Reality Fracture will cap off a 3-year (12 set) story which is split into three sub-arcs:

Reality Fracture Arcs

The Omenpath Arc

• [WOE] Wilds of Eldraine
• [LCI] Lost Caverns of Ixalan
• [MKM] Murders at Karlov Manor
• [OTJ] Outlaws of Thunder Junction

The Dragonstorm Arc

• [BLB] Bloomburrow
• [DSK] Duskmourn: House of Horror
• [DFT] Aetherdrift
• [TDM] Tarkir: Dragonstorm

The Echoverse Arc

• [EOE] Edge of Eternities
• [ECL] Lorwyn Eclipsed
• [SOS] Secrets of Strixhaven
• [FRA] Reality Fracture

What to read?

If you want to fully catch up, read the main stories for all 12 of the sets. All of them can be found in the story archive on the mothership —it’s sorted by year, Wilds of Eldraine starts in 2023. The earlier sets in each arc (e.g Wilds of Eldraine, Bloomburrow, Edge of Eternities) tend to be more disconnected from the larger arc, whereas the final sets in each arc (Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Tarkir: Dragonstorm) tend to focus more on progressing the overarching story.

You can read the side stories also, but they tend to not have overarching story relevance. They’re often fantastic bits of worldbuilding though! There’s one exception, which I mention below: the Zimone side story for SOS, The Math of More, seeds some important ideas for Reality Fracture.

You should also read the stories I mention below under Background Information, they are large moments in Jace and Vraska’s character development and will greatly enhance your appreciation of Reality Fracture.

If you prefer audiobooks, all of the main story episodes have voiced narration linked in each of the story episode articles. They were historically done by in-house Wizards employees, but starting with EOE they’ve been hiring professional voice actors/narrators to do the audio.

The Essentials

If you want to minimize the amount you need to read, I believe the following are mandatory for understanding what’s going on:

• Outlaws of Thunder Junction Epilogue: Part 1 and Part 2
• Aetherdrift: Episode 6
• Tarkir Dragonstorm: Episode 6
• Secrets of Strixhaven: Episode 6
• Secrets of Strixhaven Side Story: The Math of More

Obviously, jumping into Episode 6 for DFT/TDM/SOS will be a bit jarring, but you can probably figure out much of it from context. This isn’t my recommendation, but I believe these are the bare minimum stories you should read before diving into episode 1 of Reality Fracture

Personally, I’d recommend reading the stories for OTJ, DFT, TDM, and SOS in full, but the above linked episodes are the crucial ones. ECL’s main story is intended to lead directly into SOS, so while it’s not strictly plot-relevant, it is worth reading if you’d like a fuller characterization of SOS’s protagonists.

Side stories aren’t usually connected to the overarching plotline, but The Math of More sets up a lot of concepts and themes that Reality Fracture builds on, so I do recommend reading it.

EOE’s story is very disconnected and is pretty skippable, though it does play in some space that becomes relevant for Reality Fracture. If you really just want to dive into FRA, then go ahead and skip EOE, but Seth Dickinson did such an incredible job writing the story for the set that I’d recommend reading it regardless

Background Reading

For important Jace background, you should ideally also read Absent Minds from Origins and the Ixalan arc starting with Jace, Alone. I would also recommend the MOM side story Ravnica: One and the Same for Vraska/Jace context, and as a bit of a prologue to the OTJ epilogue.

There’s plenty more Jace and Vraska backstory to explore, and part of what makes Reality Fracture’s story so excellent is how Lührs pulls on decades of Jace stories to craft it. The deeper you get into the man Jace Beleren is, the more you’ll be rewarded. But Absent Minds and the Ixalan arc are definitely the most important and prominent, imo.

There is one additional side story you should consider reading, but it is a little bit of a spoiler in and of itself.

The SparkNotes

Alternatively, the quickest way of getting into things would be listening to The Vorthos Cast’s Jummary, which is basically a crash course. If you go this route, I do still recommend reading OTJ Epilogue in its entirety though. It’ll do a lot for some of the impactful moments in Reality Fracture

Anyways, I browsed the various Jekyll plugins for galleries for awhile, but several were old and none really did exactly what I wanted. Also there’s a billion—I guess everyone ends up in the same spot as me and codes their own. Well I’m lazy and didn’t want to code my own fancy plugin, but I came across this blog post for an implementation of an image gallery without using plugins. The functionality is limited, and doesn’t do many of the nicer things I would like (like tagging/filtering) but it does work and it’s simple enough that I can comfortably tweak it and probably fix it if it ever somehow breaks.

And behold: galleries! (fair warning: the one labeled NSFW is)

It is in no way perfect, but it gets the job done and gives me a link I can share to show off art of my sona, and has the bonus benefit of being a set of hosted reference images so I don’t have to link a gdrive link either when sharing photos with artists. The biggest issue is that I have to order things manually via file name for now, which is going to make reordering things a bitch. I’ll fix it later. Or I won’t!

Then recently, I came across SBG Jackets, a series of cardstock insert templates designed to fit inside 4x6 photo boxes, and decided to give em a shot. Picked up a case of photo boxes and abused my work FedEx discount to print off a bunch, aaaand

My favorite hoodie, from Animal Art Crimes, has been wearing out at the elbows for awhile now (and in a bunch of other places, but the elbows are the biggest issue that made it less comfy and useful to wear.) I told myself in… like, October, ahead of winter, that I was gonna patch it up to wear.

It’s May now. oops.

A fairly large part of the procrastination was just because Joann’s closed and I had no idea where to get fabric. And then I just procrastinated more, and then winter was over. Anyways, I ended up at Michael’s for fabric. Their selection is pretty bad to be honest—originally I was thinking of going for a nice black and yellow/gold flannel to match the artwork and bleached fabric, but they only had black and red flannels. I decided against leather or suede since I wanted it to be machine washable still, so from the slim pickings I ended up with a plain black duck canvas that should contrast well against the gray sleeves. Plus, the durability of the canvas should be nice on the elbows.

I drew a rectangle big enough to cover the patch but still leave about an inch of margin on the sides, and then used a cup to trace curves onto it for a rounded rectangle. Since the canvas frayed at the edges, I had to actually do things properly and sew two pieces together then turn them to have a nice finished edge. Forgot about seam allowance when making my pattern though, so they ended up a bit smaller than planned. I stitched the pieces together by hand since I didn’t trust myself doing curves on a machine. Also I apparently don’t own an iron, so closing it up with a ladder stitch sucked ass.

You can definitely see the portion that was closed up with the ladder stitch vs the portions that are backstitched and turned out lol. But overall, I’m reasonably happy with how they turned out, considering how rusty I am too.

Anyways, for affixing the patches I also picked up a denim thread in tan/gold from Michael’s for a nice contrasting color on the patch. Honestly, I grabbed the only gold option available (they only had like a half dozen denim threads on the shelf in the first place) but that color turned out to match perfectly. Did a blanket stitch to affix the patches and show off the thread color, and while it’s a bit messy there’s a charm to the slightly wonky mending, I think.

At least, that’s what I’ll be telling myself anyways.

We used the same play area as previous runs: the square formed by the original DC boundaries, encompassing all of DC as well as the portion that was retroceded to Virginia (Arlington and a portion of Alexandria), minus Pentagon station. This sizing put us at a ‘small’ game size with Metrorail stations as our transit stations and hiding zones. Hiding time was extended to 40 minutes with a reset to Metro Center between hiding rounds.

We also used the same seeker question reference I made for our second run, and the same set of preset POIs populated in the Google MyMaps map as well. Both worked well on the previous run, and I saw no reason to change things.

This time we had 6 people show up, so a clean 3v3 game. We started at Metro Center with a 40 minute hiding time, and decided to reset to Metro Center between hiding rounds as well.

Round 1: Seeking

My team won the flip and chose to seek first. I think it’s nice to get the “hard work” out of the way first, especially while it’s earlier in the day. Seeking as it gets dark, as I found out last time, sucks. The downside is that if you hide first, you can often get a nice lunch in while you do so. After giving folks some time to discuss strategy, the hiders set off at 10:37 and, 40 minutes later at 11:43 we fire off what has become our classic starting question—Matching - Landmass, which returns a yes. They are somewhere in DC, between the Potomac and Anacostia.

While we were waiting, we talked through or decision tree, so with the answer in hand we walk over to Gallery Pl-Chinatown to get on the Green line and at 11:43 kick off a 1/2 mile Thermometer starting at Mt Vernon and ending at Shaw-Howard. This gives us a clean north/south bisect and separates most of the downtown/denser stations from the further north ones.

From here, the big challenge is disambiguating the eastern and western branches of the Red line. A thermometer is often a good option, but of course we just used our 1/2 mile one, and a 3 mile east-west thermometer is really hard to pull off. We figure that we can run a custom radar from one of the eastern Red line stations to separate them, and start heading to Fort Totten via Green line. While we do so, we fire off a Photo - Tallest Building in Sightline at 11:51 to mull over. That gets us the following at 12:01:

The angle makes it seem like this isn’t a super tall building, plus it’s brickwork, so we think the downtown stations—Dupont, Mt Vernon, NoMa—are unlikely, though can’t be ruled out entirely. That still leaves all the Red and Green line stations, so no change of plans.

It also gets us a lovely curse

This is annoying, but for three questions in not too bad, just a time-waster. We arrive at Fort Totten and I pick up some random brochure from the station attendant stall on our way out. Turns out there’s a library literally across the street from the station exit, so we head in and borrow a pair of scissors from the lovely attendant and a newspaper from the rack, and find a quiet corner to work. So much nicer than having to tear out the letters by hand from a greeting card, that suuuuucked.

Most of the work was figuring out exactly what question we wanted to ask. In the end, we didn’t need to burn our custom radar just yet and a 3 mile radar would cover all the eastern Red line stations and exclude the western half. It wasn’t perfect—we clip portions corner of NoMa, Shaw-Howard, and U Street instead of completed including or excluding them—but the split stations were ones we felt were unlikely anyways

We fire off the question at 12:44 and get a “yes” back at 12:49. Nominally the worst option, but it does mean we don’t have to run all the way back to the east and can stay in the library while we plan how to bisect our remaining stations

I think we misplay here and get a little too cute. We really want to eliminate the downtown stations to ensure no backtracking, and also need to figure out if they’re on the Green or Red stations. In hindsight, we should have just used a transit line matching question (which we do do later) to disambiguate the two, but instead I spend like 5 minutes playing around to find a custom radar to thread the gap between Columbia Heights and U Street. 2.5 miles with a bit of careful positioning does the trick, and we ask at 13:07 and receive a “yes” at 13:12

From here we start traveling south on the Green and ask a Matching - Transit Line at 13:13. Based on architecture we think Green is more likely than Red (hence matching Green) and having been at Fort Totten we think that it’s unlikely they’re there. That leaves only Petworth and Columbia Heights, and we decide to hedge and get off at Petworth while we wait for an answer. The reply comes at 13:18 and confirms that they are in fact on the Green line, so we immediately follow up with a Photo - Building Outside Station Entrance question. Either they’re at Petworth and can’t answer, or they’re at Columbia and we can start heading over immediately after getting the answer and hopefully catch them out, or they’re at Fort Totten which we should be able to recognize immediately.

They veto this question, which we figure means most likely Petworth but possibly Columbia still, so we hit them with a Photo - Widest Street at 13:33 to check. This, as expected, gets a “can’t answer” back and so commences the endgame. We follow up with a Photo - Selfie question at 13:55. It’s between this, Sky, and Tree and Selfie tends to give the most information regardless if they’re indoors or outdoors.

Unfortunately for us, the selfie indicates that they’re outdoors, and just standing in front of a bush of some sort. We can see some glass in the background and some stone in the foreground, so it seems likely they’re just hanging out in front of a rowhouse. And… there are a lot of fucking rowhouses in this hiding zone. We need to narrow it down more, so we walk out to the southeastern edge of the zone and run out a 1/4 mile Radar at 14:06, the idea being to split the zone with New Hampshire Ave as the midpoint.

Thankfully we get a yes back for this at 14:10. Unfortunately, this is still plenty of rows to check, so we start from the southern end and laboriously zigzag our way up. Near the middle we figure we might as well ask another photo, it doesn’t give them selection and it might speed up finding them, and even if they curse us it would have to be one that doesn’t just stop us from asking more questions, since we could just ignore those. Given they’re fixed in place, we settle on Photo - Tree at 14:26.

At 14:35 we get this pretty nice photo with clear views of multiple houses, maybe we should’ve asked earlier. And, funnily enough, as we begin to reach the last few streets to check one of my teammates spots the red door in the corner just a few minutes after we get the photo back. A few more steps around the corner and, exhausted, we finally find them sitting on the steps outside a rowhouse at 14:37. The last question was basically a waste, as we would’ve found them within a minute or two anyways, but it did wonders for our mental health lol

Final time for the hiders is 3h20m with 20 minutes in time bonuses, for a total of 3h40m.

Round 2: Hiding

After a quick lunch at Two Brothers Chicken (lowkey fantastic fried chicken, may have to come back) we get started on our hiding round. Since it’s nearly 15:00 by the time we sit down to eat, we decide to have us start our run from Petworth with an extra 10 minutes (total 50m) hiding time to ensure we can reach the full system, and we have the seekers ride back to Metro Center a little before we begin our run. This means we’re burning less time with the full reset, but we as hiders have the full system as options and the seekers still get to start at a central location for their questions.

In any case, we kick off our hiding period and begin riding down the Green line as we discuss options. We’re all tired enough that we don’t want to go out super far (especially not to Anacostia, which we had floated early in the morning). We end up deciding to hide somewhere downtown at one of the stations that have overlaps, figuring this lets us get a bit tricky with several of the questions. There’s a few options, and we consider Metro Center (intersecting Gallery Pl-Chinatown), but settle on one of the Farragut stations. We’ve got plenty of time before our hiding period ends, so we explore our options a bit and settle on Farragut North, especially since it even intersects with Dupont Circle just a sliver.

At 16:40 our hiding period ends and the seekers open with a Matching - Landmass as is tradition. They are still in DC, and we are as well. They follow up at 16:47 with a Photo - Building Outside Station Entrance which we return at 16:56 with the following

We actually talked about this a bit with the other team when they asked why we led with tallest in sightline before endgame, since the free movement allows for greater manipulation. I think that still gives a lot of room to reveal information about architecture and density, and like saving the station photo question as an endgame check. On the other hand, having the station photo earlier makes it easy to dip in and out of stations to see if you recognize anything, and the building might be more identifiable via satellite view.

Either way, they’ve gone for the station photo and we give a fairly generic one, although it’s pretty recognizable once you’re there—although it’s off to the side, so not blatantly obvious. I think it’s a more generic architecture style than our other options too, though it still definitely indicates a more built-up area.

At 17:02 they start a 1/2 mile Thermometer from Gallery Pl, and we hit them with a Randomize. In a small game, the only other Thermometer is a 3 mile, so this forces them to either waste a ton of time making a 3 mile thermometer productive (nontrivial), get it done quick and make it give less information, or abort it entirely and give us free cards. They choose the last option, though they don’t immediately retry the 1/2 mile, which is interesting.

Instead, at 17:16 they use a 1.5 mile Custom Radar, which return a yes from us.

In response, we hit them with the Curse of the Labyrinth at 17:20 to try and stall them further, since we figure the positive response on the radar isn’t super actionable. We get 10 minutes to draw a maze, and they have to solve it before they can ask another question. At this point we’ve drawn a Curse of the Bridge Troll card as well and figure we can get a good delay between the two of them. They manage to solve the maze in a reasonable amount of time, sending us the complete puzzle at 17:35 while still hanging out at Gallery Pl-Chinatown. Actually, it was an unintended solution since we forgot to close a gap, but it still bought us a good 15 minutes so can’t complain

| | | | :——————————————————————-: | ——————————————————————— |

With their newfound freedom comes a new question at 17:40. They’re on the Green headed south, and asking a Matching - Transit Line which returns no. This eliminates all the stations that touch the Green—U Street, Shaw-Howard, Gallery Pl-Chinatown, Archives, and L’Enfant leaving them the Farraguts, half of Dupont, Judiciary Square, Union Station, and NoMa. Basically, either a cluster of downtown stations or a scattered few on the eastern half of the Red.

We notice they’re on the move again, and headed our way, so before they can get within a 1 mile radius we hit them with Curse of the Bridge Troll at 17:44.

They also seem likely to end up in our zone, so we sprint over to the hiding spot we identified earlier—a nasty little alley that splits off in center and has one branch that leads to a secluded little loading area, requiring two turns to get to and very much out of casual sight. We’re in the southeastern corner, not in that 4th turn up but tucked into the loading dock.

Unfortunately, we overlooked one thing. Many of the Metrorail stations have divided platforms, and so by the time they arrived at their station at 18:01 they simply asked their question from underneath one of those passes. A 1 mile Radar from Farragut West, which we obviously answer yes to.

They follow up at 18:27 with a Photo - Tree question which gets a “cannot answer” back from us, and endgame is on. We don’t know if they know we’re in Farragut North, so we keep a careful eye on the tracker in case they move out of the zone at all and we can reposition to be even more tucked away, but in the end they never do.

At 18:43, after walking around some (and we believe identifying our station photo, so likely cementing us as being in Farragut North) they ask us a 1/4 mile Radar which attempts to bisect the hiding zone, same as we did ourselves. They’re at the eastern edge, so this gets them a no.

At 18:50 they ask us for a Photo - Sky, and get this beauty in return

Absolutely useless, and probably worse than useless since it ended up making them think we were inside or in some kind of parking garage. In fact, there was an overhang over the loading dock we were sitting at and it was simply featureless white ceiling with a few sprinklers. When we first got there and realized that was what the Sky photo would look like if they asked it we died laughing for a few minutes.

To keep up the stalling, at 18:58 we deploy a Curse of the Right Turn to slow them down further and maybe bait them out of the zone (they do not take it)

We end up watching them wander for awhile, actually getting kinda close to us at one point but stopping and doing a loop to turn around and head south one street short of the one that had our alley entrance. At 19:16 a security guard comes out of one of the doors and tells us we can’t be there, so we relocate out of that particular cranny and wait around the corner on 19th Odds Alley NW instead. Since our Sky photo now changes, we send them a new one at 19:20 that’s probably a lot more helpful

At this point, they’ve definitely identified that we’re in an alley, and we see them slowly check out a few of them. They come close to ours, but are a street off and check a different alley further south instead. We’ve thankfully got 30m of time bonuses at this point, so at 19:51 we beat their run time by a minute and call the game. It’s past sunset now and we all kind of want to go home :p

They probably would have found us in another 10 or 20 minutes, since the alley is clearly visible on maps, though I don’t know if they ever would’ve found us had we not gotten kicked out of that loading dock

In total, we hid for 3h11m with 30m of time bonuses for a total hiding time of 3h41m and the victory!

Wrapup

The updated map and rules reference I made for our second game continued to be fantastic and this game, and I didn’t find any tweaks necessary. Nor did the “limit 2 players worth” rule for curses come up; our team drew Lemon Phylactery but never had the opportunity to cast it. All in all, I’m very happy with this game map and ruleset, and would encourage others to try it out if they’re looking to run a game in DC

As far as the game itself, we all had a blast! We definitely ran later than anticipated despite pushing the rally time to 10:00 (you’ll notice we did not start until 10:37 anyways, though everyone got in by 10:15ish and we just gave folks some time to drink their coffee and plan with their team a bit). We’ve never had a run come close to the 3 hour mark before, so that’s something to be aware of. Thankfully with it being Daylight Savings now, the sun sets a lot later—it would have been much worse had it still been Standard Time.

Next time we can get ~9 people I’d really like to try the two seeker variant with “neutral” hider team, where the seekers race each other. Only one run should make it take less time and hopefully be an easier sell (“spend the entirety of your Saturday running around the metro” is not the most appealing sounding activity to many), and it sounds like it raises some neat dynamics. I do still have to sit down and work out the rules implications though.

Other than that, no notes! If you have any questions about the details or want the files for any of my maps/docs, just shoot me an email. Or if you’re in DC and want in on our next game, email me as well! Always happy to chat :)

Alright, back in the saddle for Lorwyn Eclipsed, after missing both SPM and TLA. Pretty excited for the set and the limited environment looks interesting, hopefully the whole 5 primary/5 secondary archetypes thing works out. It does mean that I think my picks may skew towards the 5 typal/primary archetypes because of the additional support, but maybe the ‘obviousness’ will make them worse? Let’s find out!

Alright, well this one should be interesting. Honestly I don’t know how I feel about having 17lands data for a vintage cube, but I’ll comfort myself in the (unsubstantiated) fact that it will probably be skewed and unusable in some way.

Had to mull on these for a bit. Well, not for the power, that one was a snap pick, but the rest are definitely interesting…

Our play area was the square formed by the original DC boundaries, encompassing all of DC as well as the portion that was retroceded to Virginia (Arlington and a portion of Alexandria). This sizing put us at a ‘small’ game size with Metrorail stations as our transit stations and hiding zones. We did allow both hiders and seekers to use buses and microtransit (bikes and scooters and the like) to get around. Pentagon station was also removed.

This time, to reduce ambiguity, I created a seeker question reference providing some clarifications on certain questions, as well as marking a handful of redundant ones (like Measuring questions with only 1 option). We also decided that hiders being able to take photos ahead of time is kind of lame and it’s strategically interesting to use a photo question to flush hiders from a hiding spot, so we struck that rule. I also found this spreadsheet on r/JetLagTheGame that transcribes curse card text and hider deck distribution, which was useful for seekers to have.

This time I integrated most of the POIs for matching and measuring questions into the map itself to reduce ambiguity (they’re configured as separate layers on the map embedded above and hidden by default, you can toggle them on via sidebar), largely pulling from Open Data DC and filling in Virginia manually. The only ones not included being parks (too many and no premade KML I could find) and things like zoos and airports where there was only one option.

For convenience, I also stitched together screenshots into a higher res image to print off, and this time I remembered to actually add a usable distance reference. There’s also an inset since the POIs make the center area somewhat hard to read. I got these printed off on 11 x 17 in paper at FedEx with the work discount :) feel free to use the MyMaps or below image if you like, and I’m happy to email you the .kra if you want as well. I know there’s a lovely map generator available, but I think analog is more fun especially with a smaller game, especially since I get to break out my drafting compass.

There were 8 of us for the day, so we split into two teams of 4—any more than two teams and it just takes too much time (and, spoiler, we actually cut it slightly short for this game), and I think about 3 people per team is a sweet spot, though next time we get 8-9 people I’d like to try the multiple seeker teams variant. There was one station closure at NoMa, with shuttles running to replace the trains.

Our starting location was… well, it was going to be Metro Center but due to me forgetting to actually bring the game box and needing to go home to pick it up unforeseen issues we actually ended up starting at Clarendon. The plan was to extend the hiding period to 35 minutes (from the default of 30) but given the non central start we put it to 40m instead and I think this was a good choice

Round 1

I was on the first hiding team, and we began our 40m hiding period at 11:40. We had a few ideas, though ended up deciding to head to somewhere on the red line. Since we were leaning on the west half we decided to get off at Farragut West and walk to Farragut North instead of transferring to Metro Center, but while we were waiting for the train we thought it might be too easy to bisect that portion of the red line. We noticed that if we took the next train to Union Station and just ran instead of worrying about the shuttle, we could make it into the NoMa circle and decided to go for it. We just barely made it in as the clock ticked over to 12:40

The seekers led with Matching - 1st Level Admin (State) while they were in Virginia, which returned a no on our part and drew us a Draw 1 Expand 1 which we cycled into a Curse of the Luxury Car. We spent awhile scouting out car options and the zone (trying to figure out what our station building and widest street photo points would be). Honestly the car options were kinda sparse around NoMa, where are the embassies when you need them?

While we were doing that, their second question was a Matching - Transit Line at 12:38 while they were on the Orange headed east (so, if their train would stop at our station.) I forget exactly where they were when they asked but it didn’t really matter since the answer was no regardless, eliminating the BOS trunk. Shortly after they followed up with a Matching - Golf Course with their nearest golf course being East Potomac. This also returns a no, Old Soldiers’ and Langston are both closer by a hair (we checked to see if we could run to the southern portion of our zone to make it a yes, but no dice)

please keep in mind that these sketches are all recreations I’m making after the fact in Krita, not very precisely, but it should get the gist across. I don’t know exactly what the seekers understood to be their remaining options since I wasn’t on their team at the time, and we as hiders were a bit lazy and not sketching it too closely either

At 12:57 we decide we don’t have too many car options and kind of want to get food. They still look like they’re at Metro Center and need another question to decide where to go, so we run out the Curse of the Luxury Car with what we think is a 2020 Lincoln Aviator (MSRP $52,195) just to stall for a bit. They answer almost immediately with a BMW X6 xDrive40i (MSRP ~70k+) at 13:04, but hopefully we make them spend about 15 minutes getting out and back into the station. Of course, not five minutes later we see a more expensive BMW SUV ourselves.

While we share a lovely Peruvian chicken for lunch, at 13:20 they ask us a Measuring - Rail Station, saying that they’re at Farragut North and asking if we’re closer or further from Cleveland Park. We didn’t catch this at the time, but this isn’t how the question works—it’s compared to any rail station, not a specific one—but either way we answer no, which pretty much narrows it down to the eastern Red Line stations. At some point here we pick up a veto, and are thinking we just veto the next question on principle

They follow up with a Photo - Tallest Building in Sightline at 13:37 which we discuss vetoing, but ultimately think we can get a pretty nondescript building. There’s a few good options outside of Union Market where we were eating but we settle for this one, which we hope is reasonably hard to identify and isn’t architecturally instinct. The other options we considered all had more striking dark bricks or patterns, we felt. At this point I believe we draw a Duplicate, which makes our line pretty obvious, just dupe the Veto and veto their next two questions

At 13:45 they start a 1/2 mile Thermometer from Chinatown heading north to Mt Vernon Square, presumably trying to narrow down the red line stations, which we of course veto. From what we can tell they continue on and stop at Shaw-Howard U to figure out their next move. After a little bit longer we see them start moving out of Shaw, and from later discussion it turns out they found a bus line that ran from Shaw to NoMa.

As soon as their bus enters Ward 5 at 14:14, they hit us with a Matching - 4th Level Admin (Ward). Now, NoMa’s hiding zone is actually split between Ward 5 and Ward 6, we were sitting in 6 but after some frantic discussion decide that maybe we can confuse them if we answer no, so we sprint towards the border of Ward 5, get in our ‘yes’ answer right at the 5 minute mark, and then get back into Ward 6.

At which point we realize they have just entered our hiding zone and triggered endgame. This… was maybe a mistake? We didn’t realize they had narrowed it down to just the eastern Red line stations and maybe a ‘no’ or just a veto would have been better, although Ward 5 does implicate Rhode Island and further north stations, and the argument was to save the veto for incriminating photo questions in endgame. Thankfully, our luck drew us a second duplicate question lol, since we were kind of just out in the open on some benches, albeit on a quieter side street and out of view of Florida Ave, which formed the border between wards.

After walking around for awhile in the Ward 5 area of NoMa, they ask a Photo - You at 14:42 which we use our duplicated Veto on, then a 1/4 mile Radar from the northern edge of the NoMa zone at 14:48 which we use our Veto on. After that we realize they’ve actually walked outside of the zone (they needed to use a bathroom and just didn’t notice), and we take the opportunity to move back into the Ward 5 area into a food hall we had scouted and thought they had already looked through based on GPS

Well… that was a mistake. We should’ve just stayed in Ward 6 but moved into an indoor area, and it turns out they didn’t actually search that place yet. At 15:07 they ask Photo - You (incurring double from the re-ask penalty).

We draw some card selection and time bonuses and while we’re cycling through the deck to try and get higher time bonuses… they find us. Turns out one of them saw the concrete wall and had a pretty good guess where concrete pillars might be, and they find us just a few minutes later at 15:12

Final time for our team is 2h48m with +26m of time bonuses for a total of 3h14m

The seekers had gotten lunch during the 40m hiding period, but we could use a break, so we all grab some ice cream before setting up for Round 2

Round 2

We start at 15:48 at the nearby ice cream shop in NoMa, and the hiders are off. We take the next 40 minutes to discuss our question strategy and work out their range given NoMa being out of service, figuring they might be able to make it to Rosslyn or Crystal City, but probably not further into Virginia, and that they might’ve been able to get to Anacostia or Minnesota Ave but were kind of unlikely to. We also figure that the northernmost bits of the Red and Green/Yellow are unlikely, and decide that Van Ness and Fort Totten are about the upper limits

We figure that while the Virginia and River East portions are technically possible, it would require pretty tight timing on busses that we’re not sure they were able to catch, and were options that became pretty obvious with a Matching Landmass question which has become a fairly common opener within this and the previous game. So instead, at 16:28, we decide to lead off with a Photo - Building Visible from Station and head towards Union Station, intended to ask a 3 mile radar there while they answer the photo. Unfortunately we just miss the shuttle at NoMa and while waiting for the next one, we get out answer

Even with it being clearly zoomed in quite a bit, we don’t think this looks super urban and soft rule out downtown DC, making the assumption that this is likely to be on one of the Red or northern Green/Yellow. As our bus arrives at 16:46 we make the snap decision to fire off our 2 mile (Custom) Radar from NoMa station, figuring that this can eliminate most of the downtown stations for certain and also chop off the more likely stations on the eastern branch of the Red, leaving only Fort Totten as a low-probability option there. Before we get off on the shuttle we get the answer back as “No”, and so ensues some frantic sketching on a moving bus on my part to figure out our options.

We get off at Union Station and figure we need to eliminate a few of the outlying stations like Columbia Heights and Fort Totten so we don’t burn a bunch of time backtracking. After some debate over whether a thermometer or radar or other Measuring question is more appropriate, our train is here and at 17:14 we settle on a Matching - Transit Line headed west from Union Station towards Shady Grove on the Red Line, which returns a “Yes”. Pretty much the best case scenario, this eliminates everything but a handful of stations. Given the photo question too, we guess that they are in one of: Woodley Park, Cleveland Park, Van Ness, and maybe Dupont

The train is pretty crowded and we’re spread across seats so we can’t discuss much for a good portion of the ride, though myself and another sitting together spend some time looking through station photos and satellite view to try and narrow down the roof. We think Dupont is unlikely (too urban) but possible but the rest all have the levels of medium built-up-ness to have this kind of roof, and she posits that they probably didn’t go that far up just because of the hiding time crunch and the fact that they probably are tired and want to be closer to home. She’s looking through the photos attached to Woodley Park station and finds a few promising ones, and after I spend a few minutes of screwing around on satellite view and looking through all the high rise apartments I find a very promising option

| | | | :——————————————————————-: | ——————————————————————— | It’s got the right color of brick and that definitely looks like a metal top covering concrete. Still, it’s not 100%, so we decide to get off at Dupont to double check our options and if we don’t see anything promising we head up to Woodley Park and ask some question to confirm. We want to stop by a bathroom anyways. However, after checking out both entrances and confirming that there’s no likely building option, we see the ‘Hot Now’ sign lit on a nearby Krispy Kreme. We have to go, of course

worth it

That diversion aside (oh my god it was so good), we proceed onwards to Woodley Park and, once in the zone, drop a Photo - You question at 18:06. While we wait for them to answer, we decide to head south on Connecticut to set up for a 1/2 mile thermometer

We get the photo back and start up a 1/2 mile Thermometer, but instead of heading back north we decide to loop around to check this park area and Rock Creek Trail. We don’t realize until getting closer though that not only does the trail not loop back up with Connecticut, but also that it crosses out of the zone for a little bit near the head. They could have cut cross-country a bit to get onto it, but the lighting and angle of the selfie was such that we thought that wasn’t too likely. To be honest, the thermometer was a mistake on our part. Once we got the selfie we should have fired off a radar or asked for another question, like Tree (which we eventually ask later)

The sun is setting as we trek up Cathedral Ave to finish our thermometer, and the hiders let us know that they’re considering calling it. We have similar thoughts and by the time we get back to the northern end of Connecticut and 1/2 mile from our starting point it’s pretty much fully dark, so once we get back “Colder” from our thermometer we decide to fire off Photo - Tree at 18:40 and walk back south to check some of the trees by the apartments south of the center point.

They send their tree photo at 18:47 and call it, we make a final guess at their general location (wrong) and we all meet back up at the metro station to debrief. Turns out they were chilling in the courtyard of a nearby hotel, the Omni. A really nice looking one too, with comfy couches and giant Jenga and a ton of trees.

As an interesting aside, they actually took a bus directly from NoMa to Woodley Park, barely making it in time. We had thought they would have bussed to Green/Yellow or shuttled to Union Station and metroed the rest of the way, but they got lucky with when their hiding period time and it meant they got to dodge the crowded trains and any worries about making transfers.

Their total hiding time was 2h19m plus 18 minutes in time bonuses for a total of 2h37m. They also have a veto in hand and we would have needed to ask at least 1-2 more questions, so whether we could have found them in under 37 minutes is anyone’s guess. It’s a little unfortunate that we had to call it, but everyone was tired and not enjoying the idea of stumbling around in the dark. We had a blast either way, and we finished the day off with a lovely dinner at a nearby Chinese place before splitting up and heading back home

Wrapup

Overall, I think the effort I put into updating the map with common POIs was worth it, makes it way less likely we run into an issue like we did first time where one team saw a golf course and the other team didn’t. I’d like to maybe get the wards in there too since finding a good map for that was surprisingly annoying, but MyMaps actually won’t let me add any more layers. Maybe I’ll put them in the same layer as the boundaries? And also change the ‘Game Area’ polygon to just lines so it doesn’t overlap in a horrid way.

Similarly, creating clarifications/FAQs about the seeker questions was a useful reference. I’m really happy with my map and think for future games I’m happy to just reuse it. The printout is a little clunky but it’s definitely in good enough range—maybe I’ll extend my ruler out up to 3 miles, but that’s about all the changes I really want to make. I don’t think we had any disagreements or confusion about questions this run.

I still never transcribed the rulebook for easier searching, but the combination of the seeker question reference and the spreadsheet we found with curse text, that was less of a pressing issue this game. I probably will continue to not do it for future games because it worked well enough without it and I’m lazy.

Despite the abrupt shift to Clarendon as a starting point, everything still went smoothly. The 40 minute hiding period went so well that I’m considering using it again instead of the 35 minutes we were originally planning on, especially if there are any station closures. It definitely made the bus more viable, with the second team using one to cut across from Shaw to NoMa faster than it would have taken to metro with the transfers. The argument against would be that it makes it hard to eliminate many (if any) stations off the bat based on hider start, but given we start in Metro Center and almost every station is reachable from there within ~30-35m, so maybe that’s for the better anyways?

The stuff we talked about on limiting curse effects (we decided on “2 player’s worth” as the cap, so if a team of 4 got hit by Lemon Phylactery they would only have to buy two lemons), but it never came up. In fact, we drew very few curses overall on both teams, with our team only using the one and the second team never getting a curse they could/wanted to use at all. Not sure what implications that has, but worth pointing out. It makes sense given the deck size though. For our next game I might also look into adding some DC-themed custom curses for extra fun.

Time was even more of an issue than last time, partly because of our later start time due to my fuck up and partly because of the earlier sunset time for being later in the year. I’m still considering splitting it into two days, but that’s just way more time commitment, so I think we may just encourage teams to try and get food/snacks while they’re hiding so we can minimize lunch break time and just try starting a bit earlier. For similar reasons, I may be removing the ‘Move’ powerup from the hider deck just to avoid that potential.

I tried the suggestion of prioritizing 4G/LTE over 5G on the tracker phones and that seemed to help. We still doubled up on Android and iOS (on different cell networks as well) just to be sure, and that definitely helped. I think as a convention seekers should announce via our game chat when they enter a given station’s hiding zone if they believe it may be relevant, though it will be up to them if they want to ‘leak’ that small bit of information.

Overall, we had a blast, even if people were a bit tuckered out at the end. I’m definitely going to run another one of these, and maybe we can wrangle enough people to try the two-seekers variant or some other variant. I spent a bit of time figuring out how to add Georgetown in but decided (and the others agreed) that it just wasn’t really worth it.

If you have any questions about the details or want the files for any of my maps and layers and such, just shoot me an email, I’m happy to chat :)

I’ve been slacking on set reviews lately (hard to wrangle the friend group and everyone, myself included, is just so busy) but I have to redeem my abysmal performance with FIN’s p0p1 (after switching off my gut instinct last minute.) Besides, I’m super excited about this set

This post was last updated with the release of Episode 11, the final episode, of the Main Story (2025-07-07)

Social Media Audio Clips

Magic has been posting some audio clips on social media that I initially ignored, but they actually have text that is not present in the main story, and some of it is quite interesting.

Transcripts

episode 1, narrated by Sami.

This is Captain Sami of the Seriema, making our approach towards Sigma’s Reach. We were told there would be a mining colony here to greet us, but it looks… deserted. Investigating further.

episode 2, narrated by Tannuk

Captain. I’m getting reports of strange readings deeper in the quarry. I’d try to convince you not to investigate, but I know better by now. Just, stay safe.

episode 3, unknown narrator, possibly Alpharael

The blessed Faller guides my hand. I have glimpsed the edge of the void, felt its pull, and will show others the beauty of INEVITA. This is the way of the Monoists.

episode 4, narrated by unknown Summist knight at the breach point.

This is an urgent call for my fellow Summists. The Dawnsire is under attack. We’ve been placed in a tactical event horizon, requesting immediate assistance. The Dawnsire mustn’t fall. For the Sum!

episode 5, narrated by Sami

Hey… Tannuk, you seeing this? There’s a Hopelight craft on the scanners but… get this. There’s other Summist ships firing on it. Whatever’s going on there has to be pretty dangerous. And profitable. Let’s check it out

episode 6, based on the ep2 clip this sounds like it’s also narrated by Tannuk.

I felt something change… on the ship. I saw the Monoist boy tearing apart those Kav, saw this power flow through him, like nothing I’ve ever seen. And then it… un-happened. Whatever that was, I don’t trust it

episode 7, unknown narrator (male sounding voice)

Syr Vondam’s condition seems to have worsened. He calls himself “anstruth,” rambling about a death that was stolen from him. There’s only one thing that will satiate him. Capturing Alpharael

episode 8, likely narrated by Syr Vondam

Solar knights. Down there. That cursed artifact lessens everything it touches. It seeks to lessen the Sum, to bring the Monoist goals ever closer to completion. Charge nuncio emitters, recall our knights. Then do it. Initiate Protocol Seven.

episode 9, narrated by Tezzeret

I must admit, the captain and their crew have surpassed my expectations. If this Stone is everything Mm’menon claims it to be, this is my chance to claim the power I rightfully deserve.

episode 10, narrated by Sami

To all of Pinnacle stationed at Infinite Guideline: we’re coming in hot with a very dangerous payload. We’re asking for passage through the Eternity Column. And as you can tell by the two armies tailing us, we don’t have time for deliberation.

episode 11, narrated by Tezzeret

The Eldrazi. All the way out here? These mockeries of logic continue to vex me. No matter. Once I reach the eternity column, I’ll begin my apotheosis. Power. Uncontrolled power, will finally be mine

Notes on Audio Clips

Most of these are just a bit of extra fluff, a teaser to the plot of the episode, but some are fairly significant. Episode 1’s clip is most notable, as it reveals that as Sami and Tan approached Sigma’s Reach, they were told that there was a mining colony and people there. However, in Episode 1’s story, by the time the two are descending into atmosphere they already believe the colony to be unpopulated

“There wasn’t supposed to be anyone here,” Sami mutters. “They built a colony to mine the clay, but the sun was going to explode. So no one ever came.”

So the implication is maybe that in Revision 6, the colonists existed, but by Revision 10 they had been erased. This further supports the possibility that Revisions 7-9 involved the Anathalmanac and the colonists being erased by the artifact.

Episode 6’s clip also implies that Tan might have some limited memory of the previous revisions. This is also suggested in Episode 5, where Tan seems to have some alternate memory of the inspection cyst in Sigma’s Reach.

“Where you found me back on Sigma? After I passed out. Big soft sack.” Tannuk stares at Sami with an indecipherable Kav expression. “Oh. Passed out, yeah. In the big soft sack.” “Tan, are you … okay?”

Sami remembers passing out in the cyst, but they also see Tan carrying a body that the story implies might be Sami’s and putting them into the pool in the cyst, where the divergences collapse and Sami passes out. Interestingly, there is no new revision here.

Main Story Revisions

The story introduces us to these ‘revisions’ and the CYOA format in episode 1, but in such a way that is easy to overlook or dismiss as set dressing. Similarly with the narrator speaking to the reader and asking them to make choices. However, as we’ve progressed and learned more about this artifact that Sami and Tan have, they in fact appear to be different branches of reality created by the artifact, forcing the reader to choose and resetting when we choose ‘wrong’

Also, it is notable that the Anathalmanac outlined in Episode 1 seems to be a Summist manual on how to handle the artifact, and the methods it instructs one to follow are fully deterministic. Based on things like birth date or measured velocity vectors or closest distance. This, alongside the description in episode 5

There are many ways to get to one place. I cannot change that place. But I can change the way it was arrived at. I need a wielder who offers me a library of moments to alter. I need a moment vulnerable to influence. Complexity stymies me. The nature of the universe compels me to self-consistency. I cannot leave loose ends. All my alterations must be explained: by chance, if nothing else avails.

suggests that the artifact can alter reality, but only within a degree of plausibility. It must have have an opportunity of choice or chance for it to act, and by acting deterministically, the Summists attempt to deny it those opportunities

Here, I outline the numbered revisions and what seems to have been the impetus for their creation

Revision List

• Revision 0: The narrator doesn’t find an agent, and shatters when the sun explodes (goes nova?)
• Revision 1: The narrator finds us and asks us to choose someone to find it.
  • We choose not to
• Revision 2: We choose yes. We hear about the history of Sothera, but it’s unknown how this revision ends or what choice we are asked to make.
• Revision 3: ???
• Revision 4: Impetus for this revision unknown. The narrator asks us to make Mm’menon’s life interesting.
  • Us refusing leads to its capture by the Drix
• Revision 5: We make Mm’menon’s life interesting, causing his exile. The narrator asks us to prevent the Metalman from finding it, depriving him of certain specialists and resources.
  • Us refusing leads to its capture by the Metalman
• Revision 6: We prevent the Metalman from finding the narrator. We’re told the setup to Sami’s search for Mirri.
• Revision 7-9: Unknown. This section is replaced by the Anathalmanac, and episode 1 then jumps straight to…
• Revision 10: We open on Sami and Tan traveling to Sigma’s Reach, and it’s noted that the colony is unpopulated. The main story continues on this revision for several episodes until the attack. Alpharael throws away his singularity bead and the narrator asks us to grant him mercy, to prevent him from being killed.
  • Us refusing leads to Alph’s death and the narrator being found by the Drix (and we also get a rant about its true masters)
• Revision 11: We choose to grant mercy to Alpharael, presumably leading to his capture and Slats allowing his escape on the Hopelight. Once again this continues steady for a bit until Alpharael gets the artifact in episode 5 and starts ranting about INEVITA.
  • The narrator asks us to give Alpharael a hand and allow it to perform a miracle. Here, we aren’t given a choice, and jump to
• Revision 12: the beginning of Episode 6, giving Alpharael a hand (heh) by letting it not be blown off by the singularity bead, and changing pretty significantly what happened as Sami and Tan approached Kavaron
• Revision 13: This revision seems to be Alpharael’s impetus instead of ours (or, are we Alpharael?) He opens the stasis cask, retrieves the stone, and we flash to Revision 13 with Sami and Tan trying to make their way back to the Seriema. We don’t know exactly what has changed in this revision, but it has made the pair lucky, made it easier for them to get back and hiding them from view of the Sunstar knights. Tan seems to have some knowledge of how bad it was before.
  • At the fork point of this revision, Haliya shoots Sami and Tan before Alph hits her with the jet injector and we see the stone glow pink
• Revision 14. The paralytic agent in the jet injector stops Haliya before she can shoot Sami and Tan, allowing them to return to the ship safely and eventually escape Kavaron. Perhaps it also plays on Syr Vondam’s fondness for Haliya, resulting in an incomplete enaction of Protocol Seven.
  • Tezzeret drops a crystal over a map of Sothera, asking the narrator to show him where it needs to go. We can choose to drop it over other places other than the narrator’s desired destination, resulting in various outcomes the narrator does not stand, and forces us to choose again.
  • If we choose to drop it onto the Wurmwall, the narrator questions if we are cheating, and makes some interesting notes about how we will travel there eventually, but not “in the tedious substrate of secular space”. Either way, it is still wrong, and we revert.
• Revision 15. We guide the crystal to land on the Uthros libratory point, to Infinite Guideline, and so the crew proceeds that way. To infinity, and beyond.
• Revision 16. The final revision, at least in our story. Likely used for Alph to guess the warp ferry codes, though he doesn’t have the Endstone at the moment, since he will hold it in the future

Vocab

This is a list of some of the vocabulary used in the story that I’ve broken down for both meaning and etymology

• Alabile. A singularity-resistant metal. used by monoists for armor. able to defer/delete attacks upon it, releasing them when too damaged to store
  • => alabaster? ablative? a-labile (not liable [to change])?
• Armor fati. Fate’s Armorer
  • => A play on the latin “amor fati”, meaning “love of fate”; instead implying “armor of fate”
• Anstruth. Blasphemy
  • => Anathematic truth, anathematic reality. Falsehood, reality warped by the artifact
• Bladiator. Hardlight blade that can emit blasts of energy
  • => blade radiator
• Checkmate. Pinnacle position paired with Director, combining first officer with adversarial counselor
  • => Check as in check-and-balance; Mate as in assistant/first officer.
• Cherazad Generator. A means of deferring momentum from impact
  • => sheherazade / shahrazad, from One Thousand and One Nights. Staving off death temporarily
• Coach and Postilion. Archetypical twin authority positions in Kav contrimperial Teamer culture. The coach drives, the postilion navigates
  • => Postilion is derived from French and Italian, and originally meant the guide/forerunner for the post (mail). It now means the person who rides a horse pulling a coach or carriage in lieu of a coachman in order to guide it.
  • => Similarly, coach is likely derived from coach (carriage). These terms are a straightforward lift.
  • These terms seem related to Teamer. A pre-Break anti-authority Kav culture or organizational structure?
    • => likely derived from teamster, the one who drives pack animals pulling a card
    • => Seems also to have some relation, in terms of solidarity, with the Teamsters (union)
• Contrimperial. ???
  • => Contra-imperial? So, against the Kavaronic Federal Empire, anti-authority?
• Cyndomine. A Summist mine.
  • => from cynidocyte, a stinging cell in jellyfish. a miniature anti-armor mine
• Eld. An old being/thing. An Eldrazi
  • => truncation of Eldrazi
• Eikonostasis. Patterned light (data)
  • => iconostasis, a wall of icons separating the nave (central portion) from the sanctuary.
• (Squadron) Hawking/Beckon-Hawk radiation
  • => it’s Hawking radiation, or Bekenstein-Hawking radiation. Entangled particles, one of which enters the black hole and the other escaping
• Himsary (banner). knightly oaths
  • => hymn rosary? described as a ‘reticulum’, a net or network
• Incaglas. Used for data?
  • => incandescent glass => fiber optics
• Kamu-shiku. A Monoist suicide commando
  • => Some googling leads me to shiku (JP, 死苦) meaning death, bitterness; painful death. If we hold with Japanese, kamu leads to “bite”, which perhaps fits okay? Shiku is the strongest part of this. Likely also meant to evoke “kamikaze”
  • => Kamu is also a pronoun, “you”, in Indonesian, but I couldn’t find anything for shiku there
• Libratory point. A point of balance between gravitational pulls. A Lagrange point
  • => libratory, from “libra” (balance). Meaning “oscillatory”
• Lide. Used in both “Lide, she’s biting her tongue” and “We lide … I lide it so, just now”,
  • as a verb for the astelli future sight?
  • analagous to ‘lord’ or some other invocation, or maybe “[I see/See], she’s biting her tongue”?
  • => LIDAR, light detection? both a noun and verb?
• Lidar. Summist knight perception mechanism, using grids of light
  • => literally, LIDAR, LIght Detection And Ranging.
• Luxatic. Monoist (?) insult against Summists. Lunatic.
  • => lux + lunatic
• Markup rag. A flexible sheet of writeable memory that can make itself rigid for use. A tablet
  • => A rag that you can mark up. No fancy etymology here
• Miracho. a monoist frontline militant. untrained/unspecialized infantry? “a deleter, an eraser, a killer”
  • => unknown derivation
• Phorocast. Astelli divination method
  • => light forecast. divination through the quantum (?) nature of light
• Photophoroi. a class (?) of soldier or knight?
  • => phoros, one who bears/brings; light-bringers
• Sekhar. A bead that induces a singularity
  • => chandrasekhar limit (maximum mass of a stable white dwarf)
• Sput. insult?
  • => sput[tering light]
• Subedar. KMN field soldier experienced in handling offworlders
  • => a South Asian military rank, roughly equivalent to warrant officer
  • Jemadar. Lower rank of the same role
    • => ranked below a Subedar in the same system
• Qalib. A Drix song, or title, or class?
  • => From the Arabic “qalib”/”qalb”, meaning form or model or template? Heart, the center of human philosophy per Islamic philosophy?
• Susur Secundi. the planet closest to sothera, and claimed by the monoists
  • => susur from susurrous (a hum/a whisper)
  • => second whisper (after the monoist capital, the Lip of Susur. literally, the second in importance)
  • Susurians. the species that founded monoism
    • => whisperers
• Synodic sobor. a temple to the star
  • => [Synodic—relating to stars] [Sobor—synod/assembly (Russian)]. Star/sun assembly. apropos for the bridge of a Summist ship
• Tidal claws. component of monoist alabile armor. allows for generating gravitational pull
  • => tidal forces/acceleration

Planeswalker’s Guide to EOE

These are the notes I took as I read the Planeswalker’s Guide to try and get a better grasp on things. I’ve gone back and edited a bit as the story has progressed, but have not done so extensively, so you should treat the below as capturing my thoughts at the time rather than as an up-to-date reference.

Science/Tech

• “Chaos Wall” (or rather, the universe behind it): the “known” Magic Multiverse, high chaos/entropy
  • The implication seems to be that the “Chaos Wall” itself is what we know of as the Blind Eternities, so the known multiverse and Edge are accessing it from different sides?
  • the Edge observes blueshift towards the Chaos Wall and redshift towards the Quiet Wall; the Guide notes that this is an implication of expansion. So we have a toroidal universe in the midst of expansion, similar to our own
    • Odd note: the Garden of Apeiron, a sort of Bermuda Triangle esque region of space in the Sothera system, has been recently crawling from deep space towards Sothera “at a rate faster than normal gravitic drift”
    • Update: upon further consideration, given the fact that the universe is described as “ring-like and toroid. In a word, annular”, and the fact that we have two distinguishable boundaries (the Chaos and Quiet walls respectively), I believe the shape of the Edge is that of an “annular toroid”, or a set of two nested toroids. The outer toroid being the Edge and the inner toroid being the known Multiverse, with the boundary against the inner toroid being the Chaos Wall and the outer boundary being the Quiet Wall
      • Because of the two distinct boundaries, it can’t just be that the Edge is a single toroid and the universe is the “donut hole” in the middle, since there’s no meaningful way to distinguish between the boundary of space near the donut hole or away from it, they’re both simply one continuous boundary. I believe, then, that “annular” is used to describe the cross section, leading to the nested toroid theory
• “Quiet Wall”: heat death (low entropy). The domain of the Eldrazi? Or simply fading into nothingness?
  • Likely just the fade into nothingness due to expansion
• FTL/”Weft”-travel: involves dipping into the membrane of the Chaos Wall (the “Eternities” or “Weft”) and shortly exiting at the destination.
  • Sounds similar to how Planeswalkers teleport between points on the same plane, effectively walking half-off into the Blind Eternities before re-walking to the current plane. May in fact be the same process, skimming across the Eternities, but entering and exiting on a different ‘side’ of it
  • Non-Drix must be use an Eternity Column to catapult themselves into the weft, into higher (?) lamella for travel. They also serve as beacons for vessels in the weft, but an Eternity Drive is sufficient to sink back into the lower lamella that is their reality—one doesn’t need to arrive exactly at a Column
  • Redward/Blueward are directions or dimensions used weftwalking. Ships entering the warp are mentioned to travel both blueward and redward, so it might depend on where you are going? If we consider redshift/blueshift terminology, it might mean redwards is to higher lamella and bluewards is to lower, which fits with the first quote
    • “Plunges down and to the blue: a direction Sami recognizes only from the motion of ships entering warp.”
    • “entangling with the column’s wedge of laminar topology, and riding it redways into warp.”
    • “The Seriema falls redward into warp.”
• Aether and Mana: interestingly, called out explicitly as fundamental particles/substrates next to photons and quarks. This is the same understanding that Saheeli (and presumably Avishkari scientists) have - that mana and aether are fundamental elements and subject to their respective conservation laws. We also know from previous lore that aether is some form of energy relating to the Blind Eternities.

Individuals

• Mm’menon: an Illvoi (jellyfish) formerly of the Ulthros Combine (now exiled), Tezzeret’s contact and informant on the Edge. Is the one providing the information in this Guide to Tezzeret.
• Tezzeret: “The Metalman”. Attempting to retrieve an unknown artifact (the narrator of episode 1) and the one who recruited Sami and Tan to go ransack a ghost colony

Organizations

• Pinnacle: the primary coalition entity utilizing what sounds like a complex barter and reputational economy. Operates the FTL network (or, specifically, the eternity columns which serve as the waypoints for it.) Notably, not all systems are members of Pinnacle, including the native Sotheran species.
  • split into the Strategic Corps (administration; soft power roles) and Tactical Corps (all the other day-to-day work. Presumably this also consists of their military force, which Tezz hints at)
• The Drix: a species with the ability to weftwalk, predating Pinnacle, and the ones who provided FTL tech to Pinnacle. Developed from an ancient artifact called “the Fabric of All Being” that predates the Fomori-Eldrazi conflict
  • Beam worlds: “anchor” worlds. Naturally occuring eternity columns?
    • This is beam as in the beam of a loom that touches all of the warp (vertical threads). Weftwalking is then traveling laterally along the loom beam, or the weft of this tapestry
    • Then, is “the Fabric of All Being” a representative map of the tapestry that is the Edge, or the Multiverse?
  • Seam rippers: Assistive technology that anchors a weftwalking Drix to their “home reality”. It’s unclear exactly what this means
  • The Fomori-Eldrazi conflict: I mean, this is the big one obviously, and Tezz evidently shares our enthusiasm. The Drix are Eldrazi hunters, aiming to prevent their return. It’s probably unsurprising that the Fomori, a civilization with some degree of manipulation over the planes and navigating them, came into conflict with the Eldrazi (unconfirmed but often theorized to be the ‘garbage collector’ automata of the multiverse), though about what exactly I’m excited to find out. Presumably not malice but function, trying to reclaim some developed plane for reprocessing, but we shall see. Cleanly gets Eldrazi back into the playing field for this or future storylines
• Monoism (and the Monasteriat): one of the primary faiths and factions in EOE’s story. As Tezz succinctly puts it, an “entropic death cult”.
  • mentioned on bsky (and implied at in ep 1 of the story) as clashing with the Solar Knights of the Sunstar Freecompany, with this being a major conflict of the Sothera system and EOE
• Summism (and The Celestial Palatinate): another faith, opposite Monoism. Some kind of holy empire with a hot mess of titles and obligations (both civic and church, yippee).
  • The Sunstar Free Company: a ‘favored’ regiment of the Regent Maximum (the leader of the Palatinate), the de facto state army of the Palatinate, and a mercenary group (though one that fights for cause, not coin)
  • The Astelli: Living mana and the remains of stars collapsed into supervoids. Opposed to the Monoists. The foundations of the current Summist faith (though this is a closely guarded secret). Have shared memories of the parent star that birthed them.

Local Species/Organization

• The Kavaronic Federal Empire: Kavu-people native to Kavaron, forced to evacuate into orbital civilization due to the collapse of the planet.
  • Kav Memorial Navy: the empire’s interstellar navy, consisting of primarily converted mining vessels. Hardier, but less maneuverable, than other fleets
• Evendo-Strain Emuidians: the Emuidians (bug-people) emerging from the seed brood left on Evendo, since hatched and in the process of terraforming Evendo. Communal beings, with an emphasis on brood consensus, but not a hive-mind.
• The Uthros Combine: a private research group and the typical home to Illvoi (jellyfish-people) in the Sothera system. Divided into Administration, R&D, and Security. Have a secret lab beneath the atmosphere of Uthros.

Locations

• Sothera: the name of the supervoid (and former sun) that was the center of the Sothera system, and the setting of EOE. Was foretold to collapse into a supernova, but Monoists forced it into a supervoid instead using “sekhar” (a bead that causes singularity induction). The Thousandth supervoid
  • Sothera - Susur Secundi - Kavaron & Evendo - Adagia - Uthros
• Susur Secundi (once Anuki). First from Sothera: Black aligned. Crisscrossed by labyrinths and claimed by the Monoists.
  • “Susur Secundi, Void Altar”
• Kavaron. Twin-second from Sothera: Red aligned. Kav (kavu) homeworld. Was strip mined to the point of crumbling, with one portion (“Kavaron Before”) tectonically stabilized and preserved/used as a sort of history museum, and the remainder (“Kavaron That Is”) being cataclysmic landscape that attracts scavengers and hunters.
  • “Kavaron, Memorial World”
• Evendo. Twin-second from Sothera: Green aligned. Originally icebound but with a dormant Eumidian vanguard, the Kavaron cataclysms triggered their awakening and the planet has since been terraformed by the Eumidian. It now sports vibrant life in an equatorial band from which the glacial ice slowly melts. Some in the Kavaronic Empire eye it for conquest.
  • “Evendo, Waking Haven”
• Adagia (once Adawa). Third from Sothera: White aligned. Primary location for the Sunstar Free Company’s operations. Scoured by constant winds with a thin and cold atmosphere.
  • “Adagia, Windswept Bastion”
• Uthros. Fourth from Sothera: Blue aligned. A gas giant with dozens of moons and a cloudscape home to many creatures in the upper layers of its atmosphere. The depths are caustic and brutal, and home to a secret Uthros Combine (the Sothera-local Illvoi organization) research complex for atmospheric engineering and other, unknown topics
  • “Uthros, Titanic Godcore”
• The Wurmwall. The asteroid belt ringing the Sothera system. Treacherous and home to derelicts, asteroids, and greatwurms
  • The side story Compact me to Zero implies that the Wurmwall may be home to a Vaar node, an entrance to their virtual space, the Hylderhigh. Episode 9 of the main story also hints at something in the Wurmwall relevant to the Endstone