Realis 14: Out of the Burning City Pt. 1
Transcriber: thedreadbiter
Opening Narration        1
Foundation Sentences        2
Introducing Characters [13:35]        10
Dre’s Character [18:05]        12
Sylvi’s Character [29:45]        20
Janine’s Character [37:30]        25
Jack’s Character [46:30]        31
Bonds [57:00]        37
The Lighthouse [1:10:45]        46
Using Sentences [1:26:00]        54
The Inn [1:40:30]        62
Opening Narration
[“Sapryc” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
Austin: For as long as long had been, the moon of Sapryc was a jewel in the many-leafed crown of the Leo Suzerainty. But in the eternal orbit of Realis, even the endless is obliged to end. And so it is, that one hundred forty years heretofore, the gem of Sapryc—its blue waters and coral mountains, its fields of easy, green grain—was wedged from its slot. No one knows when, exactly, color itself was wiped from this moon, but we suspect we know when the process began:
The Imperial Empest, a once august empire, now voracious, glistening, and insectoid, fell upon the world like the locustal swarm it is, covering its southern pole with terrible speed. Though the Suzerain’s forces held for decades, in time the internal squabbling of their many dukes and marquesses became cracks in the northern continent’s walls. And thus, an opportunity. Not for the Empest, but for the Venerant See, largest church across the moons, those who preach asceticism, and austerity, and the purity of the empty space between orbs, yet who hypocritically hoard wealth and leverage power to their own ends. And thus, Sapryc, a gem on the floor, waiting to be added to their vaults.
Nearly a century and a half later, and Sapryc remains war torn, split in two by the Strait of Cicatrix, with the northern continent of The Trunk and the southern continent of The Root constantly under attack from the forces of the other. Across villages and towns, disease spreads: None as terrible as the Bile, called that not in reference to the humor—no, the symptoms are boils, and fever, and pain—but for the anger riled up in those who catch the disease.
Many have fled—but to do so is harder every day: Only one spaceport remains, in the overpacked city of Krater, along the Trunk’s southern coasts. And it is there that we begin this story, today.
Foundation Sentences
Austin: The three types of Foundation Sentences, more or less, are “our story always,” “our story never,” “and our story will, but only with distance and care, include.” And I think broadly we’re not going to read this whole section on Foundation Sentences, but you can kind of think of them like lines and veils. A thing I’ll say really quick is that one of the earliest readers of this game gave a bunch of great feedback about how it should try to be itself and not try to be everything for every other type of player. It shouldn’t try to, like, use every term of art that’s already established, like… Find something instead of lines and veils is an example of that that feels more true to this game. And I kind of think that Foundation Sentences are that. So we’ve already talked about this broadly. I think tonally we all know we are in—I mean internally we’re calling this the black and white game. This is the monochrome game. This is the game that is a little more dire, I guess. Is that fair to say, the way I pitched this? I’m trying to pull up my old pitch.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: It’s bad here.
Sylvi: Grim, I think I used that one word.
Austin: Yeah. I think all the touchstones are similarly in that space. And so broadly, I think that “our story always…” “our story always is willing to throw a little dark,” which I know is an ambiguous thing. But I do think that we still want to retain the ability to say some things that will not be depicted directly, right? I’m pretty confident that I don’t want our story to ever depict sexual assault, for instance. And that’s a “never,” and not even a “will, with distance and care,” which doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in the world somewhere else. Do you know what I mean? But I just don’t want to tell that story necessarily. I don’t know if anyone has strong feelings about that, but I do want to kind of, I think that’s an important thing to say up top, that when I say throw a little dark, and when I say I’m making a game that’s inspired by Berserk, I don’t mean that this campaign will go in that direction. Fair to say?
Sylvi: Yeah
Jack: Yeah.
Sylvi: I think so.
Jack: Absolutely, agreed. I appreciate you specifically saying that this doesn’t mean this isn’t a world in which this happens, because I think that, you know—or this isn’t a world in which that doesn’t happen. I think that, you know, when you start stories like this  there can be an expectation that all aspects of this world are going to be shown on camera. And that’s, you know, and if it’s not mentioned, that means it doesn’t exist. This is, as I imagine we will continue to talk about, not some quote-unquote “utopia” in that sense. But yeah, this is not something that I want to explore in this story.
Austin: There are many things. We probably won’t spend a lot of time talking about watchmaking either, you know?
Jack: Well, you say this now, Austin.
Dre: Mm.
Austin: Fuck.
Jack: I’m going to be playing the Watchmaker. “I always make watches.”
[laughter]
Austin: I think “our story will always show how gruesome violence can be.” But I think “our story will, only with distance and care, include the death of civilians,” for instance, right? I think civilians are going to die here, but I don’t ever want to really zoom in the camera on the bloody detail of that, for instance. I’m not going to talk about specific descriptions of bodily harm. I will talk about broad cases of massacre. I will talk about the threat of really terrible things happening to people. But I don’t think we’re going to get closer in description than like Sangfielle was, you know.
Janine: Yeah. Could frame that as like we’re not interested in viewing violence with relish, like.
Austin: No, see, the thing is, I think there might be times when we do want to view violence with relish.
Janine: Well.
Sylvi: I was going to say.
Dre: Occasionally.
Austin: I think that there may be times when, like—
Janine: That’s true.
Austin: —the corrupt cleric gets his head cut off, that we’re going to describe that with relish, and I don’t know that that’s an unthinking decision. You know, we famously have that scene in Twilight Mirage where Jack and I go, “now wait a second, could this be an incredible scene of violence” that felt kind of out of tone with the rest of what Twilight Mirage was going for? I don’t think it’s out of tone here. And instead, I kind of want to sit with the fact that in this version of Realis, there will be moments of violence that seem metal and cool and what that means for these characters and what that means for storytelling, et cetera. That might be something that characters themselves don’t feel good about, or might feel great about and then might want to change, or whatever. But I think that—that said, again, if we really—if we are saying that that is a thing that makes us feel uncomfortable, I’m happy to shift that and keep the kind of melancholy and dangerous stuff without necessarily zooming in. I don’t want to step on you saying—
Janine: No, I think sometimes you want to smash a guy.
Austin: Sometimes you want—yeah, Thisbe’s player says that, yeah? Sometimes you want to smash a guy. But I don’t think—I think that the gist of what you’re saying is right. I’m still not—the zoom isn’t going to get super close necessarily. It’s— I don’t know, we’ll see, right.
Sylvi: We’re not gonna talk about, like, intestines and stuff. We’re not gonna talk about the guts specifically.
Austin: Right.
Sylvi: We’re gonna gesture, we’re gonna give you enough so that you can picture it.
Austin: I’ll tell you where the sword goes, you can do the rest.
Sylvi: Yeah!
Austin: If that makes sense. I do think heads might get chopped off, that’s my guess. Any other things here that people are like, “hey, let’s not do this,” or things you’re like “hey, I really want to make sure we do this so we make note.”
Jack: Oh! Yeah, I want this game to be in black and white.
Austin: Yeah, it is.
Jack: And I think that’s worth saying from the top. I don’t want to have the absolute utter objectivity of an “always” Sentence here, because I do think that it might be very interesting if in certain moments, you know, if, for example, you or any of us have got planned some revelatory glimpse of color, I don’t want to preclude that. But I would really like to try and be as careful as we can, in our description, that we try and find the language to paint this place in high contrast black and white.
Austin: I mean, I will reveal—
Jack: I know that is a challenge, but.
Austin: I will reveal the first Moon Sentence here, which is that Sapryc is always seen in black and white. This is a literal, true thing about the world.
Jack: Yeah, I know that you and I, at least, Austin, have talked about wanting to do a black and white season of Friends at the Table as far back as pre-production on Partizan, I think.
Austin: Yeah, but one of the earliest Sentences in, I’m thinking about Sentences now because we’re doing this game, but I think one of the first things written in the Partizan chat, it’s from Ali, it’s from January 1st, 2018, and she wrote, “season six, how do we make a black and white podcast?” So. We ended up doing red and black instead.
Jack: We got there.
Sylvi: Play to find out.
Austin: I think we ended up doing red and black instead. And that was maybe right for that, you know?
Jack: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: Good color scheme.
Austin: Still monochrome.
Jack: Well, but I mean, no, kind of. Because Cruciat is pale blue and white. You know, the stuff in the prison is green.
Austin: Right, sorry, you’re right. I think we tonally hit red and black. But Sapryc is literally.
Jack: Sapryc is black and white.
Austin: Yes. It is drawn in ink. It is photographed in black and white. Right? Like, again, when I talk about our touchstones, it’s stuff that is literally only that, right? It is really leaning in that direction, versus the other side where we’re reaching at lots of stuff that is really colorful. So, yeah. Sorry. Any other Sentences that we want to add here? Can we go over all the ones we already have? “Always in black and white.”
Sylvi: With the asterisk of except when it would be cool to have color again.
Austin: And in fact, again, I kind of will just—I think we should just let that roll as a Sapryc Sentence, which is that it is always.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Because there are other places in Realis that are not in black and white, you know. I guess one question is, one thing that’s interesting is, it means that when you’re on Sapryc and you look up at the stars and the—not the stars, but the other moons, which look like stars in some cases, and at Realis itself, those are in black and white, which is very odd.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything inside its—
Austin: Atmosphere.
Jack: —I don’t use the word literally, orbit, yeah, is black and white. And then we want something about violence. Well, we want something about, you know, we keep mentioning our touchstones, and it’s worth saying that our touchstones here are things like Berserk or Andre German’s[1] film Hard to Be a God. You know, these dark stories in all senses of the word. And so I do think it is worth kind of codifying that in some extent. You know, we talked about this earlier in terms of like, yeah, we’ll show you where the sword goes, but we won’t show you what it does, even though those are works which do. Oh, S-A-P-R-Y-C!
Austin: Yeah. So you can just take a word, like sapric, S-A-P-R-I-C, which is a type of soil, and just replace the I with a Y, and then you’re in fantasy. That’s how it works.
Sylvi: Oh, yeah.
Jack: Oh.
Austin: A sapric is a type of histosol, which itself is, of course, a soil.
Jack: Of course it is.
Austin: “Where virtually all of the organic matter has undergone sufficient decomposition to prevent the identification of plant parts.”
Jack: Woof.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Bad.
Austin: Well, I mean, maybe that’s good, though, right? You know?
Janine: Isn’t that just normal dirt? Good dirt.
Jack: This is also—no, because you can pick up good dirt and go, “aha. I see what was in this dirt.” But this is dirt you have to send in the cadaver-sniffing dog for, right?
Austin: Right. Exactly.
Janine: Have we considered adding a Class for Dirtmancer?
Austin: That might be in here. There’s so many fucking Classes and NPCs in this fucking book.
Sylvi: Is there like a record for like, I mean, I know like.
Austin: There’s stuff that way beats us because another piece of inspiration.
Sylvi: But in like a core game, when you don’t include.
Austin: Yeah, because things like Out of the Odd.[2]
Jack: Electric Bastionland.
Austin: Yeah, Electric Bastionland have like a hundred, you know?
Sylvi: Boo.
Austin: They’re inspirations on this, is the thing.
Sylvi: No, I know, but I want us to have a record.
Austin: I get it. I get it.
Jack: Well, we’re the best podcast.
Austin: We are the best podcast, that is true. We did win that record. The academy gave it to us, the podcasting academy.
Sylvi: [laughs]
Jack: Yeah, the award is a mask of your own face looking exhausted.
Sylvi: It’s a picture of Marc Maron, actually.
Austin: Oh, no.
Dre: Oh, boy. Okay.
Austin: Any other things here? I, by the way, rendered that as, the violence one as “our story always shows you where the sword goes, but never shows what it does.” Which is maybe not exactly right, right? But carefully shows what it does.
Janine: That’s good, though.
Sylvi: That is good, yeah.
Janine: A good phrase for it.
Sylvi: Because the way we talk about it, it does sort of straddle the line between the… “always” and the “only with distance and care,” so I think that.
Introducing Characters [14:00]
Austin: Yeah, I’ll leave it. Okay, then I think we can talk about characters, if that sounds good. Character creation is pretty easy. You pick a character class. You choose that based on what the Class Sentences are. You decide what your Bond Sentences are with people. You pick a Dream, either one of the ones that’s already written or you write your own. And then you figure out your Band stuff. Do we want to—how do we want to do this? Do we want to go around the table and start with classes and go from there? That seems like the easy thing to do.
Dre: Yeah, sure.
Sylvi: Yeah, sure.
Austin: And, you know, maybe I’ll give you just a little story structure here, too, because that way I can get a picture of everybody. I love to get a picture. You know what I mean? I love to see like an image of a person when I’m first introduced to them instead of just a collection of like stats, which is why I made this game where there aren’t really stats. There are just Sentences. But you’ve all—the short version is you’re all here in this terrible overcrowded city called Krater, Krater with a K. That is literally built inside of a crater. There’s like a giant crater that has become home to the city. I think it is the only spaceport on the northern continent at this point. There’s an asterisk there that I’ll explain when I put the map up later. But it’s basically the only one civilians can use. And it’s completely overcrowded for that reason.
And when I say it’s an overcrowded city and a spaceport, I don’t want you to think of like COUNTER/Weight spaceport. I want you to think of like a regular—like a naval port in the year 800 or something. There are lots of chickens in cages, and there are lots of people chained up together and being dragged or like slowly being forced to walk down the streets. And there are people predicting the end of days and yelling about it. And there’s like bodies up against bodies because there’s not enough room to breathe down the big streets. And then suddenly you could be in a quiet alley that’s like—how is there no one here? This is scary. And it is scary because everyone has become so desperate that they will turn to taking things from you in order for them and their families to survive. It is that type of place, right? And it has the terrible layering of a place that had a lot of history where it got to stay the same and then it had to change very quickly.
You know, like I said at the beginning, Sapryc was Sapryc for as long as long is, and it was just one city in the, or one moon in the crown of the Leo Suzerainty. And that is now no longer the case. And so you have all this old Leo construction, which the Suzerainty is like our kind of staple fantasy bickering nobles group, right? Like, and so you’re imagining here, medieval town, right? But then it’s had all this, I almost said Christian, which is not right, because they’re actually way more like Gnostics than they are like Christians in their belief system. But the Venerant See, I mean, it’s named the See, like the Holy See of the Catholic Church. So like, what am I going to do? Not reference them directly?
But their stuff is now layered on top and their stuff is, you know, extremely gaudy, extremely, you know, they take a lot of wealth from places and then build stuff with that wealth. So this is, you know, I mean, again, it’s white marble here on the black and white planet or moon of Sapryc. And there are these like towers built on top of old crumbling stonework, you know. There are temples and basilicas here next to or even sometimes built on top of or out of a structure that had lasted 500 years prior in a completely different architectural style. That’s the general vibe of this place.
So as you introduce your characters in this, I would love just a little snapshot of them moving through this city on their way to the meeting with the person who hired them for a job and brought them to this cursed moon. Who wants to go first?
Dre: I can.
Dre’s Character [18:30]
Austin: Okay. Dre, tell me your character’s name and class, and then give me your description, and then we’ll go over Sphere and Class Sentences.
Dre: Gotcha. I am playing Flemming, who uses he/him pronouns, and I am the Thaumaturge, which from what I’m reading is basically like the wizard-ass wizard kind of class.
Austin: Yeah, I would say this is probably the most traditional, direct wizard-ass wizard class. I think that’s probably, I mean, there’s like a bunch of magic users in this game.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Right. But like the Thaumaturge is pick up and play, you’re a fucking wizard now.
Dre: Yeah. Like one of, one of the example Class Sentences is like, I have a book with spells in it.
Austin: Yes. Yep. That’s basically—
Jack: With my—
Austin: Please read the actual Sentence, Dre.
Dre: Oh yeah. Hold on. I gotta, let me tab back over. “I always carry my hand-curated book of grand spells.”
Austin: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Dre: Uh. Oh, go ahead.
Jack: Is this the one who is like, “with my object X, I do X.” “With my object Y, I do Y.”
Austin: No, that is a different… That is the Ephemeralist, which is the longest class in the book. And I was truly fucking on one when I wrote this.
Jack: Yeah, one of the Ephemeralist Sentences is something like “with my conical hat, I understand the mysteries of something or another.”
Sylvi: “With my conical hat, I always understand what is said or written.”
Austin: Yeah, you gotta wear the hat.
Jack: Those guys are great.
Austin: Yeah, it’s like a very weird meta class that goes through a special Ephemera called Impedimenta that it loses access to over time, if I’m remembering right, but the other ones kind of get more powerful. So, you know. That’s a different type of wizard. That’s a wizard that is like, I’m the wizard who has, who can do something special with a handful of coal or with some grass cuttings. Whereas the Thaumaturge—
Janine: That’s the Batman-style wizard versus the Superman-style wizard.
Austin: That’s right. Exactly. Exactly. The Thaumaturge is, I want to be a fucking wizard. “I always know a few showy tricks,” et cetera. What does Flemming look like?
Dre: So Flemming wears lifted boots, so they look taller than they actually are. They have a big, tall, long, double-breasted coat, which is probably well-worn and somewhat shabby-looking, but is always immaculately ironed, so it doesn’t have wrinkles. That coat has high, upturned collar, so it kind of covers them up, covers him up. Some kind of hat, but I’m not sure exactly what kind of hat yet. I don’t think it’s—
Austin: Not a conical hat.
Dre: No, it’s not a conical wizard hat. I don’t want to say top hat either, but then I’m, you know, there’s not a lot of hats left after that.
Austin: Those are kind of the two big ones.
Dre: Right, so maybe he doesn’t wear a hat.
Austin: Well, it could be a…
Jack: What about, a big touchstone for me here.
Dre: Types of hats.
Jack: Is also Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s film A Field in England, which is about the English Civil War and magicians in the English Civil War. And they have some absolutely incredible hats. I’m going to post…
Austin: Please post hats.
Jack: Something… Yeah, I’m posting hats.
Austin: I posted hat. Please respond. Oh, that’s a good hat.
Jack: I posted hat.
Austin: That’s a good hat.
Jack: I got some more hats coming, please, patience.
Austin: This character is kind of just a banger. This is kind of a sick.
Dre: Yeah. That’s a good hat. What’d you say that was called?
Janine: That’s kind of a Van Helsing thing.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: I don’t know what this hat is called, but it’s from a, it’s from a field, a game, a game, Jesus. It’s from a film called A Field in England by Ben Wheatley. And it’s set during the English civil war.
Dre: Oh yeah. I mean, I, it is, it is big, wide, floppy hat.
Austin: Big wide floppy hat, but not, again, not Gandalf big floppy—is it flat on the top of the top of the hat? Like, you know there’s like a rim, there’s like a brim, rather, and then there’s like the middle part. Is the top of the middle part flat at the top like this one is?
Dre: No, it’s like rounded. It’s kind of like, I don’t think they’re in fashion anymore, but for a while it was in fashion, where like this was more of a woman’s style than a men’s style thing, but like the big wide brimmed floppy hats like that was like very much associated with Nashville a couple of years ago. I don’t know exactly what that style is called, but I also Googled Nashville floppy hat and I’m not getting what I’m looking for. But yes, very big brim all the way around, circular on top. It sags over and like covers parts of his face and side and neck. Very wide-brimmed glasses. Or wide-rimmed glasses, sorry. Circular wide-rimmed glasses.
Austin: Right. We’re all getting brims and rims. It’s all happening.
Dre: Whew, yeah.
Janine: Is it kind of like a cavalier hat?
Dre: Oh, maybe. Hold on. Yeah, but not turned up on the side.
Janine: No, yeah, there are some that are like floppier. I think the turning it up on the side is like an option.
Dre: Because that makes me think of like a Three Musketeers hat.
Janine: Yeah, that’s kind of the vibe.
Austin: Yeah, that is what it is, right?
Dre: Oh, yeah, it is.
Janine: I have one—I saw one on, like, a costume website that’s, like, leather and, like, looks sort of soft and shitty. Now, the guy is in a musketeer uniform, but the hat itself looks, like, shittier than a musketeer hat.
Sylvi: [laughs]
Dre: Okay, okay. It is a, uh, it’s a capotain hat. It’s a pilgrim hat.
Janine: Oh, I was gonna, I mean, I was gonna… I was going to say that one, and then I was like, no, I don’t think that’s right.
Dre: Yeah.
Janine: I talked myself out of it.
Austin: These came back into, these came back? People were rocking these again? In Nashville?
Dre: I don’t know. No, no, no.
Austin: Oh, not the. Okay.
Dre: This is not what I was talking about. No, no, no, no, no.
Austin: You have to imagine me imagining the women of Nashville being like, “all right, we’re going to look like the Inquisitor from Warhammer Fantasy. This is the year for that.”
Dre: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Jack: The cover of King James’s Demonology.
Dre: Mm-hmm.
Austin: Hot Girl Summer. Capotain girl summer.
Jack: God, Hot Girl Summer.
Austin: Yeah, this is…
Dre: I think wide brim fedora is the… Oh, no, it’s just called floppy hat on this website I’m looking at, is the one I was thinking of. But no, I think pilgrim hat, capotain hat, whatever you want to call it, captures the vibe perfectly.
Austin: Great.
Dre: No buckle.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Good.
Dre: That’s important.
Austin: I appreciate this. This is good.
Janine: These are the origin of witch hats, just so you know. Like, the stereotypical witch hats. Yeah, it’s where they came from.
Dre: Perfect. Yes.
Austin: Really? They got there via these?
Janine: Yeah, they just kept making them taller and taller until they were pointy. And then it’s like oh, that’s a hat a witch wears.
Austin: Nice. Nice.
Jack: It’s like carcinization with crabs.
Austin: The hat.
Janine: Capotainization.
Jack: Well, any hat, if you make it taller and taller, will invariably transform itself into a witch hat. It’s just most hats haven’t gotten there yet.
Dre: That’s true.
Austin: Gotcha.
Janine: Mm-hm.
Austin: All right. Let’s do Sentences, Dre?
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Actually, Sphere, first. Your Sphere.
Dre: Sure. My Sphere is Sphere of Sorcery. And the Impulse with that Sphere is “respond to a mundane problem with magical Means.” My Class Sentences are, “I always carry my hand curated book of grand spells.” “I always know a few showy tricks.” “I always project an image of unerring wisdom.” And “I always reject the use of unorthodox magic.”
Austin: You know what? You just gotta sometimes—sometimes you gotta shout out to Fantasmo. The real one.
Dre: Yeah. Listen.
Austin: I wasn’t thinking of Fantasmo when I wrote this, maybe. Actually, I don’t know. I wrote this two years ago. Who the fuck knows what I was thinking. But maybe I was.
Dre: Sometimes you’re just always right. You know?
Sylvi: Pointing up to heaven, this one’s for you, Fantasmo.
Dre: Sometimes you just know more than anyone else, and because of that, you’re always right.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah, that’s how my life is.
Austin: [laughs] Then what is your Dream, which is the last thing that is kind of inward-focused that we can do?
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: And this, you can write whatever you want, to be clear.
Dre: Oh, I can. Perfect.
Austin: Okay, the Dreams are completely up to you.
Dre: I will keep that one, because I wrote my name—
Austin: I actually don’t know if that’s true, but let’s say it is for now. Because I’m looking at the book and it says Dream—
Janine: It does say circle one.
Austin: It does.
Dre: I can use one of these. It aligns with what I was thinking.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: Which is “I will craft a spell rigorously tested and perfectly consistent enough to enter the great spell books.”
Austin: Oh, yeah. That’s, yeah. Totally. Cool. Who’s next?
Jack: Oh, wait, what was Flemming doing when we first see him?
Austin: Oh, wait, what was your—exactly. We know what Flemming’s wearing but what are they doing in this terrible messy city.
Dre: Oh god, just looking very disgusted and disappointed, walking very swiftly, looking straight ahead, not making eye contact with anyone, having his nose upturned. Just this this is not a scene that deserves Flemming.
Austin: What would bring, what’s brought Flemming here to this backwater moon for this job, versus being in one of these, you know, high academies of magic on one of the other moons?
Dre: Sure. Either this job promises some sort of resource or experience that he could only get this way or the person that is doing the hiring flattered Flemming enough.
Austin: Ohhh. Yeah, okay, yeah. This makes sense to me.
Dre: Especially if the reach out was like hey, I tried getting in touch with one of your colleagues but after talking with them I don’t think they’re as good a fit for this job as you.
Austin: I love that so much. I think that’s exactly, that’s exactly it. That was—and the promise is pretty big. I think the promise is actually in line.
Austin (as Employer): Yes, there’s a matter of pay, but if your goal in life is to add something to the grand spellbook, this journey will give you what you need. And based on this conversation, I believe you’ll achieve it, of course.
Austin: I don’t know if this is the voice I’m going to end up using with the person who hired you, but this is the vibe, right? All right. So looking dissatisfied with being here. I’ve definitely over-promised what this city would be, for sure. Definitely said, you know,
Austin (as Employer): It’ll be a warm welcome for someone of your stature.
Austin: And it’s like, no one cares that you’re fucking here. You know, you had to, like, push past a bunch of people trying to scramble aboard the ship you left and who were, like, turned away with bats. You know? So that is the vibe here. All right. Now, who is next?
Sylvi: I’ll go.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Sylvi’s Character [30:10]
Sylvi: Okay. My character is named Gaje, spelled G-A-J-E. Pronouns he/they. Class is Berserker, which comes from the Sphere of Steel, “respond to a peaceful problem with violent Means” is the Impulse. Class Sentences as well, right?
Austin: Oh yeah.
Sylvi: “I always kill my foe.” “I always learn through violence.” “I always carry an unstoppable weapon.” “I always hurt those close to me.”
Austin: It says in the book that certain classes will have, “I always have my blank.” Which, in fact, I guess, Flemming, you also have this with “I always carry my hand curated book of grand spells.” But for now, Gaje, what is your—and it says that when that happens, you should define what that is at the top of play so that we all know. What is your unstoppable weapon? And then also, I guess, what do you look like and what’s your little sequence here?
Sylvi: So should I start from the top of what do I look like and then get into the weapon?
Austin: Yeah, you tell me—I’m giving you the camera.
Sylvi: Cool. I think in most settings, someone of Gaje’s size would be called a giant, except there are actual giants on the moons of Realis. So he is just sort of above averagely tall. Like, I think…
Austin: Like basketball player tall or?
Sylvi: Not averagely. Like more than a basketball player. I was like about to step in it again we were about to have a fucking, another “Sylvi says the average height is like six feet tall.” Like I really almost did it.
Austin: [laughs] Ahh…
Sylvi: No, I think he’s pushing seven feet tall.
Austin: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: He’s a big guy, he’s very broad. I think I was talking—
Austin: Fuck it, you know what? Here is—ready? He’s seven feet tall. Just say it.
Sylvi: Perfect.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: This is the side, here’s another Foundation Sentence. “We always side on the side of…”
Sylvi: Maximalism?
Austin: “Of maximalism.” Yeah. 100%.
Sylvi: Perfect. Okay. This is great for me, then.
Austin: Except for when it Counters one of these other Foundation Sentences, right? So, you know, we “never show where the sword goes.”
Sylvi: Well, yeah.
Austin: But we maximally show you, or we “never show what it does,” but we maximally show you where it goes. We describe a character, they’re not almost seven feet, they’re seven feet.
Sylvi: They’re seven feet tall. Maybe seven feet and a bit.
Austin: If they’re nine feet, nah, they’re ten feet, you know what I mean? We always round up.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Dre: Sure.
Sylvi: Okay, so Gaje is like eight feet tall.
Austin: [laughs] Yes!
Sylvi: Listen, I’m not even fucking around. We, yeah. Is just wearing this like very long, tattered cloak that isn’t—like kind of seems like it wasn’t meant for a person but he has like fashioned it into that over time just because of the size of it.
Austin: It was like a tarp that went over a caravan wagon or something.
Sylvi: Yeah, I think it was something like that, or like a, it’s very crude stitching but there was like part of like someone’s standard or something is in there.
Austin: Oh, that’s great.
Sylvi: It’s kind of just like a thing he’s built over the years… that goes… covers most of his body. He’s got this very weathered, wind—like he always kind of looks like he has windburn on his face. His hair is cut short and his beard’s kept short but like mostly just out of practicality. He like cuts them with a knife himself. Like late 30s or something like that. It’s kind of unclear, he probably is younger than he looks. But, you know, hard living! And the unstoppable weapon that he carries under his cloak because when people see it, they get weird. The way I described it to you, Austin, was like a giant needle and thread. So it is this big steel spike with a spool at the end, like the sort of open hole at the end. But instead of a thread, it is a chain that is connected to a manacle on Gaje’s wrist, which is not in great shape. I think… It’s probably kind of rusty and itchy, but it’s just on there. This was originally an implement used in his attempted execution, but that did not end up working out for the people attempting to execute him.
Austin: What were you being executed for?
Sylvi: So Gaje’s history is as a fighter and sort of like a strongman routine. He had someone who would go around and be like a sort of carnival barker, come challenge the Goliath. And if you can best him using any tactics you like, you can, you’ll get this prize, and nobody ever really won. But one day some like little shithead challenged him and Gaje wasn’t really aware that this person was connected to some form of noble family on the moon that he lived on and did not pull his punches enough and killed him. So he was set to be quartered when he escaped and has fled to Sapryc.
Austin: Perfect. And taken this job sometime after you arrived.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Because…
Sylvi: People don’t really care as much here.
Austin: That makes sense. Perfect. And what are you doing as you move through the streets? What’s the image we get of you?
Sylvi: I really like the image of… You mentioned the crowded streets, and I think just a shot of this sort of “cloaked figure moving through, like among this like mass of people that are like at least two heads shorter than him, at the tallest normal person in the crowd,” type situation. If we want to have our characters meet, Dre, Flemm could bump into me. If we want to have that be a thing like right outside where we’re meeting for the job.
Austin: And this slow realization that you’re—yeah, that you’re about to, you’ve already both accepted this job, and you’re going to be working together. That’s very fun.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: That’s very good.
Dre: Yeah. I mean, maybe, I think Flemm bumps into you and goes,
Dre (as Flemming): Excuse me, you’re very tall and I’m having trouble seeing over… this.
Dre: And like just kind of like gestures broadly. Is there some kind of landmark or something that I could ask, that I could ask Gaje to like see if they can see?
Austin: Yeah, there is a, poking above some of the buildings around you, there is a lighthouse that you need to go meet your, I guess your new boss, the person who’s hiring you at, your contact at. You can’t see it because you’re not eight feet tall.
Dre: No.
Sylvi: Yeah. I think, do you ask specifically for the lighthouse?
Dre: Yes. Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah. Gaje is a very booming voice. I don’t go for that these days. So people gotta use their imaginations.
Dre: Sure.
Sylvi: But he just sort of like points in the direction and says,
Sylvi (as Gaje): There.
Sylvi: Like he’s very quiet—like one word. Not quiet, but keeps the words to a minimum.
Dre: Yeah, not very verbose.
Sylvi: Uh-huh. Should I mention my Dream?
Austin: Yes, please. You got it.
Sylvi: And then we can move on to the next character. My Dream is “I will find transcendent clarity in the midst of battle and become my truest self.”
Austin: Amazing. I love it when a character wants nothing more than to get into a really good fight.
Sylvi: Yeah, Austin, I should send you my notes. I wrote a good reminder to myself.
Austin: Good. Please. All right. Jack or Janine, who’s up?
Janine: I can go.
Austin: All right.
Janine’s Character [37:55]
Janine: So my character is Sacea Duodevicesima [SATCH-uh DEW-oh-DEV-ee-KESS-ee-muh].
Austin: One more time?
Jack: Sick.
Sylvi: [laughs]
Austin: Sacea? Oh, good. You have a guide for me.
Janine: Yes.
Austin: All right. Sacea.
Janine: Sacea.
Austin: Uh-huh. [sounding it out] Duodevicesima?
Janine: Duo. Devi. Devi-cesima. Devicesima.
Austin: Duo. Mm. [trying out different emphasis] Duodevicesima. Duodevicesima.
Janine: Duodevicesima.
Austin: Defica—mm. Okay.
Janine: Duodevicesima.
Austin: Duodevicesima.
Janine: The Is make ee sounds, the Es make eh sounds.
Austin: Let me tell you, I am not even looking at the words. I’m only looking at your explanation, your phonetics.
Janine: Duodevicesima.
Austin: Duodevicesima.
Janine: It’s Latin for 18th.
Austin: Ah, okay. Great.
Janine: Uh-huh. She/her. She is a Pomesse.
Austin: So what’s a Pomesse? Because I know what a Berserker is. I know what a Thaumaturge is. Pomesse isn’t a real… Well, pomesse is actually, in fact, literally not a real word. Because where we got it from… We’d already talked about there being a pomander-based class. And then there’s a random word generator that is explicitly a fake word generator. Which is wonderful. And one of the first ones that it generated for us was… poemess, like a poem person, and then you immediately went pomesse. What is a pomesse, what is a pomander? What are we referencing here?
Janine: So a pomander is like a perfumed orb. I think people commonly, or at least most commonly, would encounter them as, you know, the old tradition of like you get an orange and you put cloves in it, as Jack said before we started recording. Or like, but it can also be used to—the reason those are called pomanders is because a thing that is also called pomanders is like a metal orb with like perfume or oil or like a solid sweet smelling like thing that people would carry around. And we’ve also sort of, you know, connected this with like censers and the incense and smoke, you know, on a chain. Basically, it’s a class about putting a smelly thing in some sort of metal thing, and then you do something with it.
Austin: There was also explicitly this really great image of a pomander from like some, I mean, if you just do a search for pomander, P-O-M-A-N-D-E-R, you’ll get these images. The one I’m looking at is from the fashion history timeline, but even there’s just one on the pomander Wiktionary page, and they’re small, but imagine that they could be a little bit bigger, and they could also just be, again, very metal in their designs. Even small, they’re very metal, because they’re like these metallic leaves that have opened up that look like orange peels, right, or like flower petals, depending on the design you’re looking at, and there is something really sick about that. As, you know, it is very beautiful but it also does not look not dangerous, and I kind of like the in-between vibe between, oh this thing brings me lots of beautiful-smelling, you know, aroma but also it seems sharp and dangerous. So the pomesse. What is your Sphere and Impulse?
Janine: My Sphere is Stagecraft, my Impulse is “respond to a personal/private problem through performative/public Means.”
Austin: Mm. Love to do that. What is your—do you want to do description and then Sentences? Do you want to do Sentences and then description? I’m good with either.
Janine: I’ll do Sentences and then description. My Sentences are, “I always exert my will over the atmosphere with my perfumes.” “I always shift the truth with my smoke.” “I always strike with the hidden edges of my pomander.” And “I always invite the uninvited with my fragrances.”
Austin: So who is… Who is, Sacea, hm, Duodevicesima.
Janine: It’s good. You just have to do a little less emphasis on the “ee”s and then we’ll be there.
Austin: Less emphasis on the “ee”s?
Janine: Yeah, they’re there, but they’re not capitalized.
Austin: Duodevicesima.
Janine: Yeah, yeah, there you go. You’re good. So Sacea is a crone. Like functionally, what we would recognize in mythology as a very typical-looking crone. An old woman with sort of very thin white hair, heavily wrinkled face, like, you know, hunched over, like hunched forward a little bit, walks very deliberately, and wears sort of a big, very dark black hooded robe, that sort of hides everything underneath. And when she walks, there is a sort of… it’s not a jingling sound but it’s sort of a hollow metal-hitting-metal sound, because she has a belt with her various pomanders and censers sort of suspended on it with a chain to connect them. So it’s sort of a very slow and dark but like musical presence.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, is the clinking of the chains, are they almost like chimes in terms of their tonality?
Janine: They’re a little duller, I think, because they aren’t perfectly hollow, right? They have stuff in them. The metal is hollow, but it’s got things, you know, like waxes and stuff inside. So it’s a little bit duller. It doesn’t ring as much.
Austin: Right. That makes sense.
Janine: But maybe there’s one empty one that rings a little more than the others, so it’s a little bit of a mixed sound.
Austin: Yeah. And what are your Sentences and—oh, I guess, what’s your image? Or do you want to come back to that after Sentences? We already did Sentences. What’s your Dream?
Janine: My Dream is, “I will purge the miasma which corrupts the thousand moons.”
Austin: Love to purge a terrible miasma. What is your experience of that miasma at this point? Is this something—is it corrupting the Thousand Moons in the sense that it has already spread to them? Is it something you think is rooted here in Sapryc? Is it—you tell me. Are we in a moment of Realis where many moons are having this done to them?
Janine: I think the miasma is maybe a thing that is sort of like the flu, where it’s like sometimes it’s just the flu and sometimes it’s The Flu. Like, you know, sometimes you just have flu season, sometimes you have Spanish Flu season, sometimes you have COVID, sometimes you have, you know, people sneezing a little bit. It’s a thing where, you know, she’s older and like she can probably recall seasons where it was like, oh, this was a really bad one. And then times where it’s like, well, this is just the natural, I just have to do what I can, but this is normal, this is a normal level of miasma.
Austin: And we are not in a normal level currently.
Janine: No. No.
Austin: Yeah, okay. Gotcha. Wait, how old are you? Do we know? Do we, the viewers, know?
Jack: Keeping in mind that Gaje is eight feet tall.
Austin: Right.
Janine: Yeah. Probably like 80s, 90s, 100. You know, like.
Austin: Okay. Yeah. And then what is your image of you moving through the streets, or here in Krater?
Janine: I sort of already gave it, right, which is these sort of deliberate steps.
Austin: Yeah. That makes sense.
Janine: Very shrouded, that sort of jingling, that gentle kind of metallic sound. I think people kind of clear the way for her a little bit because she sort of looks the part of like a frail old woman. So you don’t want to trip her or anything, certainly.
Austin: Yeah, definitely not.
Janine: It’s not necessarily the kindest world, but also, like, just get out of her way, you know?
Austin: And like is there also part of that that’s like—is that something you’re partially doing? Or are you using any skill to do that in terms of that first Sentence of yours again? Where’d it go? There we go.
Janine: “I always exert my will.”
Austin: “I always exert my will,” yeah, “over the atmosphere.” Is there an element of that here? Are you exuding a will of like, not literally get out of my way, not as harsh as that maybe? Or is that something you call on in moments of crisis?
Janine: I think it’s a thing that could be called on. But I don’t know that that’s happening now. You know, the second Sentence, “I always shift the truth with my smoke.” You know, I think this is a moment where, like, the truth is just what it is and the truth is what’s working. And if the truth didn’t work, then sure, try something else. But, like, this is, you know, maybe she’s walking a little more slowly. She’s playing it up a little bit. But maybe that’s just because she’s not in a hurry, you know?
Austin: Yeah, that makes sense. Cool. All right, Jack, you are last.
Jack’s Character [46:55]
Jack: Um, yeah, I want to start with the image, which is the outside of like some absolutely heaving tavern, you know, people pushing their way inside. There are these lanterns burning, you know, like bright white flames with black smoke kind of guttering out the top of them. Inside, someone is like playing a piano discordantly, and someone just comes crashing out of one of the upper windows and down into the street below, where they are immediately set upon by, you know, someone in the street for the indignity of having landed on them. And they scramble to their feet and run away.
And this is the character I’m playing. His name is Jud. J-U-D. The class is the Struggler. I am from the Sphere of Stories, “respond to an epic problem with everyday Means.” Midway down the street, Jud stumbles into a mugging. and gets briefly involved with the mugging. On what side is not terribly clear. Perhaps a little bit of mugging going on, perhaps a little bit of getting mugged. There’s some sort of an exchange, crawling under a broken bit of fence, scratching the skin on the back of his neck on the way. Jud is, I think, 16 years old. Maybe 15 years old. Somewhere in the mid-teens age. And my Sentences are “I always fight my way to safety” as I pick my way through the roped off bit behind a house where people are keeping their geese, and all the geese, you know, scream and hiss at me. “I always find somewhere to rest.” “I always protect those traveling with me.” And “I am always under threat.”
Austin: Love to be a Struggler. Love to struggle. Ah, great.
Jack: Love to be a Struggler.
Austin: What is your Dream? And then we should talk about what the context for your Dream is.
Jack: Yeah. So I originally had a Dream that I had written, but since it seems like we are going for the ones in the book, by and large, “I will get revenge on whoever initiated the hunt.” Because I did not come to Sapryc under my own free will. I was, until very recently, the young squire of a knight. And there is sort of a, like an Arthurian, sometimes when we say squire, we think of like a mannered or a chivalric relationship between a squire and a knight. And I’m sure that someone like Riah Connadine would like you to believe that that’s the case. But this was basically indentured servitude. Jud’s knight was a man named Roderick. And Roderick had a horse and armor and was part of a feudal culture, like a feudal society on the 58th moon. I don’t have a name for that moon. But came to the planet Sapryc, I think, to be a part of this war, I think was called in to be a part of the war. And Jud was dragged, quite literally dragged, you know, secured in part with Jud carrying a load of backpacks on his back and then like a thin line of rope linking him to the horse’s saddle, walking in the mud alongside Sir Roderick onto the planet.
And one day, you know, Sir Roderick was asking Jud to prepare dinner for him and Jud was taking a little too long and was very hungry himself and, you know, took a bit of bread and Sir Roderick snapped and, you know, made it very clear that he wasn’t to eat until Sir Roderick did. And, so, Jud hit him over the head with a poker until he stopped moving and then ate him.
Austin: Mm.
Jack: And that’s the end of Sir Roderick.
Austin: A little cannibalism here in our first episode of this, huh?
Jack: Is it cannibalism?
Austin: Is this the first cannibalism we’ve done?
Jack: Well, we’ve talked about Chine as being… Chine has some cannibal-ish stuff going on.
Austin: Oh, sure, sure.
Jack: Chine… I get the impression Chine would eat another Cleaver if it came down to it.
Dre: Sure.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: But I think Jud is a fairly classical cannibal in that he is a human who eats humans.
Austin: Now…
Jack: And there is a… Mm.
Austin: Why did you—I mean, outside of revenge or something. Why did you do this?
Jack: I had heard a rumor that something happens when you eat a person.
Austin: Mm-hm?
Jack: I don’t know where I had heard this rumor. I think—well, here’s actually what it is, right. The system of the grinding boot of feudalism on this planet produces a people that—
Austin: On this moon, thank you.
Jack: Oh, sorry.
Austin: There’s only one planet in this game.
Jack: Only one planet.
Austin: Only one person, one or two people living, supposedly, have ever gone there and come back.
Jack: Yes. On the 58th moon produces a populace that has a desperate desire to take back what they believe is theirs and what, you know, should be theirs. Liberty, a chance to move through the world in a way that you have authored with a community around you rather than under the thumb of a princely knight class above you. And so it stands to reason that there would be rumors in this place that if you consume the body of somebody powerful, you take on the power of that entity. And you know, on the thousand moons of Realis, maybe those rumors have come from somewhere particular. Is that fair to say, Austin?
Austin: Yeah, there’s a cult. There’s a thing called the Cult of Internitas. I-N-T-E-R-N-I-T-A-S. A cult which has found a sort of eternal life through the imbibement of its fallen members and their immaterial souls. There are 400 members across the thousand moons.
Jack: Of which Jud is probably not one.
Austin: I actually think he must be.
Jack: Because he…
Austin: Because it worked.
Jack: Because it worked.
Austin: I don’t think if you eat anybody, it just works. Either you need to know the ritual, or they would have already needed to have been prepared to be eaten.
Jack: And this was like a real—it was a combination, you know—
Austin: Let me read, let’s read the whole thing and then talk about it, because I’d rather us, no ambiguity on this because I think it’s important. “With only 400 members across the thousand moons, the cult of Internitas may not seem fit for a list of organizations such as this.” There’s a little editorialization in the the book of Realis. You know, it turns out that we really only like translated the book, you know, it came written this way. Who could say who wrote that originally. “Yet know each pious practitioner of the cult’s ways is not only one person, but a countless amalgam. Each member, upon death, is broken down into 400 pieces, 315 organs and bones, plus the skin carved into an additional 85 pieces, and is then consumed by the other members in a ritual supper. Upon this mangication, all collected knowledge of the dead and their own accumulated wisdom passes on to the new soul. As such, over the many years since the cult’s founding, its members have become more like than not, yet each carries with them a spark of something the others lack, whether from life lived or, it is rumored, from private meals on the less willing. Seek them and their intelligence if you must, but understand that their insight is a dangerous lore.”
And so I think either you know how to do this ritual, which I don’t think you know because you don’t have that on your sheet. Or.
Jack: No, my suspicion is that this is a sort of a “whistle and I’ll come for you, my lad” situation of like, the rumor is true. And there is something about, you didn’t—what were you going to pitch here?
Austin: That Roderick is one of the 400. And that there have been people hoping to eat him.
Jack: [laughs]
Austin: But also afraid to, right? Because the reason this cult doesn’t collapse is because it’s, you know, if they all turn on each other, it would all collapse instantly, and then you don’t get the benefit of having 400 people going out there and getting new information and getting new, you know, knowledge that can be passed on inside of the 400, right? And, you know, there’s turnover, right? Sometimes someone does kill one of the members and become a member themselves. But normally it happens that way. It is not a random person kills and eats an already prepared…
Jack: Specifically the servant of one of the, you know, there’s a way of looking at this, right, where it’s not only just like, this was coincidence, it’s like, you shouldn’t have even heard
 this rumor.
Austin: Right.
Janine: Also, part of it would be, if Jud killed him, like, in the middle of nowhere, and didn’t tell anyone, and then whatever he didn’t eat just goes to waste, that would piss them off even more.
Austin: Right. They’ve lost that knowledge.
Janine: It’s gone. Only you have it, and they can only get it through eating you now.
Austin: And I bet you didn’t even cut him up into the right amount of pieces.
Dre: [laughs]
Janine: What a noob.
Jack: No, I’m 15 years old. I was angry. I was hungry. You know? Yeah, so my Dream is “I will get revenge on whoever initiated the hunt.”
Austin: Because now you’re hunted, is the thing.
Jack: I am hunted both for the murder of my knight.
Austin: Right.
Jack: And, as Janine intimates, presumably by the people who are like “you did it wrong.”
Sylvi: [laughs]
Austin: Yeah. Yeah. And now we want to eat you.
Dre: Sure, yeah.
Jack: Right, because that’s where we can get Roderick from.
Austin: We need to get Roderick back.
Jack: But right now I’m being hunted by like an angry man because I took apples from, you know, like the basin outside his house.
Austin: Right. Yes.
Sylvi: Gatekeeping cannibalism. I love it.
Austin: [laughs]
Sylvi: Atekeeping.
Austin: Atekeeping.
Jack: Atekeeping.
Austin: Perfect. All right—
Sylvi: Don’t enable me.
Austin: No, but that’s—I’m a fan of the players, Sylvi, you’re a player so I have to enable you. That’s how it goes. All right, well, that is, that’s all the individual stuff that there is, as far as I remember in this game. 
Bonds [57:25]
Austin: It is time to now talk about Bonds. Unless otherwise noted, characters begin with two Bonds, which are both Means, which by now players listening or people listening at home know Means are the things you use to clarify—to win a conflict, to do something that’s uncertain or opposed. And Bonds are Means describing a relationship between two members of the Band. Though a Bond is between two characters, only its owner can use it as a Means, though such a use can be requested by the other member of a Bond. Though two Bandmates may each have a Bond with each other, they are used and tracked separately. So unlike something like the hooks or—are they called Bonds in Armour Astir? It’s hooks and—or gravity. Unlike gravity in Armour Astir where it goes up for one, it goes up for the other, here they’re different things. Bonds are always +0 Means. They don’t realize. They don’t get stronger in that way. As such, they’re not especially powerful, but they do offer you protection and utility in cases where your other Sentences may not help. Additionally, Bonds can be boosted by tokens from both involved PCs if their players desire, meaning that unlike Class Sentences, Bonds can have their rank temporarily increased by +2. So we don’t have to go deeper into what this stuff is. You know, it’s all the rest of those rules are basically the same ones, right? Which is like, you got to use the Bond to use it. You can’t just say, I have this Bond. Give me a +1. You have to use the Bond. You have to show it happening. And they kind of get used—they kind of get marked as you use them a little bit differently than regular Sentences. Every character class starts with two example Bonds, but I’m also happy to have people write their own. I think that you need a lot of flexibility on because characters are so different. But if you want to stick to their suggested Bonds, that is also okay. I’m also happy to discuss who’s Bonded with who. I believe it’s the way it’s written, or the way it should be written, is a sort of left and right type thing, right? I guess I don’t have this written here, but, you know, look to your left. That person has one Bond. Look to your right. That person has another, you know, is your other Bond. We ideally don’t want anybody to not have—we don’t want to double up in too many ways. You know what I mean? So, who wants to start? Who feels like they have a strong first Bond?
Jack: I think I have one.
Sylvi: I think I have one—oh no, go ahead.
Jack: I’d like a Bond with Gaje, if possible.
Sylvi: Perfect. That’s what I was going to suggest, too!
Austin: All right. Now we know that Jack and Sylvi are sitting next to each other.
Jack: Hi, Sylvi.
Sylvi: Hi.
Jack: I didn’t bring a pen. Can I?
Sylvi: [laughs]
Jack: You know how Gaje is eight feet tall and is wielding the weapon that he was very nearly executed with?
Sylvi: Yeah, the big giant stake.
Jack: I just fought four geese and I’m 15 or 16. “Gaje doesn’t think he needs it but I’ll watch his back.”
Austin: [laughs]
Sylvi: That is so good, because the one that I wanted to do for Jud is one of the pre-written ones, which is, “Jud’s weakness makes them vulnerable in my presence. It is my responsibility to protect them.”
Austin: Wow.
Jack: Oh, this is really funny.
Sylvi: I might rewrite it a little bit, but I think the sentiment stays the same, where it’s just like, what’s this fucking twerp doing here? Like, we kind of talked a little bit about both our characters being fugitives and having bonded over that. And so I think it’s just, it’s also part of like, oh yeah, no, of course he had to get somebody by surprise to actually kill him. There’s no way this kid’s gonna fucking last out here by himself.
Austin: Extremely good. All right, so then if Jack is sitting next to Sylvi, who else is sitting next to Sylvi, or who else is sitting next to Jack?
Dre: Yeah, I was thinking of one for Gaje and I’m trying, I’m struggling—boy, actually I think I do want to use the Bonds that are in the book. Because I want one of my Bonds with Gaje to be, “they may not know it, but Gaje has a natural aptitude for the magical.”
Austin: Ooh. Ooh!
Jack: Ooh!
Austin: Ohohoho!
Jack: Learning things about each other.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: God, that’s so funny as well, because the client was like, Flemm, you’ll love this. There’s something about like, you were sold this on like, Flemm will have a natural enjoyment of this planet or whatever, of this moon. Sorry, Austin, of this moon.
Dre: Yes. And then I was also going to do one with… Sacea… Sacea?
Austin: Sacea.
Dre: Sacea. “Sacea’s technique is too risky. I must convince her to codify her magic.”
Janine: I’m literally writing one that is basically the other side of that.
Dre: Yeah!
Austin: I love it. I love it when—
Jack: Friends at the Table, baby!
Austin: I love it when there’s, we’re dueling perspectives on magic. Also we didn’t say, Sacea, why are you here? Why’d you take this job? Is it because it lines up with your Dream in some way, is it something else?
Janine: I think it’s a thing where it is like. So I think for clearing the miasma there’s like sort of a dependence on like ingredients, you know? And I think it’s often a case of like sometimes you have to go to a place and you need to be able to pay to go to the place to get the thing. So you take a job in the place where you need the thing and try to line stuff up, you know?
Austin: Yep.
Sylvi: I rewrote my Jud one really quick.
Austin: Yep. What is it?
Sylvi: “Jud’s weakness is as clear as day. They’ll die without me to protect them.”
Jack: Wow!
Sylvi: I wanted to make it sound less noble.
Austin: Yeah. No, that’s perfect. So now we need… Go ahead.
Jack: Just so that I’m clear here, when you say the weakness, you’re not talking about a sort of metaphorical weakness. You’re talking about, you’ll get killed by a hammer.
Sylvi: No, you’re a fucking 16-year-old. Yeah.
Jack: [laughs] Yeah, okay.
Austin: Yeah, we’ll see how the rest of the session goes, honestly.
Sylvi: You’re some scrawny kid who keeps getting in trouble and eating people.
Jack: Yeah, I didn’t describe what Jud looks like, but truly the image that I have in my mind is just like a background extra from any 80s sword and sorcery movie that you can think. Just like a white boy with like a mustache barely coming in, terrible clothes—although now he has—
Janine: Just a crystal for some reason, just a crystal in his pocket.
Jack: Yeah, a crystal. He has some of Roderick’s armor, but it doesn’t fit him very well. I shared a screenshot from Hard to Be a God showing some cool knight and then just in the background of the scene some like poor fuck with a horse or something and I was like I’m the one on the right. Yeah, just a completely nondescript, but not in a cool, mysterious way, in a you’ve shown up for a day rate way.
Austin: Yeah, totally. Great. We now need, Gaje, you need one with Flemm. I guess you need one with Flemm or Sacea, because either of them could flip. And it depends on who has one with Jud. That will determine. Like right now, it goes Sacea, Flemm, Gaje, Jud, but.
Janine: I had been thinking of one with Jud.
Austin: Okay, then let’s keep that. So yeah, Gaje—
Jack: I might have one with Flemm.
Austin:. Oh.
Jack: No, no, no. Oh, I can figure out, I can figure that out. I can have one for Sacea.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, try to have one with Sacea because of the way this is—because of how Flemm already has one with Sacea. Flemm is locked up, you know what I’m saying?
Jack: Right.
Austin: Flemm has two and we’d like them to be spread instead of doubled down. Or, again, I guess it could work that way if Gaje’s… No, it couldn’t work that way. Because Gaje already has… I mean, I guess it could work. If Gaje, you had one with Sacea, then Jud, you could have one with Flemm, and I don’t think that it would… I don’t think that it would end up being… No one would have three. As long as no one has three and someone only… You know what I mean?
Jack: No, I think I got a good one with Sacea.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: Yeah, I think my proposal for Sacea is “Sacea’s methods are otherworldly, and I am afraid of them. I need to stay in their good books.”
Janine: [laughs slightly] So I have two here. My one for Jud, I think, is “without my attentions, Jud will die on the vine.” And for Flemming, “Flemming studies without interpretation. I must demonstrate the limits of his inflexibility.”
Austin: Mm. Very good. Like this a lot.
Dre: Like that.
Austin: A funny thing that I just realized is, it was a very silly thing. This reflects on our audience thing. We didn’t say what a Dream is. A Dream is a thing that you can use like a Sentence, except it’s very strong. And the reason I’m saying this here is, at first I was like, we don’t have to explain any of these rules, because no one will listen to this before they listen to the rest of the season. Except, yes, they will.
Jack: Oh, yes, they absolutely will.
Austin: A pomander order will come up and everyone will listen to…
Jack: Yeah, they’ll call it something like “kill the grape.” And, you know, it will actually be a great way of listening.
Austin: Oh, did you hear they murdered a grape?
Jack: Do you hear they murdered a grape? Also, shout out to Annie.
Austin: They did a murder on a grape. Yeah, shout out to Annie. Shout out to the onion method, et cetera. Onion order. The onion method feels different.
Jack: God, the onion method, as practiced by so-and-so.
Austin: Yeah. Uh-huh. Great.
Sylvi: I think I have my second Bond, my one for Flemming. I don’t know if this is the final wording for it, but it at least has the right sentiment.
Austin: Please.
Sylvi: “Flemming thinks he has all the answers, but they’re only for the questions in his books.”
Austin: Ooh.
Jack: Ooh.
Sylvi: Wicked burn.
Austin: Love that. Wicked burn.
Sylvi: Thank you.
Austin: Wicked burn.
Jack: This escaped convict destroyed an alchemist with a simple—
Sylvi: [bursts into laughter]
Dre: [laughs]
Sylvi: Oh my god!
Austin: We have them now. We’re all the way around, we have them all. I think we do. Yeah, okay!
Jack: Yeah, we got ourselves a classic Friends at the Table party here of people bound together by shared mistrust.
Austin: Can’t wait to face the world of Sapryc. Which, by the way, the Impulse on Sapryc is to respond—so moons have Impulses the same way that Spheres do, Spheres of classes, and so when you do them, you get the bonuses of doing an Impulse thing. And and in Sapryc it’s “respond to spite with spite.”
Sylvi: Fuck yeah! Setting made for me.
Austin: All right, Band time. Time to talk about being a Band. Band Sentences, Bandmates. While players are deciding which class to play as, you should also discuss the core premise of the story they’re about to tell together. The result of this discussion is the creation of a Band, a group of characters working together towards some common goal, large or small. It’s best to start with a small focused idea. We’ve provided a set of example Bands to choose from at the end of the section, but feel free to create your own. You can flip through the factions list on page XX or the introduction to the world of Realis on page XX to get some ideas. Once the identity of a Band is determined, you’ll need to come up with a single Band Sentence, a special statement of your group’s unique identity and special capacity, especially when unified together in action and purpose. Every Band Sentence begins at +1 and must begin “when we work together, we always…” A Band Sentence can be used once per session and only when every member of the Band agrees that it should be used. All other rules about Sentences, including realization, apply as normal. You may want to wait to write this Sentence until the very end of Session Zero when you have a better idea of how Sentences work in general, but try to get something down as early as you can in a campaign. A Band Sentence is a powerful tool, and like everything else, it can change over time.
So yeah, and then you can change Sentences kind of whenever, as long as everyone agrees, even in between sessions. You can only ever use them once per session, so you can’t use it and then change it and then use it again. But if you’re all in agreement that you can re—that you want to change it, you can totally change it. But everybody has to agree. You all have to agree to change it. So that’s kind of a big deal. And in general… I feel like there’s a weight to what you choose here. Try to make it result what you’re looking at.
When it comes to creating your Band, allow yourself to dream big and follow your most exciting impulses. While Realis is a world driven by conflict and change, those are not concepts uniquely held by any one perspective or genre of story. And so there’s a bunch of examples here. But I’m curious if you all have general ideas, if you’d like to hear more about what strange quest you’re about to be asked to go on, et cetera, before naming that or coming up with what your Band’s Sentence is. Also your Band’s name.
Jack: Yeah is this where we…
Austin: Do you want to zoom in here?
Jack: Do we want to get us into a room? And…
Austin: Yeah. You all arrive at the lighthouse, which is where you’re supposed to meet your contact?
Jack: Yeah.
The Lighthouse [1:11:10]
Austin: All right. There is a, so let me paint a little bit Krater again. Krater is a city just at the edge of a strait that is the only city on the northern continent where the Venerant See has kind of taken over, which is much, much better to live in as a civilian than in the Imperial Empest, weird, you know, Roman fascist bug state to the south. Much, much worse to live down there. Up here, you know, it sucks. You know, the Gnostic Catholics fucking running up here, still not good. But better than being turned into a bug drone who works, you know, the pod fields or whatever the fuck. I mean, maybe not. Maybe that sounds good to you and you should go do that. That sounds all right. Maybe some people did that, in fact. But for the people here, they’re like, we’d rather be here in this overcrowded, sweaty mess of a city.
There’s some other features of the city that I think are interesting. One, like I said, it’s in a big crater, which means that to get into it or out of it, you either have to take these long, slow, winding kind of highways that are—and like highways in the ancient sense, not in the contemporary sense, that are carved into the edge of the crater that go around as a spiral very slowly. You basically have to go around the entire circumference on this one highway that goes around the entire thing. And then the walls of that—the walls of that—the walls of the crater have all these murals that are pre-perspective or non-perspectival art. There is not a sense of linear perspective or depth or distance that’s really well achieved here because they’re ancient murals from forever ago. And it’s of people skipping stones and playing something that looks like bocce ball and maybe a crater hitting the ground. It’s very like stone-throwing based murals. No one knows why they’re there. It’s lost to history. But there’s, you know, people tend to try to keep them up.
The other way you can leave is through these also fairly old mechanical elevators that make these like loud clinks and clanks every you know, hour on the hour. They’re big elevators, but it’s hard to get access to them, especially now that the church runs this town. Primarily used by the church, the church’s military, etc. Everybody else has to use this long, winding highway. Or you have to, like, be in service of the church to get access. And so often people will, like, agree to do tasks for the nearby, you know, the nearby church in order to, like, also go do something that they want to do in another place. You know, it’s like oh yeah, we’ll agree to move all of this hay or whatever out of here, whatever’s coming from off world to a nearby village, because we’re going to that village anyway and that means that it’s easier for us to get up out of here you know uh quicker um so that’s kind of like what the vibe, that’s like the outside of the city.
The place that you are, then, is a lighthouse that is not against the shore. It’s against the edge of one of these walls, and it reaches up. It’s like such a tall lighthouse, it reaches up past the top of this crater, and it is giving signals to—where it is, to theoretically boats that would be riding on the Strait of Cicatrix to its south-southeast. Boats don’t… come near here very often anymore, because of the war that has been running for 140 years. This is not a place where you’re getting much trade. And in fact, most of the time the light is out. The only time the light turns on is during the kind of spiritual holidays, holidays of the church, at which point it is used more as a signal of the church’s grandeur than anything else.
And it is in a small building next to or attached to that lighthouse that your client is here to meet you. Your client’s name is Mirador, M-I-R-A-D-O-R, Cantata. They are, I think, a sort of mysterious figure, kind of small and round. I mean, if you’re eight feet, I think that they’re probably like 4’11". You know? So they’re almost half your size. A little verbose. They talk too much. They fill dead air as much as they can. Seems to be very knowledgeable. They’re able to keep up with both of our more magic-inclined classes here, so both, I guess it’s Flemm and, Flemming and Sacea, in terms of knowledge, to the degree that I think you probably expect that they come from one of the other primary either magic or spiritual, you know, vocations in the world. I don’t know that you know, like, the hard specifics, but—and I think that they’re probably attended to by someone who’s probably a—you know what? I think that they’re attended to by straight up a robot. They’re a robot that has been carved out of some sort of stone material. They have like ball joints. They don’t have a head at all. They have like a body. They have a humanoid body. Where there is a head, where it should be, is missing. And they are in the process of placing some sort of cup, some sort of glass on the table and pouring a sort of milky, cloudy liquid, grey, and maybe it’s a juice, it’s hard to tell, everything’s in black and white here, onto, you know, into the cup in front of them.
I think that Mirador uses he/they pronouns. Let me add that to my side of the sheets. You’ll know that y’all also have a notes section on your, sorry, a moon NPCs and factions section of the sheet. If you scroll down, there’s like an NPC section. Feel free to add names and details and stuff as this goes. I think part of Realis that’s interesting is trying to keep track of other people’s Sentences and things. So, yeah. Mirador—I guess, who gets here first? It sounded like Gaje and Flemming arrived together, but were you the first ones there?
Sylvi: I don’t, I don’t know. Is that, do the other two have any stronger feelings about that? I’m fine to be the first person there but I’m also like.
Dre: Yeah, same.
Sylvi: I don’t…
Jack: Yeah I think I’m gonna show up later.
Austin: Okay. And Sacea, do you arrive with the other two, do you arrive—is it the three of you and then—sorry, I’m still learning character names, these are the first time I’ve heard them. Jud. I almost said Jeb and that’s not right.
Jack: That’s not right!
Austin: That’s not right.
Sylvi: [laughing] Please clap.
Austin: And then Jud will show up later? What’s the vibe?
Janine: I think I show up sort of, not first, but like pretty close after.
Austin: Okay. Then maybe when you arrive, Sacea, the other two have already been served drinks of their choice, whatever that is. What is that? What type of drinks are y’all having?
Dre: Hmm.
Austin: Mirador has offered you—
Austin (as Mirador): Fine wines and the clearest water you’ll ever see.
Dre: Flemm will take the water, because that gives him more chances to be judgmental than a wine would.
Austin: Great. Perfect.
Sylvi: It’s a good peeling.
Jack: It’s a good peeler.
Austin: What is that, Gaje, what are you drinking?
Sylvi: I think I also just want water, but it’s like one of those situations where like—
Austin: Uh, the—you tell me what your situation is, then I’ll bounce off that.
Sylvi: Oh, I was just gonna say it’s like one of those things where when you hand him the drink he basically downs it in one and then holds his cup out for more.
Austin: Yeah, well, that’s the thing is, I think if that happens, and then having poured one glass for Flemming, the robot then just gives you the entire carafe of water to drink from.
Sylvi: Perfect.
Austin: You know? I think.
Sylvi: It looks like a normal water bottle in my hand.
Austin: Right, absolutely. Exactly. So that is what’s happening, Sacea, as you come in, and I think Cantata, Mirador Cantata says,
Austin (as Mirador): Ah, Sacea, welcome, welcome. Take a seat. Take a seat. What would you like to drink?
Janine (as Sacea): Oh. Hmm. Hmm. Just some water.
Austin (as Mirador): Pour another carafe, will you, Ibik?
Austin: And the robot goes to pour another glass.
Austin (as Mirador): [sighs] One more and we can begin. I hope your journeys were all satisfactory. I know it’s busy this time of year here in Krater, so I’m sure you’ve encountered your fair share of shoulders to rub against.
Dre: I have avoided every shoulder I’ve seen up until now.
Austin: Okay. Okay. Well, it takes a certain sort of someone to get through Krater without bumping shoulders, and I think that talent will serve you well on our journey. Yes, Gaje?
Sylvi: I think there’s like a… He… At the like… “I managed to make it through without bumping shoulders or anything.” I think there’s like a look where it’s like… “That’s impressive given how little you look at your surroundings.”
Austin: Fuck. You say that or you just feel that? That’s just the vibe, that’s just—
Sylvi: No, it’s in his eyes. It’s like… There’s been a lot of just sort of annoyed glaring at Flemming when he talks. Were you talking a lot on the walk over?
Dre: Probably not. But a lot of, like, mumbling under his breath.
Janine: Oh, boy.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Perfect. Good.
Jack: I think Jud shows up. You know, as the door opens, you can hear, like, a donkey calling on the other side of the whatever. Just comes in, like, a little—barely bow to Sacea. And then just sort of like leans against the wall at the back of the room not making eye contact.
Austin (as Mirador): Sit, sit. Jud. Take a seat.
Jack (as Jud): Yeah, all right. Yeah, all right, all right.
Austin (as Mirador): And a drink!
Jack: Sits down.
Austin (as Mirador): Ibik, a drink for Jud, for the boy.
Jack (as Jud): No, I’m not thirsty, I’m not thirsty, don’t worry. Don’t put yourself out.
Austin (as Mirador): Don’t put myself out? We’re about to go on a journey. Take the drinks you can get, my boy.
Jack (as Jud): No, I don’t want to—no, I’ll—I don’t want—
Sylvi: I pour him a glass from my carafe.
Austin (as Mirador): Drink it.
Sylvi: I don’t say anything. I don’t even look at Jud. I just do it.
Jack: Under the glare takes like a cautious sip.
Austin (as Mirador): Jud, meet Gaje. Gaje, the strongest, the strongest I’ve ever met. And damn near the tallest, too. Jud and Gaje, meet Sacea, a practitioner of… of many things, not least of which is the wonderful aromas we will be privy to as we go about our travels. And all of you, Flemming, a brilliant thaumaturge, a theorist of the alchemical and magical. What more could we need for a journey here on Sapryc?
[pauses briefly]
Nothing, exactly. And that is why I can tell you all of the members of our band are gathered here. Now, perhaps you’ve done some research. Are there any guesses as to the destination I’ve hired you to escort me to?
[pauses briefly]
Don’t care. That’s, frankly, perfect. Ibik.
Austin: And a light begins to shine from inside of the empty kind of neck area of Ibik. A projection appears on the roof of this structure, being projected from the open neck of Ibik, the automaton, and what you see is a map, or at least a partial map, of the moon of Sapryc. Let me see if it will appear on Roll20 the way I would like it to. Please don’t turn on Fog of War. I would actually like it to be off. Can you see Sapryc?
Jack: Yes. Hell yeah. Look at this.
Sylvi: Oh, fuck yeah.
Austin: So.
Jack: We are looking at a black and white map with grain on it. We got serifed writing.
Dre: Some smudging.
Austin: Uh-huh. There’s all sorts of smudges and such.
Sylvi: This is great.
Austin (as Mirador): We—
Austin: They continue,
Austin (as Mirador): are in Krater. And I have a two-part journey for us. At the break of dawn, we leave north, and, depending on how things develop, we will travel north across the Trunk towards the Cloister of the Hollow Heart. Once there, we’ll achieve conveyance to our second destination. It is a simple journey, and it is one that I think you’ll be well paid for. And I think that that’s all we need.
Jack (as Jud): Where’s the, uh, where are we going second?
Austin (as Mirador): Well, that is a matter of… at this moment, necessary secrecy. But we will achieve conveyance at the Cloister.
Sylvi: Out of character is conveyance the thing that we would know what he means by that?
Austin: Being very vague, right? Could be a vehicle of some sort. Your instinct might be, oh, he has an orphan vessel ready to pick you up there that is safer to use there than here or something. But also—
Jack: Teleportation.
Austin: Right. Teleportation ritual. I don’t—you know. I don’t know. I think for most of you—I think for—it really depends, right? I think for those of you who have traveled the moons before, you have some particular ideas in mind. For those of you who have traveled the moons more, you might actually doubt him more, because why not just say you have a vessel? If he is not saying something, it is because the saying it might be dangerous.
Janine: Hm.
Austin: Or, because he’s hiding something from you and lying.
Dre: Mm.
Using Sentences [1:26:25]
Austin: Right? As always, you could enter into a conflict! That’s how this game works!
Jack: Yeah, I don’t know. I got, like, you know, we got Sentences.
Austin: You got Sentences, you got Means.
Dre: Yeah.
Sylvi: I don’t know if any of mine are gonna come out right now.
Jack: Well… it’s Realis. Sometimes there’s, you can read Sentences.
Sylvi: We’ll see. We’ll see.
Austin: Yeah. You can read a bunch of different ways.
Sylvi: But right now this guy’s paying me.
Austin: That’s correct.
Sylvi: And that’s what, that’s what Gaje cares about. Damn, I just called him Jud. We’re gonna, oh no.
Austin: We’re gonna get there. We’re gonna get there.
Jack: [laughs] Lem and Fero.
Austin: Yeah, Lem and Fero, Phrygian and Figure.
Sylvi: Phryge and Figure, yeah.
Dre: Uh-huh.
Sylvi: Gaje and Jud.
Austin: Yep.
Jack: Uh, yeah, I don’t know. Um. What’s the order of operations here, Austin? Do I describe what I want to do, or do I describe what Sentence?
Austin: Let’s talk through, let’s talk through what it is, because it’s important to get it right. Regardless of how your story starts, what follows should be understood as a loosely-structured conversation focused on exploration, drama, and conflict. Play is driven by the natural flow of descriptions, questions, answers, and clarifications. It’s normal for the conversation to bounce between GM and players, moving around the table to ensure that everyone can participate. Everyone at the table should be attentive in play, not only by ensuring that everyone at the table gets a chance to participate, but by being exuberant in collaboration. Though Realis is driven by a set of rules to help resolve interesting conflicts, much of play will happen through conversation alone. The GM will describe a situation and ask what the characters do in response, and then the group will determine what happens together. Because player characters in Realis are generally capable, when a character is attempting something that is either unopposed or uninteresting, they succeed. There is still plenty of space for interesting embellishment, worldbuilding, and characterization in these moments, so use it. But eventually, the loose conversation will reach a moment where there isn’t obvious agreement on what should happen next. Whenever an Actor, capital A, is opposed, or if the stakes are interesting and the outcome is uncertain, the story has reached a point of conflict, requiring the Actor to choose a Means, usually a Class Sentence, in order to achieve their intent. If there’s ever doubt about whether a situation is uncertain, the table should decide as a group and make a ruling in accordance with the tone goals and Foundation Sentences set during Session Zero.
I don’t think there’s any question about this. This is a conflict. The rules governing conflict will be laid out throughout this chapter, but they’re simple at heart. One, whenever something is uncertain or opposed, an Actor declares a bold and exciting intent and explains how one of their Means will help them achieve it. Two, if there’s a Counteractor, also called a Counter, they declare their own Means, describing how they want to interfere with the Actor. At that point, the ranks of those Means are revealed and compared. So you don’t tell me, I mean, I will know what your ranks are because they’re zero because we’re just starting the game. But when I declare what my Counter is, you won’t know that yet. At that point, in conversation, this will be much smoother. This is not a write it down on a flip on a paper and flip it over. You know what I mean? But there is a degree of, there will be high-stakes ones where you’re not quite sure. So if the Actor’s Means is higher ranked, their intent comes to pass. Describe what happens. If the Counter’s Means is equal or higher ranked, the Counter wins, the Actor does not get their intent, and the Actor’s chosen Means cannot be used for the remainder of the scene. Also, if it’s a Sentence, you mark it. And when you mark it, you start to move it towards progressing and becoming more real and more powerful.
So, what is Jud using? What’s the Sentence that Jud is using here?
Jack: I would like to use the Sentence, “I always protect those traveling with me.”
Austin: Oh, that’s good.
Jack: This is a Struggler Sentence.
Austin: What’s your intent?
Jack: My intent is that I would like… I would like Mirador to be less cagey.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: About not just the means of conveyance but the final destination. I am frustrated by how he has started out. He has done a Friends at the Table three-step plan. He said we’re going to go north to the Cloister of the Hollow Heart and then [mumbles wordlessly].
Austin: Uh-huh. Yeah. I’m just going to read something about why dramatic intent is important, because I feel like it’s good to get on the same page on this. Listeners will have already heard me say this at least once on the other side, but for now. In general, players and GMs who are acting should always declare dramatic intent. By dramatic, we mean that Actors should describe large, situation-changing outcomes. Try to describe your character’s goal in narrative and not simply physical ways. Quote, “I want to humiliate my rival in front of his peers” is a stronger, more dramatic intention than “I want to punch my rival.” The act of punching will still be made clear through the Means chosen and the description given, but by setting stronger narrative intention, everyone at the table will get more invested in the outcome of the conflict. Declaring dramatic intents also has several additional benefits in playing Realis, including greater flexibility in storytelling. For instance, when trying to rescue your comrades from the corrupt Duke’s dungeon, the intent “I want to free the prisoners” offers many interesting ways to interpret both success and failure. In contrast, smaller, more task-oriented intents like “I want to pick the cell’s lock” limit the potential number of outcomes, and it risks making your capable characters seem incompetent. Playing dramatically also helps maintain the broad scale of play that Realis' stories work best with. It’s more exciting to, for example, sneak past the reliquary’s entire holy patrol in one fell swoop than it is to tiptoe past one guard at a time. Realis simply works better when you play in broad, dramatic terms instead of creating a new conflict check for each small moment of uncertainty.
So, great. I have your intent. You’re using that.
Jack: And I think that’s a nice broad intent. Could you—
Austin: I do. I think that’s a totally good intent. And even more broad might be just… Go ahead. What were you going to ask?
Jack: Well, I was going to say, so the more broad thing would be like, “I would like clarity on our destination and conveyance.”
Austin: I think that that’s fine. Yes.
Jack: Yeah. And the less broad would be like, I’m trying to think of an example of what you want us to avoid here. It would be like, get Mirador to be open in this conversation, or…
Austin: I think that would be a different, I think that would be also a good intent. Either one of those, I think, makes sense to go for. It doesn’t matter, because you are being rejected here. Mirador is Countering you with “I always tempt with another truth.” And so instead of answering you with an actual answer, there is something else whispered back. Mirador in a low voice says,
Austin (as Mirador): I simply can’t tell you, or those who will pursue us will hear.
Austin: And at this point, you should—I guess the way that it’s said in the book, and I guess, again, I should just read what Countering is. I’ll just read the last part. If the Counter succeeds, the Actor’s chosen Means is temporarily Countered. Put parentheses around the Means on the sheet and treat it as if it’s been rewritten in the negative and unable to be used for the remainder of the scene. For instance, after the Duelist’s “I always win a one-on-one fight” is Countered, it effectively becomes “I cannot win a one-on-one fight” for the remainder of the scene. The successful Counteractor, whether the GM or player, also must describe the consequences of that outcome, making sure to reconnect the result to the fiction, kicking off the conversation again. And so, another thing worth saying here is like, that’s it. Unless there’s a wildly different way of trying to get Mirador to open up to you more, Mirador is not going to open up here, right? We kind of let it lie as it goes.
There’s a major rule here, which is: Sentences always stand. Allow the result of any conflict to stand unless the circumstances, objectives, or involved characters change in a major way. When a Means is invoked, it changes reality instantly, and that change should be respected. There are many Sentences that will quickly bring a conflict to an end. What has happened might be repaired, but can never be undone. And so it seems unlikely that you’re going to get Mirador on board. Also, you can see already what will happen is he will continue to block you with this, because you are the Actors trying to change the status quo that is his, you know, wanting to hide something here.
Jack: And I mark this Sentence because it failed.
Austin: It failed, yep, mm-hm.
Jack: And because we’re early in the game, I want to be explicit in asking this. This means that Mirador’s Sentence, I always tempt with another truth, is a +1 Sentence.
Austin: No, it means it’s a +0 Sentence. Or it means—
Jack: Because when Sentences are of the same rank, the Counter wins.
Austin: Defense wins. The Counter wins. I shouldn’t say defense. We went through so many versions of this document during which it was called the Defender, but it’s the Counter. The Counteractor’s Sentence wins on ties.
Jack: And Mirador is not marking anything there. They have kind of got their way.
Austin: Yep. And they don’t necessarily say more about who might be pursuing you either, or how they might hear you. I think, again… Those of you who have been to many moons know that this could be, you know, this is a city that is filled with members of the Holy Church. This is a place that it has the Empest across the river. This is a place that was once held by one of the great powers, a different great power. There could be lingering people there. And it’s a place that’s been touched by who knows what other magic. So, I don’t know. I mean… For fuck’s sake, looking at the map, a thing we didn’t say is that there seems to be a huge umbilical cord coming out of the planet on the northeastern shore of the trunk, right?
Jack: Yep.
Austin: That’s just normal. It is what it is.
Jack: Are we going up there?
Austin: I don’t know if you’re going to Allant or not, but there’s a city called Allant, which is designed in the diamond-shaped icon of the Venerant See, and it has a big, it has half of a space elevator constructed that is called the Cathedral Omphalic, that is… They didn’t finish it. Part of the reason why there aren’t—there’s only one spaceport left is because the Empest has destroyed the other spaceports, and they’ve also interfered with completing the space elevator, fundamentally grounding this moon in a way that’s like. Again, most of our action will probably take place on this moon on this campaign, unless you all end up stealing a spaceship in the next hour, in which case I don’t know where we’re going to go. You can get an orphan vessel yourselves. It’s a hard thing to do, but not impossible. Any other questions or conversation? As a reminder, we can kind of zoom out and be more abstract here. We don’t need to be beat for beat at all times in Realis. So if you’re like, oh, I want to—for the rest of the night, we play songs and do drinking games. That’s fine. But. Sylvi in the chat says “there’s some teen on another moon who sees the space elevator through his telescope and talks about Sapryc smoking a joint.” Correct.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Correct.
Sylvi: Venerant See rolls worst joint ever, asked to leave Sapryc.
[quiet laughter]
Sylvi: Is there any way people are leaning? The way—Gaje does not love our employer, but is also like, well, this is how I’m gonna get food.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: So I’m not going to actively be rude to the guy, but I don’t really want to be in his presence until I have to be.
Janine: Yeah, I think there is an indifference from Sacea as well, of just like, you do what you need to do and go where you need to go, and then eventually you don’t have to hang out with people you don’t like anymore.
Austin: Yeah. Damn. Ain’t that the way.
Dre: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Sylvi: There’s a feeling in me where it’s like I need people to stop asking questions because it just makes him talk more.
Austin: Right.
Sylvi: And I’m sick of all this sort of like dancing around everything.
Dre: Mm-hm.
Austin: More than fair. And I don’t think that Mirador is obtuse enough to not notice this. And I think eventually he says,
Austin (as Mirador): I’ve booked boarding for you for the night at an inn on this block. The rooms are nice. There will be breakfast. And I will see you then, if we all continue to agree that this will be a journey we take together. There are miraculous things here on Sapryc. By the end of this journey, you will have seen at least one.
Sylvi: Is he looking for us to declare, yes, I’m in? Or is this just sort of like, if you’re here tomorrow, I’ll assume you’re in?
Austin: I think it’s the latter. I think it’s the latter. I mean, I think that he basically assumes you’re in because most of you came here to take the job, and it’s a pain in the ass to even leave right now. So it’s like, yeah, do you want to be stuck in this stupid city until god knows when, or do you want—you know what I mean? So, I don’t think maybe Jud is in some ways the one person who, you came here without this job in mind, but now you’re also kind of stuck with it, so. I don’t know. But yeah, if you leave and go to the inn down the block, you’ll find that you do have a room paid for already with, you know, everything you might want.
Sylvi: I do think I offer Mirador a handshake before I go just because that’s like how business is.
Austin: Little hand in big hand.
Sylvi: When I accept it.
Austin: Right now.
Sylvi: Also, just, it’s a bit of an intimidation tactic.
Austin: Yeah!
Sylvi: It’s a, Gaje started doing it because it’s like, yeah, you shake people’s hands when they give you a job so they know what will be coming at them if they stiff you on your pay.
Austin: That’s good, that’s very good. Yeah, okay.
Austin (as Mirador): See you tomorrow.
Austin: And does the second hand up on the forearm, do you know what I mean? Any other things before you all go to your inn?
Jack: I think Jud has already slipped out. I think people turn around to go and just go on.
The Inn [1:40:55]
Austin: Yeah. Who wakes up earliest? Assuming everyone goes to the inn. If you don’t, that’s fine, but let me know.
Dre: I’m a very early riser.
Austin: This makes sense. What’s your morning routine?
Jack: Oh, great question!
Austin: Give me the Flemming morning routine TikTok!
Dre: Oh my gosh.
Sylvi: What’s the skin care routine?
Dre: Yeah, get ready with me. Let’s see.
Sylvi: Here’s my life on the moon of Sapryc.
Jack: Just screaming in the background.
Dre: The first thing I do is I read a chapter in whatever book I’m reading. I don’t need—there’s nothing else I could imbibe or eat that could be more stimulating.
Jack: Oh my god.
Austin: Mm-hm. Knowledge is the greatest meal, isn’t it?
Jack: This motherfucker. Not oatmeal?
Austin: I mean, the oatmeal’s downstairs, and it’s less an oatmeal, more of just a gruel, which I guess is an oatmeal, right? Gruel is an oat-like…
Jack: Yeah, gruel is…
Austin: But it’s… When I think of oatmeal…
Dre: Gruel’s oatmeal-adjacent.
Janine: Gruel gets a bad rap.
Austin: Yeah, it does.
Janine: Gruel was good for a while.
Sylvi: [laughs]
Austin: Gruel is—
Sylvi: It’s just the name.
Janine: Yeah!
Austin: It is an optics issue. We should rebrand gruel. We should bring gruel back.
Jack: I got a name pitch.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Breakfast soup.
Dre: Yeah!
Austin: People are gonna think it’s cereal, Jack.
Janine: I found a wonderful article from the Vancouver Sun that says “delicious gruels can be made from almost any cracked or rolled grain.”
Dre: Oh!
Jack: Oh.
Janine: And these Gruels do look delicious.
Austin: See?
Dre: They look good?
Jack: These are some solid gruels.
Austin: Post your gruels, please.
Dre: Whoa, hey.
Austin: These look good!
Janine: Also, I mean, so here’s the thing. Oatmeal in French is gruau, which you might notice sounds a lot like gruel.
Austin: Ohh. Gruel. Yeah.
Dre: Mm.
Jack: Wait, is this kind of grits?
Austin: Grits is a gruel.
Dre: Grits is definitely a gruel.
Janine: Grits is a k—yeah, I think grits is a gruel. Yeah.
Austin: Grits is a gruel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grits is a porridge.
Jack: [laughs] Grits is a gruel.
Austin: And I guess, is a porridge a gruel? A porridge is thicker than a gruel, isn’t it?
Dre: I don’t—I think of gruel as pretty thick.
Janine: So, gruel has a reputation because it was like watered down and stuff in bad situations, but it should just be like a porridge. “Some historic gruels were quite fancy with herbs, fruit, eggs, alcohol, and meat. It’s probably one of the most ancient ways of cooking grains, easily chewable, warm, and comforting.”
Austin: It is warm. I would have oatmeal right this second. I might do oatmeal for dinner.
Jack: Oatmeal is my breakfast of choice.
Austin: Oatmeal’s great, yeah.
Jack: I don’t know that it would be my dinner of choice.
Austin: But sometimes you want to have brinner.
Janine: Oh, you know what else?
Jack: Classic Fourth of July dinner.
Janine: You know what else is gruel?
Austin: What else is gruel?
Janine: Congee.
Austin: Oh, congee is gruel.
Janine: It’s gruel.
Dre: Welcome to our new segment. “What is gruel?”
Austin: [laughs] Is Corn Grass?
Jack: It’s, you know, we got started on Realis quickly, yeah. Discussing different types of gruel.
Janine: I gotta link this article to KB. I just feel like it would speak to them.
Jack: Mm-hm. But it’s—the book that you’re reading is not, in fact, gruel. It’s…
Dre: No. Oh, boy, what am I reading?
Austin: What are you reading? And where are you reading? Are you reading in your room? Are you reading downstairs? Is there a little porch? Not a porch, but a balcony?
Dre: Ugh. Are you—it’s disgusting out there.
Austin: Okay, so no.
Dre: Yeah, I’m reading in my room with the windows closed as tightly as possible.
Austin: Okay. Good to know.
Jack: Okay, I have a proposal for the book that you’re reading.
Dre: Okay. I have an idea, but I do want to hear what you’re going to say.
Jack: I’m typing it in the chat.
Dre: Okay. Wait, the Discord or the Roll20?
Jack: The Roll20.
Dre: Okay.
Jack: It’s called, like, I need a noun.
Janine: Malt.
Jack: Oh, my God. Malt. Oh, yeah, this is a very good wizard book.
Dre: An Unusual Discourse on the Malt. I was going to propose something like a Comprehensive Taxonomy of Olfactory Dangers.
Jack: Oh, you’re researching Sacea!
Dre: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Austin: That’s so funny!
Dre: I don’t know what I smelled, and it’s fucked up.
Sylvi: That’s great.
Austin: That’s so good. And it probably wasn’t even Sacea, because Sacea said it was just this fucking city but you can’t tell for sure.
Dre: No. That’s why I gotta find out, you know, if I’m safe.
Austin: I’m in a real pickle right now. It seems like it’s snowing outside, if that makes things better or worse. You can see the beginning. You can see what look like flurries coming down outside. How do you feel about that?
Dre: Me, specifically?
Austin: Yeah, you’re the one who’s awake.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. It will cover up some of the things I don’t want to look at.
Austin: Oh, perfect. Who’s next awake?
Sylvi: I feel like I wake up pretty early. I think… I don’t think the beds here were the right size anyway, so I think I slept on the floor with the blankets and stuff.
Austin: Right, you’re too big. They definitely… No, uh-uh, uh-uh.
Sylvi: No?
Austin: This is probably, they were.
Sylvi: They were big enough?
Austin: They, no, what they did is they laid multiple beds sideways.
Janine: Oh.
Austin: Like four of them sideways.
Sylvi: Fucking perfect.
Austin: For you. This was especially…
Janine: Literally a bedroom. A room of beds.
Austin: Yes, uh-huh, and it might have to have been the attic, you know what I mean, just to get the amount of floor space you need. But they got good beds for you. This is, you know, Cantata said—
Sylvi: Oh yeah, okay, hell yeah.
Austin: This is the thing, Cantata is a little sleazeball but also is looking out for you in these ways.
Sylvi: I am used to working for worse sleazeballs, so.
Austin: Right, yes.
Sylvi: There is a moment of like, yeah, okay, this is why I’m putting up with this guy.
Jack: The kind of Rick Moranis in Streets of Fire type.
Austin: I don’t think—no, I think this guy is more chill than that character. That guy sucks so bad. I think this is a Danny DeVito type.
Jack: Oh!
Sylvi: Oh! Okay. Okay
Austin: You know what I mean?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: A little slimy, a little greasy, but at the end of the day, you know?
Sylvi: [laughs]
Jack: He knows someone who knows someone who has four beds.
Austin: Right. What if Danny DeVito knew all the names of God?
Jack: [laughs]
Sylvi: Damn. Who’s to say he doesn’t?
Austin: I, you know.
Dre: Who’s to say?
Austin: Daniel DeVito means “daniel of life,” and I think that’s beautiful.
Jack: That’s beautiful.
Austin: Shoutouts to Michael Lutz.
Sylvi: Is there some sort of balcony in the attic room, then? Or no? Because I think I’d want to sit outside and watch the snow.
Austin: There probably isn’t a balcony up there. There are windows, but there’s not a balcony.
Sylvi: I think I’m sitting by an open window, then.
Austin: Then you notice.
Sylvi: I’m eating my gruel.
Austin: You eat in your gruel. They brought up some gruel for you. What’s in your gruel? What’s your extra, what’s your herb or fruit or meat of choice in your gruel?
Sylvi: Oh, I mean, I don’t. Do they offer or would he have to ask? Because if he would have to ask, he wouldn’t say. If they offer, he would say.
Austin: They offer. You have the breakfast deluxe paid for.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: This is self-interested in some ways, right? I want to be clear that Mirador Cantata is making sure you’re all well-fed and that’s partly to get on your good graces, that’s partly because it is good to have, you have a full stomach before a long journey. And who knows when you’re going to eat next.
Sylvi: I think it is some sort of meat, like I think it’s some sort of like protein or something. It’s like, I don’t know. He’s just like, yeah, it’s more filling when there is—
Austin: When there’s some other. Sure.
Sylvi: Something more substantial in there.
Austin: All right. The I don’t think this part requires any sort of conflict. [laughs] It’s not cold enough to snow. It’s humid. It’s hot. And at first, that’s just like the sweatiness. It’s not cold enough.
Sylvi: Ohhh. We’re going to digital world.
Austin: Just to snow. You’re not in a digital world. Not here.
Sylvi: We’re going to the digital world. I’m going to meet Greymon.
Austin: Digimon is here. Yeah, uh-huh. God, if Greymon showed up. Can you imagine if I was like, I tricked you. This whole time, Realis has actually been a Digimon game. No.
Sylvi: I take off my cloak and I’m Leomon. Sorry, go ahead.
Austin: No, that’s—what is your response? It seems like it’s not cold enough to be snowing, but you look out over the city with its like low smokestacks and its chimneys and, you know, all the quarter—sorry, the little squares and quads that are slowly filling with people as the city wakes up. You can hear the sound of a bell tolling from one of the Venerant churches. What is your response then to seeing this stuff falling from the sky that’s not snow?
Sylvi: I’m kind of just amused by it. It’s not even like a full laugh. It’s just like that when you exhale really sharply from your nose while smiling a little. It’s like, oh, there’s some shit going on. Every moon’s got something, right?
Austin: Who’s up next?
Janine: Um, I think, I have this image in my mind of like seeing the not-snow fall and Sacea sort of like looking out the window of her room and having that sort of like exasperated studio Ghibli old woman kind of moment of just like, ah, great. And then sort of turning away from the window and like sitting at a little, like, a tiny little one person table and like eating her breakfast, which like I want to say is like a very small portion of gruel. And then I really, this isn’t really like a thing, but it’s, it’s a thing I want—sI want it to be a thing. I once saw a video where someone made an old turnip cake, not the Chinese kind, but like a medieval European turnip cake. And it was like really awful looking, because it was like a flat round cake with slices of soft big turnip that looked kind of like deli turkey on top. But I just like the idea of like a sort of flat cakey quiche thing with just like a gray, slightly damp cooked turnip chunk, just like a slice just on top. That’s breakfast, baby.
Austin: That’s breakfast.
Jack: Yum.
Austin: And then who’s, who do we have left for waking up? Jud wakes up last?
Jack: Yeah, I think because I have a bed and haven’t been in a bed like this for a while.
Austin: Oh, you sleeping in, yeah. Hey, what’s the thought that Roderick or one of your other many now-cohabitants sneaks into your mind? Because that’s the other half of this.
Jack: Yes, it is the other half of this.
Austin: Part of what’s chasing you is the cult of Internitas, is the other knights of whatever order Roderick was from. Maybe Roderick was actually from the Suzerainty that, like, was aimed to come reclaim land here or something, you know?
Jack: Yeah. I think that.
Austin: But… Go ahead.
Jack: Oh, I think that I picture Roderick as coming from the 58th, which is a Suzerainty world, or at least has enough… Suzerainty. There’s like a high king there, who is actually a low king among, you know.
Austin: Yeah, the Suzerainty is like, there is a Suzerain, who is the head of the Suzerainty, who lives on some moon somewhere, and then underneath them is like, you know, a billion other little nobles bickering and fighting, right. That’s where we can do those types of stories. But you now have Roderick, and whoever else Roderick had eaten, and whoever else Roderick had eaten had eaten, down the line for many generations. In your head, in some ways, and I think that might be part of why you’re always under threat.
Jack: Yep.
Austin: You can also un-Counter “I always protect those traveling with me.” That only lasts until the end of a scene. That scene is clearly over, right?
Jack: I think that the thing that slips unbidden into my mind is the voice of Roderick, and then the voice, almost like the voice has a shadow, has a drop shadow, you know, of someone further back saying, “we are looking for you.” And like, I think they say something that Roderick doesn’t know whether it’s true or not, which is, “we know where you are, and it’s just a matter of time before we get you. The fact that we are seeing out of your eyes tells us exactly where you are.” And it’s hard to know whether this is true or whether the voices of the eaten are bluffing.
Austin: Interesting. Okay. Are you getting breakfast with everybody? Or by yourself? Are you getting breakfast in the main breakfast area where Sacea is, or are you eating alone in your room?
Jack: I like the idea of getting breakfast. The only place, because the place is also filling up in the morning, people train to bed and coming in to get breakfast or whatever, other people who stayed the night, and the only seat is opposite Sacea. So I think it’s like a very sort of like awkward, you know, good morning, sort of rushing through the breakfast to try and be able to like get out of the gaze of the Pomesse and move on to other stuff.
Austin: Can we get a little bit of whatever that conversation looks like as you sit across from the Pomesse?
Janine (as Sacea): Bit of a hurry this morning, huh?
Jack (as Jud): What?
Janine (as Sacea): You seem like you’re in a bit of a hurry this morning.
Jack (as Jud): Oh, just hungry. Just hungry. You, ah… Yeah. Looks like it snows.
Janine (as Sacea): Eat too fast, it’ll come back up on you.
Jack (as Jud): Okay, don’t… Okay.
Jack: I think conversations about eating too quickly are tense for Jud.
Austin: God, yeah.
Jack: Just like a white blush, or, you know, gripping his little spoon.
Austin: I have a question, because a thing in the book says that the GM always has to clearly declare intent also. Let me, in fact, read that section. The rules governing conflict apply to both the PCs and GM. That means that whenever someone or something acts in a way that the PCs might oppose, the GM must announce it, declaring intent and means, and allowing the PCs to potentially Counter it. If, for instance, an NPC was attempting to infiltrate a camp of PCs' band of mercenaries by using a disguise, the GM should say something like, “You get the sense that something is off in camp today. Can any of you Counter the Sentence, ‘I always wear the right outfit?’” And a moment like that is happening right now. The GM does, I’ll add also, the GM does not need to declare the rank of their means unless someone tries to Counter it, but they are always required to verbalize the Sentence in question and to play openly and honestly.
And so, in this moment, the thing being… The thing that needs to be Countered and the way that this is happening, I guess, there is a sneak attack coming. The intent is that this city is about to be—I guess actually the intent is that you will all die in a sneak attack. That is what the intent is. And so you’ll need something to Counter that. Whether or not the outcome still includes an attack is separate, right? Sitting in this room, fictionally, you cannot stop a sneak attack from coming. But one of you might be able to Counter in such a way that lets you live, right? Because it lets you get moving or whatever. So can any of you Counter the Sentence, “I always surprise my enemies”?
Sylvi: I don’t know how direct a Counter “I always kill my foe is,” but…
Austin: I think it would be hard because you don’t know who the foe is, right?
Sylvi: Exactly. That’s why I was like, mm.
Dre: I could Counter with “I always know a few showy tricks.”
Austin: Mm. Yes.
Dre: I’ve casted like a watchdog spell or something on the building.
Austin: That’s very fun. Yes. Okay. What did that look like? Did you do this last night?
Dre: Yes.
Austin: Okay. What’s the actual casting of it, what’s your type of magic like?
Dre: Oh, this particular spell, I did it after everyone else went to bed because I didn’t want anyone else to see this. I don’t know who I can trust in this group.
Austin: Sure.
Dre: I did an equation on the front door of the building.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: In chalk.
Austin: So you’re like a real—yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I got you, that’s the type of mage you are. That’s one of the ways you do magic, is chalk diagrams of math. Great, perfect. One of my touchstones for this game is also the unappreciated anime Reign the Conqueror about Alexander the Great. And one of the major antagonistic forces, I mean, I guess they’re antagonists, are the Pythagoreans, the cult of Pythagoras.
Dre: Oh, fuck. They’re going to get you with that triangle shit.
Austin: They’re going to get you with that triangle shit. They’re gonna. It’s very fun. Anyway, then it takes a bit for it to go off because I think that it—the—so it’s like a watchdog spell, right? It’s going to tell you when something is wrong, right?
Dre: Yes.
Austin: It tells you that the roof is about to be on fire. Because the thing that is falling is not snow. It is some sort of oil that has been turned into a snow.
Sylvi: Oh, that fucking rules.
Austin: That is covering the entire city of Krater. What do you do?
Dre: Great.
Austin: And then the Sentence was, “I always surprise my enemies.” And that is from Zhalika, Queen-Commander of the Empest on Sapryc.
Dre: Oh, that’s an impressive name.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Dre: So where is everyone else right now?
Sylvi: I’m close to the attic. I’m in the attic, I guess. But. So I’m about to be on fire.
Dre: Okay. And then the other two of you all are downstairs, like in the dining area?
Janine: Yeah.
Dre: I think, then, I head upstairs quickly and I rap very shartly—shartly. Very sharply, sharply, on your door, Gaje. And I say,
Dre (as Flemming): Good morning. I hope you are awake. The building is about to be on fire. We should leave.
Dre: And then I walk downstairs to tell the other two.
Sylvi: I think I almost hit you with the door.
Austin: [laughs]
Sylvi: [laughing] When I’m leaving.
Dre (as Flemming): I see that you are good to go. That is an excellent, an excellent habit to keep.
Austin: [laughs] Now is the time to give.
Sylvi: Rule one, always be ready to leave.
Austin: Damn, true. And you head downstairs, presumably.
Dre: Sure. Yes. Hurriedly, but I, you know, I’m not in a rush.
Austin: Right, right. Uh. You’re not in a rush?! Why are you not in a rush?
Dre: Well, I don’t look like I’m in a rush.
Austin: Oh my fucking god.
Dre: I’m in control of the situation, I know what’s gonna happen.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: I know I need to hurry, but I’m not panicked.
Austin: Right, I see, of course, you’re safe in knowledge. Knowledge can protect you from any danger.
Jack: The more… Yeah, the more relaxed…
Janine: You don’t need to rush. You just need to move shartly. It’s fine.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Jesus Christ.
Dre: Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah! And then I think very similarly I just kind of like lean over in between the two of you all as you’re sitting at the table and say,
Dre (as Flemming): Good morning, the building is about to be on fire. I suggest we should leave.
[“Sapryc” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
________________
[1] Aleksei German.
[2] Into the Odd.