The Unexplored Places

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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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

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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

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 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.

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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.

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