The scene

framing, playing, closing

Beneath the high spires of a throne room, a sprawled prince lifts a grape to his mouth, a cup of wine in his other hand; at the foot of the steps a traveler with a pack faces him, and the court looks on without moving.

I come before Edgar, prince of the black city of Épinure.

Slumped on his throne, he was not expecting me. He is carelessly eating a grape whose juice spurts onto his tunic, a cup of wine in his other hand.

The road has hardened me. I have my demands now, prince or no prince. I make my voice carry:

“My prince. I have traveled two months, crossed the plains and the marshes of the Empty East. Here I am.” I let my gaze run over the small assembly, then I go on: “I hope the news you bring me is good for our Guild.”

◆ The scene — the unit of play

The scene is the raw playing space: where you play, where you write your adventure. It is the true unit of the game: you open in it, you question in it, you act in it.

The four beats

Open

Frame

Play

Open — lay the opening. Draw three cards, keep only one. Every scene reopens on a whole : before you draw, shuffle all 78 again.

Frame — the setting fits in one line (where, who, why now), set down before the cards if it came to you, after them if it did not (see below).

Play — in the present, in the first person. You question, you draw, you write what comes.

Close — when the scene has given you what it had to give, close it. Sum up what was said or played, and carry to the what has to survive. The cards on the go back into the deck.

◆ Opening the scene

The opening is the gesture by which every scene begins.

Draw three cards and lay them down before you, and keep only one. The card kept gives the tone and the matter of the moment; the other two go for good.

If a slips in among the three, it stands for : the moment stops being ordinary, and something is going to be played for good (part 6).

Three of Wands — The opening — one kept, two gone for good.

The Tower — The opening — one kept, two gone for good.

◆ Framing the scene

A scene needs a somewhere. It comes in two ways:

If the place is already there, because you knew where you were going or the image came on its own while you were shuffling, set it down in a sentence before you draw. The opening will come and tint it: it will say what happens there.
If nothing comes, open first, and let the card settle the place. It will rarely give you a finished place, rather a color, a , someone. If it gives you a bitterness, look for where that air is breathed. If it is a face, ask where one meets that person, at that hour. If it is an object, look at what surrounds it.

And do not draw a second time because the first did not give enough. A poor card is a constraint, not a failed draw.

When two places are worth as much as each other, the decides. Make the two out of who you are. An arcanist studying at Nandésis is at the academy, or in town: there are your two poles, and they come from the character, not from your tired imagination.

The rest — the hour, the weather, whether you are alone — can be settled by the coin, or simply decided.

◆ An opening from nothing, played

Nera. I sat down wanting to play, without knowing where. No image comes, so I do not insist: I open.

Three cards. I keep the Eight of Cups. And… nothing. Not a place, not a scene: a mood. Going away. Leaving something behind without looking at it.

Four of Wands — The opening of the descent — a mood, not a place.

My first urge is to draw another card and get something better. I do not. The card did not fail: it set a condition, and it is up to me to come down from it. Not which place appeals to me, but: where is that air breathed? A place one leaves. A place made for leaving.

That much I know without drawing: a struck-off skyfarer does not linger where she was known. But two places come to me, and they are not worth the same: tails, the mooring jetty before dawn; heads, the rented room I am emptying. Heads.

The room smells of cold and metal. My things have fitted in one bag for three days now; this is the third time I have closed it. On the table, the key I have to give back, and beside it, the letter I have not reopened.

I chose that setting, as always: the card invents nothing. But left alone, I would have opened aboard, in the sky, out of habit — that is where I am at ease. The Eight closed that door on me: it had to be a place one leaves. The letter on the table is mine, and it would not be there without the card.

◆ During the scene

The scene is open: you play, and you write. Describe the , let a stranger speak, draw a card when you want matter, put a closed question to the coin when the outcome is uncertain. This is where the game turns.

Acting against what resists comes in part 5; playing under fate, in part 6.

◆ Closing

Do not close on a full stop. Leave one question open, a single one, that the next scene will answer: will I reach the starport in time? It is written down nowhere. It is what will frame the next opening. (What really hangs, and the : part 8.)

◆ An opening played — the departure

A scene of pure calm: you open on three cards, you set down a world, you draw a card for matter, two questions to the coin. Nothing tips over: no fate, nothing put at stake.

I open: three cards. The Two of Cups (a bond one leaves), the Knight of Wands (an ardor, a headlong departure), and the Six of Swords (a melancholy passage toward an elsewhere, leaving for a better one is not sure of reaching). All three speak of departure, each in its own way, but it is the Six of Swords that touches me. I keep it; I let the other two go. The whole scene will be tinted by it.

I set down an hour, a season:

An evening at dusk, the end of a hot summer. The crickets are still singing, here and there.

Then a place:

I am in Nandésis, the world-city of the Free Lands. A boat is waiting for me at Mélaïde.

(I read the card at its most literal: a boat, a crossing — the Six of Swords, almost as it is.)

Do I have a ferryman with me?

Heads — The ferryman asked for — I will cross alone.

Tails — The ferryman asked for — I will cross alone.

The boat waits for me, alone. The weak eddies make its old wood creak.

The scene whispers a question I do not want to resolve yet: why, and what am I fleeing? I keep it as a wait. But something is rising, and here I want matter: I draw a card, without asking anything, for what I am leaving behind. The Ten of Pentacles: a house, an inheritance, a whole foundation. I lay it on the table, beside the Six of Swords. I gave too much to that house; I lost myself in it. It has the taste of a betrayal.

Once in the boat, I cast off and let the weak current carry me. Rocks come out of the water, misshapen in the dusk. But the moon is already shining, ready to guide me across.

Is anyone waiting for me, at the other end? — coin: yes. I invent a name:

I hope Morgan is ready to receive me.

◆ Play your first scene

Sit down somewhere quiet, the notebook open. Set down a place and an hour in one sentence: where are you, at what moment? If nothing comes, do not look for it: draw first, and the place will come from the card.

Then open: draw your three first cards, lay them down before you, and take your time before choosing. Which is the most alive, the one that opens the widest threshold? Keep it, let the other two go without regret. Then make it speak (for whom, where, in what color), without settling everything at a stroke: let it soak into the place, the hour, the air you are breathing. And if a major has slipped in among the three, leave it for tonight: keep a .

Then carry on. One small closed question to the coin (is the weather fine? am I alone?), and you write what comes: one sentence, no more. Then another question, another answer, another sentence. Your cards are drawn one at a time, as your needs come.

Do not look for a plot. Let the place fill up until something intrigues you — then follow it. That is all; the rest is learned by playing.

The world is starting to live.