The Unexplored Places

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When the first settlers left Earth for Antarras, they did so with the understanding that they would never see Earth again. Either their mission would be a grand success, and they'd make a new life for themselves on those distant shores, or the trip—and the attempt to establish a new home in alien lands—would kill them. An equal mix of refugees and dreamers, none of them even bothered to imagine that their children, or their grandchildren, would see Earth again: they were, after all, fleeing a planet on fire, daring to explore the unknown because it felt safer, somehow, than staying put. The intent had never been for there to be free and easy travel between the two—the journey, they knew, was arduous and expensive. And so the possibility of complete independence from Earth was a distant dream, but it was a dream all the same.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Final farewells.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Hellstone weaponry was always destined to be a matter of convergent evolution: with so powerful an energy source at their fingertips, and in such a volatile set of situations, the eventuality that someone tried to create a more powerful weapon was certain. The mystery was only a matter of who would get there first—and, of course, who would get to wield them. For the Company, Antarras was not only a source for hellstone, but it was also a testing ground, a safe place far from Earth to see just what these hellstone weapons could do. But for the people of Antarras who were developing their own similar weapons, these were a matter of survival against the overwhelming odds.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Heroics and hearsay.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: discussions of body horror (1:15:00-1:17:00)   While there was a contingent of separatists, among the first settlers of Antarras, the original missions to Antarras weren't launched with the idea of ever becoming fully independent from Earth. Enough uncertainties plagued the early missions that finding native alternatives to every single need could never have been high on the list of priorities: early efforts towards practical sustainability went into determining what familiar crops found functional homes in Antarran soil, and what available building materials could replace the temporary prefab structures brought over on those first ships. Fuel might have been higher on the list had it not, in fact, been so readily available—hellstone's value came from its easy, if dangerous, efficiency as an energy source. But there was enough else those first settlers needed that its value as an export vastly outweighed the value in investing in long-term infrastructure to encourage its use on Antarras.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Crises of energy and conscience alike.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Those first three months were, in some ways, the easiest. Even if it seemed like the world had fallen apart around us, at least the path was clear: to get through, at all costs. Pure survival. A straightforward goal with straightforward steps. Ensure the farms were undamaged, replant what seeds had been destroyed. Check the stability of the town and its buildings, rebuild anything that needed shoring up. Tend to the wounded. Bury the dead. One foot in front of the other, heads down all the way. It was only after that initial period of work, when we finally started to look up and to look out, that things began to get complicated.   This week, on Ruin's Gate: Questions and consequences of governance.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

This week, on Ruin's Gate: A choice of some consequence.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

This week, on Ruin's Gate: Crossing bridges.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

This week, on Ruin's Gate: Religious reform.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

This week, on Ruin's Gate: A symbolic gesture.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

This week, on Ruin's Gate: Rebuilding and building anew.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Three major events anchor the history of human life on Antarras. The first, of course, is the discovery of hellstone by the original settlers. The second is the signing of the Ostenberg agreement, after the Battle of Swallow's Pass, when terms between those same settlers and the Company were negotiated into an unsteady but even, temporary peace. The final, almost four decades later, would be the events of that day in Bell's Landing—a day that changed everything we thought Antarras could, or couldn't, be.   This week, on Ruin's Gate: The end is nigh.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Covenant is a game that, by design, is about making the best of the hand you've been dealt—making smart bets even in unlucky circumstances. As such, the game resonates with the spirit of the original settlers on Antarras who invented it: none of them had been dealt a very good hand at all in life, but the promise of the hard journey out here was that they might make something of themselves nevertheless. To this day, not only is Covenant the most popular card game on Antarras, but it's also, to many, an important symbol of the ethos of Antarran life, the firm belief that anyone can make something of themself out here, no matter where they come from or what they start with. This week, on Ruin's Gate: A covenant.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

One day, a fellow reporter and I were sitting in our office at the end of a long day, passing a flask of whiskey back and forth, and she asked me a question I'd never asked before, but I've never since forgotten: What, she asked, after a long swig, do you think was actually here before us? After a moment, she went on: there's water, here, and plants, and animals. Shelter's easy enough to find, and there's no shortage of oxygen. Seems silly to think we're the first people ever set foot on this big red rock, don't it?  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A promise kept.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (1:28:00), coercion (1:39:30) The… unfriendliness, shall we say, of hellstone's predisposition to spontaneously combusting upon transport in the early days of hellstone mining precipitated a whole host of research from all kinds. The second question—after, of course, how to safely mine the stuff—was how to safely move it, first to move it from the mines to the towns, and then how to move it from Antarras back to Earth where it could be traded and sold. Before the current refining process was finalized, there was a nonzero risk of the stuff setting off deadly chain reactions upon, for instance, atmospheric reentry—and of all the things the original settlers of Antarras gave up when the Company got exclusive trade rights in the Oestenberg Agreement, the responsibility of dealing with how to get hellstone safely anywhere was widely considered no great loss.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: The old-fashioned way.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

There had always been those who naively believed that hellstone could, in some way, in some novel form, actually be tamed—could be brought under control, made safer or more convenient, be “domesticated,” as the case may be. And there have always been opponents to that idea. When Eleanor Greer invented the process that would later go on to be cemented as the standard process for refining hellstone for safe use and safe shipment, the President of the Mining Guild at the time, a man by the name of Arn Goldman, would, allegedly, tell anyone who would listen for more than a minute or two, that Greer was a fool for trying: “it's no coincidence,” he is recorded as having said, “that hellstone's the very same color as blood. Anyone who doesn't take that as a sign is stupid enough to deserve what's coming to ‘em.”  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Nowhere to go but down.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (eyes) [00:05:09, 00:26:00], references to cannibalism [1:54:50]  Now, what's deceptive about a sleepy little town — which, though I've argued before that Ruin's Gate was far from, but for the sake of poetry, let's say the sentiment stands — is that, sleepy as they might seem, that doesn't mean there isn't always something going on under the surface. Trouble brewing out of sight. Pieces moving on chess boards in back rooms. Plans hatching, plots thickening, deals being made in the dark. And in Ruin's Gate, in those days, there was plenty of dark to go around.    This week, on Ruin's Gate: Reunions and reconsiderations.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (eyes) [2:01:00] Meanwhile, in the writings of Confessor Leviticus to her final congregants, this pilgrimage is characterized somewhat differently. She speaks of the pilgrimage not as a promise, or even as a journey, but as a kind of fortification, a taking up of arms. This should hardly be surprising: the visions granted to Leviticus by God were filled with this kind of martial imagery, and she seems to have seen herself as a kind of warrior or soldier, rather than a shepherd or a leader. But the idea stands, nevertheless. The pilgrimage isn't so much about making oneself closer to god, but instead about enacting a service for the people of Antarras, undertaking a transformative journey wherein those strong enough to make the journey are also deemed strong enough to protect those who cannot protect themselves.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: The soul of Antarras.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

In The Early Saints of Antarras, Apostle Celéne Osgood—who would go on to later undertake her own pilgrimage and become Confessor Psalms, the noted Evangelist—writes of the sermon given by Confessor Joshua upon returning from their pilgrimage. The pathway, Confessor Joshua is said to have declaimed, is not holy because it is the precise pathway Confessor Genesis once took, but because of the footsteps of those who followed him. The act of commitment undertaken when an Apostle sets out on that path is simultaneously an act of contrition, of devotion, and of service—to the town or community one comes from, as well as the one they will go on to serve in God's name. It is that act that makes the pathway holy, and the meaning it has accrued as others have taken it, as feet have bled and skin has burned and prayers have alighted on the wind. To walk the path, Osgood writes, is to make a promise—a promise that is not upheld until the Confessor who returns from the journey devotes themself to the service of those not strong enough to walk the path themselves.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: The pilgrim's path.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

The origin of what have come to be known as hellbeasts—distinct from the native animals found on the planet—has also been debated by historians of Antarras. Where the line between animal and hellbeast falls is not arbitrary, but neither is it universally agreed upon. Are the hellbeasts endemic to the planet, or are they, like us, invasive, coming to Antarras from somewhere else, like that unknown place the church calls the Burning Beyond? Do they evolve, the way fauna does, or change at all according to their environment? And, if so, what were they before they became the monsters that haunt our very nightmares?  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A colossal emergence.  GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast  Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/  Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/  Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah  Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts 

The first hellstone mutations that appeared, in the earliest groups of settlers, were in fact less likely to appear on the miners and more likely to appear on those who handled the pure, unrefined hellstone after its removal from the mines—couriers, bankers, or those scientists who first worked to develop the refining process that would come to be standard. The image of the mutated specter, a potent and lingering phantasm of anxiety in the mind of the Antarran settler, didn't become the norm until much later, when external pressures to meet new quotas forced the miners to stay underground for longer and longer shifts.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Something moving in the Ruin.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: drug use (0:09:30)   One can't help but wonder, thinking back on the early days of Antarras, just how and why the staple institutions ended up with the influence they did. Could it have turned out another way? Could, for instance, a different church have found purchase in the hearts and minds of the early settlers? Could a different corporation from Earth have gotten here first, before Creon Construction, Communications, and Co.? How different would life on Antarras have looked, if just one decision had been made differently, just one change in the way things were when it all started? Realistically, there ain't much use wondering that kind of thing: the world we've got's the one we're stuck living on today. But one can't help but wonder…  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Promises you'd best intend to keep.   Anamnesis by Samantha Leigh: https://blinkingbirchgames.itch.io/anamnesis GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Funerary traditions on Antarras vary by town. The early settlers brought with them a range of belief systems, cultural traditions, and dispositions towards death, so in the earliest days, there were as many cremations as there were burials, and almost as many mourning practices as there were settlements cropping up on the planet's surface. Eventually, most of the planet settled into the same—or at least similar—general traditions, though there were some smaller settlements that held out against the planet-wide preference for cremation and kept well-tended cemeteries of their own dead nearby to town. But for most, superstition won out against any Earth-based cultural beliefs, and the dead were usually burned for fear that what was buried might not always stay that way.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: An act of remembrance.   Anamnesis by Samantha Leigh: https://blinkingbirchgames.itch.io/anamnesis GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

 You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who was alive that doesn't remember the day the sun didn't rise. You'd be even harder pressed to find anyone who could agree on what to call it. The eclipse, the great cloud, the long, dark night. No one wanted to talk about it, when it happened, so no easy name ever came into common parlance. Everyone had their own way of thinking about the darkness outside, and locked alone and scared in their homes, they took to thinking of it however they might. This week, on Ruin's Gate: The search begins. GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

What to do, with the truth? It's a question as complicated on Antarras as it was through the history of human civilization on Earth. What to do with the truth when it's more dangerous than a lie? When it presents a risk you might not be willing to take? Do we have a moral obligation to share the truth at all costs? To spare the feelings of those who might be hurt by it? To inform those who might not have otherwise known? Personally, I have always believed the latter: the truth at all costs. On a planet so hostile, when all we have is each other, it seemed necessary in a way that life was allowed to be more nuanced on Earth.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A much-needed catch up. GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Forgive an old reporter just a moment for a brief aside—a diversion from the story, sure, I'll grant you that, but one that I think it very much needs. Because the thing the stories like this about Antarras miss, sometimes, is that there weren't good guys and bad guys, not really. Heroes and villains are things of fairytales, of bedtime stories, and when stories about Antarras get told, they're all too often the fanciful sort. The kind made to convey a particular message. No one's immune to this, and I'm not saying I'm any better. But the thing that gets forgotten, in the midst of all of that, is the part where, as much as we argued, as much as we fought, we were all just people, anyway. And people get hurt. People get mad. People don't always act their best. But when you tell a story where you stop treating some of them like people, you miss the heart of what it was really all about.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Is this really where you meant to be?    I Have the High Ground by Jess Levine: https://jumpgategames.itch.io/ihthg  Forged Steel Memento Mori: https://www.pamwishbow.com/shop/p/the-rules-jj2jd-6lhc3-j46ww-zcyd5-cr9ec-nybs5-zftsg-8ahms-877mn-msts4    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

CONTENT WARNINGS: violence, discussions of death Though the original settlers did, for a time, use their own ships to ferry the hellstone they first found back to Earth, the Company's intercession soon shut down any private or personal spacecraft in the airspace over Antarras—at first through violence, and then, as their first major demand in the Ostenberg Agreement, as a matter of policy. When you really look at the maps, at the paperwork, the Company doesn't have jurisdiction over all that much land on the planet; what it has is the sky. Because when the people buying hellstone are a month by ship away, owning the sky is all you really need to do.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Debts paid.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

In his 1962 book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” He was almost right. Unfortunately for Mr. Clarke, he had it backwards. What he should have written was that any sufficiently sophisticated magic is indistinguishable from technology. In fact, few are aware of just how many of the technological developments seen in the second half of the 20th century were the result of magical interference, and that's at least in part because there are organizations in place to ensure that they don't. Organizations like the Forensic Department of Paranormal and Demonic Activity — a top secret private organization dedicated to studying, containing, and preserving the secrecy of rogue magical effects on the world. Utilizing a well-studied paranatural ability known as "Redaction" to maintain their confidence from the rest of the world, the Department has kept the existence of magic a secret since its founding. But with the advances of magic-inflected technology now growing at an astronomical rate along with the approach of the turn of the 21st century, will it be enough to keep the truth from getting out?  The Forensic Department of Paranormal and Demonic Activity begins this June for all Patrons at the $1/month tier and above. Back us on Patreon now: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast

CONTENT WARNINGS: desecration of corpses, body horror It isn't as if we ever properly understood death to begin with. Humanity's spent exactly as many years telling stories about what death means and what comes after as it has dying. Wars have been fought and kingdom's toppled over differences of opinion on the matter, and the mysteries that lie beyond that unknowable act are one of the first and most powerful of human fears. Some say the only thing about it we know for certain is that everything dies, but here on Antarras, even that seems like it may be less empirical than it seemed on Earth.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: To dust you shall return.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben PrevasMusic by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (1:34:35-1:35:00) Of course, back on Earth they told stories about dreams—prophetic ones, ones with deep significance and all kinds of meanings, dreams that revealed the deepest anxieties and worries that might plague the inner recesses of somebody's mind. On Antarras, though, there wasn't the luxury for that kind of thing. Dreams, on Antarras, some would say, were more vivid than those on Earth: darker, stranger, and yet all the more real. When they had meaning, which they almost always did, that meaning didn't come in metaphor. No teeth falling out, no moving as if through water. Instead, that meaning was all too real, and all too obvious. Less a symbol and more a warning.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A nightmare made real.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: gore and descriptions of severe violence  (0:35:37, 0:39:50) The paradox of hellstone has always been this: it's plentiful on Antarras but too valuable to keep; it's rare on Earth, where they have the resources to experiment. It's so useful as a power source that it gets used up faster than the time it would take to truly understand it. And so that little red miracle that saved the people who first fled to Antarras has remained far more of a mystery than the businessmen, the scientists, and the miners might like. Just what might hellstone be able to do, if we put it to the test? What other miracles, what other wonders or horrors could be at humanity's fingertips, if we managed to use hellstone just right? This week, on Ruin's Gate: A disturbing truth.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

Justice isn't a word that has much meaning on Antarras. At least, not in the long term. While each town might have been built up with its own best intentions, in the end practicality wins out over idealism every time. Any Company Marshal or local Sheriff makes the decision they think is best, and more often than not, what's best is resolving an issue expediently so that everyone can move on and get back to the harder work of living in a place like this: surviving.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A murder in the city.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (0:27:00-0:30:00, 1:34:00), drug use (0:40:00-0:42:00) Scarcity has always been the name of the game on Antarras—our time on this planet has practically been defined by it. As much as the prospect of a new home among the stars seemed to offer the promise of opportunities beyond those limited few left on Earth to the early settlers, the surplus of opportunity on Antarras was always matched by a scarcity of other things: food, safety, answers. With each one, the people of Antarras made do; new ways to grow food, new ways to protect themselves. Humanity learned resilience on Earth, the saying goes, but it perfected it on Antarras. But the most dangerous scarcity of all, the one most necessary to stave off against the encroaching darkness, was hope. Despair, on Antarras, after all, is not only a mortal sin, but a death sentence. This week, on Ruin's Gate: Building hope.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Aside from the paths scouted between Antarras' sparse collection of towns, and the maps kept by the Miner's Guild, all too much of the planet remains unexplored. This reason is no small part of why the Buzzards do such good business: wander off just a hair in the wrong direction, and you might find yourself in unexpectedly dangerous terrain—and not just because of the landscape.  In fact, early settlers passed down the firm belief that the planet was impossible to explore in full. Not because of its size—as the planet is, in reality, no larger than Earth's own moon—but because time and space, they alleged, didn't always seem to work the way you wanted ‘em to.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Parting ways.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

To attempt a taxonomy of the creatures the locals call hellbeasts would be a futile task: the monsters that made their way out of the Ruin had no rhyme nor reason, no morphological consistency nor internal sense. They had the form, from the start, of something out of nightmares, and warped from there, in all manner of ways. Any attempt at cataloging them, or classifying them, would end up in a far muddier understanding of the practical information at hand than just listening to the names people took to calling them and going from there. Not to mention, anyone who got close enough to try was more like than not to wind up dead.    This week, on Ruin's Gate: A town in need of saving.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Fear wasn't always the common denominator among the population of the newly-founded towns of Antarras. Maybe it was always something of a factor; maybe it could never have been totally absent from consideration. But when people talk about the early settlers these days, they focus too much on fear. The story is that they were scared, desperate people willing to try their hand at anything to escape the lives they were fleeing back on Earth. But those of us descended from them, or raised by them, or in community with those of them that still remain, know that fear was never the thing that drove them—it couldn't have been. It never would have driven them so far.  That fear is the legacy of the planet, that desperation is the afterlife of that initial wave of settlement, is a story it benefits some people to tell. The Company, the Buzzards, the Church, or anyone who makes it their business to protect the frightened and guide the desperate. What that story downplays, though, is the determination, and just how much those settlers could get done when they set their mind to it, when they came together to make something better for themselves.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A meeting and a standoff.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

The Company installed its de facto leaders shortly after the Agreement was signed. Company Marshals took up residence in each town, according to one of the many clauses that were debated at the time of the signing, and while their job was, technically, to represent the Company's interest in matters of disagreement, they fell easily into the more familiar position of a kind of unelected sheriff, promising to keep the townspeople safe and to keep wrongdoers in line. They made this transition with little to no comment from the emergent, makeshift forms of local government that had been in place before the war, with little to no notice from townspeople who were just glad to have some form of authority in place to protect them. So it was only a matter of time before people started to question just how easily the Company had used what little leverage the Agreement gave them to take hold of a little more power than, by all rights, they'd been intended to have.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Plans hatch and coalitions form.      GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

After the Ostenberg Agreement created a tenuous but stable peace between the Company and the original settlers, Antarras became a place that was surprisingly free from major conflict. Bandits and outlaws caused trouble occasionally, to be sure, and there's no denying the danger of living in such close proximity to a dangerous, alien wasteland. But when it came to larger scales, concord was the name of the game. Maybe it was how no one wanted to damage the fragile peace after so much conflict in those early years; maybe everyone knew that our real enemies were the monsters and demons we did our best to keep at bay. Maybe everything we had to do to survive took away the will that might have otherwise been spent on war. But either way, upheaval was not something the people of Antarras had to grow accustomed to.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A rider brings death to the Gate.     GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

The truth is, most of us don't want to know anything more about hellstone than what we already do—that it's dangerous, and that it's valuable. Whether or not you believe that ignorance is bliss, you can't rightly deny that there's something unfathomable happening with the stuff, be it at the atomic level or the ontological. There's a reason the first settlers, the first specters, dug it up out of the earth and called it “hellstone.” Whatever they saw, whatever they found, whatever it did to them in those early days before we learned how to refine it, how to handle it, how to protect ourselves from it, it was closer to “hell” than what they'd fled on earth, close enough to warrant the name.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Man made horrors beyond your comprehension.     GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Strange stories, sometimes, circulate in quiet whispers about the work that goes on deep beneath the ground under the Manufactory. Necessary research, no doubt—after all, if it hadn't been for scientists like Greer experimenting with hellstone, this planet would be more of a graveyard than it already is. But “necessary” doesn't always mean something bears thinking about, and imaginations tend to run wild when given free rein to speculate about what happens where you aren't meant to see. Dark and dangerous experiments, some say. Twisted trials on grotesque specimen. I'd reckon, if pressed, that it's a whole lot more mundane than all that, the boring kind of science that makes real progress, not much of anything to the untrained eye. But so long as something is secret, the stories will spread, no matter how banal the truth may rightly be.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: How do you feel about borrowing?    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

Catch Dread on Twitch Saturday 12/16 at 7pm Eastern https://www.twitch.tv/unexploredcast  Follow us on Patreon for more updates https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ BSKY: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social

CONTENT WARNINGS: animal death, detailed description of injury to animals   Did our presence here transform the natural landscape of Antarras? Did our footsteps change the ground we walked on, which had never before seen human feet? It would be naive to pretend it didn't, that's for certain. But it would be just as naive to imagine that we could ascertain the exact extent to which we altered that environment, just as it altered us in turn. There's no telling if the rivers would have started to run red in their own course, no knowing if the storms would have come on without us there to witness their thunderheads. It's impossible to say with any semblance of certainty that Antarras became what it did because we interfered—just as it's impossible to say that it didn't.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Not a noble deed, but a necessary one.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: animal death, detailed description of injury to animals   Wildlife on Antarras was puzzling to the first settlers, who had never known any animals besides those few they'd encountered on Earth, the rare ones left in the wake of a mass extinction on the planet they were running from. Aside from horses, which the settlers had brought with them, they found themselves face to face with creatures the likes of which they'd never seen, and not knowing precisely what else to call them, they gave them borrowed names. An animal what flew became a bird, or a raven, or a vulture. One that slithered close to the ground they called a snake. A dog-sized four legged scavenger was a coyote, or a jackal. And a huge predator with massive teeth and terrible claws became a bear—less a species distinction, and more a warning, like language had a memory that would teach anyone who heard it to keep their distance lest they find themselves prey.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A stranger comes looking for aid.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

People always supposed it might be possible, that somebody lived out in the Ruin. In fact, I reckon most people assumed it had to be true. As dangerous and downright undesirable as it seemed, we'd made a home of Antarras out of a desire to find freedom and a chance at a better life, so why not the Ruin too? But the question was never taken all that seriously. Surely, anybody who chose to live out there would be a loner, a strange or lost soul, who probably wouldn't last long enough to make any trouble for anybody decent. The hellstone'd mutate them til they turned into just another monster, or the monsters would kill them before it got the chance. There were too many problems sitting right at our doorsteps to consider what might be lurking far enough away we'd never have to face it ourselves.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Foreshadows of things to come.   GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places   Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts  

CONTENT WARNINGS: description of body horror (1:10:34-1:13:25) The Confessors, of course, were more than just priests. Having received the word of God directly from the source on their pilgrimages, it wasn't uncommon to hear the faithful say that the Confessors held onto some small fraction of His omniscient revelation. If you were lucky enough to have a Confessor located in your home parish, you wouldn't only go to them for the sacrament, or for confession: you'd probably also go to them for advice. Their instinct guided directly by His hand, it was rare for a Confessor to steer their congregant wrong. Not just priests but intercessors, guides. In the early days of Antarras, the Confessors were as critical as the Guild or the Manufactory in determining the order of things, how best to safely build a community that stood a chance at survival.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: Several surprising revelations.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/  

It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that there is no limit to what the Company would do to keep its grip on Antarras tight, but that doesn't mean the average person really understands the depths of the Company's machinations. What's worse, where it used to be the case that one could tell a Company member a mile away, from their dress, their deportment, or their demeanor, the decision makers higher up quickly learned that most Antarrans were conditioned to keep mum around anyone with a whiff of the Company about them, and made a move to arrange for operants under cover. No matter how strong a town's collective spirit, there would always be one sucker hungry enough or tired enough or cowardly enough to accept an offer to pass along seemingly innocent information in exchange for a few coin, and when that didn't work, well, the Company started hiring people who could act.    This week, on Ruin's Gate: X marks the spot.      GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/unexploredcast.bsky.social Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/  

CONTENT WARNINGS: discussion of auditory hallucinations   I heard a story, once, from one of the original settlers, out in Swallow's Pass, about the first time she saw a ghost in the Ruin. The ghost of her father, dressed in his work clothes, standing in the distance, in the fog, and calling her name. She said it felt as real as anything she'd ever seen, chilled her to the bone, and while she'd never believed in ghosts before, she knew this had to be one. But, she said, the strangest part was, her father had died on Earth, when she was seventeen. Two decades before any human ever set foot on Antarras, two decades before the first ships left Earth in search of this new home. “Is this hell?” she asked herself. “Have we fled a dying Earth only to find ourselves where the dead were already destined to go?”    This week, on Ruin's Gate: A return to Jericho yields surprising results.      GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

CONTENT WARNINGS: discussion of auditory hallucinations   What is a ghost, anyway? It's a question the people of Antarras have had to ask more than once. Leaving aside the obvious, here, there's more to consider than one might think there'd be. Is a ghost a demon? A spirit? Is it something else? Problem is, on a planet that plays tricks on the mind, it isn't just a question of “how real are the ghosts?” It can also be a question more along the lines of, what do we mean when we say “real?” If something has enough of an impact, can you say it's real even if it's only in your head? If something can really hurt you, does that make it real?    This week, on Ruin's Gate: Four puzzle pieces.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/  

CONTENT WARNINGS: drug use [1:01:42-1:03:22], brief depictions of body horror [1:28:18-1:34-13] People found all sorts of ways to cope with the uncertainty that came coupled with living somewhere as dangerous as the frontier. Some turned to drink, to gambling, to all the vices known to mankind, as could be expected. Some to violence, to stupor, to fantasy. Some, of course, turned to God and all his attendant mercies, to praying their rosaries and church on Sundays. And others still turned towards each other, to the workaday pleasures of tipping your hat as you pass someone on the street, lending a hand when it's needed. It's those last ones who run the risk of being forgotten, in these kinds of histories, these tales of how the world we know came to be how it is. But it's those same people who built the floors we tread, who kept the walls standing upright. And when things on Antarras began to go badly, they were the ones left picking up the pieces.  This week, on Ruin's Gate: A storm hits the Gate.    Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/  

CONTENT WARNINGS: missing child, discussion of parental death and grief, blinding [48:30] If you take the word of the people who've made their names in Ruin's Gate—and usually, dear reader, I am just wise enough to remember to do that—then the thing you most need to survive out here isn't luck, or money, or knowing the right people. It's something else altogether. Take, for instance, a game of Covenant. Odds are, you're as likely to draw a hand of snakes as you are to end up with a pile of stones, but if you stop playing the game when you've only just drawn your hand, you're missing the entire point. It isn't just that any hand can win if you know how to play your cards: it's that the whole point of playing is to leverage those cards to your own benefit. Every card, no matter how low, is an opportunity, and the people who thrive out here are the ones who've learned to see the right round to play it in.   This week, on Ruin's Gate: A desperate race from danger.    GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/