This week, on Ruin’s Gate: A symbolic gesture.

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: Rebuilding and building anew. 

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

Three major events anchor the history of human life on Antarras. The first, of course, is the discovery of hellstone by the original settlers. The second is the signing of the Ostenberg agreement, after the Battle of Swallow’s Pass, when terms between those same settlers and the Company were negotiated into an unsteady but even, temporary peace. The final, almost four decades later, would be the events of that day in Bell’s Landing—a day that changed everything we thought Antarras could, or couldn’t, be.  

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: The end is nigh. 

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

Covenant is a game that, by design, is about making the best of the hand you’ve been dealt—making smart bets even in unlucky circumstances. As such, the game resonates with the spirit of the original settlers on Antarras who invented it: none of them had been dealt a very good hand at all in life, but the promise of the hard journey out here was that they might make something of themselves nevertheless. To this day, not only is Covenant the most popular card game on Antarras, but it's also, to many, an important symbol of the ethos of Antarran life, the firm belief that anyone can make something of themself out here, no matter where they come from or what they start with.

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: A covenant.

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

One day, a fellow reporter and I were sitting in our office at the end of a long day, passing a flask of whiskey back and forth, and she asked me a question I’d never asked before, but I’ve never since forgotten: What, she asked, after a long swig, do you think was actually here before us? After a moment, she went on: there’s water, here, and plants, and animals. Shelter’s easy enough to find, and there’s no shortage of oxygen. Seems silly to think we’re the first people ever set foot on this big red rock, don’t it? 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: A promise kept.

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (1:28:00), coercion (1:39:30)

The… unfriendliness, shall we say, of hellstone’s predisposition to spontaneously combusting upon transport in the early days of hellstone mining precipitated a whole host of research from all kinds. The second question—after, of course, how to safely mine the stuff—was how to safely move it, first to move it from the mines to the towns, and then how to move it from Antarras back to Earth where it could be traded and sold. Before the current refining process was finalized, there was a nonzero risk of the stuff setting off deadly chain reactions upon, for instance, atmospheric reentry—and of all the things the original settlers of Antarras gave up when the Company got exclusive trade rights in the Oestenberg Agreement, the responsibility of dealing with how to get hellstone safely anywhere was widely considered no great loss. 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: The old-fashioned way. 

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

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. 

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

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.

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

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. 

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

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. 

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.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/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts