The Unexplored Places

CONTENT WARNINGS: missing child, discussion of parental death and grief

If nothing else, there's something to be said for the collective spirit of the frontier. On Earth, as those who come to Antarras tell it, it's every man for themself—and maybe that's part of the problem. But there's no surviving a place like the Ruin on your own, and we've got the graves of those who've tried to prove it. Instead, this town and the others like it were built through steadfastness and cooperation, and they prosper through the preservation of the very same. Say what you will about your neighbor, but they will always be your neighbor, and you'll have their back when the time comes, and you can rest easy at night bolstered by the knowledge that they'll have yours.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: A missing child and a mysterious rider.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

Surprisingly little is known about the specific effects of unrefined hellstone, all things considered. It is, after all, the key to life on Antarras, the little red miracle that put our humble planet on the map. But no miracle is complete without its side effects, and though the miners swiftly got to work developing their specter suits to keep them safe from the obvious visible mutations prolonged contact caused, once that was dealt with, people sort of stopped asking questions. Whatever hellstone might be doing, to those who came into contact with it, was it worth removing the engine that made the planet run to stop and think about its invisible consequences?

This week, on Ruin's Gate: A machine with a mind of its own.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

CONTENT WARNINGS: brief description of body horror [24:59-25:06, 55:03-55:09]

"History" and "legend" are words that don't have a lot of meaning in a place like Antarras. The places where their definitions are distinct have a nasty tendency to blur. When history's as short as a generation or two, and fact is often stranger than fiction, it can be hard to tell the difference between the stories that get passed around and the ones that really happened. The thing that feels like hard-won truth is as likely to be made up as any old tall tale, and if you hear something that seems unbelievable, you'd be better off betting on its veracity.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: A rash of unexplained disappearances plague Swallow's Pass.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

CONTENT WARNINGS: brief description of body horror [12:27-12:39]

Small towns on Antarres have a tendency to stay small—at least, until they don't. The second a small town starts to grow, the process takes on a character I'd be tempted to call exponential: the moment people start to sense opportunity somewhere new, they have a tendency to go. So towns get bigger, better, and the more they do, the more people come.

It's not always a bad thing. Big towns have their own charm, their own benefits. It's a matter of whether or not the small town that started such a process is actually capable of handling the new influx of attention. And whether or not the people who started off there decide it's in their best interest to stick around.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: New faces and unpleasant surprises.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (31:21-31:55, 45:34-46:06, 56:55-56:57, 1:01:37-1:02:06, 1:03:46-1:04:17), graphic violence (50:39-51:08, 1:03:46-1:04:17), discussion of mercy killing (55:25-56:57)

(13)And lo! the Angel said unto him, you Shall be henceforth known as Genesis, and you Shall be My Prophet, and I Shall show you a Great and Beautiful Promise. (14)And the Stone before his eyes did part and reveal unto him that Great and Beautiful Promise, that Genesis would deliver His message unto all he met, that beneath the Stone did lie a land of plenty. (15)And, leaving the mines, Genesis made his way to the nearest town and on that ground did build a Church, the First Church of the Order of the Righteous Apostles, where he spread the word of his Revelation and where he took the name Confessor, after the Angel's commands.

(1)And the Angel did teach him how to withstand the forces of the Burning Beyond, and how to turn back its Demons, with prayer, and with song, and with the power of the Stone, and thus was the first Confessor Genesis transformed.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

CONTENT WARNINGS: detailed description of body horror [1:01:08-1:01:52, 1:18:34-1:21:13, 1:26:34-1:26:50]

Faith has been important to the people of Antarres since they first set foot on the rocky red earth of their new home. Faith of all kinds—first, the abstract kind of faith, faith that they had what it took to survive the harsh environment of this new planet, that they would find something here to make it worth the trip. And then faith of a more concrete sort, as a humble preacher from one of the first ships followed a voice out into the Ruin and came back with a message from God.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: Cutting off danger at the pass.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

CONTENT WARNINGS: description of body horror [29:30-29:55]

Now the problem the specters faced, now that they'd found a use for the strange red stones they'd dug up out the earth on Antarres, was figuring out how to transport it. Raw hellstone, turns out, wasn't just injurious to man, but mighty unreliable when it came to traveling far distances. It had a tendency, to put it mildly, of taking off the fingers of anyone who happened to be carrying it. And putting it on a ship back to Earth, where even the slightest disturbance to the careful alchemy that made spaceflight possible meant certain death for everyone aboard, and a loss of a whole lot of profit where that came from, meant that even trying it was out of the question.

That's when Eleanor Greer stumbled upon a solution: enough high heat and pressure, applied in just the right way, turned the stuff from a bomb ready to blow into a pane of stained glass without a chance of doing anything more dangerous than shattering mid-flight. Greer kept the secrets of the process close to her chest, except from those she sold it to for a mighty high price, high enough that she left Antarres for good and bought a ticket straight back home.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: The lonesome route home.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

After the Ostenberg Agreement was signed, there was still the unsettled question of under whose purview the refining and transport of hellstone would fall. The Miner's Guild thought it ought to be their job, given that they were the ones responsible for handling the raw material; the Company thought that, seeing as how no hellstone was getting off the planet without their help, it should fall to them instead. So the Manufactory, originally a loose collective of refinery owners more interested in taking advantage of the problem than in any kind of personal loyalty, stepped in to fill the gap. With no affiliation to either the Miner's Guild or the Company, they came to be seen as a sort of peaceful go-between—and insurance that both sides of the equation would be getting a fair price, or maybe just the same raw deal.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: The skills, experience and temperament to rob a train.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

CONTENT WARNINGS: discussion of drugs (opiates, inhaled) [0:09:30-00:10:40]

In the years that would follow First Landing, when wave after wave of settlers made their way to Antarras at the new-found promise of work and wealth that came with the first few hellstone shipments, some of the details were lost. Before the Company, no one cared all that much about keeping records, and no one looked all that hard beyond the narrow purview of their own self-interest.

But in those early days, something special happened: as the first impermanent attempts at infrastructure were laid, as ground was broken on the idea of a new home away from everything on Earth people were running from, the first settlers had a kind of hope you'd almost be tempted to call magical. People came together, so the story goes, in the face of all odds, to make something worth building on, the foundation of what would become the planet they'd fight tooth and nail for, and the community that came with it.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: Less than optimal attempts to blow off some steam.

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/

We'll be streaming on April 20th, evening EDT, at https://www.twitch.tv/unexploredcast

Follow us now for notifications when we go live and check our Twitter for updates: https://twitter.com/unexploredcast