So, listen. I’ve heard whispers from spies and rumors from stewards, and it sounds like you’ve got your hands on something really special. Something that could really change the way things have been going for you and yours. And well… Listen, MG, I like to think I know you pretty well. Balion and I won’t ever forget what you did for us, and more importantly, that you had very little to gain from doing it. You are the greatest force of justice I’ve ever known, and a constant reminder of what it me...
Mar 10, 2017•1 hr 33 min
Hey chief, This is a weird one, and I almost didn’t bring it to your attention, but Carver insisted. There was this guy shouting out near the Westshore-Upon-Scene theater, you know? And these folks, they yell all the time to try and get people to come to their plays, but this was seriously weird. He was speaking nonsense--a bunch of words about plays and whatever, but not really saying much at all. But he was surrounded by people anyway. Just staring at him. When we took him in for questioning, ...
Mar 03, 2017•1 hr 46 min
TO: Chief-Justiciar Qinta Quatróna Living Blood of Fire, you know I write you this at great peril, because it is you who imperils me. But whatever my ambition—and whatever your animus towards me for it—know I hold one thing in greater esteem in myself: Our nation. And I have seen with my eyes a more dire threat to our home than any plague, any animated corpse, any beast. I saw it that night, in the museum, but denied it for a full day. My report on the events there list only an anomaly brought o...
Feb 24, 2017•1 hr 38 min
Associate van der Dawes, There are actually three distinct sections to the treaty that allows the Golden Lance to operate in Rosemerrow, and I came upon them quite strangely, in three different ways. At first, I received the end of the document, a series of bound pages traded to me in exchange for a collection of measuring spoons. The document did not identify the parties; Presumably this occurred in the introduction, and for this reason I did not know what I had. And then, after several weeks, ...
Feb 16, 2017•2 hr
Sorry for being so late to announce an off this week but we need a little extra time to make a big special thing a little more special. We tried to make this a fun one for you in the mean time, so be well and see you next week!
Feb 10, 2017•6 min
It's been four days since His sun left us, Tutor. On the first morning without it, I woke early--before its light would have graced us on a normal day--and, when I found sleep too hard to return to, I put on my sandals and took to the empty streets of Velas. The soft shuffle of my steps echoed with the other pre-dawn murmurs of my seaside city. The gulls called, and they called for me, so I followed past the lingering smells of a rowdy night before. And they called for me, so I stepped through t...
Feb 04, 2017•1 hr 47 min
Cider-Brew Conveyance Departure: 2TE,3M / Arrival: 4OL,3M Received By: Exarch Alyosha, Church of Samothes, District of the Sun, Velas Articles of Shipment: Four (4) Large Enhydro Crystals (Smokey, wrapped & crated) One (1) Painting on Canvas (Sun cresting over cross-section of a rabbit warren, rolled) Three (3) Leather-Bound Books ( Manners and Preparations for the Aspirant , Practical Models for the Fostering of Inquiry , A Candle More Wick Than Wax ) Two (2) Wood-Bound Books ( Treatise on the ...
Jan 27, 2017•1 hr 59 min
Do I yet write to an empty room? An empty desk? An empty page? Or do you remain, too busy with your work to respond? Or, perhaps I can lure your eyes from your sense of duty, as I learned to do years ago. Let me try, at least, with another story from my childhood. As you know, the Grand Tour makes endless, circuitous route across the east with no regard for what is below it. Water, earth, air, blood--it strides over each with little regard, so determined it is in the necessity of its pace. The f...
Jan 20, 2017•1 hr 33 min
Pupil, Alyosha. I promised you once that I would not ask the question ever again. That whatever our differences, however foolish your faith, I would respect your wish and let it rest. You told me that if I did not relent, you would stop responding all together , and I feared... No. That is not why I gave up on you. It is because you made the case clearly, with strict logic and rhetoric curved sharp: If I did not accept your decision to remain in Rosemerrow—and now, in Velas—that I would be betra...
Jan 13, 2017•1 hr 23 min
The mothkin do not remember why years ago, they decided to worship the stars of the southern sky, specifically. Perhaps it is because that is the direction the weavers first arrived from. Or perhaps, becaue looking south from their forest home, the they face the sea, a vast mirror that reflects the night sky. Or maybe, some time ago, the living constellations of the south did the mothkin some favor, yet returned. But now, the stars recede as the first fingers of sunlight break through the branch...
Jan 06, 2017•2 hr 39 min
There, in hidden village of Old Man’s Chin, the mothkin gather around the dry well at the center of town, look to the stars of the southern sky, and begin the midnight sermon. They praise those distant, flickering speckles of white for the light they provide—distant, and safe, yet bright enough to bring the world into focus. They praise, too, the messages written in the sky: Each star a word, each constellation a parable. Red Jack finds his parables elsewhere: In his own history. And now, on thi...
Jan 01, 2017•2 hr 13 min
Several years ago, Arrell, I made a low shelf of wood and attached it to the wall above my bed. Before retiring to bed, I would draw some water and place it in a glass, so I might reach it in the night were I to awake and find myself thirsty. As time passed, I found myself adding to the shelf with things you might scoff at, knick-knacks, nothings. During an afternoon’s walk and study, I might uncover a fragment of pottery by the side of path. A bird’s nest, undisturbed. Two coins stamped with a ...
Dec 25, 2016•1 hr 45 min
It's time I leave Rosemerrow, Alyosha. All sorts of cockroaches scramble through this city, now. And while I am used to the cretinous locals--who can blame them for not ascending to their highest potentials in this town--it is the new arrivals which distract and anger. A fascinating thing, refugees. There is no limit to the reasons that drive them from their erstwhile homes: War, famine, disease, faith. But regardless, when they leave, however strong their so called "collective will," they are s...
Dec 15, 2016•1 hr 34 min
The library kept by the New Archives here in Velas saw its final day, Arrell. I walked past its corner today, and it was gone, vanished. Does that make you happy? That their presence in this place was destroyed? I'm sorry, teacher, the quill and ink make me bitter on days like this. The storm has grown strong today, and though I never visited that library, I went out of my way each day to walk past it. It felt like I was helping. Though your scholarship dismisses their pattern magic as more luck...
Dec 09, 2016•1 hr 30 min
Have you read these so-called “broadsides” from Ordenna yet, Alyosha? They’ve been distributing them here in Rosemerrow. One of them, “A Letter From Impetor Fela Malle,” gets passed around by the young and angry here, youth desperate for a firm hand, for order. It’s apparently a transcript of a speech delivered by the head of Blood Malle—a rallying cry or an apologia, it is hard to tell. Regardless, I’d scoff at the the arrogance if the paper could hear it. Still, I wonder what you think of it, ...
Dec 01, 2016•1 hr 9 min
Has the news reached you, friend? A group of merchants form Rosemerrow told me today that a new wing to the Old Museum in Westshore-Upon-Sea is opening next month. (How I wish we could walk its halls and debate the merits of its exhibits—but ah, it’s more than snow that separates us these days.) So instead, let me ask you a question, dearest Arrell… The Creed of Samothes is clear that Truth is a reflection of His Holy Light, and should be pursued above all else. Yet I recall from our early lesso...
Nov 28, 2016•1 hr 30 min
In the early days of the New Archives, the philosopher and historian Krent Kava wrote that the first sign that Hieron was on its way to recovery was the return of roadways that connect coast to heartland, city center to distant university. "There," he wrote, "Is civilization back again, drawn together by the eternal will of survivors trying to connect, one to another." Some of the roads, he reminds us, were highways repaired from the days before, and others were wholly new--as our times require ...
Nov 18, 2016•1 hr 40 min
For a long, long time in Hieron, it was autumn. Crisp branches snapped under foot. Still lakes caught the reds, yellows, and oranges of the leaves overhead, stuck eternally between life and death. The waves taunted children and elder alike, a step too cold for all but the bravest of swimmers. And there was laughter, and planning, and good food. People would stand around bonfires--out on the beaches of Velas, in the communal pits of Rosemerrow--and trade stories. Old stories, the kind passed down...
Nov 12, 2016•1 hr 18 min
And so the season turns, and the cold winds sweep in, and candles and fires and stoves are lit. Black branches against a white sky. There are more stories to tell, though. There are always more stories to tell. It’s not long before we meet our old friends again, I promise. They’re waiting, right now. They’re kicking the frost off their boots, cold fingers on metal buckles. Before we find them again, though, there is an old story to tell. Perhaps you’ve heard it before. Perhaps this is the first ...
Nov 03, 2016•51 min
Hey everyone! Here we are again with no new episode. We really really hate doing this and promise that there will some real and true and good content for you here next week. Marielda ended at the best and worst time because someone is launching a new website and that's taking a ton of time, so at least this interruption is happening inbetween seasons but we still don't feel good about it. We're really sorry! We'll still be doing season 1 recaps the next two weeks. They're going to be very, very ...
Oct 27, 2016•5 min
Hey everyone! Sorry for taking a week off, but at least it gives us an opportunity to speak to the audience directly. Thank you so much for all of support for the show and especially for Marielda. While I have you, let me go over all the places you can find Friends at the Table: www.friendsatthetable.net www.twitter.com/friends_table www.facebook.com/friendsatthetable And as for the shoutouts Austin made, the Friends at the Table forum is fatt.proboards.com and Rho's art can be found over at the...
Oct 20, 2016•7 min
FOREWORD to The Illustrated Concordance of Marielda, Second Printing No chronology will be observed here, nor could one ever be observed—Marielda resists sequential arrangement. Where other atlases and dictionaries seek to duplicate the facts of a culture, treat this text instead as a replica of Marielda’s constant reconfiguration. Thus, the reader should use this concordance as if they were wandering through a city street on the afternoon of an empty day. Follow the the capricious arcs of the w...
Oct 14, 2016•2 hr 2 min
It was strange. Every morning you’d see The Black Slacks walking to work. By this point, the air would crackle around them, thick with rumours of another potential strike, another march. They’d walk in groups, or in pairs, or alone. Hands in pockets. They whistled. But not that morning. At first, it was as if they’d vanished. District management began to panic, sending runners to nearby factories to confirm reports: The Black Slacks had disappeared. No. Not disappeared. In The Southern Bucket, a...
Oct 06, 2016•1 hr 59 min
In one way or another, High Sun Day is celebrated all across Hieron. After all, there is a day each year on which the sun hangs in the sky, resplendent, for what feels like an impossibly long time. After all, there is a day each year on which the heat gets so strong, the weight of the summer becomes so much, that a celebration must be thrown. On the perimeters of encampments on the plains and forests, light dances brilliantly, impossibly. The orcs have called up thousands of reflective objects, ...
Sep 30, 2016•1 hr 35 min
Today is Sunday, and not just any Sunday, it is the Sun Day, the Long Day, the Day of High Sun. Once a year, sometime in the final month of the calendar, the sun offers its light to us for 20 full hours. Each year, this event comes on a different day, and it takes the applied knowledge of scholars and mystics to narrow down its arrival. But the moment that the particular day is known, people across Marielda prepare for the festival. Special dishes are made: fig-and-fishtail pies; huge, communal ...
Sep 22, 2016•1 hr 36 min
According to the scholars at the Sonorous Academy, there are three important songs in Marielda. The first, “High Pyre Adagio,” has its origins in songs of performative devotion, and emulates the distant, yet deep affection of the God-King Samothes with a temperate piano. The second is “The Last Eve of Summer,” a chamber sonata composed by the so-called traitor Samot during his stay in the City of Light—allegedly written for a particularly talented clarinetist, though no records support this clai...
Sep 16, 2016•1 hr 49 min
The nearest pub to Memoriam College is called The Blue Boar and, on the night of the Valentine Affair, the publican leaned out of the door and wondered if she smelled smoke. She ducked back inside and picked up a broom, swept the floor absentmindedly. Customers would be arriving soon, she could ask them if anything was burning. Inside The Gardeners, just down the road, two regulars were engaged in an argument about whether or not a rank of pala-din marching past the window were headed for Memori...
Sep 09, 2016•1 hr 42 min
The citizens of Marielda close their eyes and dream of fire and water. On some nights in Canopy Row, people dream of crisp leaves, and residents of Emberboro wake suddenly with the taste of smoke in their mouths. Some years ago, a pamphlet was distributed in the city that purported to identify the difference between dreams and visions. Sceptics passed it between themselves and scoffed, others pinned it up in the windows of shops and apartment buildings. It described the difference between a lake...
Sep 02, 2016•1 hr 57 min
The bells of Memoriam College ring out from high in the tower. At the top of the hour, The Diligent Peal marks the start and end of classes, ushering students from room to room. At half past, The Indolent Peal chimes, waking students who have slept in, letting them know exactly how long they have to get to class. The bells don’t ring cleanly; the first note is pitched differently to the third, for example. The fifth sounds as thought it belongs to an entirely different tower. There is a rumour t...
Aug 25, 2016•1 hr 37 min
Memoriam College only wears flowers for one week a year. On Sunday morning of that week, they send a man called Alexander to fetch them from the florists on Today-And-Tomorrow Street. He carries them back to the building and, balanced on a ladder, arms full of blooms, fixes the arrangements above the balconies. As he works, butchers and chefs down in the kitchens peer at yellowed recipe cards, trying to remember just how they made these dishes last year. In the empty refectory, Prelate Silas pra...
Aug 19, 2016•1 hr 45 min
