The world does not only happen
Part 10 carries two movements: what comes, and what lasts. And the coin finally has a picture, one that shows the question.
Part 10 stops being one gesture used once a game. It carries two movements now: what comes, and what lasts. And the Cointhe oracle of closed questions: heads the first pole, tails the second. It is what resolves an action (part 5) and fate (part 6).part 1 finally has a picture, one that shows the question rather than the answer.
The world was only events
Section titled “The world was only events”Everything the notebook kept was indexed on the character. The Waitan open question that nobody else is looking into: it belongs to you, it ripens, it has the right never to close.part 8 is his question. The Stakean open question on which somebody else is making progress: it does not forget itself, and it does not ripen on its own.parts 8, 10 is what somebody else is working on, toward him. The Surroundings (the)three cards drawn mid-scene to populate a place in one stroke: you play one, the other two stay on the table. No giving up, no fate. They are also drawn under a question, put on the place and not on yourself.part 7 are what is here for him. So the world had no memory of its own: the Standing pagethe page that keeps what is pending: living actors, waits, stakes, desires under way, fate’s marks. There is only one, and it replaces the previous one.part 8 is replaced, and what you do not copy over dies with it. After ten sessions you knew everything that had nearly killed your character, and nothing of what people eat in his city.
A third way out of a world scene
Section titled “A third way out of a world scene”A World scenea declared scene in which your character is not present: the world advances behind his back. After three scenes played at his side the floor is the world’s; never two in a row, and fate does not come into it. It moves forward what pends, or it merely lives — a breather.part 9 could do two things. Move something forward, or move nothing and leave nothing, which the book calls a breather. There is a third now: it moves nothing forward, and it leaves something behind anyway.
That something does not pend. It is not a wait and it is not a stake, so it has no business on the standing page, which is the page of what is not finished. It goes on the Portraitwhat you write about someone, actor or character: a name, what he wants, his suits, and what he carries when that says who he is. Without any count, and never corrected — you write a fresh one, further on.parts 7, 11 of a place, and the law was already the right one: the standing page is replaced, the portrait accrues.
Nothing new to learn
Section titled “Nothing new to learn”The gesture is the Populate · mood · widen · hook · probethe ways of asking: who is there and how he is (coin) · the weather (card) · what exists just beyond the frame · what is off · staying with the answer that has already fallen. (parts 1 and 2) from part 2, one notch higher. The weather becomes the season you are crossing, and the season, what it makes people do. Who works and who can no longer travel, what gets shut, what gets burned, what is dreaded every year on the same date.
No Table (the)the surface in front of you: the cards drawn stay in view on it for the length of the scene.parts 2, 7, no counter, no calendar, no extra page in the notebook. You do not build a world on the side: you play a Scenethe unit of play: you open it, you play it, you close it.part 3, and the custom is in it because somebody is busy doing it.
One question decides what gets written
Section titled “One question decides what gets written”A scene like that shows a hundred things, and only one deserves the ink. Does it constrain or allow a scene to come?
At the first snow, the lower port freezes and the empty holds fill with sleepers forbids a departure, allows a night at the quay, and gives a trade to somebody you have not met yet. It is cold in winter forbids nothing and opens nothing: that is Backdropwhat you come across and forget: pure color, nothing to note. A Backdrop becomes an actor the day you notice that it wants something.part 7, and backdrop is played and forgotten.
The played scene in the chapter is the lower port of Nandésis at the first snow, and it feeds the decree raised twelve paragraphs earlier. Skyfarers without a guild lose their mooring rights when the snow comes. Now you know where they sleep, and what they have to accept from a basket.
The coin gets a picture
Section titled “The coin gets a picture”Two bronze medals, the sun for Heads and the moon phases for Tails, each under its name and under what it meant that evening.
It shows the question, not the answer. What matters in a toss is not the face that comes up, the sentence says that already. It is the way you stretched the two outcomes before throwing, and the result sits in the veil alone. Same glyphs as the card plates, filled for what happened and hollow for what was waiting, with one thing missing on purpose: nothing is given up to the coin.
Five tosses in the book get one. The second question in part 8 stays plain text, deliberately: two identical plates five lines apart turned the scene into a column of medals, and the contrast teaches something on the way, which is that a toss does not always call for a picture.
Under the hood
Section titled “Under the hood”Both editions were written in the same pass. Twelve sections resealed, and the two are compared automatically: same skeleton on both sides, same plates, same scenes, same cards on the table, counted either way. Four renderings were frozen in the glossary, and endure was ruled out for what lasts, since it already belongs to part 6.
What this does not change
Section titled “What this does not change”No mechanic moved. Nothing you have written in a notebook is invalidated. A world scene still obeys its three rules, the coin still resolves nothing, and a scene that leaves nothing behind is still a good scene. The PDFs on itch.io are already the new ones.
The whole book is free to read online here, in both editions.
Ashcan edition: the book is complete and playable; it is not finished. Tell me what breaks.