhaps as a solution to this you could make one of the suits of the oracle 'investigating my colleagues' fate'. Have two versions of it, one that contains a solid conclusion, one that only hints. The player can choose which type they want when beginning.
Another route would be to have a conclusion, but it's revealed by a single specific card or combo of cards that means it is technically in there, but you are unlikely to find it?
I had kind of thrown the idea of a card that reveals what happened out this afternoon but was toying with the idea of having a deck that is all about the other keepers and I think I might have figured something cool out to do with it too. Actually quite excited to work on this tonight.
Another thing I did think about was making a supplementary multiplayer version where everyone plays one of the keepers and it ends with two going missing while one is away!
Ooh. Would you mind sharing more about how you're doing a multiplayer version of your game? I'm pretty sure I'm going with a Dracula inspired game for mine, and it struck me that I could possibly do a multiplayer version: Each player is a hunter, with their own deck of cards and block tower, and after each day the player writes and then mails a letter to the others. It seemed interesting, but I'd want the oracles to (somehow) interact with and affect each other, so the players felt like they were working together rather than playing multiple games of solitaire.
I don’t think I am going to have time to do it now :( but I was thinking of mimicking lighthouse keepers routines.
There were always three keepers on an island and they would work in 4 hour shifts keeping watch. On the late night and earlier shifts there was an unwritten rule that you woke the next keeper up just before their shift and would make them a cuppa and sit and chat for 20 minutes or so to make sure they were awake. I wanted to do something around those late night conversations but had not fully formed the idea.