#marielda spoilers

[peacereturnedtothevalley]

I am not legally bound to this but I keep feeling a need to find a common theme w all the fatt PCs per player so here is my not-peer reviewed analysis (obviously not completely universal due to the sheer number of characters):

dre characters - unnassuming but surprising when they follow their convictions to shocking or violent ends. may or may not sleep/eat/die

ali characters - blorbos and icons. Romance is important in shaping the characters 

janine characters - macabre, fully in her aesthetic wheelhouse or explorations outside of that comfort zone

sylvi characters - little guy and or really cool and or have family issues

art characters - stoic, explorations of religious worship, or a guy completely out of his depths may or may not alter life as we know it (i dont know enough about duvall)

keith characters - fun and funny and not taken seriously. unsurprisingly follow their convictions but to unexpectedly sad ends

jack characters - wide variety, multiplicity, convincing in-character role play, one brit allowed

Not planning on elaborating on all of these but for Jack wrt multiplicity (some c/w + marielda characters spoilers below 😱):

hitchcocks is twins

audy is audy and also two divines

fourteen fifteen has multiple bodies and got 4 of them on screen, each with distinct personality shifts even if the core is still themself

this doesnt count but the inherent nature of faction game

accounting for solos we have

lem (lem)

clem (clem)

kalar <3

pickman <3

so overall a lot a variety anyway

ALso elaborating on Sylvi characters (little guy really cool family issues):

Aubrey: little guy

Ephrim: really cool, family issues (lonely boy where do I belong where is home)

Echo: little guy really cool family issues

Millie - really cool, family issues (does being a clone count)

Virtue - really cool

Hazard - little guy

Cori - little guy family issues

[scarletstatic]

Miscellaneous Friends at the Table sketches I don't think I ever posted! In order:

I always meant to do a Kobus, Vicuna, Jamil, Paisley and Ibex character design set to go with the others I did! Maybe one day I'll go back and finish them.

A close up of Kobus because they were the most finished.

Next is Tea helping Natalya fix her robot arm.

Hella and Adaire practicing swordfighting and holding hands!

Claret Holiday and Lilith R'ion of the Golden Lance.

Then last, two pics of Jacqui and Aria at the dance and writing songs together.

[boo-cool-robot]

[ALT]

the fundamental difference between ephrim and hadrian

[mosswolf]

look absolutely NOTHING will top the hitchcock twins reveal the build up the delivery it's fucking perfect it was the moment when i went from oh this podcast is fun to oh this podcast is GOOD

[wanderingandfound]

I know he's named Maelgwyn because he was created in a game of The Quiet Year and wasn't thought up as one of the Samtheon, but like, this child, this spark, ingenuity alive having a name, an identity so distinct from his family, it sounds so different than even Severea and Galenica, and what happens to him?

He becomes Samothes.

[transfemmbeatrice]

an unnecessarily precise breakdown of major character deaths in Friends at the Table! I would love to hear if I missed any or if people have different opinions about edge cases.

list and explanation below (spoilers, of course, for all seasons):

Ali

Hella died twice--once in Autumn when she came back after making a deal with Tristero, and once in Spring when Samot delayed her death with local reconfiguration and eventually she moved into a pala-din body. Castille started dead, a ghost in a robot body from the jump.

Art

Cass and Sovereign Immunity both died at the end of their respective seasons.

Dre

Oh, Dre. Well. First, Kobus died in the Counterweight finale, which I am counting because they did not have a PC besides them. Then Valence, the first mid-season permadeath that didn't happen in a cutscene, and finally, Chine. Throndir died and came back a vampire; Figure started out undead.

Jack

I'm counting Clem as a permadeath because as far as Jack knew she DID die and regardless it DID end her life as a player character. Fourteen Fifteen gets two; one permadeath for the ending of Twilight Mirage, and one temporary death to cover the many times they perished throughout the season. I don't think they should all count separately because they all happened with the knowledge that they would be temporary, which the others did not. Of course, you could make the argument that Fourteen started off dead...

Janine

Janine has been with the show the least amount of time so she's had fewer opportunities and I'm worried this means she's due.

Keith

Branched Man..... never forget......... I chose not to include the other Makos because they weren't really player characters?

Sylvi

Here to give Dre a run for their money, we've got Jillian Red's death at the end of Counterweight (included for the same reasons as Kobus, above). Ephrim died and came back via Samothes II. Virtue of course started off with the You're Dead playbook, and Hazard is sort of debatable but I've decided that even in Sangfielle, not having a head makes you at least mostly undead.

[clemkesh]

Elevator Post 2.0.

*Taps mic*

Hello friends. Sangfielle has ended, and you know what that means. The moment you’ve all been waiting for. It’s time for a follow up to my original post (here) that sought to answer that age old question: if you put all of the Friends at the Table players’ squads of pcs in an elevator together for 24 hours, how likely is it that someone gets murdered?

Murder Free: Janine’s Squad (Adaire, Signet, Thisbe, Es) There’s no one in this elevator who actively enjoys murder, is a magnet for horrors unimaginable, or deeply radiates murderability. Right away that puts us miles ahead of most other squads. I know in my heart that Signet and Thisbe would be besties, and I think that Adaire and Es could bond over their shared hobby of taking objects. We’ve seen from the room service incident that Es is an absolute master of spending 24 hrs trapped inside and I think she could really bring those immaculate vibes to this elevator. Maybe Adaire could find a way to smuggle in some pastries for them. They’d have a great time chillin’ and I just don’t see this escalating to murder. Other crimes are still on the table. Murder Odds: 0/10 Pls invite me to this gossipy sleepover

Probably No Murder?: Ali’s Squad (Hella, Aria, Castille, Tender, Broun, Marn) The real concern in this elevator is, of course, Hella Veral. Homegirl is a “destroy what you don’t understand” enthusiast. However, I think with the addition of Marn, cooler heads would probably prevail, and there might be enough reasonable people in here to stop anyone who tried to pull some shit. There’s not even really an obvious murder target for Hella to go for. Broun is great at saying things that piss people off, so maybe them, but Hella fuckin loves Adaire and I think Broun has some Adaire-esque vibes, so maybe they would get along great. I also stand by my take that Aria and Tender would end up making out. That could make things uncomfortable, or everyone might wanna get down. Murder odds: 2/10, Orgy odds: 1/10. Multiple slim but exciting possibilities on the table here

Slightly Non-Murder Leaning: Sylvia’s Squad (Ephrim, Aubrey, Echo, Millie, Virtue, Hazard) I’m most worried about some goth on goth violence here. Virtue loves using people. Millie hates being used. I can see Virtue giving an elevator pitch (heh) about the wonders of becoming her vampire thrall and Millie responding with a murder. However, to Millie’s credit, she put up with Clem for way longer than 24 hours, so it might all turn out alright. Instead, maybe this whole elevator could bond together over what’s truly important: their immaculate fashion sense. I mean honestly. Look at this fuckin squad. Runway ready each and every one of them and yes I am including Aubrey. I love and respect lesbian eclectic fashion and so should you. Murder odds 4/10 Wait. If Virtue dies does that even count as a murder? Can you be murdered twice? 

????: Dre’s Squad (Throndir, Sige, Even, Valence, The Figure in Bismuth, Chine) Chine is gonna do something strange and someone is coming out of this elevator changed. Whether that change is going from alive to dead or not is between Dre and people who understand the Course’s whole deal better than I do. I can also see a bunch of people pulling a Lyke and trying to stop Chine from doing weird shit if they give it a go- and Chine would probably let them, though that compliance might throw people off. Murder odds: 5/10 What a weirdo (affectionate) 

Absolute Chaos: Keith's Squad (Fero, Mako, Gig, Leap, Phrygian, Lyke) The physics simulator in my mind is not equipped to figure out what happens if you show a wholetaur to someone who is “inky and billowing.” Would an OSHA vlogger and a reverse-cyborg pirate get along? What would the ravening beast do when faced with a light blue twink on a hoverboard with his nips out? Philosophers will surely be debating these great queries for centuries to come. I can’t tell you who would do the murder here or who would be the victim. I just know that when you put this many variables in an enclosed space for 24 hours, the odds of something going awry are pretty high, and this squad is full of disaster magnets. They might also get along famously, though. Could be the start of something beautiful. Murder odds: 6/10 Idk but I’m getting a headache thinking about it

Oh Yeah. Almost Definitely A Murder: Jack’s Squad (Lem, AuDy, Hitchcock, Fourteen, Clementine, Kalar, Pickman) Pickman got Dayward’s ass and she’d get Clem’s, too. What is an elevator if not a vertical train? Or, now that Clem’s leveled up into the Witch in Glass, maybe she would strike down the Hitchcocks for trying to pickpocket her. Or, hell, I can see Lem getting got by a robogod with a shotgun arm. Infinite possibilities! Most of them ending in death. Murder Odds: 14/15 ;)

Murder 100% Guaranteed: Art’s Squad (Hadrian, Cass, Grand, SI, Duvall) Duvall’s presence changes nothing. Grand Magnificent is still the most murderable PC in F@TT history, and yes, I’m counting the PCs that have actually been murdered. He wears the ephemeral idea of a leather duster. He says the phrase “quaint colonialists.” He’d sell NFTs. His name is Grand Magnificent. Someone in this elevator would kill that guy. Probably Cass. And, if they didn’t, I would personally bestow upon them a Nobel Peace Prize, on Valence’s behalf (I’m so funny), for their epic feat of restraint. Murder Odds: 10/10 Public service tbh

[emarcial]

it's a metaphor!

[clover-punk]

Minor spoilers for Friends at the Table's new mini arc on the Patreon: Eyes of A Killer.

I can't believe the table friends joked about doing Marielda again in their Slow Knife game... and then didnt even realize they re-invented Marielda by way of Lava-Punk Volca-nobles...

[executiveibex]

going from the giddy, no-holds-barred chaos of the GenCon Marielda liveshow recording and this week’s Bluff City episode to the Absolute Bummer that is Winter in Hieron 16 was. well, in keeping with the seasonal themes, it was like jumping hooting and hollering off of a dock into a lake in summer only to realize just how fucking freezing the water still is.

[archipithecus]

Friends at the Table is a podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, fun interaction between good friends, and asking "what if X was Y? what if W could do Z?"

anyways here's a non-comprehensive selection of some times FatT asked good hypotheticals

(spoilers for Autumn in Heiron, Marielda, Winter in Heiron, COUNTER/Weight, Twilight Mirage, Sangfielle, and some Bluff City i think) (i know Spring, Partizan, and Palisade must also have good "what if X was Y?" but i'm still catching up) (this got way long so i'm putting it behind a readmore) (shoutout to Search at the Table at https://curiosity.cat-girl.gay/ for letting me do this) (also to Transcripts at the Table for writing this all down in the first place)

KEITH: What if I was a snow...hawk… ART: What if you're like, a Dr. Seuss animal? KEITH: Yeah! What if I was a star-bellied sneetch?

KEITH: (laughing) What if the bird was a can opener!

AUSTIN (as Zaktrak): It's like, what if a, what if a factory or train or a windmill could read a book?

AUSTIN (CONT.): And then he, he looks up, he actually has like a very… his build is kind of like, angular and… not thin in terms of like, weak? But he has a sort of… androgynous character about him, in terms of his like, what you would think of as like his body structure. And… very beautiful blue eyes. He’s sort of like, what if David Bowie was super black.

AUSTIN: And that's kind of like, the picture you get of her, is like, What if Fero was like, 30% less hyperactive? Still way more hyperactive than everybody else in-- the world? (laughter) but like, just a little more in tune, with the world.

AUSTIN: What if fire was matte?

ART: What if a—what if a 90s after school special needed some graffiti

AUSTIN: Yeah. He asks you, um... watching what unfolds, and there's, there's, it's--and this is the fuckin' nerdiest thing I'm ever gonna say; it's like what if A-ha's Take On Me was an AMV? Was an anime music video?

AUSTIN: Ali’s character, how did she describe her character, “what if Han Solo used to be Beyonce?”

AUSTIN: It’s like, what if the American government was just another American company?

AUSTIN: It’s like what if holograms did gifs, basically?

ART: You how like Han Solo’s always talking to the Millenium Falcon, but what if the Millenium Falcon-- AUSTIN: Could talk back? ART: Had a chance of, yeah, of deciding he was angry.

SYLVIA: For example. Like just p - yeah, what if they have psychic assassins there. Oh! What if this planet’s an alien? What if this planet is a psychic assassin? Which is a great sentence I just said.

AUSTIN: Yeah, I should note that this is also like "What if the Super Bowl was attended by high fashion models?", right?

AUSTIN: We don’t get a lot of elderly non-binary people. And so Saint Auger is like, what if someone you knew from Portland was 82?

AUSTIN: It’s almost like, what if a crown could be a dunce cap?

AUSTIN: It's like- what if there was a really enterprising twelve year old, who like, [laughs] made a physiology- uh, person- a physiology like, model, but with dirt and rocks and sticks. Also there's no face, the face is also just one of this solid black rock plates.

AUSTIN: And again, there’s just light streaming in through—I think this room is mostly, like, does not have a huge window, but it does have little eyelet windows at the top of the, towards the ceiling, that run horizontally along the room, and just like, bright—it’s almost like, what if colour could be shadow? Do you know what I mean? Like, what if instead of it being that a shadow crosses your face, it is this prismatic glow that moves across the group of you as this thing crawls around this space station.

AUSTIN: It’s like white and blue, there are stars, it- you know, I think that the- it’s, it looks like the way you might imagine like, what if the UN had spaceships?

AUSTIN: What if you mixed your- your selfhood, with the notion of wings. Or the notion of flight. Not just flying. That’s where we’re going.

AUSTIN: This giant battleship that’s like ‘what if a millipede instead of legs had guns and what if it was all around it’?

AUSTIN: This thing is like the size of like a major city. This thing is like, what if Manhattan was a battleship. And instead of buildings it had guns. Except now they’re made of weird black glass.

AUSTIN: The first time he showed up I described him as what if Canderous Ordo decided to have a robot body one day? And slowly began to replace it.

AUSTIN: There’s a little— Yes, it’s like what if a cow— what if Christian Slater was playing a cowboy from New Jersey, and also was Canderous Ordo. And also he eats through his hands.

AUSTIN: There is just this like… I think it’s just metal unfolding across space. Like, at some point Volition just kind of spat out a, a, almost, it looks like a cloud of ink but instead of ink, it’s metal. And it’s just unfolding indefinitely in space like a huge— like what if Akira, what if at the end of Akira when Tetsuo turns into a weird flesh monster? It was that but various types of metal, just like bubbling all over the place throughout space, and I don’t know how you deal with that! But suddenly in the middle of the Mirage there is just this, this ink splatter, this, this gaseous, you know, spread of metal.

AUSTIN: And it’s like — again, it’s like a pistol — it’s like what if a pistol was also like a curved sword, like almost like a scimitar or something?

JANINE: What if we do a live show, but the only live show we ever do is at Bakucon?

ART: Um, let me tell you, this is a nice coat, you guys. Um, I think it’s sort of like what if… What if a leather duster jacket was like an ephemeral idea.

AUSTIN: It’s like … I think the way I described it was, what if there was a Companion Cube that could have its corners pulled apart and in the middle is a weird glowing sphere?

AUSTIN: He has this dope, like, “What if the Millenium Falcon was a deep V?” Instead of just that little bit at the top, it goes really deep down. Or like, “What if Pacman was really long?” You know what I mean?

AUSTIN: Okay. You find him like, rolled under the bottom of his, uhh, or like on a, it’s not rolled under, he’s on like a little, like cart that has a pneumatic lift, or it’s like, it’s like a, it’s like a robot that walks around. It has like- it’s like a Boston Dynamics- like what if a Boston Dynamics, like four-legged robot was also a thing you laid on top of? Like one of those carts that goes underneath a car, to repair it. You know what I’m talking about?

AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [exhales thoughtfully] Like what if milk was a solid.

AUSTIN: But it still has that ribbony-quality? [chuckles] It still has the sound of fabric rubbing on fabric? But is definitely amplified a great deal, probably? And also, we know it’s sharp, so there’s probably some… sharpness to it? You know… there’s probably, like… what if a ribbon could be a sword you pull out of a sheath?

AUSTIN: And also, Saint Sommer is a big lion man. Saint Sommer is, like… Skein. And is a big… a big… like, a big lion man. Not like Lion-o from Thundercats. Like… what if Scar could… had a big human body? Was, like… What if Scar was cut?

KEITH: And it sort of like, snap! Like, that, it's like… when we were talking about what the sound it makes, I was picturing… what if folding a blanket sounded like sheet metal?

AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know I think it’s like, I think this is very much like, what if the Venom symbiote was made of thread, right?

AUSTIN: So maybe it's like a- like imagine, what if a mop could just mop by itself.

AUSTIN: I won’t talk more about that stuff, but you already saw the big picture of “what if Connecticut was a space ocean,” so, you have at least some context there.

AUSTIN: It’s huge. It’s the size of a continent, right? It’s “What if South America was a big circle?” It’s “What if Europe and Eurasia was a big circle?”, constantly cast on this planet. And, you know, from space it kind of looks—not flat necessarily, right, because it’s a curved planet, it’s a sphere, or spherical, but, you know, it’s flat.

AUSTIN: It’s like what if Texas stood up.

AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): “What if cars brought things to you instead of bringing you to things?”

AUSTIN: It’s just like a very bright, colorful—like, what if Steven Universe did the Sailors of the Ark? What if that team did it? It’s very good.

AUSTIN: It’s like what if it’s a can opener that does that. Like a living can opener like. Grrrngaaah! I’m going fucking open holes in things! Grrngaah!

AUSTIN: Imagine that they're almost- in my mind they're like what if a martini shaker was a piston.

AUSTIN: It's like what if you could package a sunset, y'know? Into like a cube

AUSTIN: I can't believe we started this recording by looking at pies [KEITH and DRE laugh] that make me hurt and ended with ‘what if all foods could be jelly juice?’.

AUSTIN: I saw a big buffalo picture and I was like what if that was a person, that looks cool.

ART: But what if some of these skeletons are like, sick of this shit?

AUSTIN: I think I pitched this show as like: what if Ghost in the Shell but-but magic and witches instead of cyborgs and stuff?

JACK: So, out come this nascent organization who we’re calling Shapeknights. Who are -- I think the easiest way to say it is “cowboys for trains?” They are, like -- what if instead of the cowboy riding alongside the train on his horse, he was corralling the train? Or he was trying to understand the train, or was trying to --

ALI: I think Marn, herself is a little bit more like—like what if a capybara was a siamese cat?

KEITH: Yeah. So, I wholeheartedly recommend this movie, but if not, if you don't know what I'm talking about with the goggles, at least look at that. ‘Cause it's a good image. It's sort of like, what if you had a jeweler's loupe that had a jeweler's loupe that had a jeweler's loupe?

ART: It’s like, what if the antagonist won the Mummy movie right, this is what happens-

KEITH: What if instead of one, big, beautiful hat I have two small, beautiful hats?

KEITH: Like what if they made headphones just for being cool at a party?

KEITH: What if you make pizza by opening the box? That it was an empty box until you opened it.

AUSTIN: What if insects were made of teeth?

JACK: She’s the fuckin’ person of the train. She’s like what if a train could output a person.

KEITH: What if the train was a nice train?

ART: What if a Madame Tussauds came to life?

AUSTIN: What if fire could be a ghost?

AUSTIN: Looking through this here, sounds like what you wrote here was “What if a dolphin was like a velociraptor?”

AUSTIN: They’re hitched. Yeah, they've been hitched. Three of them have been hitched. And I said horse, but I want you to imagine is what if…what if a shrimp were a horse?

JACK: You sort of just like rise up the slope. It's a bit like what if a train was an escalator.

AUSTIN: What if Beyonce was Poison Ivy?

AUSTIN: All my cards on the table, Millennium Black is like what if Blade stopped being a vampire hunter and started being a casino owner.

AUSTIN: He's sort of like what if Alex Jones wasn't terrible

[katenepveu]

Feel free to take issue with my choices, of course! And sorry for the Bluff City and Fall of Magic erasure, but I couldn't not do "the weak point of a mech," and then it seemed only fair to put the other Road in.

(I did, however, try to make this spoiler free, FYI.)

[swallowtailed]

oh. so… um, fatt: marielda spoilers maybe, but the inventor god who prohibits learning is trying to protect people from finding out about the inevitable apocalypse, and the betrayer god who is at war with the inventor was damned for daring to believe the apocalypse could be stopped?

cool great cool

[saltqueer]

Papyrus for the ask game! :)

papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

ok this is a bit silly bc i just have mp3s and basically listen to one (1) persons music bc its the only stuff i have with metadata on it and everything else is in an unsorted mega-album that i dare not enter. so! i picked their stuff that i think i listen to most frequently and got On The Approach by Jack de Quidt on PALISADE: Friends At The Table Soundtrack, Season Eight. Its a song from the first episode of the season that Friends at the Table is putting out rn, and im really adoring all their music for it. It has this incredible vibey electric guitar and synth that switches pretty seamlessly in and out of more crunchy rhythmic parts, sometimes i listen to it with my eyes closed and it makes me feel like im floating and then quickly brings me back to earth, which is very fun.

in the show it backs the introduction of a new kind of magic for this season, a sort of horrible depiction of how the big evil empire uses magic. the GM lists a lot of different ways the empires magic feels and the music responds to them, which is very cool.

I know I've just talked a lot about how this music ties in to the show, because of course, but even if you don't know the show i suggest checking them out here! that's their whole bandcamp page, the link higher up is to the song itself. there's only two songs across their whole discography that have lyrics in them, so no spoilers or needing of context. and they cover a lot of different musical styles, so even if you try the palisade soundtrack out and it doesn't click with you, their other stuff is different enough that it could! Sangfielle has this sort of fucked up violin, clarinet, and ooOOooo vocals sound, PARTIZAN is a lot of screaming synths and sirens, live at the table has a bunch of different stuff, Something & Nothing, Inside & Outside, and Autumn in Hieron are all sort of soft piano fantasy, with a goal of minimalism that doesn't always quite happen. Twilight Mirage is dance pop, Bluff City is jazzy, Marielda is clarinets (is that a genre? it is now), and The Long Way Around is minimalist scifi piano.

I know this isn't really the question, but on Inside & Outside there's a track called Hadrian & His Son where you can hear the piano pedals being pressed and for whatever reason that really gets to me every time

[dissecthebird]

death omens that you know are true…..like obviously there’s the the way black sails functions as the history from which the story of treasure island was written, but that really specific quality you get out of hadestown or marielda where you know the character’s going to die, the writer knows you know, and the only thing that remains to be seen is exactly how and when…..

[redzephyr]

“next week on friends at the table: the funeral of samothes” AHHGHGGHGGGH