Friends at the Table

Have you read these so-called "broadsides" from Ordenna yet, Alyosha? They've been distributing them here in Rosemerrow. One of them, "A Letter From Impetor Fela Malle," gets passed around by the young and angry here, youth desperate for a firm hand, for order.   It's apparently a transcript of a speech delivered by the head of Blood Malle—a rallying cry or an apologia, it is hard to tell. Regardl...

Has the news reached you, friend? A group of merchants form Rosemerrow told me today that a new wing to the Old Museum in Westshore-Upon-Sea is opening next month. (How I wish we could walk its halls and debate the merits of its exhibits—but ah, it's more than snow that separates us these days.)  So instead, let me ask you a question, dearest Arrell… The Creed of Samothes is clear that Truth is a...

In the early days of the New Archives, the philosopher and historian Krent Kava wrote that the first sign that Hieron was on its way to recovery was the return of roadways that connect coast to heartland, city center to distant university. "There," he wrote, "Is civilization back again, drawn together by the eternal will of survivors trying to connect, one to another." Some of the roads, he remind...

For a long, long time in Hieron, it was autumn. Crisp branches snapped under foot. Still lakes caught the reds, yellows, and oranges of the leaves overhead, stuck eternally between life and death. The waves taunted children and elder alike, a step too cold for all but the bravest of swimmers. And there was laughter, and planning, and good food. People would stand around bonfires--out on the beache...

And so the season turns, and the cold winds sweep in, and candles and fires and stoves are lit. Black branches against a white sky. There are more stories to tell, though. There are always more stories to tell. It's not long before we meet our old friends again, I promise. They're waiting, right now. They're kicking the frost off their boots, cold fingers on metal buckles. Before we find them agai...

Hey everyone! Here we are again with no new episode. We really really hate doing this and promise that there will some real and true and good content for you here next week. Marielda ended at the best and worst time because someone is launching a new website and that's taking a ton of time, so at least this interruption is happening inbetween seasons but we still don't feel good about it. We're re...

Hey everyone! Sorry for taking a week off, but at least it gives us an opportunity to speak to the audience directly. Thank you so much for all of support for the show and especially for Marielda. While I have you, let me go over all the places you can find Friends at the Table: www.friendsatthetable.net www.twitter.com/friends_table www.facebook.com/friendsatthetable And as for the shoutouts Aust...

FOREWORD to The Illustrated Concordance of Marielda, Second Printing No chronology will be observed here, nor could one ever be observed—Marielda resists sequential arrangement. Where other atlases and dictionaries seek to duplicate the facts of a culture, treat this text instead as a replica of Marielda's constant reconfiguration. Thus, the reader should use this concordance as if they were wande...

It was strange. Every morning you'd see The Black Slacks walking to work. By this point, the air would crackle around them, thick with rumours of another potential strike, another march. They'd walk in groups, or in pairs, or alone. Hands in pockets. They whistled. But not that morning. At first, it was as if they'd vanished. District management began to panic, sending runners to nearby factories...

In one way or another, High Sun Day is celebrated all across Hieron. After all, there is a day each year on which the sun hangs in the sky, resplendent, for what feels like an impossibly long time. After all, there is a day each year on which the heat gets so strong, the weight of the summer becomes so much, that a celebration must be thrown. On the perimeters of encampments on the plains and fore...

Today is Sunday, and not just any Sunday, it is the Sun Day, the Long Day, the Day of High Sun. Once a year, sometime in the final month of the calendar, the sun offers its light to us for 20 full hours. Each year, this event comes on a different day, and it takes the applied knowledge of scholars and mystics to narrow down its arrival. But the moment that the particular day is known, people acros...

According to the scholars at the Sonorous Academy, there are three important songs in Marielda. The first, "High Pyre Adagio," has its origins in songs of performative devotion, and emulates the distant, yet deep affection of the God-King Samothes with a temperate piano. The second is "The Last Eve of Summer," a chamber sonata composed by the so-called traitor Samot during his stay in the City of...

The nearest pub to Memoriam College is called The Blue Boar and, on the night of the Valentine Affair, the publican leaned out of the door and wondered if she smelled smoke. She ducked back inside and picked up a broom, swept the floor absentmindedly. Customers would be arriving soon, she could ask them if anything was burning. Inside The Gardeners, just down the road, two regulars were engaged in...

The citizens of Marielda close their eyes and dream of fire and water. On some nights in Canopy Row, people dream of crisp leaves, and residents of Emberboro wake suddenly with the taste of smoke in their mouths. Some years ago, a pamphlet was distributed in the city that purported to identify the difference between dreams and visions. Sceptics passed it between themselves and scoffed, others pinn...

The bells of Memoriam College ring out from high in the tower. At the top of the hour, The Diligent Peal marks the start and end of classes, ushering students from room to room. At half past, The Indolent Peal chimes, waking students who have slept in, letting them know exactly how long they have to get to class. The bells don't ring cleanly; the first note is pitched differently to the third, for...

Memoriam College only wears flowers for one week a year. On Sunday morning of that week, they send a man called Alexander to fetch them from the florists on Today-And-Tomorrow Street. He carries them back to the building and, balanced on a ladder, arms full of blooms, fixes the arrangements above the balconies. As he works, butchers and chefs down in the kitchens peer at yellowed recipe cards, try...

For the baker, news of a brewing turf war is a good sign. Hungry fighters are mouths to feed, and so they tend to their ovens and wipe flour from their brows. For the smiths and armorers too, business goes up as neighbors and governesses double up on weapons kept behind doors and under desks, just in case, just in case. Fewer people play on the streets, but the music in pubs and cafes is louder th...

To look at a city from above changes it irrecoverably, and so it was for the passengers on Train Day. And say what you like, but the windows in the carriages seemed each to show a different city, a different nest of streets. Those in the engine room saw the smoke from the factories and furnaces, and Marielda hissed and smouldered. Those in the rear carriages looked down upon Canopy Row and wondere...

Marielda is a city filled with scoundrels. Bakers lean on the scales as they count loaves of bread. Men and women in pubs shoot loaded dice. Art dealers swear, solemnly swear, that this is a genuine Sabbatini, just look at the brushstrokes. No, scoundrels in Marielda are ten-a-penny. But sometimes, the sun smiles, and its light shines upon those who have something… particular about them. Look, the...

For a while, everything was going just fine in Marielda. Sure, there was some dissent among the citizens—but what city is free of that? In general, people were coming together, rebuilding, taking care of each other. Canopy Row wasn't thriving, but it was definitely surviving. Knowledge was spreading throughout the city. Even them Cobbins had begun to find their place. And then, sometime in the mid...

In the time of fraught paladins and wavering wizards, of contemptible fighters and indignant druids, of wide eyed rangers… and of bards, the people of the continent of Hieron recover and rebuild in the aftermath of a cataclysm.    But, after all, for every inside there is an outside—no disaster was the first of its kind, except, of course, for… well...     And so, in the years prior to the event t...

With COUNTER/Weight firmly wrapped up, we take some time to answer fan questions, discuss the highs and lows of the season, and talk a little bit about what's coming next for Friends at the Table!   For those following along at home, make sure to check out the following things during the relevant segment of the show: This  map  of Mode City, September; this  tweet  which explains the actual, true...

Hey everyone, we are taking a week off here at Friends at the Table but we do have an announcement to make. We're going to be doing a post-mortem for COUNTER/Weight that will be streamed live at twitch.tv/friendsatthetable on Tuesday, June 21st at 7 PM EST! We're really looking forward to looking back on the show and answering some of your questions so please send those questions in to friendsatth...

15,000 years or so before the September Incident, it went something like this:   Somehow, they'd survived. They'd peeled across the galaxy itself, launched by the combined force of a half dozen stellar combusters. Shielded by Rigor's endless mass, they'd subsisted on machine-assembled proteins and nutrients, suffering in the lonely dark at high speeds.    They weren't quite candidates, but they we...

Fifteen years ago, soon after the the Golden War ended, Grace issued her ex cathedra prognosis: With Apostolos defeated (and 'integration' well in process) and peace firmly in place with the Orion Conglomerate, the Diaspora had finally brought into being the end of history as such. Certainly, there was still difference in how OriCon and the Diaspora operated, but the writing was on the wall: The D...