Sword of Symphonies

A couple days ago, there was a girl, and it was time for her to become an adult, though she didn’t know it at the time. She ventured into the forest on no particular errand, with no particular goal but an afternoon’s diversion. She stumbled upon a vision of herself, a selfish, lonely, hostile child. As her senses gave way to fantasy and the world tingled around her, she fought. She fought to stay...

There is something to be said for adversaries. Big or small, external or internal, adversaries help us find direction, help us channel our power, help us learn who we are and what we are capable of. Amylte is, right now, a more peaceful place that it ever has been. But somewhere along the line, while people were forced to stop fighting wars against one another, they forgot how to fight themselves....

Anyway, the life cycle of a relationship, if you squint, follows the same trajectory as the life cycle of any living being. The humiliating, invincible youth is a time spent building, growing, learning, with little thought given to the accrual of debt to be paid later in that life cycle. Relationships, just like living bodies, reach a precipice of adulthood, where their internal systems are no lon...

This week, we don’t have a Kathleen, but we do have a lot to say about designing encounters! Join Cat, Nick, Kathleen, and guest Bill as we talk combat! Join our Discord! Music by Kathleen!

Hundreds of years ago, there was a girl, and it was time for her to become an adult. Like countless youths before her, she ducked her head into the ritual space her family had built her. A cup of tea steamed in front of her, and as she drank she felt her body warmed and fortified. With a leaf fan, an elder blew a pinch of golden pollen at her, and as she breathed it in she began to feel her world...

There is this wonderful myth some people tell, the story of Progress. The mythical idea that everyone is moving forward, that we as a society know things now that we did not know in the past. Even in Amylte people look at the war and turmoil of the ages before the Cataclysm and tell themselves they are wiser than their forebears. But there has always been knowledge and there has always been wisdom...

Nestled between the lava flats and a mountain they call Orchid Sister, there is a village called Pavillion. A traditional stilt-home village with a small reputation for traditional arts, built around an ancient stone amphitheater. Pavillion boasts the finest acoustic engineers on the continent, and productions that date back to before the Cataclysm. The people of Pavillion raise crops on the dark...

History is a game of telephone, twisting with each telling, twisting and warping until it’s another story. The only way to know it, truly, is to have been there. Even that’s sometimes up for debate. Like any other story, history is powerful and beautiful and important. Like any other story, it is completely ephemeral. When next you tell the story, it will change again. Welcome to Sword of Symphoni...

Whenever we learn something about the world, we leave marks on it, little handprints as a record of our clumsy exploration. We discover things as if we were the ones to bring them into being, lovingly name them, and leave our impressions as fact for the next person to follow our path. The history of the world changes every time we discover it, as we change to meet it. Welcome to Sword of Symphonie...

The world is always moving. Everything changes, whether those changes be cataclysmic or invisible. Every day we open our eyes to see a world that has never existed before, and before we know it, it has vanished into another new world. In the Coral Coast, one can watch the world change before their very eyes, and everyone living there knows that the present and the future are malleable. Even the pa...

This week, Kersten has been taken to an intergalactic prison located somewhere in the moons of Jupiter! Join Cat, Nick, Kathleen, and guest Bill as we talk combat! Join our Discord! Music by Kathleen!

The enormous Westbreaker drifts over placid seas, eastward to warmer weather, as countless ships have over the course of Amylte’s history. A ship built for shattering the ice of the north is hardly at home in the tropics, but the seabirds rally around it and the sun warms its decks, as if to welcome it to the ever-changing beauty of the Coral Coast. Welcome to Sword of Symphonies. Welcome to Sword...

Amylte is a resting place. the gods here sleep, powerful in repose but stationary. Most of the continent is the gravesite of the old world, the burial mount of old ideas and structures. The continent itself seems to be at rest, recovering from its ordeal and waiting for the day it will awaken. What it will look like in that future has yet to be decided. Welcome to Sword of Symphonies. Original mus...

Every place has its own normal. Everyone has their own normal, a normal that belongs only to them. While the citizens of Stageport would be aghast at living under the wing of the Ambassador in Pearl, the citizens of Dunbarrow can rest easy, knowing that their home is returning to their special normal. While the scholars of Hushwave University would tremble under her gaze, the scholars in the monas...

The world is full of things. Curious things, unexpected things, unimportant things. We're all free to decide which things matter, when presented with the chaos of every day. In the end, that's the difference between us and the Noble Demons. It might be our greatest strength, too. Welcome to Sword of Symphonies. Original music by Kathleen~! Special thanks to Dillon, of Tales from the Tabletop , for...

A long time ago there was a girl. She was strong and brave and she learned to hunt and survive the wilderness of the Rhime. A long time ago there was a boy. He was quiet and keen and loved to read books, especially stories about demons. Each day the boy would walk from town to the girl’s cabin to read her stories. She loved his stories. Her favorite was “Ira the white haired girl” a story about a...

This world is full of people. Stout people, narrow people, gentle people, coarse people. An entire kaleidoscope of feelings and thoughts and outlooks and lives that whirl together in a rainbow against one another. Every person is as different as a new day, and every day touches the lives of people like it never has before, and then vanishes. Did you know? Demons are the same way. Welcome to Sword...

Once upon a time, two powerful demons came to the same place, a place they thought Agrippina could not see them. Well, not once upon a time. Several times, upon a time. Repeatedly, upon a time. These creatures that had patiently, determinedly, relentlessly built up their power have never been able to resist using it against one another. But once upon a time, two powerful demons came to the same pl...

This week, Kersten's off on a wonderful adventure in a fantasy world! Until she can find her way home, Nick, Kathleen, Cat, and Dillon are going to finally talk about the whole concept of Sword of Symphonies - Playtesting.

They don't care about anything else. One concept is the light around which their solar system revolves, and everything else is swallowed in darkness. The Noble Demons do not hate humanity. Quite the opposite; they do not even notice our existence. As long as their own obsession keeps burning, what happens to us is immaterial, however tragic. Welcome to Sword of Symphonies. Original music by Kathle...

Once upon a time, so long ago that detail is lost and even sentiment gets a little blurry, there was a man. Probably a man like any other. Most likely flesh and blood. Driven by a powerful, seething ambition, he grew in power until he was prepared to challenge gods. He was prepared to be struck down. In some stories, he was. But in this story, he gained the shackles of eternal obsession and slunk...

Nothing is simpler than things we expect to be complicated. Nothing is more complicated than things we expect to be simple. The difference, of course, is understanding. There is no such thing as simplicity; understanding makes the simple complex. From there, it's a matter of expectations. Welcome to Sword of Symphonies. Original music by Kathleen~! Special thanks to Dillon, of Tales from the Table...

This week, since we have Dillon, let's talk about something Dillon is very good at! That's right, it's Worldbuilding time! Yay!

There are some scholars in Amylte who are deeply preoccupied with the existence of Horrors. They are extremely difficult things to study, if indeed they are “things”, and of course once one has asked if something is a “thing”, then one has opened up an entire line of questioning – if not, then what is it? If so, then what kind of thing? Some excellent papers have been written on the subject in rec...

Some two hundred and twenty years ago, a farmer left her community to put down roots in the foothills. Today no one knows why, though she must have had her reasons. And two hundred twenty years ago, the foothills weren’t the place they are today, so it made sense to start a life there. It made enough sense that many other people did the same thing, and soon enough there was a village. And that is...