Friends At The Table

This episode contains content warnings for teeth, implied harm to animals, and alcohol.  With a loud cry, the truth began to spread through Blackwick County. The mysterious egg sac once nestled into the recovered nest structure had been stolen and its guards coldcocked. Now, the Blackwick Group must trace it down, confront whoever’s taken it, and bring it back… before a curse falls on Blackwick yet again. This week on Sangfielle: The Candle Factory Pt. 1 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Peoples Caprak (cap-ROK): The goat folks of the northlands, where they put up with dust, ash, snow, and the unilateral “justice” of the Pale Magistratum. Carpana (car - pahn - a): They’re little folks, three to four feet tall or so. A little like capybara, I suppose.  Devils: Once, they were contained by (and made to administer) some vast network of hells. But they fought their way out, took over Aldomina, and nurtured a fledgling empire into an expansive one. Drakkan (drah-KAHN):  I’ve always thought we look like seahorses.

This episode carries content warnings for skin blisters and boils, hallucinations, and scrimshaw done in teeth. There is a sense of verve in the air by the time the suns rise on Blackwick, today. Visitors arrive from every entry: A magnificent shape train at the station. A caravan and its bazaar. The grand opening of a new trade hall. A line of nuns, faces blooming bright and colorful. Yes, oh yes. It is Market Day in Blackwick. This week on Sangfielle: Market Day in Blackwick The Almanac of the Heartland Rider This issue of the Heartland Rider is brought to you by The Open Hand Trade Hall and its Chief Patron, Dayward yon Vantzon-Estonbergh, who would like you to know that he says"Remember: I might be from Aldomina, but the Open Hand is -A Blackwick 'Original'-" Organizations The Boundless Conclave: Less of an individual church, more of an association between hundreds of independent faiths. Small sects, nearly forgotten cults, and unjealous gods make up this vast pantheon.  The Caravan of the Coin:  Cursed b

This episode carries content warnings for insect infestation, brief descriptions of bones, decorative bone carving, and disembodiment. Safe in the company of the Didacts of Genburi, Lye Lychen, Duvall, and Es have a moment to rest and consider their options. Between this studious temple and the safety of Blackwick is the realm of Aterika’Kaal, twisted demi-god. And even beyond its reach, there is Roseroot Hall, where its blood thirsty remains sit in the manor's hidden heart, bound by unholy contract to Dayward YVE. If that was not enough, there is, also, the matter of the relic skull, ripped from the creature's roots. Much to consider, they think. Much to consider. This week on Sangfielle: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 4 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Places Roseroot Hall: Now in the northern hills of Blackwick County, Roseroot Hall once stood mighty and imperious as a plantation house in the eastern half of the Heartland. Though the yon Vantzon-Estonbergh held it once, it fell into disrepair som

This episode carries content warnings for insect infestation, brief descriptions of eye trauma, general body horror, and blood.  Roseroot Hall revolts. All the dye and resin and wool have come undone, dripping down the walls, unfurling across the floor. And unfortunately for the Blackwick Group, they have no intention of staying there. If Es, Duval, and Lye Lychen are going to solve the mystery of this abode, they must first ensure that they, themselves, do not come undone. This week on Sangfielle: The Secret of Roseroot Hall Pt. 3 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Places Roseroot Hall: Now in the northern hills of Blackwick County, Roseroot Hall once stood mighty and imperious as a plantation house in the eastern half of the Heartland. Though the yon Vantzon-Estonbergh held it once, it fell into disrepair sometime after the panic. Details have been lost to time. Facts and Figures Aterika’Kaal aka “Roseroot” aka “Rose Shade”: An ambivalent and ancient spirit. Offers the sweet smell and sublime beauty of rose

This episode carries content warnings for description of haunting, disorientation, dissociation, insect infestation of a human body, and discussion of slavery, sacrifice, and mass death. Having arrived at Roseroot Hall, the Blackwick Group’s investigation into the manor’s supposed haunting may finally begin. The methodology is familiar: One must walk the grounds, take in the passive energies of its passageways, attend to first hand accounts, pore over the home’s books, share tea and supper with its distressed master. Here, and rarely in the place that one might guess, is the answer. This week on Sangfielle: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 2 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Places Roseroot Hall: Now in the northern hills of Blackwick County, Roseroot Hall once stood mighty and imperious as a plantation house in the eastern half of the Heartland. Though the yon Vantzon-Estonbergh held it once, it fell into disrepair sometime after the panic. Details have been lost to time. Facts and Figures Dayward yon

This episode carries content warnings for discussion of bombings, insect infestation of a human body, gun use, viscera, and threatening with a knife. For the past few months, the Blackwick County council has kept Dayward yon Vantzon-Estonbergh at arm’s reach, close enough that his Aldominan wealth can filter into town, but not so close that he could risk overturning the order of things. Now, he’s called in a favor, and eager to keep things even, the council has turned to the Blackwick Group to meet his needs.  The problem is less “simple” than “timeless”: His home is not acting the way it should. Moonlight fails to pierce the windows. The halls twist and lead him to strange places. The very decor shifts behind him. This is, it seems, a haunted house. So who better than the Blackwick Group to attend his needs? Before they can, however, they must cross the distance (which Mr. YVE has decided to place between himself and the town), and climb the hills north. They ought only hope they aren’t the only travelers in

This episode carries content warnings for implied execution, description of bound people, knives, fingernails, poison/chemical weapons, hallucination caused by substance, dissociation, and descriptions of boils/infected flesh. It was a simple task: Head down into the hidden basement of the Abbey’s ruins and find out what happened to neighborhood youth Janek Polyte. But instead of a dank cellar, half of the Blackwick group found their way into a living hymn, simmering under eternal noon-suns, where ashen nuns worship a goddess they once betrayed even as they tried to save her. Inside, Polyte and a Pale Magistrate who pursued him with the same vigor as the Blackwick Group (if much more virulence).  Now: A deal is struck and a simple task comes to a close. But not before the rain falls, begging someone to fall with it. This week on Sangfielle: The Hymn of the Mother-Beast Pt. 4 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Places The Priory of the Mother-Beast: In the streets of Concentus, some food sellers use specially t

This episode carries content warnings for gun use, implied execution, knives, and amputation. As the Blackwick Group approaches the Priory of the Mother-Beast, a shot rings out, but it serves as question mark rather than exclamation. What is this place? Why does it seem stuck in time? Where is Janek Polyte, the young Drakkan they’ve been sent to retrieve? And how did a Pale Magistrate get caught up in all of this? Inside there are answers… but is the group more interested in finding those, or in pursuing their own interests? This week on Sangfielle: The Hymn of the Mother-beast Pt. 3 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Places The Priory of the Mother-Beast: In the streets of Concentus, some food sellers use specially treated props to advetise their goods. The color of fruit is brighter; the loaves of bread retain softness and texture indefinitely; meat glistens. Yet by extending their beauty through time, they trade their very nature as victuals, becoming injurious copies instead. Such is the Priory. Do not co

This episode carries content warnings for a corpse, an animal feeding on flesh, claustrophobia, broken bones, death from immobility and implied starvation, fingernails, a body in a sack, animal sacrifice,  burning, a severed limb, animal slaughter, dissociation, and mental confusion. Having found their way through the chapel beneath Blackwick’s ruined abbey, the Blackwick Group continue their search for Janek Polyte and the mysterious magistrate who seems to be with him. From the bottom of a pit of salt, the group must find a way up a cliff face and back onto their prey’s tail—all while making sense of the strange new place they’ve found themselves in. In the distance, a bell rings, and a ritual begins. This week on Sangfielle: The Hymn of the Mother-Beast Pt. 2 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Places Blackwick County: From the mines to the lake, the hills to the flats, the town once called Eastern Folly has felt a little more expansive now that it’s out of the hard grip of the old curse. It’s people aren’t

This episode carries content warnings for discussion of cigarettes, rotting flesh, animal corpse, aggressive animal, knives, gun use. One year after the people of Blackwick County (then Eastern Folly) broke a curse that had plagued the town for generations, a group of strange and determined professionals arrived. Explorers, investigators, wardens of nature and culture and everything in between. They’d come to answer the call for folks just like them, people who could ensure the town wouldn’t fall under the sway of any other supernatural threat.  And just a few days after they arrived, they got their first job. Janek Polyte, one of the town youths who wandered down underneath the Abbey a year ago and found the egg sac (which now rests nestled and pulsating near the mine’s entry), has gone missing. And witnesses place him at the Abbey’s underground entrance before he vanished.  And so, the Blackwick Group heads off to their first job. Explore the under-ruins of the Abbey, locate the missing Drakkan kid, and fig

This episode carries content warnings for discussion of knives, possession, insect infestation of a living person, death, animal slaughter, being buried alive, and drowning. It has been one year since the folks of Eastern Folly put an end to a generations-long curse, and a few months fewer since a vote brought a new name to the town and its environs: Blackwick County.  The name was a compromise, evoking not only the darkening embers of the Triadic Pyre’s ashen dogma, but also the warmth and comfort of night at home coming to its end with a little prayer to Slumbous.   Name ain’t the only changed in that town, though. As the days went on, and the understanding that the curse had been broken was felt more firmly, it seemed as both miners and townsfolk let themselves dream of further futures than they had before. Some folks settled down to start families, others sent word for friends and relatives to move to this newly prosperous burg. New business sprung up, and not all of them made it through the year, sure, b

This episode carries content warnings for human death, teeth, knives, possession, human branding One day of strange occurrences is, in some ways, a blessing. Good dinner time conversation. The stuff of campfire stories. Two ill-fated days? That’s a warning and a courtesy. The troubled cough that precedes illness. An opportunity for you to prepare for worse. But three cursed days in a row? That’s where you really have to worry, because it ain’t just one thing. Three cursed days in a row is as often the end to a little township as it is the sign of a great dynasty’s rise. With one or two, you’ve got a hex, maybe some begrudged witch or local spirit who wasn’t paid its due. With three, you’ve got a blank page. And from writer to reader, let me tell you: Ain’t nothing scarier than that. This week on Sangfielle: The Cursed of Eastern Folly Pt. 3 The Almanac of the Heartland Rider Peoples The Tooth Trolls: Every year, right around harvest time, the trolls climb up out from the lake and do their gardening by the sho

This episode carries content warnings for human death, discussion of cannibalism, the death of animals, knives, and knifework. The suns rise on Eastern Folly as another day begins. High in the trees, the fruit grows ever so slightly riper. And as the fruit grows larger and warmer in color, so too do the spirits of the people of the town. Miners haul back their finds with a grin, eager to flip this ironing board or that collection of ancient coins to whichever consignment shop or heartland broker makes the best deal. Main street shopkeeps give their customers an extra 5% off—a friends and family discount, they say, and ain’t we all friends and family here? Fishers wave to their families as their boats come in, blessed by afternoon light.  Except the light… the light is touched so, today. A shade of green, not yet sickly but pale and concerning.  And under the abbey, it moves. This week on Sangfielle: The Curse of Eastern Folly Pt. 2 The Alamanac of the Heartland Rider Peoples Caprak (cap-ROK): The goat folks o

This episode carries content warnings for discussion of death and an allusion to drowning.  Welcome to Sangfielle. This episode marks not only the beginning of a new season for us, but a whole new world. For the last six years, our main series campaigns have mostly taken part in one of two worlds, even though they sometimes have huge time jumps and setting resets in them. So, if you're just jumping on, this is a pretty good place to do it. You'll be along for the ride with everyone else, with no old continuity to worry about. New characters, new places, new world. So, what is this world? What is Sangfielle? Well, the big picture is what I say in this episode's intro: Once, this was the agriculutural heartland of a vast empire which had slowly conquered this continent. Then, about 200 years ago, things started changing, and what was already a somewhat magical world became cursed and increasingly detatched from "reality." Now it's a sort of re-frontier, with touches of dark fantasy, a bit of gothic and cosmic h

People will tell you that the heartland got sick about 200 years ago. When the dust came, reality left, and the panic set in. But trust me, it was ailing long before that.  Don’t get me wrong, you could understand why someone would die for it in the old days. Greens and golds, bread and honey. But around the time that those well dressed devils of Aldomina swept in, five, six hundred years ago, that's when things started to turn. They wanted to fence it in. Rows of corn and cane, columns of people. Nations reduced to gardens. Is it any wonder the ground itself started to ache? No one noticed until about 200 years ago, of course. See, the truth of the heartland—the truth of the world—is that it cannot be fenced in. So, the storms came, and they brought a deep sickness to the plains and valleys. Soil turned barren, animals twisted in form and character, unkind spirits swept through the fields, farmhouses, and burgs. Reality, unhinged, drew its own course. Unpredictable, though never dishonest. And as if in respo

Hey everyone! Join Austin Walker, Ali Acampora, Keith J. Carberry, Sylvia Clare, Jack de Quidt, Janine Hawkins, Art Martinez-Tebbel, and Andrew Lee Swan as we say farewell to PARTIZAN and answer audience questions! Thank you so much for listening and for your support throughout the season! We will be taking a break for the next couple of weeks as we continue to develop the next season. Any updates will appear in this feed, so keep an eye or an ear out! A transcription is available for this episode here.A full list of completed transcriptions is available here. Our transcriptions are provided by a fan-organized paid transcription project. If you'd like to join, you can get more information at https://twitter.com/transcript_fatt. Thank you to all of our transcribers!!  

“Why do we travel the Prophet’s Path? This is a question raised yearly at this time, as we prepare for our Pilgrimage. Today, a year before the Millennial Celebration, which risks overshadowing the true answer with the spectacle of anniversary, I want to give as direct and clear an answer as I can imagine. When we trace the path that Logos Kantel traveled when they first came to this moon, we retell the story of their arrival, of their miracle working, and of their devotion to progression—the determination to move beyond the draw of conquest. Now, you might say, ‘Gur Sevraq, don’t we retell the stories of the prophet during nearly every service?’ And we do, we do. But a story is not a simple thing. A story can change. It will shape itself around the way we tell it, or when we do. The room a story is told in seeps into the facts of the matter. The voice of the speaker, like the line of an artist, gives form to ambiguity. And, worse, there is no pure retelling. No single great orator who might be able to captur

With Kalar and the Figure in Bismuth rescued from the Pact and their apparently game-changing intelligence delivered—albeit cut in two and sent to different people—Millennium Break is ready to confront operation Shackled Sun directly.  As such, the Company of the Spade and the Blue Channel lead an a 1-in-1000 attack against the secret Portcullis gate deep within the heart of Girandole. Can the group make it through the chemical clouds of the gas giant, board the enemy station, and stop the Pact’s plan in its track? And more importantly: Win or lose, how will the world see them as they do it? This week on PARTIZAN: The Gate ///Operation Dossier\\\ //Organizations\\ The Curtain of Divinity: Though Kesh is technically governed through an elaborate parliamentary democracy, the truth is that The Curtain of Divinity, a secretive organization inside of the Stel (and with agents across all of the Principality), serves as the actual power behind the throne. Knowledge of the Curtain is carefully guarded, and its member

It is the year 1424 of the Perfect Millennium. It is now.  In the chaos-depths of Girandole, the Pact of Necessary Venture is shackling a god to an engine, an engine that would become a star, a star that would consume Partizan. A small sacrifice, they believe: necessary venture. Because what it will earn is clear: A new era for the galaxy, in which they would be the principled hegemons.  But across the system, those few who know the danger of this plot rally to stop them. A few hundred thousand miles away, on the moon of Partizan, members of MIllennium Break ready their attack force, which will be brought up en masse into orbit by the Reflecting Pool, flagship of their dubious ally, the Witch in Glass. Meanwhile: Rushing from the now-repaired Partizan Portcullis: A Curtain Armada, eager to rendezvous with Mourningbride and finally leash this star system gone feral.  But this climactic clash will not be won with arms alone. Throughout the Principality--war is fought not only on the battlefield, but also across

Hello everybody! Instead of an episode, we have an announcement: there's no episode this week or next week! The next Friends at the Table episode will be January 7th, 2021. Our next episode will the first of a three-part finale of PARTIZAN! We'll be playing War in the Year 1424 of the Perfect Millennium, or 1424PM, a hack of War in the Year 3000 by Ben Auden Roswell, with additional inspiration from Follow by Ben Robbins and Fiasco by Jason Morningstar. Look forward to it! Following our PARTIZAN finale, we'll be doing a post mortem! The date is still to be determined but keep an ear out and get ready to send your questions in! If you're itching for things to listen to while we're on break, you can check out all our bonus content on friendsatthetable.cash! ALSOOOO, Austin and Ali are joined by Rob Zacny and Natalie Watson in a brand new Star Wars podcast if that interests you at all!! You can find A More Civilized Age over at @more_civilized on twitter or at amorecivilizedage.net Happy New Year!!!!