Welcome to the Road to PARTIZAN, an interlude connecting Twilight Mirage to PARTIZAN, our next full season (where we'll be playing Beam Saber by Austin Ramsay) which will begin later this year! On that note, please know that though there is one spoiler for the way a couple of Twilight Mirage factions end up, there are no spoilers about major Twilight Mirage characters or their arcs anywhere throughout these episodes.

The Road to Season 6 started with a desire to try out new game systems before we committed to one for a full season, but after thinking about it for a bit, we realized that we could use a bunch of games to explore the history of the massive, fracturing empire that will be at the center of PARTIZAN.

And to do that right, we needed to make sure to start outside of that empire. To that end, we kicked things off with Dialect: A Game About Language and How It Dies by Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalioglu. In this episode, we develop a new culture of nomadic space deer, and watch as they encounter an empire which aims to obliterate time and space themselves.

As a quick follow up: This episode (and the rest of the Road to Season 6) all began as episodes in our Live at the Table series, a collection of one shot streams that we do for all $5+ Patrons! That means that you can go watch or listen to every episode of the Road right now if you head to our Patreon! They won't have the intros (and they'll all be unedited, with a lot more dead air), but if you're desperate to know what comes next, you can learn that right now.

If all this world building isn't your thing, and you'd rather skip these and rejoin us for the character driven drama and action of season six proper, then please know you can toatlly do that too. While these episodes will help fill in some blank spaces, they are not required listening for our next season!

Either way, I hope you enjoy this series of episodes as much as we enjoyed making them. We'll see you in a couple of months, in the shadow of the giant Girandole, on the holy moon of Partizan...

This week on Friends at the Table: The Road to Season 6: Dialect Pt. 1

////YEAR: 174 ASCENDANT MILLENNIUM

////LOCATION: VALENCE 4 | HYPHAN STRAND 170.2

///RECORD TYPE: VISUAL

On a misted grassland running the length of the continental shelf, seventeen capital ships, 1223 rated vessels, and 340 personal vehicles are prepared for launch. A pilot boards a personal corvette, pausing to look at the sky above her. An aide whispers words of comfort to a pair in grief, then steps away to direct the transfer of remains and grave goods. The ghostlike projection of a heretical oracle flickers, antlers transparent yet reflecting the sun's light, and fades.

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Text by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Edited by Austin Walker and Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west) Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

A transcription is available for this episode here.A full list of completed transcriptions is available here. Our transcriptions are provided by a fan-organized paid transcription project. If you'd like to join, you can get more information at https://twitter.com/transcript_fatt. Thank you to all of our transcribers!!