Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about
solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I'm your host, Seda,
and I'm showcasing multiple possible experiences
of self -paced games by inviting guests to play
them alongside me so I can compile our stories
together. You can support the show financially
at patreon .com slash foliopod or with a one
-off donation at ko -fi .com slash foliopod.
This is episode 3 of Our Games, A Farsickness
Landing, a one -page map -making game about rediscovering
an ancient derelict ship by lonely cryptid media.
The other explorers of crash sites and history
joining me today are Dora Rogers, whose work
you can find at dcity .itch .io and galpalgames
.itch .io, and Mark Major, whose work you can
find at major .com and major .itch .io. This
is the 50th episode of Folio. The one year anniversary
of the first episode is in a week. Somewhere
inside of me, I'm sure I'm very excited about
this. It's pretty cool. It's a big accomplishment.
But it is admittedly hard to access it through
my current slightly underwater feeling about
the show. It's hard. I have not been in a place
where my relationship to it is super fulfilling.
But I would like it to be. And so I'm going to
keep making it. I'm going to explore ways to
make it in a way that is more sustainable on
a personal level. There are probably going to
be fewer episodes next year, but I'll feel better
about them. And that'll be great. I will probably
bring up with my therapist that I was this unable
to be excited about hitting a pretty big milestone.
Intellectually, I recognize it. We'll talk about
it. It'll be fine. I'll figure it out. Thank
you for listening. Thank you for participating.
If you have, thank you to my guests. Thank you
to everyone who has designed any game that we've
had on the show. I am grateful. I have no idea,
generally, day to day, if I'm just sort of putting
these out into the void. Where no one is experiencing
them. But that is the nature of making stuff.
But if you want to celebrate with me, feel free.
Give me a shout on social media or whatever.
I don't know. Let's... Let's do the next few
rooms. Is this good? Is that good? Was that good?
Well, there's really good stuff in this episode.
It's a really good episode. i'm very excited
about this episode so let's get to it let's let's
have me stop talking uh in the present moment
and i can talk a little bit in the past and d
and mark can also talk doesn't that sound better
i think that sounds better let's see the next
thing that happens room six And the next section
I drew here was, like, super messed up. I think
this is more debris from the ship that was kind
of ejected here, or maybe another part that was
kind of broken off and kind of, what's the word,
integrated, kind of amalgamated with the natural
surroundings here. Ooh, ooh, six and three fives.
Let's go. Three, two, six, one. I'm done. Five.
A cramped room. The type is labyrinthian. Great,
and that gets me technical. Hmm, powerful. The
modifier is scientific. Huh. Knowing. With a
weapon. The item is a relic. Seed. But peaceful.
Peaceful. And the vibe is unsettling. Hmm. Oh,
very interesting. Almost the same as the entrance,
just peaceful instead of melancholy. An unsaddling
labyrinth, say it ain't so. Huh, okay. You know,
one of the things that the game says when you're
doing your setup, when you're drawing your ship
to explore, is that some pieces don't connect.
Or it's okay if some pieces don't connect. Like
it doesn't have to be just one pieces ship. It
could break off. Like pieces could break off
or maybe it could be multiple ships even. What
I'm trying to decide is if the labyrinth is another
piece or if it's instead the whole rest of sort
of the like brim outside of the dome. One thing
I will say I guess is technically because I skipped
the like drawing and then numbering the room,
I am... approaching it slightly differently than
the game asks because it says like draw your
ship number the rooms and then go and discover
them and so you're sort of like in the way you
number rooms locking yourself in a little bit
more to like where you're going to go next like
the basic shape of it what it looks like what
it's attached to which I actually think is is
great that's that's a it's I always think that
like more information is good Which I'm bringing
up here because, like, if I'd already labeled
something as my sixth room and it was small,
I would be forced to, like, forced positive to
reconcile labyrinthian with it in some way. But
because I'm a little bit more open field because
I didn't assign something, I have a lot more
possibilities. And so I think what I am going
to do is just make the last piece of what I have
drawn so far the sixth room. So I've got the
first room. It's a big dome in the middle. Got
the second room. It's like if you're standing
in the middle of the dome right ahead, the third
and fifth rooms are on the right and left of
the second room. The fourth room was the engine
room underneath. The sixth room is the entire
rest of the outer rim. And it's accessed through
a door that's across from the second room. We
open it expecting another small room like that
closet where we found that one robot who was
looking at us. And instead, there is a hall.
A very confusing hall. What's scientific here?
Could be like an illusion? Holograms? Looking
at the list of questions, I am drawn to what
is dangerous here and how will you overcome it?
And I think this is a trap of some kind. We walk
in and yeah, there are just like, there's holograms,
there's strange patterns on the wall that like
make it unclear with the angle that it's at.
Oh, you know what part of it is? I think it's
like, there are patterns put on the wall that
are specifically confusing to organic eyes or
human. eyes, but not to the robots. And so this
was some sort of like security or privacy measure
to make it difficult for the humans to work their
way through here. So it's a maze and then I think
there are traps and I think that they aren't
supposed to be dangerous. Like they weren't designed
to be dangerous. They were just designed to like,
hey, you stepped in the wrong place. A wall comes
down in front of you to be like, you don't know
where you're going. I can tell you don't know
where you're going because you stepped wrong.
So don't go any further. But this ship has been
sitting here for a really long time and some
stuff has shifted and gone wrong. And so rather
than just being relatively harmless impediments,
a lot of the traps. will now hurt you very badly
by accident and i think that we can we we can
sort of figure that out by like stuff that looks
a little bit more complete and put together and
like it's not broken is harmless but there are
ones that clearly like a hinge has fallen off
or something has rusted or there's like an interior
part exposed that will shock you that shouldn't
be it's supposed to have a protective shield
over it And I think we're genuinely going to
overcome it just very carefully. And through
an advancement in technology of some kind, like
the humans that were on this ship didn't have
access to something that we do, which might just
be measurement tools. Like we have tools that
we can point at the floor and be like, okay.
It's beeping differently here, which means that
the sensor is picking up that this is a weighted
plate. Don't step on it. You know? Just that
kind of thing. We can find, through the use of
tech, the little nuts and bolts that you can't
see with your eyes. And so we're able to just
kind of pick our way through this maze very carefully.
And it is unsettling. It feels bad. I think that
a couple people start to get headaches from looking
at these weird patterns. But we managed to make
our way through. And we find the relic that I
rolled, which I think, so this is like, this
was something that was private to the robots.
I at first had been thinking maybe this hall
leads to like the bridge. It could be that. It
could also just be like the place, like the robot
bunks. Oh, I'm on my shit. It's a robot mausoleum.
Whenever possible, I will always have. reusing
parts be a thing that happens as part of a death
ritual and so i think and it makes sense for
robots right if something happens to one of them
why wouldn't you like reclaim parts of those
chassis to help the others but this is either
either something that they do keep from robots
who whatever their equivalent of dying is or
it's parts that are broken beyond repair I think
it's the parts to honor them. The starting point
that established these robots says, you know,
limbs of metal and blood of oil, eyes hollow
and knowing. And I do think like all of the statues
we've seen have had their eyes open. The one
robot we found in like the cramped space, the
second room, was looking down at its hands, maybe
with eyes closed, but definitely looked up at
us. with open eyes. And I think the thing that
is odd here, I don't think they're, it's not
that their eyes are closed. That's too human.
It's just that they, they don't have them. The
like sensors that act as their eyes have been
taken out. I think those are reused in various
forms. Like they're used for a lot of different
things. I think it would be to lead to some...
dark stuff in a that I'm not interested in to
say that the eyes are used to develop the like
chips that we have but possibly if that ends
up being the case it's going to be done something
done cooperatively just because I that's what
I'm interested in exploring here I like if it
ends up being most interesting to have it be
like a weird like like a tragic we butchered
each other for our own survival thing I'll go
there but I like The idea that I could make something
that is, like, cooperative and collaborative
here. That just really appeals to me. Without
sort of, like, dipping into the, like, grimdark,
ooh, humans learned that these robots' eyes could
help their psychic abilities, so they fucked
up all the robots. I don't think that's the direction
I want to go in this one. But that only matters
because, yeah, there are these robot heads here.
It's just the heads. There's no other parts of
their bodies. And I think when we look closely,
they're hollow like any... wiring or anything
inside has been removed. I hesitated there because
I was like, well, keeping the head is very human
-centric. Why would a robot necessarily care
about the head? The brain might not even be in
there. But these are humanoid robots. They were
evidently designed by something humanoid, probably,
even if it wasn't us or our ancestors, it seems.
So it would make sense that they sort of like...
Yeah, they put the brain where the brain would
be in a human. Or whatever. They put something
that makes the head part of the chassis worth
keeping as a memorial. And none of them have
eyes. None of them have anything else. It's just
the empty metal of their heads lined up carefully
on shelves. Ugh. I think, like, I was trying
to think how many are there. And it's not...
quite to this level i thought of the you know
the the catacombs in france that are just lined
with like bones and skulls it's kind of like
that but it's not it's it's like what if that
had just gotten started all of the shelves and
everything are built all of the nooks are built
for the robot heads to go into but only like
a couple hundred of them are full and that's
a lot but there are like thousands of Places
where they could go. And I think that says something
about, like, what death is to these robots. Like,
the fact that there's so many, evidently, that
still are alive in some fashion. Assuming that's
true because they're doing weird statue shit,
whatever. Like, death probably means something
different and specific to them. Which makes sense.
Because why wouldn't it? Even if as, you know,
mortal meat beings, that is hard for us to comprehend.
And so I guess keeping humans out was just kind
of like a, probably multiple things. Probably
there's a little bit of a like, you know, cultural
like, we just think that you shouldn't be able
to come in here. But I bet it was also a little
bit of a like, you will find this deeply unsettling
because you have a very different relationship
to this concept than we do. And so you shouldn't
come, we're going to make it difficult for you
to come back here. which I think is both kind
and condescending. Like it's like we don't want
you to get hurt and also we don't totally know
what you'll do if you're freaked out by it. You
might decide that we're not allowed to do it
anymore or that like we have to deal with death
in a way that is more familiar and comforting
to you and we don't even want that possibility
to be on the table so you don't get to see it.
Yeah luckily we Aren't going to do anything.
We're just going to look at it. We're going to
go, ooh, we'll come back here later. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Cool. Robot catacombs. Fuck yeah. Why is
this technical? I mean, maybe this is the full
suite of terraforming equipment that was kind
of either jettisoned or blown off. I mean, this
part is really messed up. That makes sense. Oh,
you know, knowing Seed, it's peaceful. You know,
maybe it has, yeah, although the kind of ship
part, the technical part, is not in great shape.
You know, maybe because there's kind of like
a terraforming bomb kind of thing, you know,
it has created a little Genesis cave area, and
that's why it's so peaceful. And I wonder if
this part is kind of open to the outside, up
top as well. Like, maybe this is like a, what
do you call it? Not a caldera. A cenote? I don't
know. A little underground grotto, like a deep
well, but not like a well well. You know, like
a large cave that has, you know, hanging moss.
And there's a little, you know, not a waterfall
waterfall, but definitely water coming from above.
And it's kind of like created this natural, you
know, unnatural natural cavern with, you know,
there's life. There's... animals and greenery
and the little pool at the bottom. And, you know,
maybe this went unnoticed because it is so deep.
Yeah, I mean, it feels like a little science
fiction Instagram. Instagrammable spot. But maybe
people hadn't discovered it yet, or maybe they
had and just didn't realize they could have pressed
deeper into the cavern and found a ship. Maybe
it was like, cool, sweet, sweet little pool to
splash around in and hang out in, be a caver,
climber, and now we gotta go home. Yeah, interesting.
I like that. That's fun. That's a little bit
different. What do my senses tell me about this?
My senses tell me it's alive. It's peaceful.
It smells different than the rest of the ship,
which is kind of stale, I guess. And this is,
you know, there's fresh air. There's fresh water.
There are birds nesting down here. It sounds
a lot more alive than the rest of the ship. I
feel, you know, it is peaceful. It's nice. I
think it's nice to linger here a little bit.
Maybe the team... I'm definitely not here by
myself. The team, maybe this is a nice little
rest, recreation area when folks go on break
instead of going back to whatever base camp is
set up by the excavation site. Maybe people chill
out here for a shift and take in what it used
to be. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
What is dangerous here? Wow, you know, what is
dangerous here is that, again, the ship is big,
so this is probably not close to where the mine
entrance is. I think what's dangerous here is
that we probably don't want anyone to just come
stumbling in here. This is an important historical
site that needs to be excavated and inspected
and explored thoroughly. And I think the danger
is that with this part being open and there being
activity, other people might come across it.
And so I think we need to overcome that by, I
mean, setting up a perimeter, right? People are
going to discover it eventually. People probably
have already been here. And I think trying to
hide it isn't going to work. So I think just
setting up a presence saying, hey, this is dangerous
now for whatever reason. We have a team down
here. do not cross this line and not say exactly
why just yet until we're ready to make a big
announcement. Weapon, peaceful and cramped. I'm
looking at my map and I think what happens next
is that she starts to explore the port side of
deck one. So she's still in the ground level.
She hasn't come up the stairs, but she goes down
the opposite hallway and cramped, cramped. Peaceful,
powerful. I think powerful is going to sway this
for me. She goes, the first door that she passes
as she enters is what I've labeled number three
on my map. And it's what I had said before was
the infirmary. And the reason I like that is
because this is a, it's a powerful room and that's
also a peaceful room, right? Like things happened,
something happened here. This was a room where
something very important happened, but it is
also peaceful. I think that what she feels here
is peace. And this is very much a vibe. I think
she doesn't know what this room is. You know,
she's not a doctor. And medicine probably looks
very different. We probably, a lot of medical
knowledge got kept, right? If she knew more about
it, she might be able to recognize some of the
instruments here as sort of a version of modern
medical instruments. But she doesn't. She doesn't
really know what happened here. There's like
one or two beds. But it doesn't seem homey enough
to be somebody's place. She doesn't know. But
she still feels... She just gets a good vibe
from it, basically. I'm looking through my questions.
I think that there's something broken. She's
looking around and she has a good vibe. And then
she sees that something was broken. It could
have happened in the crash. But what it looks
like happened, and what actually did happen,
is that a console was smashed with a heavy object.
Because there was more fighting here. Not with
sort of the fanciful weapons, right? So this
is not one of the mysterious energy weapons.
This is like somebody improvised a weapon. They
picked up a heavy, you know, like the equivalent
of like a... Something that was meant for sort
of like bracing things or something like that.
You know, this sort of like steel beam, like
a small steel beam, and they were just swinging
it around and they smashed something here. And
she doesn't know what happened, but as she sees
this broken console and this heavy piece of steel
lying beneath it, she's kind of like, I think,
like she just has a sense of like, this is like
a good place, but something bad happened here.
Yeah, I think that's enough for the infirmary.
She moves on. Let's go to room seven. Okie dokie.
So I decided that room six there took up essentially
the rest of this specific ship. And so depending
on what I roll next, I'm either going to discover
another ship or find that this one goes... Sort
of deeper into the ground. I'm going to do my
rolling and see what we can come up with here.
The type is destroyed. Labyrinthian. Labyrinthian.
Okay, I know what I'll do with this. The modifier
is knowing. Scientific. Alive. The item is a
relic. Seed. A trinket. And the vibe is melancholy.
ooh and melancholy peaceful again hmm alive and
peaceful i can think of two ways to take the
alive one is the the flora right that like plants
have spread through this area the other is that
there are more holograms and i think i'll go
for more holograms and I know what I'm going
to do for Labyrinthian, which is that this is
the crew quarters. On my map, I've just labeled
the whole thing seven. There's a whole bunch
of small rooms that are close together. And these
were the quarters that individuals had, right?
And they were almost like monastic cells, right?
There was not a lot here. There was a place to
sleep. There was a place to sit, right? Almost
like a small hotel room. There was probably like
a screen, some sort of personal electronics for
entertainment. And there were holograms that
you could play in your room. You know, you could
either talk to somebody, talk to a character,
or sort of an entertainment version of the system
from the storage room. Or you could like watch
dramas, right? Like you could watch essentially
TV, but played out holographically in front of
you. I think the idea of her talking to a fictional
character from the past is a little too pat.
So I think she sees a drama, right? And I think
she doesn't even bother to... No, that's not
right. I was going to say she doesn't bother
to translate it. But she absolutely does, because
she's wrapped, right? It is a scene where...
It's just a scene, and it's playing on a loop.
It's when she enters the room, it starts playing
on a loop and something's clearly wrong with
the system. So it loops back every 20 seconds
or so. And it's a scene from this ancient drama.
She, once again, she has to sort of like, it
takes a few minutes to sort of set up a system
so that she can understand it. And she gets a
translation and it's like, I was a classical
civilization minor. in school and there's this
funny thing about old literature and like old
drama in particular where it is like every once
in a while you're like this is so human like
this is just like something i would watch today
and sometimes you're like this is so fucking
weird i don't get this at all right and it's
sort of this mix of that right where she's kind
of like um because i think it's i think it takes
place back on earth right this is a drama that
takes place on earth and she's just kind of like
It's this huge urban setting. You don't really
see that, but she's just kind of like, what are
these? I don't get where these characters are
or what they are talking about, even with the
translation. What is going on? But it's a scene
with two actresses. One of them's trans, like
my character is, and like I am. And she's arrested
by it, right? Like she's watching somebody. like
her from a million years ago. And this scene
is very simple, but I think it's tantalizing
in its simplicity because it's like, it's just
a scene where they're talking about, she doesn't
really get what they're talking about. They're
talking about something that happened and they're
worried about it, but she has no fucking clue,
right? Like she doesn't get it. She doesn't get
what that history is. But she's just like watching
their micro expressions. Right. She's like, are
they in love? Are they friends? Are they sisters?
What what is this? Right. And it's so vivid.
She's just she's really blown away by it. And
she watches it over and over and over again for
a while. And she's starting to be like, obviously,
I 100 percent need to bring this technology back
because it's the coolest thing ever, which is
maybe not the best thing for her to be thinking.
she finds a trinket here i think the trinket
i think the trinket is actually that she finds
a pentagram um it is uh silver so it's held up
fairly well it hasn't rusted it was on a chain
and the chain is like gone like i think she can
sort of see where it was but it's just like an
outline of of like rust but the charm is still
intact the pendant and it's a pentagram um the
person who had this room was was some flavor
of neo -pagan you know probably with like a few
hundred years of cultural difference and and
and development from what that means to us but
she still had this sort of like pentagram charm
and uh She doesn't recognize the symbol. She'll
look it up later and she'll understand its significance
is probably religious. And she'll read all about
that. But right now she just knows that it's
beautiful. And once again, it feels like a moment
of human connection to these people. So she takes
it. And yeah, she loves that. The crew quarters
is one of her favorite places so far. Seven is
on the right side of the ship. Starboard side.
The right side is the less wrecked side of the
ship. Labyrinthian scientific seed and melancholy.
So I think this is another cryo area here. I
think that makes sense, right? I think this is
the bigger cryo area. There are scores of cryotubes
here that are not showing error codes, not showing
signs that they've been damaged. Maybe a couple
of them, but I think for the most part, there's
about 100 people here who are... Still in suspension.
And I think that's the tube racks. You know,
it's easy to get lost in. It's kind of like I
was at my storage unit today and one of the doors
was broken and I had to go. I wanted to draw
for a long time because on the inside with no
windows or anything to tell you like what part
of a thing is a thing. They all look the same.
They have numbers, but they don't mean anything.
And you can wander around for a long time. And
I think that's what these racks look like. It's
not just like do -do -do -do -do -do -do, right?
Each one of these suspension systems is like
a, you know, not a room, but like a, you know,
it's an ordeal. It's a system. So they're spaced,
I don't know, 10 feet apart or whatever, but
they're big chunks of machinery with the people
in them. a bit of space. And they're not like,
it's not just like racks on a wall, right? It's
these, it's like a storage space, right? It's
easy to sort of get lost walking through these
racks of suspended people. Definitely scientific,
all the scientific things. And yeah, this is,
again, this was intended to be the seed of our
civilization. Most of us got out, but these ones
didn't, which means there are many, many, many
other empty wrecks somewhere else. But, I mean,
we're not done evaluating the ship, and waking
them up prematurely might do more harm than good.
So I think we're letting them sleep for now.
I imagine we'll come up with some protocol to
gradually awaken people. it will probably come
as quite a shock to them. And so this is a delicate
operation, but we can't let them sleep forever,
right? And they are our people. But it is a little
bit sad to let them... If I was in suspension
and my goal was to wake up knowing that after
waiting for 10 ,000 years, I had to wait a little
bit longer and anything could happen, right?
What connections am I making? I think connection
to the other cryo unit that didn't make it, right?
Yeah, these people just got lucky. They happened
to be on the right side of the ship when the
other side failed. And I don't know if people
were grouped by a family or a social group or
whatever. So it's possible that someone on this
side could have made it and someone close to
them did not on the other side, which is a further
complication when they wake up, right? How do
I feel here? I mean, it's again a sense of awe.
It's like almost vertigo, right? Kind of looking
back. I imagine that people look more or less
the same, but would we even be able to talk?
What do my senses tell me about this? This place
seems more sterile. We just came from the natural,
a natural cavern. And although this is a different
kind of life that's been preserved for quite
some time, it is different. This whole area is,
by design, in stasis. And yeah, so it smells,
even though everyone here is alive, it smells
dead. Not like dead bodies or whatever, but just
sort of like inert, really neutral. You know
what? I think... I'm gonna say that room six
was just half of the rest of the ship and this
is the other half because we find the human equivalent
of the catacombs. It's not catacombs, there aren't
remains on display here. Obviously I think a
lot about death rituals in space and understandably
there's a lot of sort of like corpse into the
void type death rituals that we see which I think
is understandable and has also been curious to
me sometimes because like yes space is big but
just creating space junk that I don't think I'm
not going to get distracted for too long but
I just need to search would a body decompose
in the vacuum of space because I don't think
it would okay depending on circumstances sure
Your body might freeze, it might just like dry
out completely so that it wouldn't decompose
normally, or it might decompose normally. But
you're most likely to be like frozen or mummified,
I would assume. And so your body just wouldn't
break down. Though, yeah, sure, that would be
different if you're in a spacesuit because that
is mimicking an environment you can live in.
And it would be like the bacteria from your body
would do some decomposition. Probably fall apart
due to radiation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Anyway, it's always seemed a little unlikely
to me that... I shouldn't say unlikely. We currently
have a habit of dealing with human remains in
ways that aren't sustainable. That is pretty
much the status quo for a lot of humanity. And
so I guess it wouldn't be surprising that people
would be like, yes, every single dead body, every
person that dies in space, we're just going to...
toss out into space and they'll just be space
junk forever unless something happens to their
body like they fall into the sun or get irradiated
into pieces like i just think you would want
to minimize creating space junk right and so
i would assume that most space faring like serious
dedicated space faring societies would have forms
of most likely aquamation I imagine there would
be some great cremation for like, you know, in
the fucking rockets and stuff. But like, to cremate
a body, it has to get really, really, really
hot. And you probably wouldn't want to fuck around
with putting remains in your rockets. And then
like, how are you going to collect the bones,
which won't burn? They have to be manually crushed.
So aquamation makes the most sense. If you're
serious about being in space. You're probably
liquefying human remains. And you can quote me
on that. So. And space is limited. Why would
you keep remains? You know what I mean? Okay.
Okay. So. We find. I thought this was going to
be so quick because I was like, we find the human
equivalent of the robot graveyard. I don't know
myself at all, I guess. Scratch what I said about
the thing. I think up top I said something like,
I know myself, so I know I probably rolled for
this. I don't know myself. I thought that I was
going to be able to just casually breeze past
some death rituals with the talk of a responsible
body disposal. Amateur hour. Amateur hour vis
-a -vis knowing what the fuck I'm talking about
and going to talk about. Many modern forms of
aquamation create a perfectly safe and sterile
liquid from the remains that can literally just
be dumped. I mean, this is unceremonious. Apologies.
Could just be safely pretty much dumped in the
sewer without harming anybody. And so there's
no reason why that wouldn't be possible here.
And so I think part of the reason that the vibe
is melancholy is that it is immediately familiar.
our society still often deals with remains in
this way I think there is like I can't tell if
this is like gauche and horrific to anybody except
me and so I don't know I was thinking about like
a fountain that is so beautiful to me the idea
that your body would be liquefied and added into
like essentially a fountain like a beautiful
fountain system with all of the other bodies
to just like be displayed and circulate i love
that that's probably scary to a lot of people
i'm guessing and it is just a little gauche like
a big fountain but maybe like a gentle water
feature like a like a pond and a little waterfall
maybe that's a really common way that we still
tend to dispose like that's that's those are
our cemeteries as it were as you you go to the
pond and Know that your loved one's remains are
circulating in the water with the remains of
everyone else who's died here. And I think there
is a pond, but it's dry, right? It's empty. Would
have just evaporated by now. But there are like
those same shelves, but instead of like a whole
robot head, there's just a bunch of little jars
and vials. Very small. I think they probably
just kept like, they kept a little bit from everybody
that they can just put on a shelf. And then put
the rest of them in this display feature. And
it's definitely old -fashioned. But it's very
much still what we do. And so it's immediately
recognizable as a mausoleum. And I did roll destroyed.
That's sad. I think what that means is that we
don't actually see these little jars and vials.
We see a bunch of broken glass. And we see that
like some of the... The pipes have of the pipes
that would be used to sort of like circulate
the remains and feed the like waterfall and that
kind of thing have snapped. And again, all of
this just there is no indication yet that anybody
like freaked out and broke everything except
in the main room. I think in that first room,
it still does feel like everything was like fucked
up by hand. This just looks like a very, very
old, unmaintained area. where a bunch of stuff
has broken and rusted. That covers destroyed,
that covers melancholy, that covers the relic.
What about knowing for the modifier? I think
it could be as simple as just like, well, yeah,
we saw that those chips that we use, the augments
are being developed, but this could have just
been two, this could have been some robots and
some people who were totally unrelated to us.
Maybe they visited. But the fact that they have
this very, very similar, sort of slightly more
ancient looking version of our death rituals
really seems to put into place that these are
direct ancestors of us. And I think it also provides
confirmation that what we saw, we kind of, we
knew that the robot catacomb was like a catacomb
and a mausoleum, but it, because, right, it felt
unsettling and weird to us and the whole rant.
that i went on about humans and robots having
different relationships to death and everything
it wasn't totally recognizable but i think that
seeing it this immediate reflection this mirror
here in a way that we do understand like and
viscerally feel just gives us a like oh yeah
that's what that was both of these rooms are
these monuments to the dead presumably the crew
who died on the journey we haven't found any
like living quarters or anything yet so it's
hard to it's hard to say exactly who this was
but oh actually you know what maybe i'll give
myself that as like a breadcrumb to find some
more stuff sort of shifting through the like
remains of like the shattered vials and jars
and everything that had little individual remains
i think we're like this is this is more people
than could reasonably Like maybe they were all
just sleeping in the main room, but this is more
people than that. They were traveling with a
big group, either in a different ship or we haven't
found, like this ship is bigger and we just haven't
found out how to get to the bigger parts yet.
But this is one of the things that we're learning
here is like, it wasn't just crew. There were
also probably civilians and just people living
their lives on this ship or maybe being transported
by it. Because there are a lot of people here.
And so now we know we have to sort of, let's
hunt for the place that maybe they were sleeping.
That's something we should be on the lookout
for. Because if it was just crew, if it was small,
then like the small size that we've seen so far
could make sense because it's just people who
are working on it. But maybe people are also
living here who weren't strictly working. It
seems like that's true. Let's find more evidence
of that. Maybe in room eight. Let's let them
sleep a little bit. Go to the next area. Eight.
A little over halfway through now. Two. Uh -oh.
Two, six, two, two. Wow. Okay. The type is technical.
Destroyed. Organic. Once again. The modifier
is scientific. Occupied. Spiritual. The item
is a relic. Weapon. Weapon. And the vibe is melancholy.
Mysterious. And dangerous. Yikes. I think that
this is the rec room. So the rec room is sort
of on the bow of the ship on the port side. It
like essentially shares a wall with the cockpit
and it's up against the outer hull. And there's
a window here and the window smashed, right?
Because it was, it's weaker than the rest of
the ship. So in the crash, it smashed. And that's
why there's organics here because the local flora
has just poured in and it's taking over the place.
so there's their sun and fresh air here which
she takes a second to enjoy i think that there
are animals here too um and um oh this weapon
uh they're sorry there aren't dangerous animals
here there's um there's like a little uh like
what is it there's a um Yeah, sorry, I'm just
going to say it. Ractophobia warning. There's
like a big spider. I'm not going to dwell on
it. That is like the size of her head. But to
her, it's as though she found a little, like
a mouse. She's like, oh, beautiful. And she,
you know, she's not stupid. Like she knows that
a wild animal like this can be dangerous. But
she thinks it's very beautiful and she thinks
it's kind of sweet. And she, like, cute talks
to it while keeping her distance and keeping
her eye on it. And so she's just wary of it as
she goes through her exploration. But, but, but,
but. So I think the mystery of this place is
that she doesn't get right away what it is, right?
Like, there's a window here, like, in the cockpit.
And so she sort of wonders if they're connected
somehow. But, you know, she doesn't she doesn't
know. And she's kind of like, I mean, I think
the idea that it is just recreational. So you
could see outside occurs to her. And also she's
kind of like, what would that be like? Right.
Like, what would you see if you looked out this
window up there? Like she she doesn't have that
sort of image of like, you know, whatever black
space. So I don't think they do spaceflight.
I don't think they do orbital spaceflight. So
she just doesn't know, right? She just kind of
wonders. And she wonders if that even makes sense,
right? Like if you would even do that, if that's
what this room is. And then there's this weapon.
And I think this is another one of the, this
is like a real weapon, not an improvised weapon.
And yeah, I don't even know what to say about
that, right? Like I think she notes it. And again,
she's just, she's really worried, right? Like
she, This place is so beautiful, and having these
weapons around so often is really upsetting to
her. Because I don't think it's part of the story
that they tell that there was fighting among
the ancestors. So that is a detail that is really
upsetting to her. It is kind of like one of the
main sections, the central, like the torso of
the ship, kind of near the mid -rear. Looks like
a central hub area. So the back half of the ship
I have, you know, it is still a little bit symmetrical
and still shapely, I guess. But it's almost like
the ship is kind of has its spine broken, right?
And so the back half of the ship is not on the
same level as the rest of it. It's kind of down
at like a 30 degree angle. And again, like we
can see, you know, the top where it's shattered
open, there's debris coming in, rock formations
over it. I mean, it's dangerous because it's
not level, right? Definitely going to need some
climbing equipment or some ropes or safety webbing
or whatever to traverse this area at all. I really
don't know about the weapon or spiritual here.
Should I roll again or should I try to make this
work? I'd like to try and make it work. What's
spiritual about this to me? The back of the ship
is broken, right? And maybe this is part of the
catastrophe or damage or the incident that kept
everyone from getting out. Maybe there had to
be an evacuation. Maybe there had to be an evacuation.
Maybe, you know, why would... Why would the back
half of a ship be sunken down? And I think, you
know, a colony ship takes a long time to get
to where it's going. And although there is a
singular mission, people are going to be people
and factions are going to come up. And maybe,
you know, before landing. Maybe before landing
or something, there was a conflict here in this
kind of central section of the ship. And we can
see damage on the walls, on the pillars, on the,
yeah, everywhere on there, there's signs of conflict.
And I think there was an explosion probably before
we landed that damaged this part of the ship.
And maybe, I mean, maybe there are even some
people left. I don't think we would leave people
here. But maybe there were some discarded...
I think there's signs of weapons. I don't think
the actual weapons are here, but there's signs
that there was a fight. And it's spiritual because
I think maybe this makes sense because this conflict
carried forward in myth. Maybe there was kind
of like a creation myth kind of thing where whoever
came from the sky and there was... a battle between
good people and different good people. And maybe
this is another question for anthropology, archaeology.
How do our myths line up with the facts of what
happened? Can we do some forensics on this area
to sort of decode what our myths actually mean?
And that's a connection we're making between
what we believe now and what might have happened
before. Why everyone didn't make it out. Why
some of the things were broken because of this
conflict. A lot of connections happening there.
What is safe here? I mean, a valid answer is
not much, I think. rolled a dangerous, right?
It is not super safe here. It is still unstable,
both kind of ground -wise and maybe whatever
power conduits are still active, keeping things
going, are not in great shape. I don't imagine
they'd be sparking or anything, but again, we
need to traverse this carefully. One, two, three,
and what is missing, broken, or damaged? The
whole damn ship. I think what we're gonna...
discover first is that the big main room big
dome room we came in from the ceiling and all
of the rooms we've been accessing have been on
at floor level and there were the engines underneath
and I was thinking like do we want to go further
down maybe eventually but first I think we discover
that there's a ring of rooms on top of the main
floor rooms so there's a second story attached
to this dome Also just encircling it. So we're
going to go explore the higher ring. And first
we find room eight. And I think we go up there
first because the infrastructure is just whole.
Like there is a functioning ladder or something
that goes up there that all of the other ones
are too rotted or have fallen down or whatever
happened to them. The combination of technical,
scientific, and relic was exactly, I believe,
what led to discovering the first prototype of
our psychic augments. But the vibe there was
uplifting. And the vibe here is melancholy. I
think I'm going to switch two of my dice. Yeah,
I'm switching the three and the five from type
and item so that instead of technical, my type
is cramped. And instead of a relic, my item is
trinket. which is very similar, but a slightly
different vibe. So this means that my room is
now cramped, scientific. There's a trinket and
the vibe is melancholy. I'm going to put room
eight on top of room two, which was also cramped.
So I like the idea that it takes up the same
footprint. And there's a bunch of stuff in here.
I think that the trinket and the melancholy vibe
are somehow connected. Trinket has such an implication
of, like, a personal item, right? Oh, man. Okay,
I'm gonna have to figure out what... You have
to figure out a bunch of stuff here and how it
can relate. But, you know, we saw that the room
underneath here, that robot was sitting on some
crates, holding its hands out to us. And what
we find up here is skeletal human remains in
a very similar position. This, of course, is
unusual because we obviously see that these people,
they aquamated their dead. They wouldn't have
just had a body laying around, which could mean
that this person died alone. Like after everybody
had left, there was nobody to do it for them.
It could mean that their aquamation process had
somehow failed, like it stopped working, maybe
when they crashed, question mark, here. I think
it's the former. I think what it really feels
like... is that both the robot and the human
were sitting here, one on top of the other in
these different floors, waiting for something.
Maybe they were waiting for the same thing. Maybe
the human was waiting and then died, and so the
robot took over the waiting. I think it's probably
that. I like that idea. I don't think there's
any way for the characters to figure that out,
but I think I like that being true. This human
was sitting here waiting for something. And they
died. And the robot took up the weight. And I
think we don't know what they were waiting for,
but they have... Oh. There's a communicator...
There's a communicator that I think very... Has
very clearly, to us, been taken out of one of
the engine rooms. Like, the engine room that
we saw had an intact communicator. But this communicator
has been taken out of one of the other engine
rooms and installed like kind of jankily up here.
And so they were waiting for a call of some kind.
And I think the other thing that's here is one
of those prototype chips. One of the psychic
enhancement chips. I think it's on the back of
their skull. Like just fused there from... from
where it was surgically implanted. I think it's
huge compared to what we have now. Seeing it
on the table, it was obvious that it was big,
but I think especially seeing it on someone's
skull, there's a little bit of a wince around
the room of like, fuck, oh my god, that's huge.
That looks like it was so painful. Ours are so
small. And that stuff I think is not... The communicator
and the chip aren't strictly the trinket. I think
that's actually the scientific part of this.
The trinket is... I'm so stymied by the timeline.
What can exist after 10 ,000 years? I guess I
said that we found books with notes in them.
So a book could exist. That's fine. Is it a book?
It's... Hmm. I think it's a piece of jewelry
that has either managed to somehow stay on the
skeleton or has fallen to the floor and was obviously
being worn. It's like a necklace, a locket. And
I think specifically it is like the obvious pair
to a necklace that we have in a museum somewhere.
Again, one of the fucking dorks on our team recognizes
it. Like, and is in like reverent, is in. awe
and tears welling up in their eyes from the intensity
of it talking about this one exhibit with this
necklace that is like this is the earliest piece
of clothing or accessory or expression of personal
style that we've found from our ancestors and
it's not literally like you know a besties necklace
that's half a heart but it's the kind of thing
where it did feel very obvious that it was a
pair Something was meant to fit into it that
has never been found. And we just found it. And
I think this is melancholy for the obvious reasons
of clearly this person was close enough with
somebody to have matching jewelry with them.
And it seems like probably never reunited with
them after whatever happened that made them separate.
But I think it also has a little bit of a personal
stake for that person who recognizes it. I think
that... You know, they had really narrativized
what that could mean and had hope that they would
find that the other half of the necklace would
be found one day in a way that made it a happy
ending somehow. Like, it would be found downstream
in a way that meant we could tell ourselves,
like, these two people didn't separate. One of
them just... lost their necklace maybe it came
off while they were saving the life of the other
one you know they they weren't separate they
were together the necklaces were just separate
maybe that's just a common fable kind of thing
it's the type of thing that we it's a story that
that gets told over and over again in our media
in our fiction the many ways that the necklaces
could be separated but the people were not Maybe
there's even sayings, you know, the kind of thing
that, like, reminds you to treasure the people
around you. And that, like, even when things
seem like they're lost, that doesn't mean you've
lost the truth of the connection that they brought,
that kind of thing. Like, this is just a very
heavily mythologized and narrativized piece of
jewelry. And this is not that story. The people
were separated. And they died apart from each
other. I think very far apart. I think the other
necklace was found quite a ways from here. And
the weight of that mythologizing means that this
is considerably more emotionally poignant than
it would otherwise be. Even if it is also just,
you know, sad to see that someone died here.
We just saw a bunch of people died here and that
didn't hit in quite the same way. They were both
melancholy, but this one really, really hits.
And I think that's it. I think definitely answering
a bunch of the questions from the list. What
do you feel here? How does this relate to the
past, present, or future? What connections are
you making? What piece of history have you discovered?
How does this relate to a previous room or discovery?
The one exciting thing here is that we're now
like, this seems to imply that maybe, you know,
they brought this communicator up here, so they
clearly thought that somebody would be able to
contact them on it. And maybe they just thought
that meant that somebody could come to the ship
and then radio up to them. But maybe it means
that they also created a mobile version of this
communicator. And that's now something we can
look for, which is exciting. That could mean
tying things together. But yeah, this is sad.
This hits really hard. I think we take a little
bit of a break, actually, before we share that
discovery. with the teams that are working elsewhere.
They're still, you know, putting up lights, ensuring
that structures are sound, running tests. And
I think we kind of break for the night. And I'm
gonna go, I'm gonna start with, uh, with room
nine in the morning after everybody has sort
of, like, had time to digest this big fracturing
of a, of a fairy tale touch point. This has been
Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and
epistolary TTRPGs. You can find transcripts,
games, statistics, and more at foliopod .site.
You can help pay for hosting costs, game purchases,
and maybe eventually a bit of my production labor
at patreon .com slash foliopod or ko -fi .com
slash foliopod. You can find Dora on Blue Sky
at Queen Regnant. She has games at dcity .itch
.io and games she makes with her wife at galpalgames
.itch .io. Make sure you go follow Hocus Pocus
Hyperfocus on Kickstarter so you don't miss when
it launches on October 6th. And support the Kickstarter
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that's me, on BlueSky, app of sedachips .gaygoth5
.online, and my work generally at gaygoth5 .online.
Next week, Dora and Mark and I will continue
our games of Farsickness Landing by Lonely Cryptid
Media. Everything I mentioned here is linked
in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening,
and take care out there.