Play Report 18: Further Kite Developments

Akela’s player could not make it, so I played out some scenes in the Northmost Collaboration with Hant and Almuund.

Hant, who has continued his conversation with a resident of the university, is recognized as the source of an argument about spider ontology among the transcendentalists that was set in motion all the way back in the first play report. His new acquaintance, Mallow (they/he), is tactfully neutral on the subject but does offer him a tour of the university. He is shown the disorganized building, which was once a temple and has now had its congregation hall divided up into loosely defined workspaces for teaching and research. He expresses an especial interest in the library, possibly the only part of the original temple to be serving its intended purpose, and scans the shelves for more counterfeit tomes of his order.

He finds none, but does find a book that resembles it aesthetically. He peruses it and finds it is a record of the religious apparatus of the state of Catage prior to the revolution, detailing multiple cults that were allowed to flourish under the royalty. Its name could be translated as either “Chronicle of Magnificence” or “Chronicle of Extravagance.” Hare House and their purpose of maintaining the vast parks that allowed nobles to hunt within the city is mentioned. The Stokers of the Hearth-Firmament, now aligned with the Thickets Collaboration anarchists, are talked about as having their doctrine of hospitality turned to maintaining sanitation in the poorer parts of the city. A schism of a different fire cult is talked about near the end as having been abolished for having a militant and apocalyptic ideology. No name is given for an author, but Hant plans to leverage his skills to find one.

Almuund befriends a group of the kite-flying transcendentalists, who find him to be a great curiosity. They initially misapprehend him as a human who has been modified to be more catlike, which he tries to correct them on without revealing any specifics. In spite of this there remains much debate among the more socially oblivious of them as to what exactly might give rise to the existence of a catboy.

What Almuund gets out of the friendship is a kite of his own. The transcendentalists are happy to show him how to assemble one (with much contradictory advice), and he gets the materials for it by scavenging from broken and crashed kites around the town. When it is finished he gives it a spin. Unfortunately he has yet to master keeping it in the air, but is happy to have one and sure that he will master its use in time. He also learns from gossip with onlookers that the nightmare the party wishes to delve into is definitely in the woods to the north, just off the road, though he doesn’t pinpoint exactly which of hex 0306 and 0307 that means.