About the Stories

In Do, you tell a story about Pilgrims of the Flying Temple.

All Pilgrims were once regular children who for various reasons, and by various means, came to live at the Flying Temple. These regular kids had regular lives on regular worlds in a very regular universe with very regular families. The odd thing about "regular" is that when you say it often enough, it sounds kind of like "reglar." Or maybe "blegghlar."  "Regular" can mean lots of things to lots of people.

Heng was a painfully shy farm boy, raised by a gang of bandits on a cluster of little asteroids tethered together by rope. One day, he noticed Pilgrims flying to their next mission, so he untied the ropes of his farm-cluster, looped them around a flock of birds and chased the pilgrims until they returned to the Flying Temple.

Edena was an identical twin (except that she had an extra finger on each hand) raised by a belligerent dray of squirrels on a migrating sky whale. One day, she tried using an ancient squirrel artifact to fix a tragic mistake made by her twin, but instead found herself at the Flying Temple's courtyard.

Kamea was a young heir to the throne with eyes the color of the sun, cared for by a carefree giant bird on a ruined throneworld. One day, he became lost in the fog of battle during a great war, suddenly appearing in the smoky fog of a kitchen fire at the Flying Temple.

Li was a young champion of the people, caught between two cultures and raised by a secret society of magicians on a giant ball of yarn. One day, she was exiled for introducing kittens to the ecoystem, banished to the Flying Temple.

You know, regular kids.

Think of all the kids in classic stories who got lost in a magical land: Alice, Peter, Wendy, Harry, the whole lot of them. Imagine if they all really ended up in the same place. The Flying Temple is kind of like that. 

The Temple

So, yes, there is this temple in the center of the universe. From a distance, it looks like the prickly pit of an exotic fruit, festooned with every kind of tower and pagoda and minaret and flag and bird and kite and paper and flying monk. It's as if a giant oyster swallowed a grain of sand and built up layers of temple over it, creating this strange misshapen pearl. It hovers there, surrounded by blue skies, while the rest of existence orbits around this bristling nucleus.

Except it's not a mere terrestrial temple, it's a whole world unto itself. Except it's too small to be a planet by our standards, though the monks seem to find it just the right size for their purposes. Except... Well, it's not entirely a temple. It's sort of a school campus, too. When you get closer, you see actual land between the clusters of towers. Cobblestone paths idly meander through bamboo forests, well-manicured gardens, menageries of strange animals.

Over here you see the Hall of Very Tall Statues of Venerable Masters. Over there you see the lanterns that monks light every day to illuminate the universe. Below, you see elder monks teaching classes of youngsters the art of flight. Above, you see a more experienced class making sport out of collecting the mail that flutters into the temple's skies.

It's, well, it's just your usual Flying Temple.

School's Up

This Temple houses an even more mysterious monastic order who, in turn, study a mysterious philosophy. All this "Flying Temple" business is really quite mysterious, for reals. Yet, as far as most young visitors are concerned, it's just school.

Too young to become full-fledged monks, the Temple elders raise these kids as students. Besides classes in ancient philosophy, really ancient maths, and really-quite-enough-ancient mythology, they learn one skill that sets them apart from all other worldly peoples: The ability to fly. For the ornithological minded, that means to fly like a bird. Or, if you prefer a more modern reference, like a superhero. Or, for the ornithological comics fans, a superbird.

Once a child learns to fly and she's reached her early teen years, she is ready for her Pilgrimage. This ritual gives the young teenager enough life experience to decide her own fate, whether to stay at the Temple to become a monk or to remain out in the worlds.

Traveling Light

The elders believe that the most valuable items are those that can be carried. Thus, the lighter and more ephemeral a possession, the more valuable it is. Breath is valuable. Memories are valuable. And your name is most valuable of all.

All young visitors come to the temple with a name give to them by their families, but the elders also give them some flowery additions to that name to carry on the Pilgrimage. A Pilgrim's full name might be "Pilgrim Kiran the Devout Bird."

The first part of her name is the title "Pilgrim," which she earns when she is ready to begin the Pilgrimage. The next part, "Kiran," is her worldly name, the name given to her at birth by the worldly family who raised her as a child. The next two words, "Devout Bird," are her Temple name. Every guest of the Temple gets a Temple name as a traditional courtesy, kind of like a souvenir that doesn't cost anything. (Hey, the elders may be wise, but they're tight with a penny.)

The first word in the Temple name, "Devout," is her Banner, a metaphor for how she gets into trouble. In Kiran's case, her problem is that she stubbornly holds to the dogmatic traditions of her homeworld, which causes her troubles when she has to deal with anyone who disagrees with her beliefs. The second part of her Temple name, "Bird," is her Avatar, a metaphor for how she helps people and solves problems. In Kiran's case, she earned the avatar "Bird" when she swooped down from the sky to save a whole class of young visitors from falling into an open pit... just five minutes after her first flying lesson.

Besides their names, the next most valuable object assigned to pilgrims is the letters. Just before a group of Pilgrims leaves for their journey, the elders give them a stack of letters. Each letter is written by a different person living on one of the many small worlds that orbit the Temple. The letter-writers each have a terrible trouble that they just can't handle on their own. Pilgrims respond to these letters in-person as a representative of the Temple. The letters take the Pilgrims through a fantastic universe of endless skies and many small worlds.

Aside from their name and the letters, Pilgrims are allowed to bring whatever mementos of home they wish or whatever tools they need to perform their duties. They are not allowed to bring weapons, however. Pilgrims are expected to solve a world's problems with ingenuity and compassion. If worse comes to worst, however, a pilgrim is allowed to defend herself with whatever tools and skills she has access to at that time. 

With only those possessions, Pilgrims travel the universe beyond the temple.

Your stories take place in a universe of endless skies.

Imagine a sky without limits, extending forever in all directions. That is the universe the Pilgrims encounter during their journey. There is no “outer space” as we know it, with harsh vacuum and hazardous cosmic rays. Instead of nebulae glowing fiercely against the black, voluminous clouds shelter thriving ecosystems full of birds, air whales and lightning spirits.

The Flying Temple hovers in the center all heavens. If you think of the universe like our Solar system the Temple would be the sun. Each day, monks dutifully light the lanterns that shine across heavens. At night, the night shift douses the lanterns and the sky becomes dark again, save for the millions of twinkling lights from worldly towns, cities and campfires.

A Tour of the Heavens

The vast majority of the universe is filled with peaceful, tranquil skies. Anywhere you look, you will see clouds and a sprinkling of little planets so far away they all take on a vague bluish shade. The sky is blue during brightest light and a deep violet as the light dims. What we would see and think of as stars are actually the twinkling campfires and lamps of not-so-distant worlds. This region is so broad and common that it doesn't even have a proper name of its own. It's just called "the sky" for lack of a better term. When you're stranded between worlds, it's called the "drift," because you're at the whim of any passing breeze.

Some regions do get their own names, however. These regions are called "heavens" on most maps, getting their own descriptive titles.

The Heaven of Steel is home to worlds of industry and empire. While most peoples dare not mine their world for minerals or metals, the empires relentlessly chew up every scrap of solid ground in their pursuit of better, stronger sky armadas. Citizens live under the rule of one imperial family or another. The ongoing family feuds of various noble clans are so far removed from the life of the average laborer that you could probably convince them that you are the new emperor.

The Heaven of Steel is surrounded by the result of their labors, the Heaven of Dust, the sandy remnants of those unfortunate worlds where even an ounce of ore is discovered. Too small for anyone to call home, the dust cloud nevertheless makes convenient shelter for masked bandits, nomads and pirates. This heaven's most nefarious reputation may come from the fact that it is a weapon itself. The dust is suffocating as any noxious gas. It stings any eyes unprotected by goggles. Sky ships are even known to trawl the edge of the cloud with great slings, then hurl the payload at rival worlds. Thus, the Heaven of Dust expands a little each day as the Imperial borders grow.

The Swift Heaven is a network of air currents that speedily send sky ships and other creatures across the universe. However, few stay on long as the Living Storm calls this region home. Without any solid land to break its course, this hurricane is thousands of years old. It has developed a symbiotic relationship with the rest of the universe across those strange eons. Extending its fast winds to lure unwary travelers with the promise of convenient travel, it unfurls lightning bolts that can shatter the strongest hulls and fry the biggest sky whale. (This lends itself to a very popular chain of side-wind whale restaurants.) If a pilgrim is swift enough and stupid enough, the Swift Heaven can be a great asset on the pilgrimage.

The Heaven of Spirits is a pocket of air in which wizardly arts seem to be particularly strong, though for no apparent reason any scholar has discovered. Sorcerers of all stripes congregate to purchase their Great Wands of Overcompensation and Mighty Crystals of Mighty Might Might. Wizards have their splashy duels, between lengthy berating monologues. All this activity attracts ghosts and gods, who often make appearances here. Or perhaps the magicians are the ones who were first attracted to the presence of spirits. Who can say? All is known is that any latent magical talent is increased a hundredfold, making this a very dangerous place for those inexperienced with matters magical.

The Heaven of Spice and Jade are home to arcane beings of vast cosmic power, but whose appetites as banal and petty as any mortal's. These are gods, in other words, and they're a bunch of jerks. They love meddling in people's lives, especially those in the Heaven of Spirits, where their powers seem to be most effective. They are capricious, cruel and even the most well-intentioned deity will no doubt bring trouble to those who follow them. Pilgrims are advised to deal with gods delicately. Very.

All things have their limits, though, whether they be empires or gods, even the universe itself. Though the skies and breathable air never properly end, there is a region on the outermost edges of the universe that few dare travel. The Heaven of Dusk lies so far away from the Temple's warmth and light that even at mid-day, the best a world gets is a tolerable dimness. Snowdrifts swirl across the sky, blanketing worlds so thickly that they're most snow and ice than solid ground. People come to this edge when they want to get away from everything as they possibly can. When they don't migrate towards the center of the universe to spawn, the sky whales call this place home, munching on the glowing algae embedded in the floating icebergs. Those whales are pursued by nomadic tribes, hunting the great beasts for their valuable blubber and bone.

Beyond this, the sky goes on. The Heaven of Night never gets any temple's light at all, yet still things live here. Strange things recognized and cataloged only by their distant howls and moans. At night, the creatures grow brave, crossing the borders into the Dusk and even deeper. Worldly peoples live in fear of those writhing balls of tooth and tentacle.

And these are just a tiny bit of the vast universe surrounding the Flying Temple.

[Inset: Worksheet torn from a textbook. Pencil drawings of different types of clouds.]

Identify the following clouds as you see them on your journey.

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Worlds of Trouble

With all these strange things, there is one characteristic this universe shares with ours. This universe has planets. Tiny, baby worlds by our standards, but planets nonetheless. And you better believe that each one is claimed by some kind of inhabitant who calls that cozy little rock home. With so little solid ground go around, each and every surface is teeming with life.  No map can label every world that orbits the Temple any more than you could map every grain of sand on a beach.

Most worlds are like miniature versions of our own Earth. Where we may have a forest, one of these worlds might have three or four trees. Where we have a mountain range, they might have one mountain jutting rudely from the landscape. The very largest worlds are home to an entire small city. Most are so small that only one small house can exist on it. This makes each world a little petri dish, a self-contained culture with its own peculiar quirks and customs.

Because solid ground is so precious, worldly people have to make do with what they can find if they want to make a living for themselves. The art and notes in this book give you a taste of how varied these worlds can be in size and shape. The scarcity of solid ground is what leads to many of the conflicts that Pilgrims may face.

Windpunk

The limited amount of solid ground also affects the technological advancement of each world, making each a strange amalgam of stone age and sailing age innovations. Each world's technological status varies wildly. Hunter-gatherer tribes villages regularly trade with empires of advanced air ships and clicking wooden automatons. A worldly war is just as likely to be fought with spears as gears.

If one word could be used to describe the overall technical state of the universe, a clever marketing exec might call it "windpunk." This is as much an aesthetic as an actual technological state. Any advanced man-made devices, like airships, are festooned by billowing sails, dervish-like propellers and bellows pumped by strong beasts. How does it all work? Eh, it's not important. Sails are just cool.

Your pilgrims may see letters describing worlds with somewhat familiar technologies, like roads, automatons or even television. If it comes up, and unless otherwise noted, just assume these are all powered by wind at some level and are mostly made of natural materials other than metal. 

Metal is very rare and valuable all over the universe. Even the most resplendent air ships have very few metal pieces, instead constructed from natural materials like wood, cloth, bones and leather. When metal is found on a world, may the skies have mercy on the unfortunate people who live there. Mining operations will literally tear a planet apart until it is too small to have any kind of gravity.

[Sidebar: A word of note to would-be windpunk cosplayers converting from steampunk: Replace any brass with bamboo or carved wood. Replace Victorian fussiness with flowing silks and cottons fastened by the occasional leather strap. Replace goggles with scarves and hats.]

Getting Off the Rock

Speaking of gravity, it's a funny thing. It's partly a matter of physics, partly a matter of psychology. Generally speaking, if a world is big enough for a person to call home, then it has gravity. For those of you who are very picky about these sorts of things, assume that all worlds have the same strength of gravity, regardless of their size or mass. A one-ton wonton carried a thousand miles from a giant mountain-world to a tiny pebble-world will still be a one-ton wonton. If a world does have drastically different gravity than the norm, that suggests very strange happenings indeed.

To escape a world's gravity, you just have to remain aloft for a certain amount of time, regardless of distance. If a clever worlder can find a means of staying just an inch off the ground, without touching anything that is connected to solid ground, then she is free from that world's gravity. Consequently, birds and other flying creatures thrive in the vast expanse between worlds. Alas, worldly people can't fly. She'll just float, orbiting her world an inch away.

Worlders who wish to actually leave their rock must do so by buying a ticket on an airship, or riding giant birds, or hitching onto air whales, or being fired out of a sling shot. If an unfortunate person gets stranded in the open sky, she'll just hover there until something moves her back to solid ground. Once she touches solid ground, or something connected to solid ground, that world's gravity takes hold of her again.

Only monks of the Flying Temple, and the Pilgrims they train, can fly unaided. They know the subtle emotional attachments that give gravity its comforting power over the human heart. It's really not that hard to fly, even a kid can do it. (As the Pilgrims prove every time they visit a new world.)

Critters and Plitters

For the most part, animals and plants aren't too different than what you'd find outside your own window. Most animals and plants find shelter on solid ground. They may be a little smaller, given the small worlds they live on, but on the whole they're pretty familiar. Okay, now let's talk about the weird thingies.

Some critters find a comfortable life on the drift. They resemble their land-loving cousins in many ways, with differences only become apparent with careful observation. Don't observe too closely, though. You're liable to get gobbled up.

See, the lack of gravity does strange things to animals after a few generations. Freed from worldly concerns like weight, animals and plants are allowed to grow to enormous sizes with appetites to match. It's not unheard of to see a whole city on the back of a turtle or a tribe living in symbiosis with a great leviathan. "Big" is the concept that should be coming across here. Big enough to swallow up a whole group of pilgrims. Big enough to not even notice that just happened.

Birds, of course, are the creatures most at home in the open skies. If a flock of gulls gets fatigued on long flight, they can sleep and drift for a few hours until their strength is restored. A tiny sparrow can find a perch on a floating branch. With nothing but air at their disposal, bird species adapt in two ways. Either they stay small, but gather in great migrating swarms, or fly solo and grow to the size (and generally spherical shape) of a world.

Without gravity to pull their droppings away, migratory flocks leave great guano roads coursing through the air. Whole industries are built around these rounds, as a matter of fact. Collecting the remains and selling them as watered down ointments for nobles seeking a few more years of vitality and youth. Yes, poor planets of poop peddlers.

Also in the absence of gravity, creatures you might normally find underwater find a very comfortable environment in the sky. That is, once they learn to breathe air. Travelers can spot whales idly floating along in loose pods, turtles laying eggs in clumps of sky moss, and the deadly anglerfish living in dense clouds. A word of warning: If you've been flying a long time without sight of land and suddenly come across a gleaming blue world, watch out for tentacles.

Plants deserve a mention here, too, though it's understandable if they appear more fauna than flora. The rootless existence has the most dramatic change on plant physiology.

The majority of air-faring plants look more like jellyfish. Their roots trail for many languid miles behind a thick clump of sail-like leaves. Villagers live among these roots, tending to their illnesses and making sure they don't get tangled.

What were once trees become great planets unto themselves, divided into two hemispheres. One half faces Templeward, absorbing the great light while the other hemisphere is all spongy roots absorbing any ambient moisture. Many animals live on these worlds, too, some unique among the whole universe.

Some of those trees release enormous seeds. Those seeds collecting a shell of debris, soil and other matter over the following centuries. Only after several generations, with layers and layers of soil around it does the seed germinate, destroying the loamy shell. This comes as a great surprise to anyone living on a world, not knowing a seed is lurking inside waiting to burst out.

The universe holds many wonders for the errant zoologist. And even more dangers.

Your Pilgrim meets worldly people and quells their troubles.

A Pilgrim's mission is to help the people on each world they visit, try not to cause any more problems in the process and maintain the temple's excellent reputation. (Usually, only two of these three goals can be met at any one time.) Once their work is done, the Pilgrims fly away to answer a new letter from another world.  Just as the worlds come in many shapes and sizes, the people do as well. Your Pilgrim's travels will bring her to high noble kingdoms and grungy pauper towns. She'll have divine audiences with deities and trade jokes with nature spirits. 

Though a Pilgrim may visit a forest moon full of friendly sprites during one leg of her journey. She shouldn't be surprised to then visit a tiny asteroid where a grumpy troll lives a life as a hermit. And it's just all in a day's work when she next comes a-calling to a colony of ghosts haunting an abandoned home, then a clockwork city where fidgety automatons click along cobblestone streets. All these and stranger peoples may be met in the open skies. Some will be friendly, others less so.

Worldly characters (or "worlders," as the Pilgrims sometimes say when not in polite company) usually enter your story by asking the Pilgrims for help. That is the common thread throughout the Pilgrimage. Though the people and their worlds may be strange, someone out there needs help only the Flying Temple can provide.

Usually they need help dealing with another worldly character who is antagonizing them. These antagonists are the worldly peoples with whom Pilgrims will negotiate, compromise and deal. They may be recurring threats or nuisances from previous visits to other worlds. (They might even be people with unfinished business from a Pilgrim's homeworld.) These antagonists reflect something about a Pilgrim's hangups and areas where she needs to grow. A Pilgrim who gets into trouble by being too shy may face an antagonist who compels her to get out of her shell. A Pilgrim who brashly rushes into a fight may face an antagonist unswayed by such acts of foolish bravado. Don't put it past the Temple elders to engineer these situations as a learning experience for the young travelers. 

The island-like solitude of each world causes the inhabitants to cultivate strange customs and taboos, but you will still notice commonalities between some peoples, which are noted below.

Vehement Villagers

The average worlder you'll meet lives in a lives in an average village. Not to say that there is such a thing as an average village, mind you, but they do share a few traits and more than a few troubles.

A medium-size world comfortably supports a village of a dozen families. If the land is arable, it is devoted to  growing one unique crop that no nearby world can produce. Half the world is a cluster of little houses, with a little skyport in the center, the other half devoted to crops. And the crop is pretty much all life in a village. Born and raised to produce the Shadow Wheat from Whitefall or the Cowephant Milk of Spiritfast, it's a meager living with few opportunities for education or travel.

So a few crazy dreamers break out to fulfill their ambitions on a bigger world. The dreamers are usually the ones who are strong and healthy enough to actually be pretty good farmers, ironically. Those left behind are very old or very young. The elderly either stayed  home or came back home after their own dreams never panned out. The very young children live with their grandparents while mom & dad work off-world to bring home a little extra money. The temple gets a lot of letters from those kids, asking when their parents will come home.

Independent villages are rare, but they do exist, blessed with an abundant variety of renewable resources or a very powerful chief. Usually, these worlds are protected by some natural shield like turbulent skies or even a spirit or god with whom they've forged a treaty. Such agreements are tenuous at best, requiring pilgrims to be the arbiters for any dispute.

Few villages are so fortunate to have such powerful friends, however. New empires spring up overnight, trying to take over every little hamlet before they collapse. Usually an imperial armada take over a world by force, setting up a mining operation and depleting the world of what little mass it has. Called the "Copper Curse" or the "Iron Exile," villagers live in fear of all metal. If you find so much as an ingot, you hide it. Metal is a harbinger of terrible wars and worldly destruction. 

Empires meddle in more subtle ways, too. Using rival villages as proxies for simmering cold wars between imperial enemies too large for each other to take on directly. They will intercept trade routes disguised as rival villagers or poison the soil of an already weakened township. This leads to high tension between villages as they compete for dwindling resources.

Even when not under threat by a foreign power, these little communities have other internal troubles. When you're holding your own as a tiny speck against the vast blue beyond, it cultivates a suspicion of all things different. Paranoid conformity, you might call it. Even Pilgrims trying help are viewed as meddling outsiders causing only trouble. True, Pilgrims do bring trouble with them, but that's beside the point.

Naughty Nobles

On the other side of the tracks, you have the haughty regal families blessed with great resources and power, yet still seem to find their own kinds of trouble. Whether queens or chiefs or mayors, nobles believe in the rightful tradition of their law and its inherent, inerrant truth. After all, if tradition keeps you in power for your whole life, you'd defend it to the death, too.

Of course, that trouble usually comes from their oblivious sense of entitlement. Nobles make a game of declaring dominion over various things, which is how you get Her Highness Helvetica, Queen of Written Language and His Splendid Splendorousness Sylvius, Sultan of the Cinnamon. Legendary wars were once fought for the title of Lord of the Dance and Princess of Heart.

They say whenever you put more than one person in a room, one is going to try to tell the other what to do. While that's a pretty grim assessment of humanity as a whole, it is true of the many noble families in the worlds. Most nobles pilgrims meet will be of the wealthy and ostentatious variety, born into families so powerful that they can indulge in any decadent dalliance. A noble usually owns her own throneworld, from which she commands or employs hundreds of servants who live on surrounding worlds or satellites specially constructed from silk and bamboo. Baron Brittle is known to keep his servants in dismal underground chambers.

"Noble" is a relative term, though, Some worlds are lucky enough to have elected their own governors or chiefs. Given their position of power, they are still nobles just the same and sometimes act as entitled as their royal counterparts. A noble is as likely to be a tribal chieftain as a small town mayor as the prince of thieves. It's all relative to the local authority.

Noble children, in particular, seem to find more than their fair share of troubles. Princesses have an unfortunate stroke of bad luck, it seems, frequently getting kidnapped, ransomed or rebelling against their stodgy parents in the name of a high ideal. Princes get labeled as entitled brats. They run in all-out war to secure their reputations or, in more subtle machinations, hire mercenaries and lackeys to do the dirty work for them.

Arranged marriages are a pretty common source of trouble. One wonders why they keep doing it, but sometimes it works out perhaps. Anyway, the temple gets letters from parents urging the pilgrims to convince their daughter to marry the king of Trolls for the sake of the nation. Meanwhile, the daughter sends a letter to the temple begging just the opposite. It's up to pilgrims to figure out how to best resolve this situation.

In this way, nobles' problems usually relate to their sense of proper society and hierarchy. Arranged marriages refused, inheritances disputed, signs of civilized life defiled, these are all reasons a noble may call upon the Pilgrims for help.

Wild Wanderers

There's an old rule of thumb among people who travel the Swift Heaven:

On wooden mast, let it past.
On feathered wings, hide your rings.
On sailing kite, prepare to fight.

See, Skyfolk sometimes ride great winged beasts from far-flung worlds. An animal is easier to mend and care for than a boat. The problem is that they need some kind of roost for shelter, which is where a ship does come in handy. That's why travelers warn about anyone riding a bird or dragon of some kind. Where you see one, there are others, and you'd better hope the bird-rider's friends aren't hungry.

The bit about kites is another old traveler's warning. Personal kites are usually escape pods from wealthy luxury liners or military vessels. They're also a favorite bait for raiding parties looking to score one of those luxury liners and strip it of any precious metals.

In other words, people would have you believe any worldless migrants are bandits, thieves and pirates. Nevermind that every grain of solid ground is claimed, making it tough to stake a new home. Those grains that aren't claimed may not be habitable. Even those that are habitable may be haunted by unseen forces. Sometimes they are haunted AND claimed, which is double the trouble for any would-be squatters. And living under Imperial rule? Forget it. Facing these dilemmas, the wandering tribes find the idea of "home" a fleeting notion.

These wanderers are called "skyfolk," the common polite term for anyone without a world living on the drift. Being so patched together from the outcasts and remnants of other civilizations, it's hard to put a label on the skyfolk culture. A Pilgrim is just as likely to meet a community of refugees as an exiled prince or an honest-to-goodness band of pirates. They've got an infamous reputation from romance novels as scoundrels or dangerous lovers. Reputations are like compost dumps, though. Every world's got one and they all stink.

The popular image of skyfolk as thieves only comes from living a life without the benefits of having a world of your own. Without land, you have no reliable source of food except that which you can hunt, poach or steal. Without resources to trade, you only have what you can beg, barter or bind. It's a tough life, winnowing away moderation until you only have extremes of order or chaos. You can flip a coin to guess whether the next group you meet will be a self-sufficient, air-tight crew of workers or a ravenous band of cannibals. Pilgrim bones are especially delicious, don't you know.

Once you get past the threat of a hungry bunch of cannibals busting in your skull, skyfolk are alright. The wanderers have a kinship and respect for Pilgrims, as they are both between worlds. Just as the skyfolk have no particular place to call home, the Pilgrims are between two lives. That's all the drift is for most people, something to get through to get where you're going. Not for skyfolk, though. The between is all there is to have.

Skyfolk have troubles just like anyone else though, and on occasion they'll call on pilgrims for help out of a jam.

The ironic thing about living outside of any jurisdiction is that you often have to navgate around even more rules and laws. Everyone with half a brain and a full stomach tries their hand at being the alpha dog of their pack. Working around these miniature despots can make troubleshooting that much more difficult. Stubborn, cruel and short-lived, a pilgrim is best advised to avoid interacting with these little kings.

Empires view skyfolk as a nuisance at best and a threat to social order at worst. They're only tolerated because they can be resourceful go-betweens to smuggle contraband between warring states. Of course, that puts a naive skyfolk into the uncomfortable position of being a double agent. A ready tangle of allegiances for pilgrims to unwind.

On occasion, pilgrims cross paths with those few very pious skyfolk on a quest for some improbable omen, like a cloud shaped like a ring of eggs encircling a masked wrestler. The old "promised land" routine, you see. Keep the tribe distracted, looking for this sign and hope they don't realize how lost they are (or at least don't admit it to each other.) Problem is, that gag doesn't last longer than, say, 40 years and eventually people lose their patience. Then, the troubles start and someone calls in the pilgrims to clean up the mess.

Yup. Seems like even those who have the least still find enough to make trouble.

Sullen Scholars

An enterprising intellectual with the financial backing of a large empire, the libraries of a thousand lost kingdoms and a whole university of assistants would still only learn a small fraction of the secrets that the universe holds. Needless to say, most scholars do not have that kind of access.

That's okay, though. The pursuit of knowledge is a story told in lifetimes, not days. Wherever there is a rare species of animal, an alien civilization or strange phenomenon, you can bet that a scholar will be snooping around somewhere, feverishly taking notes, oblivious to any other concerns. There is always a discovery to be made, a paper to be published and the everlasting dreaming of having something named after you.

A well-supported scholar is usually appointed with the finest tools of her trade. An archeologist has exclusive access to the richest digs. A biologist has an endless supply of beakers, flasks, lenses and scalpels. Still, even the most well-funded intellectual still complains that it is not enough. Also, something about being laughed out of the academy.

There are a number of traits that make scholars among the most peculiar worldly folk Pilgrims may meet on their journey.

Scholars can be very helpful on the pilgrimage, offering insights into the local culture that are unavailable from laypeople. Find your nearest scholar if you need someone to translate the peculiarities of the regional laws or learn the proper rituals for excusing yourself to go to the bathroom. If you find yourself in the middle of a mystery, scholars are your reluctant ally. Reluctant, because scholars aren't willing to divulge their life's work to every Tom, Dick and Pilgrim who flies through town. Scholars, like nobles, have sensitive egos. Sensitive to insult, but also sensitive to flattery.

Scholars can also be a source of trouble, as they have a preternatural talent for seeing Things Not Meant To Be Seen. Also, hearing Things Not Meant To Be Heard. Actually, pretty much anywhere there are Things, a scholar is probably studying them. Especially if they're not to be studied. They're the canary in the coalmine when an ancient monster rises from the darkness or a long-dormant curse is set loose upon the worlds. And that doesn't even take into account the occasions where an imperial noble employs a scholar to build a new super-weapon.

The only thing that runs deeper than a scholar's urge for exploration is a scholar's venomous competition with her rivals. There's always a race to win, a discovery to make before anyone else. You'd think the universe was big enough for everyone to discover one thing, but noooo. Every scholar's gotta be that blasted rival of theirs.

This makes scholars very poor spouses, unfortunately. Except in the rare case where you find a married pair of scholars sharing the adventure together, there is usually a neglected husband or wife tolerating his or her spouses obsession. Sometimes pilgrims will get letters from kids just asking for a normal parent. Those are awkward letters.

[Collective Nouns for Pilgrims]

For those worlds who have had frequent contact with pilgrims, scholars have seen to it to create collective nouns to describe a group of pilgrims. Furious debates ensue about the proper term. A letter will be sent to the temple soon, no doubt.

An Apology of Pilgrims

A Bicker of Pilgrims

A Class of Pilgrims

A Cloud of Pilgrims

A Clutch of Pilgrims

A Compassion of Pilgrims

A Compassion of Pilgrims

A Crash of Pilgrims

A Do of Pilgrims

An Epiphany of Pilgrims

A Fellowship of Pilgrims

A Fiddle of Pilgrims

A Fight of Pilgrims

A Fist of Pilgrims

A Flight of Pilgrims

A Flight of Pilgrims

A Flock of Pilgrims

A Fool of Pilgrims

A Gasp of Pilgrims

A Mayflower of Pilgrims

A Meddle of Pilgrims

A Mission of Pilgrims

A Missive of Pilgrims

A Miazaki of Pilgrims

A Nimbus of Pilgrims

A Paragraph of Pilgrims

A Party of Pilgrims

A Passel of Pilgrims

A Peck of Pilgrims

A Pickle of Pilgrims

A Plight of Pilgrims

A Posse of Pilgrims

A Prayer of Pilgrims

A Procession of Pilgrims

A Progress of Pilgrims

A School of Pilgrims

A Stamp of Pilgrims

A Table of Pilgrims

A Trouble of Pilgrims

A Troupe of Pilgrims

A Trouple of Pilgrims

A Wisp of Pilgrims

A Wreck of Pilgrims[/]

Sneaky Spirits

In some places, the walls between the material and ethereal are not as solid as one would hope. If you have rude neighbors partying late into the night, sometimes a delirious reveler passes out on your lawn. Except in this case, the neighbors are spirits of the natural world and they do a lot more than just knock over a trashcan.

Spirits represent all the natural wonders of the universe, plus some of the less-than-wonderful-but-very-natural things. There are spirits for every mountain, cloud and blade of grass in the universe. There is also a spirit for the smell of rotten eggs, the incessant buzzing of mosquitos and that weird junk in the corner of your eyes when you wake up after a nap. Yet for all their presence, the average worlder may only see one fleeting apparition for their whole life.

Of course, Pilgrims are not the average worlder. When it is your job to deal with all worldly troubles, that includes many possible conflicts and grievances that natural spirits have with their inconsiderate material neighbors. The nice part about having spirits around is that most problems that at first glance don't seem like they would be negotiable, like fires, floods earthquakes, can actually dealt with by diplomatic negotiations with the responsible spirits. The bad part is that the spirits make strange demands in order to be placated. Also, they're rude. It's not a pleasant experience to be shunned by the spirits of clogged sinuses.

Their motivations are strange, their thoughts confusing, which makes it very frustrating when you're trying to talk a river spirit into drawing back its flood. Still, at least their potential for trouble is nothing compared to the gods.

Grumpy Gods

While the spirits hold sway over the natural world, the gods seem focused on aspects of the human spirit. The loves, hatreds, rivalries, ambitions and, well, appetites that all combine to form humanity. Though there are gods of war, of romance, of curiosity and partying, they all share one attribute in common: Gods want.

They want this, they want that, they want something. They are ultra-powerful beings crippled by insatiable desire.

Because of this, the gods are actually far less mysterious than their tiny spirit cousins. They make their presence felt in any village or world where they are allowed to have some sway. As a matter of fact, one wouldn't think these deities are all that divine at all given how often they walk amongst mortals, indulging their all-too-human desires.  Really, gods are just another kind of noble. Vast powers at their disposal, an even vaster sense of entitlement and a really stupidly vast ego to match.

Desire is the ultimate weakness, though. Just as their appetites cause problems for the mortals in their thrall, they also offer an opportunity for a pilgrim to appeal to those desires.  Anyone who wants something can be bargained with and few beings in the universe simply want as much as gods.

Far Folk

Though humans are by far the most prolific form of intelligent life in the skies, other forms of intelligence can be found far out in the deep sky. These strange beings are collectively called "Far Folk" because the Temple elders think it sounds cool.

Part of a Pilgrim's training is to be open-minded in their definition of "intelligence." For a Pilgrim, intelligence is any kind of system in profound disequilibrium with its environment. Something like an air whale, spirits, gods, or a hurricane can be, and probably is, intelligent. (Actually, chances are good that the hurricane that actually summoned the Pilgrims to his aid. Probably being pestered by some storm chasers or something.)

The term is generally used for any living, talking non-human that is otherwise just a mortal. Pilgrims may meet a few of these people on their travels, ranging from insectoid hive minds to self-aware automatons to magically animated household objects. Usually they live in the least human-hospitable environments of the universe. They live in the hearts of storms, inside volcanoes, the harshest deserts and the farthest depths of the Heaven of Night.

Most far folk keep to themselves, hidden from human interaction, so it's not uncommon to witness disbelief at the mention of such beings in existence. Gods? Sure. Flying teenagers out to save the worlds? Absolutely. But aliens and robots? That's just absurd.

Unless it comes up in conversation, it's probably best to just not approach the subject. As far as the folk themselves, besides their physical differences, they have your average problems just like any human. More than likely, they are a fish-out-of-water, lost in an unusual place and trying to find their way home. As a group, they might come into conflict with another group of worldly people for a limited resource. A botched attempt at first contact might lead to war or occupation.

Pilgrims out there, all alone together.

This is just a quick overview of the many places and people that the Pilgrims may encounter.

The stories you tell together may feature only one or two of these elements, depending on the letters chosen by the temple elders. The pilgrims may never meet a god or encounter a noble. Their whole Pilgrimage might take place in worlds of industry and smoky technology, never encountering a natural spirit. By contrast, some Pilgrimages focus exclusively on the supernatural dealings of ghosts and spirits.

Throughout it all, the Pilgrims will meet people in need and do their best to help them out of their problems. They will change the worlds, and the worlds will change them.

How the stories unfold is up to you and how you play this game.

About the Game

Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple is a storytelling game.

All games have stories under the board. Sometimes that story is close to the surface, like the relationship between the rooks and bishops in a game of chess. (You do know that they have a romantic alliance, right?) Some games hide it deeper, like the secret history behind the kingdoms of red and black checkers and the organic growth of stone arrangements in a game of go.

In this kind of game, the story is much closer to the surface. As a matter of fact, playing the game will allow you to directly manipulate the essence of stories. You will maneuver words, characters, and events as casually as you would push a button or move a pawn. Your choices will have tactical consequences, but also affect the flow of fiction behind and ahead of that moment. The board is your imagination.

In a storytelling game, your goal is to tell a story. (Naturally.) Don't worry, though.  You don't have to be a professional writer to play a storytelling game, you just need an appreciation and enthusiasm for a fun tale. This game is specifically inspired by coming-of-age road trip stories like the Little Prince, Stand By Me and Avatar: the Last Airbender, with a touch of Dear Abby and Stargate SG-1.

Storytelling is something you may not get a lot of opportunity to do much, certainly not in front of others. This game offers you a venue to practice storytelling with the mutual support of your friends. It requires a lot of imagination and creative input from all the players a lot of the time, so get ready to start exercising those mental muscles again.

This is a game, so there are some rules.

As in all games, there are rules here that present certain constraints. Those constraints and boundaries are what test your creativity. You and the other players help each other navigate around those obstacles as you create the story together. This creative input is also what makes your stories unique and fun. When you play, you get to create funny, awkward situations for the main characters of the story. Then you figure out a way to solve these problems through your character’s actions.

Playing this game is like writing a series of short stories, except you get to do it with your friends and with the help of the rules in this book. These rules create some constraints on your storytelling, which means you have to get imaginative if you're going to work around them. This section is just a rough overview of the rules of the game. To find out more, see the chapter "On the Pilgrimage."

Players take turns being the Storyteller, while everyone else are the Troublemakers.

As you play, you will take turns just like in a board game. When it's your turn, you are called the Storyteller and all the other players are the Troublemakers. Most of the time, you're going to be a Troublemaker while other players are the Storyteller for their turn.

These two roles have different duties, so the rules are worded to very specifically address "you" as the Storyteller or as a Troublemaker. If you come across a phrase like, “As the Storyteller, you will write a sentence about your character,” that phrase assumes that you are currently taking your turn, so you are the current Storyteller. Whereas the phrase “You and the other Troublemakers add new words to that sentence” assumes that you one of the Troublemakers.

As the Storyteller, you have your own character, a Pilgrim of the Flying Temple. You decide what your character does, who she helps, and how she helps. You describe all this in a single sentence that is then written down in a journal. A series of turns in a single game session will grow into a complete story of the Pilgrims.

When it is someone else's turn to be the Storyteller, allow them to have the spotlight just as you would like for them to give you that courtesy.  You can describe your character messing up and having accidents, but this game assumes your character is trying her best. Any unfortunate consequences come up despite your character’s best efforts. It’s this cycle of “I will do my best!” and then “Oh no!” that makes a fun story in Do. It’s also important to note that you never lose control of your character, regardless of what consequences the Troublemakers may devise.

As a Troublemaker, you and the other Troublemakers decide what happens as a result of the Storyteller's character’s actions. As your title would suggest, your contribution should be something troublesome. You simply conspire to create troublesome situations that result from the Storyteller's character’s actions, perhaps even putting her character in danger, but never wresting control of her character from her entirely.

Players write a story one sentence at a time.

When it is your turn, you decide who contributes to the story and when. This is done by drawing stones, weighing your options and deciding which stones to keep and which ones to discard. In doing so, you choose who will add a sentence to the story in this turn.

When the chosen player(s) adds a sentences to a story, whatever she  says happens happens. That is an important point to reiterate: In this game, the question is never whether what you say happens actually comes to pass. It just does.

Now, that might sound awfully severe, but there is a whole lot of chatter and conversation that goes on between all players before a final contribution is made by the chosen player. While performing duties as Storyteller or a Troublemaker, be courteous and respectful to the other players. This game makes each player apply their creativity and ideas to the story, which can be a scary thing to do if you're not used to it. If someone is quiet, allow them a moment to speak up.  If you have some thoughts you'd like to share, don't hold back out of shyness. New terms and techniques in this game help you and the other players discuss your ideas for the story together.  (Even if you can't think of anything specific to add, you can always offer encouraging words of encouragement. Always, with the encouraging.)

As you play the game, you'll learn that there isn't an inherent method of outright saying "No." to someone's contribution. There is an option for that, called the Gonzo Stick, and it is described later in this book on page XXX. But at its core, this game simply says "Yes."

At one extreme, it says "Yes" to the Storyteller's contribution, allowing her to add a sentence to the story without further input from the Troublemakers. At the other extreme, it says "Yes" to the Troublemakers, allowing them to add a sentence to the story without further input from the Storyteller. In both these cases, the sentence is written in pen. These extreme outcomes are very rare early in a game session.

In between these extremes, the Storyteller and Troublemakers have varying levels of authority. Sometimes the Storyteller creates her sentence, but must then allow the Troublemakers the opportunity to augment it. Other times, the opposite is true, the Troublemakers must hand over their contribution to the Storyteller for review and modification. The original sentence is written in pencil, so that if the later player wishes to insert words in the middle of a sentence, she can do so. The one thing that no player can do is erase a word permanently. You can add new words to the beginning, middle or end of the sentence, but you cannot simply erase another player's contribution. The final sentence is then written in pen.

Because the Storyteller and the Troublemakers have a lot of narrative freedom in their respective duties, it is important to set some boundaries. These constraints make sure everyone is in agreement about the scope and mood of the story they are about to create together. In other words, the structure of this game naturally lends itself to creating very silly stories, so you should all agree on how silly your stories will be.

Players use Toys of the Trade to help create ideas.

Playing this game is different than your average board game. It calls for you to think about long-term consequences and in-the-moment parts of the story. You're making decisions that have tactical and fictional impact.

It's challenging, but fun. In order to help you through the "challenging" part of that equation, you will find many features in this book to help you through any creative snags. These are called Toys of the Trade and they're designed to help you brainstorm ideas for the story.

You will find tools to kick start your creativity, generators for quick-and-dirty character origins, and other tips to make telling a story together easier. The Gonzometer is the most prominent Toy of the Trade you'll find, so it warrants some discussion of its own.

The Gonzometer

Overall, the stories you tell with this game are going to feel a bit silly, often crossing the point into absurdity, and might adequately be described as "gonzo." So what the heck does "gonzo" mean? 

It's an energetic, youthful sense of enthusiasm for all absurd spectacle, like kids traveling the universe righting wrongs and getting into epic trouble. You can assume it's synonymous with "reckless abandon." A gonzo story freely mixes genres, broadens scope of story, and introduces novelty concepts without much further justification for their existence. If your story features a cowboy riding a horse into the sunset, that's probably a western. If that horse is a robot, that's a scifi/western. If the cowboy is actually an anthropomorphic cow riding a robot horse into the sunset while singing Peruvian folk songs, that's getting gonzo.

And that's why the word is often used as a pejorative. An otherwise well-crafted and epic story gets derailed by additional crazy elements in a misguided pursuit of spectacle. Sharks are awesome. Lasers are awesome. So lasersharks must be that much more awesome, right? Actually, lasersharks are pretty awesome.

Buuuut, it's easy to take things too far. You throw in one extra giant whale, space pirate or dinosaur ghost, suddenly the game feels a somehow less interesting because of that addition, not more.

In another way, this trend mirrors the adoption of more recent new media. In the early days of the web, people flocked to what was unique to HTML, namely links, animated gifs, and the <blink> tag. A similar cautionless exuberance marked the appearance of affordable typesetting systems – the first time people without phototypositors had access to typefaces beyond a choice of monospaced typewriter fonts.

When a world of new possibilities has just opened, it’s hard to find the will for restraint. But, in time, people scale back the more gratuitous uses of this sort of glitz, moving from what’s possible to what best suits the material.

It could be that the glut of choices in the early books reflected more a rush toward the new than a well-considered balancing of storytelling and reader-directedness. As the genre developed, the choice-based structure ceased being so novel that it was an experiential end in itself. Perhaps only then could it recede into its proper role as a gameplay mechanic – all the more potent when used judiciously.

This is a thing that happens in games like Do, where players all share a lot of the creative direction with each other. The first time you play is so over-the-top, so totally gonzo that you quickly burn out. That's natural. It happens because it's just fun to play with a new toy, see how far you can stretch the arms, test whether you can pop the head off and replace it with a toothbrush. You're not so wrapped up in a plot or characters yet, because you have your hands full learning a new game. Gonzo is a like hot sauce, it's easy to shake in so much that you get a bunch of heat but no flavor.

So gonzo gets a bad rap because it is usually a symptom of feeling tired or uninspired. You can't think of anything logical or reasonable to happen next in the story, so you throw in ninjas even though it doesn't make much sense. It may also be rooted in a sense of wish fulfillment, so you describe your pilgrim kicking everyone's ass even though you've previously described her as a sensitive diplomat.

Though mutually agreed-upon gonzo is fun and awesome, too much gonzo in unexpected times becomes uninteresting for a lot of people. It's silly for silliness' sake. There has to be some way to find a balance. This game is designed with all those issues in mind and offers a few solutions.

To address the first-session-gonzo habit, this game gives you a short mini-session in which you create your the pilgrim's back-stories. It's your own playground to let out those initial gonzo urges as you get to know the other players and their style of creativity. Think of it as a safe space to introduce stuff you like, discuss those elements with the other players and settle into a groove.

To make sure your stories focus on matters at hand, each session has a unique set of "Goal Words." These are characters, locations and other noteworthy things that are on the world your pilgrims are visiting in a story. Your goal is to try to incorporate each of those words into the story before time runs out. If you work them all in, then the pilgrims are hailed as heroes by the townsfolk, regardless of any minor accidents. If you don't, then they're chased away by a pitchfork-wielding mob, despite any small victories they achieved. By staying focused on these goal words, it helps that world's particular flavor of gonzo consistent.

These two solutions are fine in their respective moments, but there is yet another tool in your arsenal that can gear the whole game in one direction or another. This game has a tool called the Gonzometer that helps your group discuss, up front, the kind of stories you want to tell.

Firstly, the Gonzometer defines the broadness of a story's scope: Whether you focus on a very small amount of time, in a very small space, on a very small group of people or open the floodgates, creating sweeping consequences that affect whole worlds for generations.

Secondly, the Gonzometer defines the lightness or heaviness of your story's mood: Whether you're creating a light-hearted comedy with awkward misunderstandings, outright silliness and frequent pop culture references or a heavy melodrama with emotional disagreements, a clenched grip on seriousness and little tolerance for moments of outright humor.

By discussing this pair of decisions, whether to have a small or big scope and a light or heavy mood, you have a starting point for discussing your expectations of the story. The shared vocabulary of big/small and light/heavy can make this discussion easier. The Gonzometer is discussed more fully later in this book, in the chapter XXXX beginning on page XXXX.

Players influence the destiny of each other's pilgrim.

As noted earlier, you will be using stones to play this game. Specifically, you will use black and white stones mixed in a bag. As you play, you will draw some stones, but only keep a few. The rest you put back into the bag, thereby changing the likelihood that a later player will draw more black or white stones.

This reflects the impact each pilgrim has on the lives on each world she visits, and the lives of her companions. No decision goes unnoticed. Choosing to pick your left or right nostril can change the fate of the universe.  And so, in a sense, you can "win" this game. Well, "winning" is a relative term.

Ways to Win

Each turn gives you a chance to "win," by getting some control of a small piece of the story. Specifically, one sentence. Depending on your choices, you could have total control over the sentence or have to share that control with the other players at the table. In doing so, you also decide whether your pilgrim gets into trouble as a result of her actions.

Along the way, as you and the other players create each sentence of the story, you'll try to include some specific words into the story. These are Goal Words. You can "win" the story if your group managed to  include all the goal words in story. If you do so, your pilgrims will be hailed as heroes by the worldly folk they helped out during this visit. If all the words don't make it into the story, they'll probably be chased out of town by an angry mob for all the trouble they caused.

The other way to "win" a story is by controlling how your Pilgrim changes during each visit to a new world.  As noted earlier, you will be drawing stones from a bag, but only keeping some. The stones that remain in the bag at the end of the story determines how the Pilgrims change. Your Pilgrim may learn how to solve problems differently or just learn new ways to get into trouble. In this sense, "winning" is having your Pilgrim change the way you want her to change.

In due time, someone will collect eight stones, which signals the end of each session of play. Each session  tells one complete story and all the stories together form the pilgrimage.

Over time, your short-term decisions also have an impact on the end of the whole Pilgrimage. There are two possible endings for your Pilgrim's journey. Endings that describe your Pilgrim's Do, or her "path." In one path, your Pilgrim returns to the Flying Temple to become a monk. In another path, she remains out in the worlds, no longer able to fly but following another dream. And so, finally, you can "win" the Pilgrimage by pushing your pilgrim towards one of these destinies over the course of the whole game.

Competing with yourself

The one thing you may notice in all these different "winning" conditions is that they're somewhat subjective. If you want your Pilgrim to be chased away by a tomato-throwing mob, and you managed to do that, then you won. If you want her to return to the Temple, and you actually manipulate the stones well enough throughout the game to accomplish this goal, then you win, too. All of these outcomes may or may not be considered "winning," depending on if they are the outcome you desired. Regardless of whether you consider them "winning" or "losing," they are all designed as interesting endings to each story of the Pilgrimage.

Competing with others

There is technically no direct competition in this game, except in some cases. Consider the possibility that your goal for the story cannot be pursued without interfering with your long-term goals for the Pilgrimage. Then, you must decide which outcome is more important to you as a storyteller. Similarly, two players may have conflicting goals for the story, in which case they would act on their desires through the decisions they make while taking their turn. If you enjoy strategic gameplay, much of your fun in this game will come from the interaction between short-term decisions and long-term consequences.

The twists of the tale come out of your decisions and your luck of the draw. Once your Pilgrims have quelled all the troubles on this world (or not), they leave the world for the next leg of their journey. In the end, you have a story that you and your friends can share forever.

About the Book

This book has six chapters.

The chapter you're reading now presents the basics of what your stories will be about, including the setting and the main characters.

"Letters to Heaven" collects several letters written by people around the worlds, asking the Temple and the Pilgrims for help. This chapter begins on page XXX.

In the chapter “Creating Your Pilgrim,” you learn how to make the stars of your story. You will also get to practice using the tips and techniques for telling stories in this game. This chapter begins on page XXX.

Next, “Example Pilgrims” presents a handful of readymade Pilgrims for you to use as the heroes in your story. These letters tell you more about the universe and serve as inspiration for stories, characters and plot twists. This chapter begins on page XXX.

After that, "On the Pilgrimage" tells you how to send out your Pilgrim on her journey through the skies. This chapter gives you the basic rules of play. This chapter begins on page XXX.

Finally, “Example of Play” details an example of a full session of play. Smaller examples are scattered throughout this book, but this chapter runs you through the whole thing. This chapter begins on page XXX.

Each chapter consists of single-topic sections.

You may notice that this book is formatted a little differently than what you might be used to reading. When you get to the parts of the book that actually tell you how to play the game, you'll see the  instruction boldly highlighted as the headline of that section. The text within that section simply elaborates on and explains that instruction, detailing any restrictions or further considerations.

The dots along the bottom of a page show you far along you are in a section. If you see four dots, that means the section is four pages long. If two of those dots are filled in, that means you're on the second page of that section.

You'll also see lots of notes and fun stuff around the sides of the main text. Some of it offers advice to help you understand a particular rule or concept.

The rest is there just to get you and your friends excited about playing the game. You'll see story snippets, lists of ideas, questions to inspire your creativity and little doodles drawn by the Pilgrims. The goal of this writing style is to make the game easy to learn from and reference this book.

In general, the important parts of the game are in the main area of the page. Extra content like tips, advice, and examples of play are set apart from the main text in a sidebar.

The book uses the word "You.”

When you see a sentence that says “you,” this usually refers to you as an individual player. “You” never refers to your character. If the text describes something for your character to do, like flying, getting into trouble, or helping people on distant worlds, you will see the phrase "your character" or "your Pilgrim."

Your stories may introduce moral conflicts or difficult choices, but you can sit comfortably behind the shield of fiction, manipulating your character's fate to your heart's content. You get to witness dramatic decisions, even seeing their perilous consequences, all safely knowing that you're personally removed from that tale. In other words, “Your character flies to another world” is not an invitation for you to jump off a ledge.

It is important to note that this game does not blur the lines between player and character. This game is designed for you and your friends to tell a story like the authors of a novel. Granted, there are other ways to use this game to tell a story, including playing it like an actor in a play, but the examples of play and other material assumes you are a bit more distant from the story.

...and the word “She.”

Whenever the text refers to another player or character in a general sense, without referring to anyone specific, this text says “she.” That’s not because only girls can play this game nor that all the characters are female. It’s just easier than saying “he or she” or “they” all the time.

For parents and teachers...

This game encourages creative writing in a fun, structured game environment. Each session of play begins with some basic ingredients to spur players’ imagination, but the players ultimately decide the content of the story. If you’re concerned about this game's story or themes, you are encouraged to play along with your kids or students to guide the story into more appropriate territory. The advice in this book applies to players of any age, grown-ups or kids.

Though this game is geared towards light comedy, a storytelling game can be useful if you want to see how your younger players would react to a difficult moral situation. When is it right to defend someone else? Who should decide when someone has been unjustly treated? Do good intentions justify any action? All of these questions may arise in your group's game if you guide the story in that direction.

Because of this game's open-ended nature and some of the rule complexity, it is considered an intermediate-level storytelling game. That means players should know basic sentence structure and grammar. Players should be mature enough to know when to take turns and when to let someone else have a turn. It also helps if they have a good vocabulary since there will be a fair amount of creative writing involved in actual play.

New Terms

Character

The fictional persons who are featured in the story

Draw

To pull stones out of a bag. As a noun, it also refers specifically to the stones you drew.

Group

The collective term referring to all the players currently playing this game.

Pilgrim

The main character of your stories, who you create and through whom you affect the story.

Players

You and the other people playing the game.

Storyteller

The title and duties you take on when it is your turn. By drawing stones from a bag and deciding which ones to keep, you decide who contributes to the story and when.

Troublemakers

The title and duties taken on by all the other players when it is not their turn. When called upon, they will add complications and obstacles to the story.

Worlder

A teasing term Pilgrims use to for worldly people.

Worldly

A description of any person or thing from the many worlds that orbit the Temple.

---

[These elements are going to be scattered throughout the first chapter. Don't know where yet.

[Comic]"The young visitor Arik the Tripping Eagle just knocked over the Precariously Balanced Collection of Ancient Statuary."

"Young visitor Miva the Hungry Wing came to class covered in what remains of the Garden of Unbelievably Ripe Tomatoes."

"Young visitor Torlo the Honey Jar must be kept away from bears at all times."[/Comic]

[Sidebar]"Dear Diary,

Today I visited a world that was a giant yarnball.

Seriously, the whole thing. A ball of yarn.

Why, why did the elders send us to this world when they knew I would be bringing Silvie?

Stupid cat.

Stupid Temple.]]

[Illustration]"The first time you fly, you will want to find your 'down.' That bond must be eased, the worldly weight released. Up, down, left or right: These are worldly ideas. The only directions that matter are forward and backward, past and future. Let these be your compass, Pilgrims."[/Illo]

[Comic]"Master, we humans are not the only intelligent beings in the universe."

"That is only partly true, young visitor."

"Which part is incorrect, master?"

"'We.'"[/Comic]

[A Guide to Worldly Slang]

Traveling through the worlds, you’ll find some common phrases being tossed around; usually derivations of children’s rhyme teaching them some of the facts of life out in the blue.

"If people were meant to fly, we'd all get letters." Common reasoning for why only Pilgrims have learned the art of unaided flight while everyone else is restricted to airships or winged beasts. If you want to know how to fly, you also take on the responsibility of a Pilgrim. No one wants that.

"Small worlds make your heart twirl." This old saying refers to the low populations of small worlds and how often that leads to love triangles or other affairs. Most romance stories are set on the tiniest worlds. If you come from a particularly small world, you can expect to be teased about it.

"The air's full of prayers." The heavens hold many dangers, from giant storms billowing along a destructive arc, to flocks of blue crows devouring everything in sight, to world-spanning empires seeking to expand their borders. When times are tough, the air is thick with prayers to the Temple and Pilgrims for rescue.

"The sky's full of 'byes." This saying usually comes up in the direst of circumstances, when people are separated from their homes, families are split apart or loved ones have passed.

"On a wing, beware." A warning to anyone who would try to travel the skies on the backs of great, winged beasts, which are often unpredictable. This also serves as a warning about the people that ride those beasts, as they're usually bandits who use their unruly mounts for quick ambushes.

"All's fair in the air." Except for a few worldly empires and armed vessels, there isn’t much in the way of international law in the blue. Consequently, the sky has a reputation for being a place where anything goes.

"Sky" A verb. To strand someone in the open air with no means of transport. As in, "the pirates skied the traitor in the middle of a thunderstorm."

Chapter 2: Letters to Heaven

The letters are the beginning of each story in the Pilgrimage.

Whenever there is a problem that can't be solved or a situation too tenuous to touch, a worldly person can call in the Pilgrims. She must write a letter that explains the situation, like that her planet just got swallowed by an air whale or that she suspects she's been bitten by a werewolf. Then she must hide it somewhere special or dispose of the letter in some other ritual. A short while later, the letter disappears from its hiding spot and re-appears fluttering above the Temple. Early Pilgrim flying lessons actually involve trying to catch the most letters from the sky and deliver them to the Temple elders.

Instead of giving you pages and pages of setting details for you to digest before playing, this game lets you can pick and choose which parts of the setting you find important. You do this by choosing the letters that your Pilgrims will answer throughout their Pilgrimage. The letters allow to pick and choose which parts of the universe you want to include in your stories. You can ignore the letters you don’t like, thereby ignoring that part of the universe. You can respond to the letters you do like, thereby making those aspects of the setting more important.

A letter is kind of like a level in video game. It's a self-contained set of problems and puzzles for your character to deal with, but just one in a series.

About the Letters

Letter-writers are unreliable narrators.

Each letter reflects the particular, sometimes skewed worldview of the writer. Some letter-writers may come from worlds whose cultures don't even believe the Temple exists. That certainly makes it awkward when Pilgrims come flying in from out of nowhere. Other letter-writers are all too aware of the Temple, but overestimate how much a Pilgrim can accomplish, thinking them to be angelic beings of divine omnipotence. Imagine their disappointment when they find out the Pilgrims are just a bunch of teenagers with too much authority. Sometimes two letter-writer’s description of the universe may even contradict each other.

Either way, the Pilgrims know what's really real... or at least they're sure enough. The elders teach Pilgrims to abide by the local customs as far as they are comfortable. So, if the letter-writer believes the universe really is an inky black void and that the Pilgrims are aliens from another planet, a Pilgrim will act the part if it makes it easier for her to solve the letter-writer's problems. If she's on a world where no one even knows the Temple exists or that the universe is full of intelligent life, a Pilgrim won't mention it if it will cause more trouble than it will solve. That being said, there's a limit to every Pilgrim's pragmatism.

When faced with prejudice, injustice or something that just gets on the nerves, a Pilgrim or two has been known to break out of cultural norms. Then you get pilgrims trying to teach small town bigots a lesson through the judicious application of kung fu dinosaurs. Depending on the scope and mood of your stories, these might cause more trouble than they resolve. For the most part, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Letters are story seeds.

This chapter presents many different letters written by all sorts of people from around the universe. (Actually, they're written by real people who were kind enough to contribute their creativity to this game.)

Each letter offers you a fruitful beginning for a fun adventure and plenty of opportunities for your Pilgrims to get into trouble. By picking a letter, you decide how a story will begin, but neither you nor the other players knows how the story will end. You will have a letter written by someone on a distant world asking for help, but that only sets the stage for your adventures there.

From that starting point, you and your friends will create your own story together. You could even play the same letter with different groups of players and it would result in a different story.

There are eight kinds of worldly trouble.

For your convenience, and because the Temple monks are huge nerds, there is a special system for seeing the kind of troubles your Pilgrims might experience if they answer a letter. When you browse through the letters, you will see symbols stamped on each. There are eight symbols total and each stands for a particular kind of trouble, as noted in the following chart.

[Book] Book represents affairs of tradition, law and custom.

[Flag] Flag represents affairs of property, nations and borders.

[Heart] Heart represents affairs of love, passion, and jealousy.

[Knot] Knot represents affairs of family, marriage, and ancestry.

[Lotus] Lotus represents affairs of the gods, their followers and faith.

[Pen] Pen represents affairs of curiosity, secrets and discovery.

[Sword] Sword represents affairs of violence, war, and weaponry.

[Tree] Tree represents affairs of nature, animals and resources.

Use these symbols as a kind of rating system, so you can tell whether a story would introduce subject matter or content you feel is appropriate or fun for the group.

In addition to those symbols, you'll also see some special information in a sidebar by each letter. These include "Storyteller's Words," "Troublemakers' Words," and "Goal Words." These terms are explained in more detail in the chapter "On the Pilgrimage," so you don't need to pay much attention to them at the moment.

Browse through the letters in this chapter, explore the universe and get some inspiration for where your Pilgrim may come from.

The Letters

Swallowed Whole

by Ben Lehman

Dear Monk(s)

Hi how are you! My name is Melanie. I come from a very small planet.

There is me, my house, my cat, and two trees (see drawing).

I am not so good, because my planet has been eaten by a whale.

It is a very small planet. I woke up and I was inside a whale. I don't want to get (more) eaten.

Please help!

your freind

Melanie (age 8)

P.S. Drawing is on the other side.

P.P.S. I will make you cookies.

(drawing is a little kid's drawing of herself, her cat, her house and two trees on a tiny planet. Arrows point out each thing, labelling it. In every direction there are arrows marked "whale")

Flag + Tree

Storyteller’s Words: Talk, Deal, Soothe, Nurture, Grow, Raise

Troublemakers’ Words: Silence, Betray, Misunderstand, Waste, Whither, Raze

Goal Words: Melanie, Melanie, eat, house, cat, trees, whale, whale, whale, cookies

A Matter of Roses

by RichD

[The letter is written on a parchment scroll in red paint streaked with dirt and water.]

Storyteller's Words: Nurture, Grow, Raise, Judge, Arrest, Free

Troublemakers' Words: Waste, Whither, Raze, Waver, Escape, Detain

Goal Words: "Your High and Mighty Monkness," "Her Majesty," "Her Majesty," "Her Majesty," Palace, Garden, "Tea and Croquet Party," "red rose border," rose, rose

Worlds Collide

by Colin Fredericks

To the Monks of the Temple in the Center of the Sky,

My deepest apologies for this letter, but our need is great.

I am Yotta, assistant to the Great Sages of Juku, may the sun grace them always. Our beautiful desert world is home to many fierce and colorful tribes, who have made their homes in the vast sandy wastes that cover our planet.

The Great Sages have long observed the sweep of the planets through the sky. We have always been near to the water planet of Ishita; indeed, this is whence comes our rain, on the rare occasion that rain falls on Juku. Our worlds grow closer and farther apart as the gravities of other worlds exert their influence.

Recently Ishita's orbit has become disturbed by the influence of the massive world Rova. The Great Sages, may their words uplift us all, have calculated that Rova will pull Ishita directly into us on its next pass. Ishita's coming will be a deluge the likes of which our arid clime has never known, to say nothing of the Phloerals who live on Ishita. However, the Great Sages, whose wisdom sparkles like the sands, say that the orbits of the worlds are the Will of Nature and command us not to interfere. They seek to teach us the meaning and power of acceptance.

I write this letter of my own, against the wishes of the Great Sages. We do not know where to turn. Even if it were allowed, we have no means to shift an entire planet from its course. Our way of life faces an utter upheaval that I cannot bring myself to accept. Please, we need your help.

--Yotta, assistant to the Great Sages

[[If this letter were in some sort of very neat script font, especially one that resembles arabic, so much the better.]]

Flag + Tree

Storyteller’s Words: Talk, Deal, Soothe, Nurture, Grow, Raise

Troublemakers’ Words: Silence, Betray, Misunderstand, Waste, Whither, Raze

Goal Words: Yotta, Shift, “Great Sages of Juku,” Rova, “Water Planet,” “Desert Planet,” Deluge, Gravity, Accept, “Will of Nature”

Spun of Crystal and Gold

by Sophie Lagacé

Benevolent Guardians of Celestial Harmony,

I reluctantly put pen to paper to beseech you for assistance in saving my grandfather’s lifework – perhaps even his life – from those who would use his precious automatons for evil ends.

My grandfather – Lord Graymist – is a renowned and gifted creator of clockworks. Since my parents died when I was a child, he has taken me into his house and, discovering that I inherited a small fraction of his genius, taught me some of his art and science. But he has recently become very ill, and I fear my cruel uncle, Sir Victor, will finally succeed in gaining control over Grandfather’s creations.

My uncle is a forceful and vindictive man; he has been here several times, once managing to bully his way to Grandfather’s bedside and the adjoining study where the most precious of the automatons are kept. The servants helped me convince him to leave, but he has threatened to obtain legal control over the estate. He does not believe me when I assure him that Grandfather sometimes wakes enough to speak, and is able to understand me.

At first when Grandfather took sick, I sent for reputed doctors, but I now fear my uncle has bribed them to keep Grandfather incapacitated. At the very least, Grandfather seemed to become more ill rather than better under their ministrations. Now I let no one tend to him without my supervision.

I suspect that Sir Victor cares little for his own father, and much for the secrets of the precious automatons. No one has ever been able to duplicate the complexity and refinement of my grandfather’s work. I know it is widely rumoured that they are... dangerous. You must understand, Grandfather was – is – a good man; but nevertheless he has sometimes undertaken work of a delicate nature for the sake of the kingdom. Although I would not have thought it possible a few weeks ago, I discovered that some of them do in fact exhibit features that suggest sophisticated weaponry.

Alas, a decade as his assistant was not enough for me to pierce my grandfather’s secrets. He wastes away, and his automatons remain silent except for the occasional twitch which my probing may provoke.

Any day now, my uncle may succeed in having Grandfather declared incompetent, and walk in with the legal means of becoming the trustee of my grandfather’s fate – and mine. He will take the automatons and wrest their secret, or at least cause great damage trying to do so. I fear he may even try to take further advantage of my grandfather’s illness to try to force him to reveal his secrets. As for my own fate, I have no doubt it will be bleak once I am in Sir Victor’s power.

I beg of you, good monks, please help me. If you cannot help my grandfather to return to health, then please take the automatons away to the Temple in the Centre of the Sky, the only place I know where they would be safe from men like my uncle, who would use my grandfather’s genius for evil ends.

Respectfully yours and awaiting your kind assistance,

Amber Carnelian

Knot, Sword, Pen

[The letter is written in pen on good quality foolscap folio, in a lady-like hand. There are a few odd crimps and crinks on the fold of the envelope, as if it had been marked by a hard edge or a tool. In the margin of the second page is a very fine, very small sketch of an automatons. There is no reference to the sketch in the letter.]

Storyteller’s Words: Bond, Value, Relate, Study, Discover, Remember, Attack, Defend, Fly

Troublemakers’ Words: Disown, Dispose, Exclude, Ignore, Cover, Forget, Blunt, Break, Fall

Goal Words: "Amber Carnelian," "Grandfather Graymist," Clockwork, "Uncle Victor," Bribe, Doctors, Automatons, Automatons, Automatons, Secret Weapon, Twitch, "Graymist Estate."

You can cage the singer, but not the song

by Nick Wedig

Salutations, dear friends,

That is, I hope that you might be my dear friends, and pray that I am not presuming too much in addressing you thusly. If you are able to assist me with my situation, then I am sure we will be very good friends indeed.

I am a xeno-anthropology professor at the University of Dravosburg. In that role, I study the culture and lifestyles of non-human sentient beings. Dravosburg is something of a trading hub for a variety of species, which aids my research greatly and makes it quite rewarding. It is not at all uncommon to find a sentient unknown to the literature walking mere blocks from our university.

As part of my studies I had been looking into the behaviors of the Chrelm, who make up a significant minority of the city’s population. Popular opinion of the Chrelm casts them in a very negative light; they are stereotyped as ugly, lazy, stupid unfriendly and amazingly close-minded. Until recently, I had argued against these negative depictions, but recent events increasingly convince me that the Chrelm indeed can be quite close-minded. Being somewhat insectile in appearance, the Chrelm are indeed hideous to look at or, worse, to observe while they are eating.

Nonetheless, I was recently traveling through the Chrelmish neighborhoods of our city, when I heard he most amazing music. One youngish Chrelm – just on the cusp of adulthood – was singing, which I had never gotten the chance to hear before. The Chrelm are very strictly religious, and one of their religious tenets prohibits any song except one dirge sung on the holiest of their holidays. Thus, I was fascinated by the singing and sought out the musician, who went by the name of Haracca.

Haracca wants nothing more than to be a singer, and obligingly I organized a few concerts at which Haracca demonstrated his talents for the university faculty and related academics. This is when my troubles began, as the Chrelm society somehow learned of my Chrelmish friend’s musical performances. Very quickly, their high priest Acceba issued a birza – a holy order to kill on sight – against Haracca and myself. Haracca’s bud mother disowned him. Haracca had broken one of their holy laws, and it was apparently a more serious taboo than I had predicted.

Now the Chrelm have shut down the Dockworker’s Union, of which the Chrelm compose a large percentage (including the Union’s leader, Secha). They are boycotting any human trade at all, as long as the University continues to harbor Haracca or myself. This has shut down the city, leaving many windship captains very angry with us. Dean Harpold is suggesting that I return Haracca to the Chrelm and stay out of their business, but I know that will mean innocent Haracca’s death, and I don’t have any guarantee it would save my own skin.

I do not know how to resolve this situation peaceably and still keep Haracca alive. One of my associates in the philosophy department suggested I contact your Temple, though I am uncertain whether I even believe in its existence. We will see, I suppose, and if you do exist and can clear up this problem I will be most grateful

Your Humble Servant

Professor Culverton Soames

Pen + Lotus+ Book

Storyteller's Words: Study, Discover, Remember, Bless, Believe, Wish, Judge, Arrest, Free

Troublemakers' Words: Ignore, Cover, Forget, Curse, Doubt, Despair, Waver, Escape, Detain

Goal Words: "University of Dravosburg." Song, Haracca, Singer, "High Priest Acceba," Chrelm, Stereotypes, "Holy Law," Taboo, "Windship Captains," "Professor Culverton Soames," "Union Leader Secha," "Dean Harpold"

Salt to Taste

by Megan Raley

Season 19, 11

Lead Letter Response Dept.

c/o The Temple

Center of the Skies

Greetings Temple Executives,

This letter is meant to serve as an assistance request from the Salacian Resources (SR) department of NaCl, INC.

As The Temple has been a client for many years, you are aware that NaCl, INC. is the leading supplier and manufacturer of Salts and Salts Transport within the Universe, with additional annex distribution centers in 3 neighboring Galaxy Clusters. Our most popular products include Individual Domestic Meal Seasoning Paks™, Blessed Brine™ (for religious ceremonies, rites, and related uses), Sel de la Mer™ spa grade bathing Salts, and quarterly industrial-scale deliveries of the purest Magnesium Chloride for use on the border world of Alta. NaCl produces many other fine products for all the worlds’ seasoning, safety, and health related needs. Please enjoy the attached sample of our new Drain Grain™ multi purpose shower scour and clog remover. 

All of our quality Salts are extracted here in Ward 1154, in both Inner-Ward mines and on stations strategically located throughout the Eastern Electrolytic Sea. Salts Extraction Specialists are key to the successful harvesting of various Salts for refinement and distribution. Our new Department of Saline Growth and Development is also of top importance, providing new and sustainable Salts growth throughout the Ward. Due to the size and success of NaCl, INC., we are proud to be the primary employer for the citizens of Ward 1154.

Recently, Salacian Resources has encountered difficulties in staffing new Extraction Specialists and training Saline Growth Technicians, as NaCl’s seasoned employees begin to calcify and retire en masse. This sudden shortage of labor directly impacts the volume of Salts available for distribution, as well as the overall economic welfare of Ward 1154. We in SR partnered with NaCl’s Risks and Research division to discover the source of young Salacians’ reluctance to fill these otherwise salient, respected positions. It is known that over 50% of the Ward’s population is in the developing pupa stage. It was evident that a lack of available upcoming mature Salacians was not the issue.

After some personal discussion with senior members of NaCl’s labor crew (each a proud parent of 300 larva or more), it has come to light that current developing Salacian pupa are interacting in very intimate terms with the Gastropidics from Ward 1102.

All politics aside, the Gastropidics appear to have no tolerance for our quality products and segregated themselves from Ward 1154 long ago. It seems that our young Salacians are influenced by their aversion and separation and are seeking foreign labor opportunities, largely in Ward 1102’s Center for Civic Slime Retention. Salacians are widely known for their speed, accuracy, and efficiency and are eagerly welcomed by the Gastropidic workforce. Our undercover work in Ward 1102 proved this to be true.

The SR team here at NaCl, INC. hope that you choose to work with us to resolve this developing difficulty. In the event that you are unable or unwilling to do so, we ask that you respond promptly so that we may be able to explore other options.

Respectfully,

S. Brackton

NaCl Plaza, SR Dept.

2165 Halite Blvd., Ste. 100

Ward 1154, Gritwich 58443

Our legal team has permitted the release of this letter with the understanding that no compensation, in monetary form or otherwise, is required by The Temple in the event that any Temple Pilgrims choose to respond to our request. Any damages incurred by any potential forthcoming Pilgrim are the sole responsibility of The Temple. Due to the nature of this assistance request, no mass quantity of Dihydrogen Monoxide will be permitted within Ward 1154 by any entity.

Book+Tree

Storyteller's Words: Bless, Believe, Wish, Nurture, Grow, Raise

Troublemakers' Words: Curse, Doubt, Despair, Whither, Raze

Goal Words: "NaCL, INC." Salt, Seasoning, Safety, "Ward 1154," Mines, "calcified employees," "Salacian Resources," Pupa, Gastropidics, "Ward 1102's Center for Civic Slime Retention," "Dihydrogen Monoxide"

The Prisoner

by Jared Sorensen

Kind and wise sirs,

Normally I wouldn't be writing a letter to you as my folk can take care of our own problems. But something happened to me and I'm not sure what to do, if I can do anything at all.

My wife Claire is imprisoned in the Dulac Penitentiary. She stole some money from her employers and she's serving out her sentence while the kids and I await her return. Mercifully, the sentence is short but there is a worse problem.

The last time I visited her, she was not well. The other inmates are violent and abusive and I fear for Claire's safety, both her physical well-being and her emotional health. It's bad enough in that place for a young girl, worse when you consider the animals that are locked  inside with her.

She was offered to be placed in protective custody and she almost accepted, but I fear the isolation could do her even more harm. That and there's no guarantee that someone might take advantage of her solitude and hire someone to hurt her.

Please, oh monks of the air. Save my wife. She isn't a bad person, just someone who made a mistake. But she shouldn't have to pay with  her life. Should she?

Sincerely,

Henry Clarkson

HEART, KNOT, FLAG

Storyteller's Words: Love, Care, Charm, Bond, Value, Relate, Talk, Deal, Soothe

Troublemakers' Words: Envy, Trouble, Reject, Disown, Dispose, Exclude, Silence, Betray, Misunderstand

Goal Words: "Henry Clarkson," "Claire Clarkson," "Dulac Penitentiary," "violent inmates," isolation, "Protective Custody."

(stashed in a dented soda can and thrown from a fishing pier near Henry's home where it was swallowed by a large fish who was carried off by a sea eagle and delivered to the Temple)

Missing Gears

by Chris Chinn

Greetings Wise Ones,

I am known as Project 12, though informally I have been called Jamal.

My creator, Dr. Levan sadly informed me that she would not be able to complete me before her own life functions had come to an end due to a malfunction of her build. I had hoped to repair her, but she calmly informed me that once ended, life functions could not be restored.  (The Grand Database, despite it's size and antiquity, also confirmed  this. Thousands of years of knowledge and yet no headway. Sad.)

She had informed me that we would only meet again if I could meet her creator.

After a little research, I discovered her co-creators had also ceased life functions decades before hand. Since Dr. Levan's statement lacked any of the usual indicators of falsity in good humor, and she still seemed of usual logic, I have deduced there is a hidden meaning I am unaware of.

Dr. Levan has always spoken of your institution in good esteem. Included are my blueprints and her design notes*. I am sure one of your engineers can finish her plans and install the necessary  components so that I can track down her creator and give Dr. Levan a chance to see the completion of her project. The laboratory can be found at these coordinates: 124.409.293.0992 S. You will also wish to avoid the lower levels of the lab, as not all of my fellow Projects have fared so well without the doctor's maintenance of their logic gears. Ah, given their deterioration, I suppose that is all the more reason to contact Dr. Levan with haste.

I will await your arrival.

Transmitted from:

Project 12, "Jamal"

*My most recent modification, the gear which allows me to feel the warmth of sunlight, seemed to have brought great excitement to my  designer. I suspect this line of design may hold the key.

Pen + Lotus

Storyteller's Words: Study, Discover, Remember, Bless, Believe, Wish

Troublemakers' Words: Ignore, Cover, Forget, Curse, Doubt, Despair

Goal Words: Components, Modifications, Gears, Lab, "Lower Levels of the Lab," Logic, Creator, "Dr. Levan," Project, Jamal, Jamal, Jamal

(Images are Da Vinci-like gear/blueprint-y stuff with illegible notes scrawled here and there.)

Dance Like You Want to WIN!

by Dev Purkayastha

HEY PILGRIMS! LISTEN UP!

You have just been CALLED OUT by the Momentum Sixteen! We are the most elite freejump freestyle dance squad in all the worlds. When we hit the ground running, the whole city is our obstacle course. Stairs, skyscrapers, ladders, lightpoles, walls, trucks, scaffolds and even airships - we freejumped it all, and bounced back to the asphalt for more. There simply isn't any other dance squad that can compete with our unstoppable rhythm. I'm Shei Six, and I'm captain of this crew because I'm just the very best of all.

Of course, it's easy being this talented. My dad, crusty old Commissar Six, only sees the spraypaint, loud music and broken windows. (It's called ART, dad.) He'd just love to close down the dance squads for good - not that he'd ever catch us! And then this new freejumper Zanzy is starting to talk trash about our squad, just because we're selling so many t-shirts and magazines. (She's gotta just be jealous.)

So enough is enough: I'm declaring a freejump competition, with every dance squad on the planet... and one team of you Pilgrims. The house rules are:

(1) You don't stop dancing until all 10 tracks are done.

(2) If you stay in the same place for too long, you're out.

(3) Bonus points for creative property damage.

(4) When you've been outclassed, do the right thing: take a bow and step out.

(5) NO FLYING. (This goes double for you Pilgrims!)

(6) Last dance team standing wins it all!

You hear that? No flying! I don't think you'd last for 2 songs if you didn't have your precious flying abilities. How about it - are you ready to put it on the line? Are you ready to freejump with us?

YOU HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED.

Heart, Lotus, Book

Storyteller's Words: Love, Care, Charm, Bless, Believe, Wish, Judge, Arrest, Free

Troublemakers' Words: Envy, Trouble, Reject, Curse, Doubt, Despair, Waver, Escape, Detain

Goal Words: "Momentum Sixteen, "Free Jump, "Unstoppable Rhythm," "the whole city," skyscraper, ladder, lightpole, wall, "Shei Six," "Commissar Six," Zanzy, Dad

(One of the Temple's large weather balloons came back to the Temple, plastered in several copies of the letter.)

(Ideally, this looks like a black-and white poster that's been photocopied several times and plastered everywhere. I imagine the all-caps bits are like in some gritty blocky arial font or something.)

i r help

by John Wick

me r goblin me r naym sil me r in dunjun me r help

grob he da ork he help rit leter

is party is da hurt thay da kill thay da tayk

elf he withe bow he kill chief he da tayk coper peeses we no da coper peeces we no da food we r starv

dwarf he with hammer he kil shaman he take majik stik no da majik stik we no stop trol trol him hungree eat him plenty goblin eat him me mum

i mis me mum

we is da help we see ganom he with shinee jem him say old Temple on top of dunjun me put them leter on altur i am get da help from monk

pleez da monk help da goblin we am hungree and troll am hungree and shaman he be ded and cheef he be ded and mom she be ded and al left be grob he da ork

Sword and Knot

Storyteller's Words:Attack, Defend, Fly, Bond, Value, Relate

Troublemakers' Words: Blunt, Break, Fall, Disown, Dispose, Exclude

Goal Words: "Sil da Goblin," "Grob da Ork,""copper pieces," elf, dwarf, "magic stick," "hungry troll," hammer, chief, shaman

Everything Has a Voice

by Kirk Mitchell

Dear Monks of the Temple in the Centre of the Sky,

My name is Cam, and I am Listener of my village. We live upon the rocky outcroppings of the Forest, looking out over the Ocean towards the Spires over the horizon, clinging like limpets to the rock Face. We do not fare well here, for the Ocean and the Forest are at war.

For an Age we have slept in our beds and listened to the Ocean speak in our dreams. We have fished and taken clams shattered on the rocks at the base of the cliff. The Forest has always sheltered us from above, and kept us good company in the daylight times.

But now the Ocean crashes against the Face and tears against the trees above, and the Trees scream and send barbs hurtling back. We see legions of dead fish and shattered branches on either side of the battlefield.

And now the Spires are silent.

My friends and family are all turning against one another, searching to lay blame. Three boys now have left, one climbing up in hopes to reach the heart of the Forest. My son took his clam knife and dove into the Ocean. The third took his boat and left for the Spires. We have seen none of them for nearly a month, and the quarrels are growing fiercer.

My dreams are gray, and indistinct and they are filled with the sounds of the world screaming. I am afraid.

Please help us.

Cam the Listener

World of Sam

Knot + Tree + Sword

Storyteller's Words: Bond, Value, Relate, Nurture, Grow, Raise, Attack, Defend, Fly

Troublemakers' Words: Disown, Dispose, Exclude, Waste, Whither, Raze, Blunt, Break, Fall

Goal Words: ocean, "Cam the Listener," "rocky outcroppings of the forest," "the spires," "the face," "silent spires," "Cam's youngest son," "Cam's oldest son," "Cam's middle son," "war between ocean and forest," barbs

(this whole letter is slightly dirty, and on the back is a drawing of the spires)

----

"The Man from Venus vs. The Wizard of Menlo Park, Episode VII: Attack of the Atomi-Tons!"

by Jessie Foster & John Wick

Gentlemen,

I send this letter with an uncertain hand. I have always been a man of Reason and find myself put into the hands of Superstition, which I find uncomfortable to say the least.

Nevertheless, my friend and ally—the redoubtable Edward Derby, Lord Strange—assures me such a request will not go unheard. I have done as he advised: a hand-written communiqué sent to yourselves. Derby assures me his “ritual” (my hand can find no more respectful way to describe the process) will deliver this letter to you. It is my faith in Derby ’s expertise rather than faith in something I cannot verify that allows me to continue this unorthodox missive.

As we speak, Edison ’s Atomit-Tons are at my gates. I can hear their electric guns. My death ray is useless against their inorganic, metallic frames. I am certain Derby and myself will be taken captive by the villain’s machines. I can hope our quest to rid the world of the fiendish Wizard of Light is not completely doomed.

I have provided the plans that will prove to be Edison ’s undoing. The Magnetic Flux Density Distorter. The MFDD will disrupt the axial vector fields generated by his infernal machines, rendering them helpless.

I have one secret laboratory Edison has never discovered. When I have placed this letter and Derby has performed his ritual, we will use the Tachyon Displacement Field Generator to bring ourselves there. Unfortunately, this sanctuary does not have the materials I require to finish the plans. It is my hope you can gather these materials and bring them to me there. I have included a map for such a purpose.

Mankind’s freedom rests on this fragile hope. I see Edward has his own materials prepared. His precious candles, bells, and his precious orichalcum ring. Such things make my stomach quiver, but I trust him. I must. If I do not, there is no hope at all.

Yours,

N. Tesla

Sword + Pen

Storyteller's Words: Study, Discover, Remember, Attack, Defend, Fly

Troublemakers' Words: Blunt, Break, Fall, Ignore, Cover, Forget

Goal Words: reason, superstition, "Edward Derby, "Lord Strange," Edison, Atomi-tons, "secret lab," "N. Tesla," "Wizard of Light," "Magnetic Flux Density Disorder," "Tachyon Displacement Field Generator," ritual, sanctuary, "inorganic, metal frames," "fragile hope"

The Adorned

by Jason E Roberts

Arrows of my family’s ghosts, illuminate me.

Dark reflections from the black glass, overlook me.

Hear me, Monks!

My name is not important for I am one of the Adorned, not one of the lesser beasts who refuse decoration that honors the gods. I fly the banner of the Eunuch without shame and wear my egg-tooth as a memento of my wasted youth. The son of a rat farmer and an iron weaver, I was promoted into the Soldier caste after my father sacrificed his life defending our village from rabid Man-Beasts.

As a cavalry officer in the Moon regiment, I am stationed on the frontier between our glorious empire and that of the Sea Folk, peaceful fishers and coral harvesters. For millennia, we have respected their sovereignty since our sacred texts inform us that the Sea Folk possess a special relationship with the gods of the deep.

A priest from a local Sea Folk village has recently challenged the status quo. He stirs the masses to reject the divinity of our emperors. He encourages artisans to design boats for lengthy voyages. He trains fresh hatchlings the arts of war. His name is Tree is Tall, and even though his dangerous ideas seem to elicit only laughter among our ruling castes, he disturbs me.

Last week, we were on an extended night patrol in thick winter uniforms to retain our day heat. Only the rhythmic jangle of our mounts’ beak-chains broke the delightful silence. Spotting several corpses, we drew our skirmish rifles and halted our warbirds. These were Puzzle Guards, the elite wardens of our prisons. They had been ambushed and slaughtered: ragged bite wounds covered their bodies. Strangely, we found several reef eels wriggling in the wet grass. Only the Sea Folk trap such creatures. Was this the work of Tree is Tall?

Upon returning to our barracks, we learned that the notorious heretic No Tail had escaped from his cell in the capital city and was being pursued by Puzzle Guards. Are the events related? Why would the convoluted teachings of No Tail appeal to the simple Sea Folk?

We are unsettled. Neither I nor my fellow riders have been able to complete our shedding rituals since. The flint scraper shakes in our hands and our scales remain dull and lifeless. We cannot bear our images in either the white or black glass.

We require your assistance urgently.

Gladly I enter the door with two handles.

Gladly I will enter the door with none.

Lotus + Flag

Storyteller's Words: Bless, Believe, Wish, Talk, Deal, Soothe

Troublemakers' Words: Curse, Doubt, Despair, Silence, Betray, Misunderstand

Goal Words: "Tree is Tall," "The Adorned," "Moon regiment," Man-Beasts, "Soldier Caste," sovereignty, "ruling castes," seafolk, boats, bite, "the notorious heretic No Tail," "shedding ritual," riders

Bound for Darkness

by Myles Corcoran

Oh holy ones,

I am charged by the people of Falling Mountain to write this letter. We suffer and are in chains of our own making. Please free us.

Falling Mountain is caught, bound by shackles of iron to a passing behemoth and dragged out into the deeps far from light and warmth. We cannot break free. Each day our world grows colder, the crops fail and our children grow hungry. Please free us.

I must explain. Our world was a pleasant sphere, dotted with farms, garlanded with blossoming trees, ringed by gurgling streams. We lived a simple life, traded what little surplus we made with neighbouring worlds and counted ourselves content.

Misfortune cast its shadow on us the day the behemoth came. A great beast of heaven, larger than imagining, it swam through the clouds impervious to man and his concerns. Some of our folk heard tell of its coming from a travelling band of tellers and jugglers. The sweetest talking of the foreigners, one Song-Bao, confronted our elders, encouraging the young to abandon our old ways and take up the travellers' life, sharing the riches of the beast and leaving Falling Mountain forever. Our young men were swayed by tales of prowess and the glory of the hunt. The fools!

As it grew nearer, our youths set out in floats to snare it, carrying nets and harpoons, chains and billhooks. The foreigners egged them on. Poor Li Foon the Oldest tried in vain to stop them but was laughed down by the hot-blooded boys.

Like gnats they were, eager for blood from the giant, afraid to let it escape, taking its unimaginable wealth away from Falling Mountain. Unhappily, they succeeded. We are now chained to the beast. The first few harpoons provoked no reaction from it, but eventually it shrugged, doubtless irritated by the parasites who bit at its flesh. The chains held, and our world was dragged crazily out of its orbit. Those villagers who managed to stay conscious tell me that we spun three, possibly four times around the behemoth before slamming into it. Merciful gods, but we stuck to it, lodged in its skin and held fast.

Our world is trapped, the chains that bind us buried in the body of the beast. This letter holds the hope of our world. Each day that passes takes us further from the holy light of the Temple, deeper into the dark. Please free us.

We have tried everything we know to break the chains, but it is hopeless. The skin of the beast overgrows the chains and our world is slowly being absorbed into the living flesh of the creature. Our village has fallen apart. The young men side with the foreigners, the foul Song-Bao promises great things when the behemoth reaches its destination. The elders call his words lies, and tell us that we're headed into the dark, a dark without hope.

I send this letter with the last of our boats. Please return it if at all possible, as Zheng will never let me hear the end of it if it is lost.

Please free us.

Tree + Knot

Storyteller's Words: Nurture, Grow, Raise, Bond, Value, Relate

Troublemakers' Words: Waste, Whither, Raze, Disown, Dispose, Exclude

Goal Words: "Falling Mountain," "Shackles of Iron," behemoth, "failing crops," "hungry children," cold, "great beast of heaven," Song-Bao, "the old ways," "glory of the hunt," "holy light of the temple," "the foreigners," village

M/S/SG (Male/Single/Sun God) looking for BIM (Beautiful Innocent Maiden)

by Liz Hooper

Great Saints of the Sky,

We call to you as you are denizens of the Sun God and lord of all Tonaltzintli. We are the Xtuqoiti and are loyal followers of Tonaltzintli, as I am sure He sees from His seat in the sky. We Xtuqoiti live upon the great pyramid land, where each step up grows fuller and lusher with the most fantastic plants in all of the universe. Our waterfall are pure and dazzling, and often they run red with the blood of our enemies, shining our glorious victories!

As loyal followers of Tonaltzintli we sacrifice each month a young, beautiful, innocent maiden to His almighty glory as pleases Him and so that He may use her strong blood to fuel His mighty light. We send these maidens out upon a feather from the colossal coyolxauteotl bird into the sky with a dagger that she may fly to Tonaltzintli and pierce her heart for His pleasure. All has been well, and Tonaltzintli has lead us to prosper and conquer!

But, alas, we have run out of young, beautiful, innocent maidens! One month we sacrificed a maiden beautiful and innocent, but not young. The month after, a maiden who was young, but neither beautiful nor innocent. Last month we sacrificed my grizzled old mother who looked like a boar's filthy back end and was just as sweet. Because of the lack of young, beautiful, innocent maidens our luck has been terrible. Tonaltzintli hasn't been watching over us. We lose battles, our children get sick and food is scarce. What will we sacrifice this month? We may have to start sacrificing the children, or men, or animals, or feathered hats!

Please, as Tonaltzintli's underlings, Saints of the Sky, surely you can help us. We MUST gain favor back with Tonaltzintli before our glorious society crumbles!

Sincerely,

Tlacatl the Mighty Head Priest of Tonaltzintli.

Lotus+Knot

The letter is written in blood and is sticky to the touch. It has been deposited in a heart (a human heart?) which looks like it was then set on fire. Tied with a string to the aorta is a blue feather that looks to be more than six feet long. The handwriting seems abnormally elegant.

Storyteller's Words: Bless, Believe, Wish, Bond, Value, Relate

Troublemakers' Words: Curse, Doubt, Despair, Disown, Dispose, Exclude

Goal Words: "Tlacatl the Mighty Head Priest of Tonaltzintli," Xtuqoiti, "the great pyramid land," "glorious victories," "strong blood," sacrifice, "colossal coyolxauteotl bird," "bad luck," "saints of the sky," "young, beautiful, innocent maidens."

One Final Matter

by Rob Donoghue

Dear Pilgrims,

I will not be here to receive you should you respond to my missive, and for that I apologize and thank you in advance.

I must go west. My friend Paul has already gone there. He fell while we were playing. I did not mean to push him. We were only playing. But now he's gone. My grandmother says he was a good boy, so he was taken off to the west. I have packed my bag and I will go west too.

This is not why I write. To my shame, I have stolen my father's compass, so I can find the way. I hope to hang it on a tree when I get far enough to see the west. The trip is long for one like me, but for Pilgrims it should be easy. So if this letter reaches you, and you do come, please, I ask that you return my Father's compass. It's very important to him, and I do not want him to be sad.

Thank you very much.

Fisher

[In a childish hand, but one written with obvious care for penmanship]

Lotus + Flag

Storyteller's Words: Believe, Bless, Wish, Talk, Deal, Soothe

Troublemakers' Words: Curse, Doubt, Despair, Silence, Betray, Misunderstand

Goal Words: West, West, Paul, Paul, Grandmother, Fisher, Fisher, "Father's Compass," shame, Father

When the Well Runs Dry

by Jason Sims

Sirs:

Forgive lack of protocol and curt tone.

I am a pen. Brought to life by master. Other objects, too.

He is gone. Too long.

Ink well almost dry. Must write. Fear lack of purpose will drive me mad like other objects. Hate me. Will not help me.

Bring ink to master's study in house on third Glass Moon. Fear he is gone forever.

Careful. All others mad.

Heart+Flag+Tree

Storyteller's Words: Love, Care, Charm, Talk, Deal, Soothe, Nurture, Grow, Raise

Troublemakers' Words: Envy, Trouble, Reject, Waste, Whither, Raze, Silence, Betray, Misunderstand

Goal Words: Pen, Master, Life, Objects, dry, inwell, mad, fear, "Glass Moon," others

[ Written elegant hand on fine, creamy paper. The writing starts out pretty light and grows fainter until the last line is barely legible.]

Mephisto vs. Farnsworth

by Justin D. Jacobson

Storyteller's Words: Bond, Value, Relate, Study, Discover, Remember, Talk, Deal, Soothe

Troublemakers' Words: Disown, Dispose, Exclude, Ignore, Cover, Forget, Silence, Betray, Misunderstand

Goal Words:"Mr. Mephisto," contract, "a certain third-year," father, son, "Lattimer S. Farnsworth," "immortal soul," arbitration, trial, litigator, "full resources of the firm," "law library," "private investigator," copier, "fax machine," "attorney's fees"

(Hidden in a dummy file in Mr. Farnsworth’s office under the name “Animus, LLC - Corporate Minutes”)

[Hi, Daniel. Attached is my letter. I thought I'd try something a little different and called on my most annoying lawyerly qualities. Visually, it might be nice to put it on some fancy letterhead. The symbols should be Blood + Pen (and maybe Flag, i.e., his soul as property?). For the credit line use: Justin D. Jacobson]

No Good Deed

by Shannon Haggard

Dear Honorable Monks:

My family has recently come upon a problem, or perhaps, brought it upon ourselves.   I hope you will understand that we stumbled upon this situation through kindness, however misplaced, and the help we now seek is our last resort.

This summer past, my family took a holiday to the local lake - my wife, Estella, son, Rilmor, and young daughter, Vallenea.   We enjoyed our trip and were on our way home when we were set upon by a bandit - an orc who endeavored to steal our belongings.  I bested him easily enough, as he seemed to be somewhat malnourished and weak.  Before I struck the killing blow, the wretched creature pleaded for his life - "Save Ogbar!"  He pleaded, "I just trying to feed little orcs!"  This was all it took to set my wife and daughter similarly pleading for the creature's life - their female hearts, it seems, were too tender.

My wife made the case for us to take this creature and his brood (which we soon found to be rather large) back to our estate.  She proposed that we could civilize them - our son could teach them to farm, and she and our daughter could show them the ways of culture and civility.  I know now that I should have refused this plan outright, but I was weak, and I relented to the women’s pleas.  We took the orc - Ogbar, and his family back home with us.

Things went well at first - we set the orcs up on a small but well appointed cottage of sorts in the back field.  Rilmor taught Ogbar the fundamentals of farming, and Vallenea and Estella taught the females (who, like the children, seemed to be numerous and indistinguishable) how to prepare a proper meal. 

There were problems, certainly - we tried to introduce the orcs to livestock, presenting them with a stout young goat.  They mistook our instructions and attempted to plant the poor creature - alas, Rilmor found it too late, and it did not survive.  One of the younger orcs - a lad by the name of Grog Grog, seems to be slow-witted - the boy stands and stares at the sun all day, only to go about by night groping his way about.  The dim witted child seems to be intent on blinding himself!

And now, the troubles begin - the orcs seem to have become intent to spread the word about our generosity.  Vallenea found a map, crudely penned, behind the cabin - the map reflects our local area, complete with our estate.  Over our property is noted a fire with the notation 'nice lady lives here - free food.'  I have seen similar symbols, with arrows indicating the way to our home, around the local countryside.

The orc's numbers seem to be multiplying unbound now - last night they seemed to be having a festival of some kind, complete with a large fire, dancing, and - I hesitate to say it - free coupling with one another, out in the open!  I am loath to include this coarse detail in my letter and only bring it up because I would be remiss if I allowed Vallenea to witness such degenerate, vulgar congress.

I am at a loss as to how to deal with these creatures – it occurred to me to slaughter them wholesale, perhaps summoning the local guard if Rilmor and I ourselves where not up to such a task, but such an action would surely incur the wrath of the females in my household.  While I do not allow the whims of the weaker sex to hold sway over my deeds, I do desire a simpler, bloodless resolution to my conflict.  I have beseeched the orcs to leave under their own power, only to be rebuffed with excuses – they will leave when the seasons turn, they will leave when it stops raining, they will leave when this or that female gives birth – this situation has become quite intolerable! 

I beseech you, fine monks, please help me.  My family’s historical estate has been reduced to a hovel for these creatures, through nothing but good intentions on my own part.  Please honor my family with your kind assistance.

Sincerely,

Rudger Enthmoore

Flag+Knot

Storyteller's Words: Talk, Deal, Soothe, Bond, Value, Relate

Troublemakers' Words: Silence, Betray, Misunderstand, Disown, Dispose, Exclude

Goal Words: "Rudger Enthmoore," "Estella Enthmoore," "Rilmer Enthmoore," "Vallena Enthmoore," orc, "little orc," livestock, "numerous and indistinguishable children," "Grog Grog," generosity, map, "free food"

Summary

In these letters, you've seen troubles great and small. Powerful entities and modest villagers all humbled by problems for which they know no solution. And these letters don't even encompass the full breadth of the universe!

If you're ready to try to solve some of the troubles you see in this chapter, read on and learn how to make your Pilgrim character.

Chapter 3: Creating Your Pilgrim

If this is the first time playing, you and the other players must first each create a character you will control in the story.

To create your Pilgrim, you will follow these steps in this chapter to tell a story about her childhood and how she came to the Temple. You'll describe her history, leading up to the point where your character officially becomes a Pilgrim. In each step, you’ll make some small creative decisions that, on the whole, will create the main character of your story.

You'll first write about how your character was raised on her homeworld. Then some of the other players will describe why she left home and create one troublesome experience she had at the Temple. Finally, you get a chance to describe how your character helped someone out of their trouble. In the end, your character gets her full Pilgrim name and title.

If you're familiar with games like Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft, you are familiar with the concept of "Stats." These are character attributes that usually get numbers assigned to them to measure whether a character is stronger, faster, smarter or more powerful than any other. In Do, those kinds of distinctions are less important, though.

One Pilgrim is just as competent as any other, and just as likely to get into trouble. Because everyone is as likely to get in trouble as everyone else, it's the how that is important to the story. What matters is how your Pilgrim solves problems and how she gets in trouble. Your Pilgrim's name is what tells you that. In essence, your character's name is her stats. No numbers required.

Throughout all these steps, you are introduced to the basic guidelines and techniques for being a Storyteller and a Troublemaker when you actually play the Pilgrimage itself. Think of this chapter as a kind of safe space to practicing your creativity. In writing this story, you will get some practice in how to tell stories when you play the Pilgrimage itself. By following the process in this chapter, you aren't just preparing a character, you're preparing yourself.

The characters you and the other players create will be the stars of the story you tell together. Individually, each character belongs to the player that created her. Still, there is a lot of collaboration between each player, influencing your respective characters’ stories. Discuss your expectations for the story and trust each other to commit to that shared vision. It's up to each player to maintain that agreed-upon tone.

There's one final note  to touch on before continuing, regarding turn order. Some steps can be done by all the players at the same time. In that case, you will see a message stating :

"There is no turn order in this step. Everyone can do it at the same time."

Other steps require that only one player do it at a time, while the other players perform other duties as the Troublemakers. In that case, you will see a message stating:

"Each player takes turns doing this step. Start with the youngest player and continue clockwise around the table until everyone has done this step."

And finally, if a step calls on the Troublemakers, you'll see a customized message particular to that situation.

In addition to these messages, you will see an icon that looks like this [Mickey Mouse Table with no chairs highlighted]. That icon represents a table with four chairs around it, each with a player numbered 1 through 4. When a player is doing something, their chair is highlighted like so [Mickey Mouse Table with Player 1 highlighted.] Then when it is the next player's turn, their chair is highlighted like so [Mickey Mouse Table with Player 2 highlighted.]

Getting Ready

Step 1: As a group, the players gather the stuff needed to make characters.

There is no turn order in this step. Everyone can do it at the same time.

[Diagram] Mickey Mouse table with all chairs highlighted. [Caption: Players 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all doing this step at the same time.[/Diagram]

Do is best played around a large round table with enough room for all the items you need to play. For now you only need a few things, but in actual play you will need a bit more space. Here is what you need to make your characters.

Players

All the players need to be present. Do works best when you have a group of three, four, or five players. If a player is late, feel free to prank call her until she arrives. Also, order a pizza on her dime.

Example: Let's say four players are getting together. "Four players are getting together." There, that was easy. It's kind of confusing to call them Player A, B, C, and D though, so let's call them Allie [ ] , Bebe [ ], Cat [ ] and Dev [ ]. There are going to be examples throughout this book that describe these players doing stuff as a part of this game.

Allie has already outlined the premise of Do, noting that each player will be making their own pilgrim character by following the next several steps.

Pencils

Each player needs a pencil or pen with which to write her character's details. If you're a messy writer, go with pencils. If you're feeling confident, go with a pen. If you're messy and confident, hold a fistful of pencils and pens and write with all of them at the same time.

Example: Bebe kindly provides some pens for everyone to use. Cat promises not to chew these like she did with the last batch. It's not Cat's fault they were so delicious.

Passports

Each needs a fresh passport on which she will write her character's details. Passports can be found in the back of this book or as a downloadable PDF on danielsolis.com/do. They're designed so that you have one section for your character's history, her name, and so on. It is designed to look like a written document from the Flying Temple.

If you're in a pinch, you can just use a notecard or a scrap of paper. Just leave enough space for about three or four sentences.

Example: Dev printed out passport for each player to use. Allie neatly puts hers in front of her, ready to fill out. Bebe is examining some of the terms on the sheet.. Cat is doodling kung fu dinosaurs on hers.

Time

Creating the whole group of characters should only take about an hour or two. If you have enough time, you could go straight from pilgrim creation to the first letter of the Pilgrimage. Most of us are working stiffs without a lot of free time though, so a nice relaxed character creation is more than enough playtime to make a satisfying first session.

Example:  They have about an hour and a half before Dev's got to head home. Plenty of time for everyone to make their pilgrims.

Step 2: As a group, the players decide how gonzo the stories will be.

There is no turn order in this step. Everyone can do it at the same time.

Think of stories like food. Say you sit down for a big greasy pizza. You smell the greasy bubbling cheese, the pungent garlic and tomato sauce. Your mouth waters at the thought of that first savory bite. You don't expect it to taste like Brussels sprouts. Not to say Brussels sprouts aren't good, they're fine with a bit of butter. It's just that you go into an experience, like pizza, with certain unsproutly expectations.

So stories are like that, too. It's all about expectations. You can drift the expectations a bit, maybe even throw in one big twist, but you void the warranty on fun if you careen entirely off course. Some people like comedies that make their sides ache with laughter. Others prefer to be heartbroken at the end of an epic tragedy. No one likes expecting one extreme, but getting the other. (Well, some people do, but they're weird.)

If this happens at the movies or in a novel, you can blame the director or the author. But in a storytelling game, it's up to the players to make sure a comedic game stays light or a dramatic game keeps a consistent sincerity.

Elements of Gonzocity

You should discuss your individual expectations for the tone of your stories. This section guides provides terms to form the framework for your story's tone. "Scope" is whether you will focus on "Small" personal events or "Big" epic deeds across worlds. "Mood" is the whether your stories are "Light" goofy comedies or "Heavy" intense melodramas. Firstly, let's discuss the baseline for Do stories.

By default, Do has a big scope and light mood. This style is called "farce" and is discussed later in this section. The examples of play in this book assume you're playing a fairly light-hearted game in which amazing things are commonplace. The systems and rules in the game lend themselves most easily to this tone, but there are other tones, too.

Example:  As she explains the game's premise to the rest of the group, Allie especially emphasizes the system naturally lends itself to absurd stories with widespread consequences for actions. Collaboration is guaranteed, consistency less so. That means she, Bebe, Cat and Dev ought to discuss their preferences so they're all on the save wavelength from the start.

The rest of this section discusses the differences between the two extremes of scope and mood. It would take up too much room than this one book can provide to discuss all the subtle gradations between those terms, so we'll focus on the extremes so we at least have a common frame of reference.

Big
Heavy---|--- Light
Small

[Caption: By putting together the two scopes and two moods, you see four basic styles of storytelling in Do. All the examples of play in this book assume you're telling big/light stories.]

Small Scope vs. Big Scope

Zoom in close and tight to the affairs of a small number of people. This story focuses entirely on people's relationships and interactions with each other. Any troubles the Pilgrims will encounter are primarily focused that tightly packed cast of characters and their or with small-scale grievances. Lost loves, familial disputes, and personal anxieties are common.

The challenge of a small story is maintaining that constant focus on a small group. When given so much creative freedom, you may be tempted to just go crazy with the grand, sweeping gestures. Instead, discuss with the group to see if the events of the story are becoming too grand and impersonal. You may find it useful to establish physical borders limiting the events and consequences of a story to a single village or even a single room. This can be done for time, too, by saying that the events of the story take place within a single day. Try keeping the cast of characters small so the story's events tighten their web of relationships, agreeing not to introduce more than five worldly characters.

Example: If Allie and the gang were trying to make a story with a small scope, they would agree on some parameters before the game starts.  Through discussion, they agree that all the pilgrim's actions cannot affect any more than two or three people. In terms of space, if anything they do affects a general area of the worlds they'll visit, it cannot affect any more than a single household.

They decide not to impose limits on how long a pilgrim's actions may have an effect. They want to leave that open-ended, so that the pilgrims may create real lasting change for the few people they do deal with. In their stories, the pilgrims are mysterious visitors from a distant world who  change the lives of a small group of people in very subtle but persistent ways.

The other end of the spectrum ups the ante on all the Pilgrim's actions. The Pilgrims' decisions can affect whole civilizations, set moons ablaze, tilt the balance of power between cosmic forces or change the course of rivers. Big troubles involve great kingdoms at war, gods in conflict with each other, and extraordinary events with possible consequence for the whole universe. Pilgrims in big stories are often remembered by the worlds they visit for years. Whether they're remembered in fame or infamy is another matter entirely.

The challenge of a big story is the temptation to one-up the last epic event with an even more epic event. When everything is epic, nothing is. There needs to be a baseline of normalcy from which to extend into the epic. You may decide to keep your Pilgrim's actions small, but inadvertently causing amazing consequences. You can also alternate between small stories and light stories. You can use borders as a minimum area of effect for your Pilgrim's actions, so that every consequence will at least effect a whole village or a whole world. You can also do this with time, so your Pilgrim's actions will last for at least a hundred years, fifty generations, every firstborn child or some other measure of time.

Example: If Allie and the gang instead decided to make a game with a big scope, they're actively trying to make their pilgrims feel more like epic participants in grand events. It's hard to have a sense of epicness without some grounding in normalcy to compare it against, so Allie references the Scope Triangle again. Dev and Cat like the idea of the Pilgrims being able to do amazing things for lots of people at once. Bebe likes this too, but wants to limit how long those actions last.

So the group agrees to  limit the impact of their pilgrim's actions to about a day. Further, just to make things a little more epic, they agree that the minimum number of people affected will be about twenty people. In other words, anything the pilgrims do will affect at least a group of twenty people, regardless of circumstances.

In the story Allie and her friends are about to tell, the pilgrims are more powerful than they wold be in a story with a small scope. Here, the pilgrims create broad solutions like for narrow problems, like reckless wizard's apprentices. Thank goodness their meddling only lasts a day or so.

[Toys of the Trade: Scope Triangle]

[Diagram: Triangle showing people, space and time on either corner. Caption: If you need some more concrete ways of defining your scope, you can use this toy to adjust the dials of your story. This triangle shows three different ways you can represent scope: People, Space and Time. This is a very arbitrary set of parameters, though. You could think of your own, like Earth, Air, Fire and Water or something more esoteric, but let's go with these three for now.

If you're telling stories with a small scope, try imposing boundaries on how many people, how much space and how much time a pilgrim's decisions can have an affect. That is the upper limit of the ]

[Diagram: Triangle showing people, space and time on either corner. Caption: In a game with a big scope, it's easy to lose a sense of scale. In order for your pilgrim's actions to feel epic, they need a baseline to feel epic against. Try putting just one boundary on either how many people, how much space or how much time a pilgrim's decisions can have an affect. For the other two categories, put a minimum on how many people, how much space or how much time the pilgrim's can impact.]

[Time]

Instant

A few moments

A minute

15 minutes

Half an hour

An hour

An afternoon

A day

A week

A month

A season

Half a year

A year

A few years

A decade

A lifetime

[Space]

An inch

A few inches

A foot

A Few Feet

A Corner of a Room

A Room

A House

A Few Houses

Half a World

A Whole World

A Whole World and Surrounding Skies

A Cluster of Worlds

Several Clusters

A Heaven

A Few Heavens

The Universe

Light Mood vs. Heavy Mood

A heavy story leans towards grim seriousness. Such a story may deal with controversial subjects like conflicts between parents and kids, crime and punishment, or the true costs of war. Also, your Pilgrim’s actions will have serious consequences. People can be hurt. Your Pilgrim may be scarred. All emotional outbursts in a heavy story is absolutely sincere. The anger, sadness and love that characters experience is always warranted and authentic. Approach heavy stories with sensitivity and caution.

Heavy stories can be challenging if you're the kind of person who loves to crack jokes during the game. One Monty Python reference can pop the dramatic tension that the other players have worked to build up. Even if you can easily switch back and forth between the light mood at the table and the serious mood in the story, not all players can do so as easily. There is still a place for comedy relief, but discuss with your group the circumstances in which it is appropriate in the story.

It should be again noted that this game is not the best at creating stories with a heavy mood. Heavy mood is described here mostly to distinguish it from stories with a Light mood. If you're interested in a grim game where teenagers travel to different places facing moral dilemmas and making right where once went wrong, I recommend a game called Dogs in the Vineyard by Vincent Baker. It is far less silly than Do.

Example: Let's say Cat is curious about playing up the moral aspect of the Pilgrimage. She suggests that pilgrims, in a sense, are conscripted children imbued with the authority of a high-level diplomat and police officer. Those responsibilities should be met with sincerity, respect and sobriety. She is interested in making the stories like a procedural cop drama. That means she doesn't want to see people falling on banana peels, no pies thrown into anyone's face or serious consequences mitigated by absurd circumstances. If pilgrims make a mistake, it's a serious mistake with serious impact. If people get hurt, they stay hurt. These are kids acting like adults in a world of adults, so let's all be adult about it. For real-real.

Having heard all this, Allie and the rest of the players may be curious about this style of story as well. Dev and Bebe just watched a season of a gritty cop show and Allie's been reading a lot of detective novels. They agree to limit the comedic aspects of their stories to a minimum. They also agree to not try to diffuse any dramatic tension that might build up in the story with off-color jokes or pop culture references. This will be tough for Cat, who loves to crack jokes, but she says she'll try to keep it in check. Whatever happened to games being silly fun?

If your stories have a Light mood, your Pilgrim will experience funny misunderstandings, absurd events and frequent pratfalls. Light stories are usually comedies of error in which a well-meaning Pilgrim accidentally causes more trouble than they quelled. These are the stories you can share with a laugh and appreciation for zaniness. Danger may present itself at times, but no one ever really gets hurt. You’re agreeing to let your Pilgrim to take a pie in the face every so often.

If there is ever a dramatic moment, it's exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Anger is becomes outlandish frustration. Sadness brings on arcing rivers of tears. Love is expressed in un-self-conscious adoration with little floating hearts. In other words, this is a cartoon in every sense of the word. Subtlety has no place here. All intentions are telegraphed and all motivations are out in the open.

The challenge of a light game is that it can be tempting to try to one-up the humor in each event of the story. Don't feel that you are in the spotlight, commanded to "be funny!" In a comedy, you still need events to push the plot and character growth forward. If the other players are tossing out hilarious events, then that is your opportunity to move the story further towards its resolution. This game naturally lends itself to humor, so you don't have to worry so much about trying to be funny every time.

Example: Bebe has read through the game book for Do already and she notices that it is a highly collaborative form of storytelling. She likes this aspect of the game and feels like it would be more suited to a comedy game, where the occasional absurd moment won't harm anyone's serious moment or impose on dramatic tension. If there is a banana peel, so be it. If there is a pun, like a giant banana-shaped car peeling out of a driveway, all the better. She is more interested in collaboration than consistency.

Allie, Dev and Cat like the sound of this kind of story, too. For Allie, it reminds her of movies like Airplane or Naked Gun, where puns fly quicker than a pie to the face and absurd moments are taken as a regular routine. For Dev and Cat, it reminds them of shows like Trigun where the protagonist has the appearance of a dangerous leatherclad renegade, but never fails to reveal himself as a hapless goofball. They decide their pilgrims will follow similar model, looking tough but acing silly.

All the players all agree to maintain a high level of irreverence, spiked with the occasional point of absurdity. This game is a sandbox for ideas and everyone's promised not to kick over anyone else's castle. Instead, to torture the metaphor further, all players will simply add on to each other's sand castles, organically merging them into a big sand city.

[Toys of the Trade: The Mood Ring] [Unfinished]

Using The Gonzometer

By putting together your chosen scope and mood, you get four different possible combinations that represent the four basic styles of storytelling in Do. These styles are Gonzo (big/light), Sitcom (small/light), Melodrama (Small/Heavy) and Opera (Big/Heavy). These styles provide a creative constraint to always know what sort of subject might be out of bounds for your group.

Big
|
Opera          |          Farce
|
Heavy ------------------------|-------------------------- Light
|
Melodrama     |             Sitcom
|
Small

Farce (Big/Light)

Strange worlds, weird beings and magical events are all commonplace and taken for granted. What, gorillas riding pterodactyls have turned a whole world into a giant banana? That's just all in a day in the life of a Pilgrim. The Pilgrims will visit many different worlds and have an immense impact on each of them, but the story is all told for laughs.

This is the default style for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. The way this game is designed most easily lends itself to big, broad comedy with absurd non sequitors. The examples of play in this book feature players telling this style of story. Their pilgrims are well-intentioned and get along well together. The focus of the story is rarely on their relationships with each other. Instead, it's all about the hijinks they get into on-world. Their pilgrims can do amazing things, but that just means the consequences are that much bigger.

Example: When explaining Farce style stories, she cites Futurama. This animated series had stories that regularly affected feature entire civilizations. The main characters had a wildly disproportionate influence over the rest of the universe, considering they were merely a mail delivery service. They engaged interstellar diplomacy, first contact with aliens, and occasionally traveled to parallel universes. Still, the dangers and dilemmas the characters face still focused on amusement over drama.

Rules:

No Death

No Graphic Sex or Violence

Pilgrims work together and mostly get along.

Pilgrims may have superhuman abilities.

Players can make pop culture references, possibly including them in the story itself.

Antagonists are cartoonishly villainous, with superficial motivations.

Consequences affect large areas, large numbers of people or last for a long time. (Pick one.)

Sitcom (Small/Light)

These are personal, character-driven comedies that trade in gonzo for simple goofiness. When you tell this kind of story, you're grounding it in reality and making light of the little rites of passage as a teen grows into adulthood. First loves, adolescent rivalries, and true friendships are all open fodder.

Even if your story features bizarre creatures like nature spirits, robots or gods, you can still ground them to reality by making them behave just like a regular person would in the real world. Just remember to keep the impact of the stories focused on whatever boundaries your group has established. Though Big/Light is the default style for stories in this game, the advice and examples of play in this book should be helpful for Small/Light stories as well.

Example: Bebe describes sitcom as being like Saved by the Bell and most prime-time Nickelodeon shows, like Hannah Montana. These shows have a teenage or youthful cast of characters who get into amusing dilemmas that are resolved in half-an-hour. The difference between this style and Farce is that the scope is much smaller. For the teenage protagonists, the high school hallways and classrooms are their entire universe. Any event that happens outside of those bounds is irrelevant and does not impact their lives.

Rules:

No Death

No Graphic Sex or Violence

Pilgrims work together, but often quibble and argue.

Pilgrims may not have superhuman abilities. (Except for flying, naturally.)

Players can make frequent pop culture references.

Antagonists are cartoonishly villainous, with superficial motivations.

Consequences only affect small areas, few people or and do not last long.

Opera (Big/Heavy)

Big/Heavy stories feature sincere motivations driving people to impact many, many others. the Pilgrims might meet these people, or might be these people, but in either case the message is the same: One person, driven to extremes, can have an immense impact on the world.

Example: Dev compares opera stories to Neon Genesis Evangelion, whose stories involve ghosts, angels and giant monsters attacking a city. The young protagonists are thrust into the world of adults before they’re fully prepared, facing life-and-death decisions that leave them with lasting emotional trauma. Everyone cries a lot.

Melodrama (Small/Heavy)

Small/Heavy stories make the small things in life heavy. The adolescent rites of passage take a more sincere, perhaps realistic, tone. The first love is truly passionate, a rivalry feels like a burning hatred, and a friendship is a rare point of light in a world of darkness.

Example: Cat notes that a melodrama story could be like the mid-90s TV series My So-Called Life. Like sitcoms, the focus of these stories were a small group of young friends at their high school, but the subject matter was far more serious. Tales of their lives are interwoven through issues like child abuse, prejudice, addiction, homelessness, adultery, and school violence. Everyone cries a lot here, too.

Do is a Farce, sometimes a Sitcom

Again, it should be noted that Do lends itself best to creating stories that are Farce or Sitcom. Opera and Melodrama styles are not well supported with the advice and examples of play in this book. You can still tell stories in this style, but there is not enough space in this little volume to provide adequate support.

[Toys of the Trade: The Gonzo Stick]

If, in Dogs, I say "The stakes of this challenge are 'do I build a nuclear bomb,'" the GM has a responsibility to say "no, shut up" to me. Further, in Nobilis, I'm going to constantly be firing off questions about what sorts of ways I can stretch my abilities "Can I use a creation of punctuation to drop heavy iron balls on someone's head? 'cause it's like a period?" Finding the edges -- the "no"s of the system and setting -- can be an integral part of the play experience.

"No, because I said so," is bad.
"No, because that totally violates the entire game premise, don't you think, guys?" "Yup, shut up Fred" is good.

Of course the GM and player aren't on the same page. Duh! Think about the lumpley principle for a second. If all the players of the game were on the same page, why would you bother playing? You wouldn't need to negotiate the SIS at all.

I'm sorry, dude, but you're just wrong about this. The language does not contain wrong words wrong enough to describe your wrongness. What I am describing *must* be a part of functional play (or maybe very stealthy dysfunctional play) because what I am describing goes on all the time in any RPG I've ever played in. And I have had a lot of fun -- not despite it, but because of it.

Yet another example: Every single Riddle of Steel game I've ever played has players constantly saying "Can I use this SA? How about this one?" If the GM said "yes" to all of those, the game would be pointless. All SAs would be firing all the time, so it would just become "what do you want to do." The GM (where, by GM, I mean "person who says no") needs to limit people so that the SAs are all that more special when they *do* happen.

I think you're on this trip right now that every word spoken by a player is a gospel contribution to the game. That's great... for improv comedy. Role-playing games have blocking rules, and have them for a reason. I think it is an important statement you are going for, but it is also a wrong one.

So, there's blocking:
"I have a line there."

There's blocking:
"I don't see it" or "that doesn't make sense to me" or "that doesn't fit."

There's blocking:
"No, that isn't consistent with my vision."

There's blocking:
"I don't want you to do that."

There's blocking-with-interfering:
"I don't want you to do that, so I'll roll the dice."

There's blocking-that's-redirecting:
"I don't want you to do that, what about this?"

There's blocking-that's-questioning:
"But would X really Y? Can you explain that to me?"

There's blocking-that's-reprioritizing:
"Let's ignore what might or might not be happening in X right now, and focus on Y."

There's blocking-that's-ignoring:
"Okay, sure. There's X. But you're still at Y."

...it sounds like people are conflating some of these things, to the detriment of the conversation.


Stealing a boat: all too common, and not inherently 'gonzo' in your sense. Gonzo journalism could be employed in a story about this.

Stealing a boat via airlift: reasonable for small boats, improbable but possible for large ones. Not inherently 'gonzo' in your sense. Gonzo journalism could be employed in a story about this.

Stealing a boat via airlift using animals: impractical and implausible. Not inherently 'gonzo' in your sense, provided justification that is reasonable in-fiction, but certainly a bold and attention-grabbing stroke that must be supported. Might simply be a non sequitur.

Stealing a boat via airlift using extinct animals: ridiculous, at best a non sequitur. This becomes properly 'gonzo' in your sense.

Stealing a boat via airlift using extinct animals ridden by trained animals: more ridiculous. I want to leave the game.

Stealing a boat via airlift using extinct animals ridden by trained animals with harpoon guns: the harpoon guns seem reasonable compared to the rest (you have to grab in to the boat somehow), indicating that the nonsense level has reached saturation. Additional details will not alter my perception of the scene in either direction; the Rubicon has already been crossed.
Over the top. People places and events taken to excess. Strange almost surreal juxtapositions of unrelated things done for the purpose of being intentionally jarring. Spiraling one-ups-manship. Cause and effect being diluted or nearly non existant. Pointless craziness for the sake of being crazy. Silly goes almost without saying.
Its not just a man who's chasing us...its Elvis.
No, its MONKEY Elvis
ZOMBIE monkey Elvis
from SPAAAACE!!!

Gods I hate that crap. And its infectious. Once it starts its exceedingly difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.



If Player X spends a Destiny Token and I reply "umm...no" then I look like a douche vis-a-vis the expectation.

Is that something you experienced in your games? Is it difficult to use a veto even if the game rules explain that it's perfectly legitimate? Do you tiptoe around game situations where you should use your veto prerogative but prefer not to for social reasons? Is this all just reactionary propaganda from paranoiac trad' gamers?
I have never had a problem with a veto though I rarely find them useful. Every transaction at the table is a negotiation in some sense, and the veto is way at the far end of that. Even hardcore GM-is-God players still look at the others for cues to see if they are going too far and adjust accordingly.
There are social consequences of even the possibility of a veto. It shapes behavior of everyone at the table, particular those who might be less confident of their vision. Not all vetos are explicit.
In my experience, when there's a rule that allows a veto, and everyone knows it... Suddenly, the amount of stuff actually worthy of a veto drops to almost nothing.

What actually happens is that people get asked to restate things or come at them a different way.
The number of times I personally have experienced a Challenge go all the way to the bidding step in the last 8 years...like 3.

But I've demoed the game dozens of times, and I can tell you that the games where I just skip explaining the Challenge rules (cuz they rarely get used anyway) and the times where the Challenge rules are featured promenantly are like night and day.

With no Challenge rule explanation the game nearly always went immediately gonzo, the fastest / loudest player dominated play and others felt compelled to go along even if they didn't want to. In games with the Challenge rules, that stuff hardly ever happened.

I call it negotiation with teeth. If a player asks you to tone down the gonzo (or whatever) and has the mechanical means to back the request up, IME those requests are almost always met respectfully and quickly. In the absence of mechanics with teeth the issue gets thrown back to the social level. IMO over reliance on the social level to provide smooth play is a design flaw.

Another reason I think veto / challenge mechanics are effective is because the provide a reason beyond the social to compromise. Say I want something different from you. Say there a mechanic in place that when triggered means one of us will get our way and the other won't...say its completely random (like "any other player can call for a roll off, high roller wins). We now both have a motivation to reach compromise quickly because getting to a point where we can both agree is better for me than risking getting stuck with an unfavorable result. You and I now have a motivation to come to an accord before someone else gets bored listening to us wrangle and calls for the roll off where we risk getting nothing.

IME I've also found that, even in very socially functional groups, the ability to use the mechanics to bear the brunt of disatisfaction really helps avoid those awkward social moments where you fear you went to far in stating your case and the other player felt pressured. By shifting it to the mechanical from the social it really helps avoid those line crossing moments.


Note also that there's a WIDE range of possible "how do you decide who gets their way" mechanics besides just outright veto. Some will work exceedingly poorly for certain types of games / groups. But I think there's always a way to come up with some variation that will work well, it might take a bit of digging and trial and error to get it to feel exactly right, however.
There are a lot of social reasons why you might not want to veto someone - they're new to gaming, they're bigger and stronger than you, you want to smooch them, all of the above. But being able to negotiate it and have a "veto as play" sort of thing helps ground it.
I've observed a lot of hurt feelings when people's contributions get veto-ed, even or perhaps especially in games where there is a mechanic for it. If you are in a group where that's not acceptable, the game isn't going to change that no matter how interesting the mechanic.
There's no magic bullet to be sure. What I've observed is that mechanics help navigate those issues and the act of players agreeing to play a game with those mechanics provides a certain default buy-in to having them handled that way. When I've see hurt feelings IME having the hurt come from a procedure rather than a person helps reduce the sting somewhat.

But when the sting comes from the realization that your friends don't think your contribution is as cool as you do that's not going to be prevented by a procedure. But if a procedure can help cut it off at that so that the hurt doesn't fester into resentment by simply getting through it cleanly and without alot of unfortuneate things being said, then that's a distinct advantage IMO.
I have a fairly profound dislike for gonzo that crosses the line into goofy territory, so that wouldn't really be a selling feature for me.


But philosophically, IMO, you can never escape vetos. There will always be a veto power at the table. I would submit for consideration that there has always been a veto power at everyone's table in every game we've ever played.

The only question is whether that veto power is listed explicitly in the rules so everyone can use it equitably, or whether it simply manifests in the individual with the biggest personality, the most cutting eyeroll, the most forceful way of speaking, the most charming persuasiveness, the most pitful whine, or is just the person everyone wants to score with. There are a million possibilites ranging from the subtle and hard to detect to the aggressive and obnoxious. But someone ALWAYS has a veto power.
That's inherent in the fact that anyone can get up and leave, most likely to the detriment of the game. In Olde Skoole games, if that was the GM, you were ALL done... so the GM veto became a de facto Rule One (or veto or whatever). This can extend to the host or owner of the place you're playing, the most desirable player, and so forth as Ralph says. But with a Strong GM Game, the GM veto is a given, even if the notion doesn't come up in the game text at all.



So there's this thing I've noticed in my games with Joe. Two of us, myself and Daniel, seem to have a "simulation threshold," similar to what Mike Holmes talked about when Clyde interviewed him on Theory From the Closet. Basically, we have concepts of how things work, both people and the premise of the game, and if somebody else introduces something that doesn't jive with that, we don't like it.

Typically this happens when, for example, Joe guns for an emotionally-heightened conflict with lots of drama, and he introduces something that doesn't jive with either my expectations, or Daniel's. Worst case scenario, one of us will say "what? Come on, that's so dumb. No, that doesn't happen," and block the whole narration and the situation. Seeing Daniel do this helped me realize I do this as well, which is why I mention him (it's easier to be objectively critical of someone else than yourself and all that).

Of course, the problem here is me, not Joe. I need whatever narration to be justified in terms of my world-view and game-view (my concept of the setting, the genre/premise, and the characters in it). Thing is, I can do this myself. Why should Joe have to figure out the way I think and cater to it? I mean, duh.

So I do this instead: I go "Wait, that doesn't do it for me. I need this to make sense. What's your intent here?" And when he tells me what is the important stuff in his narration, I offer suggestions that will make that make sense for me. And usually he gets what he wants, I get what I want, and the narration is stronger for the collaboration.

So an example:

Joe: "My character rides a pterodactyl into the palace and lands in the throne room, dismounting with a flourish of her cape."

Bad Johnstone: "WTF? There's no fucking flying dinosaurs in this game! That's so fucking dumb, shut up. You ride in on a horse. Damn!"

But Good Johnstone says: "Huh? Wait, I don't like the flying dinosaur, that fucks up my idea of the magical radar system thing they have going. Is that necessary? What's your intent here?"

And Joe replies: "I'm not stuck on the dinosaur, I just want to descend from the sky in a spectacular manner."

And Good Johnstone suggests: "Oh, cool. How 'bout a flying carpet or a steampunk contraption, and we can introduce the inventor later on?"

And Joe's like "Flying carpet for the win!"


Saying, "No," while keeping morale and interest up is the sign of a good leader and that is precisely what a GM must be, a good leader.

Hopefully, if the game is set up well and everyone is contributing wonderful ideas to the same kind of story, the -N- word won't have to come up too often. I have found that noting a game's inspirations or even loaning out books or DVD's can help with this.

I am sure at some point I am going to run a game wherein we do screenings of films and read from novels that inspired the game's concepts.


However, I think it works as well as it does because its fictional content is isolated into chunks, which may or may not be directly related, and the game is over in an evening or two at most. In my experience, in a longer "campaign", contributed fiction that's inconsistent with the overall vision (by which I mean the Platonic ideal of the vision shaped by the group's collaborative storytelling) will fester, much to the dismay of everyone involved including the original contributor. Similarly, the player-driven provision of game-altering facts in Donjon works well because the facts are limited in scope to dungeon adventures; if anyone could say anything about the world at large, which would then be present throughout the course of the campaign, the opportunity for a fictionally consistent, not too zany setting that's suitable for long-term play is rather slim.

I have found that I have to say, "No," less often when:

1) the players have all read the game and gleaned the flavor from the text and/or art

2) the players have all agreed to model the game on some media that we all know - "This game is going to be like Song of Ice and Fire with the Arthurian elements cranked up a notch..."

3) the table has agreed to a genre and all agree on the elements the genre makes up (RARE)

I tend to blend the shit out of 1 and 2.

The last time I could remember saying, "No," a whole lot was when we were playtesting Houses of the Blooded and one of the players had not only not read the text but was on a vastly different page than the rest of us. The rest of us had gamed for a long while and were in the zone together. Once he got used to our table, the tone of the game and swapped out of a problematic character, all was well.

Counter-point
It's not up to the GM to define the limits of the game world. You're writing Polaris, dammit, you know this! The players aren't supposed to wander around like maze rats until they bump into the barriers. That's abusive and antagonistic. They're supposed to buy into the idea of the game in the first place. And, if they do, you don't need to say No. If you want to interpret Punctuation that way, fine, but I get to respond similarly. Negotiated space. This is roleplaying in action. If the GM can dictate to the players how things work, it's not negotiated, it's arbitrated.

Remember my infamous Star Wars game where one character stuffed the Dark Jedi full of tranquilizers before the final fight scene, robbing everyone of a climactic finish? Afterwards, the players were complaining because the GM hadn't said No. None of them complained to the player that his actions fucked up the game for everyone else. How about some personal responsibility, huh? Personal responsibility means you don't have to say No. Individuals say No to their own stupidity.

Get rid of the maze. Set the mice free.
I think I'm in the middle on this one. "No" doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it is a sign of incomplete Constraint (hurray!). If you have to say "No, this is a gritty detective drama" then you're basically saying, "No, that's outside the boundaries of Constraint for this game." If you have to tell someone that a given contribution is outside of the game's Constraint then you clearly haven't fully negotiated Constraint prior to the game.

Now, it should be noted that this isn't necessarily a sign of dysfunction. In fact, in Universalis I see this kind of thing happen all the time because part of the game itself is to build Constraint. What do you think those challenge rules are for?

Now, my personal preferred style of play has all your Constraint front-loaded, so there's no need to muck with it in play. In fact, if I'm playing, and we get to a point where this sort of thing happens, then it is a negative.

This is one of the things I'm struggling with in my Push article: there's a pretty significant amount of player and group preference for this sort of thing...

Making History

Step 3: Each player chooses her character's worldly name and writes it on her passport.

There is no turn order in this step. Everyone can do it at the same time.

[Diagram] Mickey Mouse table with all chairs highlighted. [Caption: Players 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all doing this step at the same time.[/Diagram]

The first part of making the main characters of your stories is to describe their early childhood. There's no better place to start than to decide your character's worldly name. This is the name your character had as a child, before she lived at the Temple. It was probably given to her by her family... or the closest thing she had to one.

If you want to make up a whole new name from scratch, the easiest way is to  create a five- or six-letter word with alternating vowels and consonants.  With some tweaks, that ought to make a name that rolls easily off the tongue.

Example: Using this method, Allie creates some names: Alohi, Kalodan, and Huku. She then continues experimenting by replace some of the consonants to make new names like Adoji, Tarohan, or Rutu. She decides to register some of these as .com domains, too.

You can also try another method that's pretty fun. Take the first syllable of your last name and combine it with the first syllable of your first name.

Example: Being a fan of history and dangerous experiments with lightning, Dev tries this method with "Benjamin Franklin." The first syllable of his last name is "Fra" and the first syllable of his first name is "Ben," so the first name would be Fraben.

If you're still stuck for ideas, try looking up names from Polynesian islands (Alika, Keoni, Mahina), Mongolia (Arban, Bataar, Odval) or Peru (Acarapi, Capac, Huanya).

Example: Cat looks up Polynesian names baby names online, finding names like Alika, Arana, Ariki, Atiu, Ema, Hika, Hine, Hiriwa, Hoku, Hori, Ihorangi, Inas, Irawaru, Kaimi, Kaula, Kauri, Keoni, Kiri, Kohia, Kupe, Lan, Mahina, Mahuru, Manu, Marama, Maru, Matareka, Maui, Mere, Nani, Oroiti, Rewa, Tane, Tangaroa, Taranga, Tawhiri, Tiki, Turi, Turua, Ulani, and Whetu.

Or just use a more familiar name, possibly your own, if you feel like your character came from a world with a culture analogous to yours.

Example: Bebe proposes some day the group should play a game where everyone plays characters using their own real names, Bebe, Allie, Cat and Dev. Allie notes that Bebe, Cat and Dev already have names that fit the consonant-vowel-consonant method described earlier. Lucky.

You can also generate some random names on the Pilgrim name generator at DanielSolis.com/do. This generator creates a full pilgrim name, which includes the full title of "Pilgrim" and a descriptive nickname. Those parts of your character's name will be created later in this chapter.

Example: Dev uses the random generator to produce the following names: Pilgrim Pema the Humble Bridge, Pilgrim Roselani the Captured Broth, Pilgrim Mingmei the Marked Key, Pilgrim Hiriwa the Limber Room, Pilgrim Lani the Middle Roar, Pilgrim Akala the Frantic Ink, Pilgrim Lark the Smooth Rider, Pilgrim Tao the Eager Hat, Pilgrim Kiran the Flying Phoenix, Pilgrim Kitisak the Prim Pellet, and Pilgrim Kaili the Bustling Moss.

Optionally, if you want to add a little spice to your worldly name, you can create a new meaning for that word. This meaning might give you some insight into the background of your character's history. In worldly names, poetic references are frequent, occasionally embarrassing, and usually derived from languages long forgotten. A worldly name may also reflect where your character was born or raised or represent a parent’s aspirations for her child. In other words, you're free to make up a meaning for the name you just created. See the Worldly Name Generator for examples of worldly names and what they mean.

Toys of the Trade: Worldly Name Generator

(S)he is named
Aa
Ak
Al
Am
Ar
Be
Bo
Bu
Ca
Che
Co
Ho
Iho
Ju
Ka
Ki
Ku
La
Le
Lo
Ma
Mi
Oka
Oma
Sun
Ta
Ty
Wa
Yu
Yue
---
an
ar
bi
d
da
din
eki
ele
gan
ing
ku
l
la
lan
ma
mbeh
mu
na
ne
nga
nu
reen
rek
ret
ri
rm
roo
ru
sa
ta
tsu
un
y
yar

--
ang
o
u
i

which means

“A burning torch, extinguished by wind.”
“A collision of two worlds.”
“A concealed trap for sky sharks.”
“A duck appearing to fly backwards.”
“A fallen queen prophesied to return.”
“A forbidden love overlooked.”
“A formation of sky whales.”
“A guest who won’t leave.”
“A historical traitor wrongly accused.”
“An albino hawk’s grandmother.”
“A rabbit carved from whale bone.”
“A throne tossed over a cliff.”
“Broken promises forgiven.”
“Cities hidden in the clouds.”
“Feats of strength and jumping.”
“Hero of an epic poem.”
“I feed pearls to the cattle.”
“I laugh at danger.”
“I lead those who cannot be.”
“I will face the test tomorrow.”
“Ribbon-like cloud formations.”
“Scent of wood struck by lightning.”
“Sky gypsy folk hero.”
“Soft scales of a baby dragon.”
“Soup of eggs and wolf marrow.”
“Storms gathering among mountains.”
“The distance between worlds.”
“The flavor of ginger and garlic.”
“The oil flows through stars.”
“The scent of burnt cinnamon.”
“The villain in every pirate’s song.”
“To break thirty-four vases.”
“To have danger laugh at you.”
“To ruin a fine meal.”
“To run like a chicken.”
“To spill milk.”
“To spill milk and drink it anyway.”
“To taste the air.”
“Trickster-god captured in a web.”
“Wind in your toes.”

Step 4: Each player writes a sentence about her character's origin on her passport.

There is no turn order in this step. Everyone can do it at the same time.

[Diagram] Mickey Mouse table with all chairs highlighted. [Caption: Players 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all doing this step at the same time.[/Diagram]

This sentence is a quick synopsis of your character's childhood before she lived at the Temple. You might have a lot in mind about her history, but focus on how she was raised, what her daily life was like or what values she was raised to believe in.

You could come up with a history from scratch, but that’s pretty tough if you’re just starting out with this whole storytelling thing. Try choosing from this list of basic ideas: Apprentice, Believer, Dreamer, Noble, Outsider, Pauper or Warrior. This list focuses on the kinds of characters who are primed and ready for a new adventure, whether they realize it or not. They are inspired by the classic heroes of coming-of-age stories: the Potters, Longstockings, Finns and Baudelaires.

Use these archetypes as a starting point to describe the details of your character’s home life in your terms. Think of the odd details, strange customs, magic, spirits, talking animals, that your character considers a part of every day life. From these loose concepts, you can create the star of your own story.

Apprentices spend their childhood training with a mentor. They’ve honed a particular set of skills since birth, believing that those skills are the best possible way to solve any problem. Alas, Apprentices are so specialized that they can be inept at approaching a challenge that in any way breaks out of their rigorous training.

Example: Dev is thinking of a sidekick to a rooftop superhero. A superhero who dresses up like a nocturnal predator. A superhero with a gravelly voice. He writes the following sentence: "Farha is an acrobatic prodigy trained by The Falcon, a mysterious detective defending their town from corruption and graft."

Believers are faithful to their religious traditions. Usually they come from worlds where the gods really interact with mortals on a regular basis. The gods usually demand some kind of tithe, a daily ritual, a customary style of dress or a code of moral conduct. Believers are raised to uphold those demands, even if the gods are not present.

Example: Bebe loves giant monster movies and wonders what an island would be like where  people worshiped the local monster. She writes the following sentence: "Keilana's island is protected from giant monsters by the reptilian angel Lizdogal, who she keeps sated with offerings of fish and glowing ore."

Dreamers are the doe-eyed innocents who wish for a life beyond their humdrum daily routine. They’re farm kids imagining life in the big city; the school children daydreaming when they should be taking a test. They have the safest, most familiar upbringing, but long for something more.

Example: Cat is thinking of a wannabe Robin Hood-type of character. Someone in a lower social caste, but with a strong vigilante urge. She writes the following sentence: "Chanda raises golden tigers as pets for the wealthy, but she dreams of joining a band of brigands to steal from the evil Lord whose daughters mistreat their pet tigers."

Nobles come from wealthy, powerful families. They’re the daughters and sons of queens, emperors, chiefs and elders. They seem like prim and proper little adults when they’re meeting high dignitaries, but can be demanding brats behind their gilded doors. They get the best education in the worlds, but money can’t shake a sense of entitlement.

Example: Allie remembers the character Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She thinks it would be fun to tell the story of a spoiled brat. She writes the following sentene: "Alkira's father is a wealthy spice merchant to whom she pretends to be the ever-dutiful daughter, but secretly coerces her younger sister to take the blame for all her foibles and mishaps."

Nomads travel to many worlds, but call none of them home. They’re families of traveling merchants, stationed soldiers, and wandering hunters. Never staying in one place too long, nomad kids learn how to navigate through many cultures. Both a noble and a nomad may know five languages, but only a nomad would know five ways to curse.

Example: In a different session, Allie, Dev, Cat and Bebe make four new characters. This time, Dev makes a nomad inspired by his research of hunter-gatherer tribes, tweaked to be more airy. He writes the following sentence: "Prapun's tribe lives in the ridges of an ancient sky whale, keeping its calves from poachers, drinking whale milk and growing mossy gardens on the whale's lumpy hide."

Outsiders never quite fit in at home, usually because of some unusual characteristic. Gifted and talented kids are often outsiders, but so are the children of immigrants, refugees or lower castes. Something about their background sets them apart from others. This status offers one small blessing: outsiders are free to be themselves.

Example: Bebe remembers her favorite anime series as a kid, in which a boy is shunned because of a mystical connection he shares with a loathed fox spirit. She writes the following sentence: "When Blue Village mystics defeated the 8-Eyed Wolf-Spirit, the demon could only be contained in a baby named Iho, who is shunned by villagers whose loved ones were killed by the demon."

Paupers have hard lives and survive by their wits. Either because they’re poor or are controlled by some higher authority, paupers live in meager conditions. Still, necessity breeds ingenuity and few are as ingenious as a pauper child. While a rich kid whines about a castle that’s too small, paupers can make a shack feel like a posh mansion.

Example: Allie loves old Dickens novels, which usually have at least one downtrodden street urchin somewhere in the cast. She starts thinking of a fantasy twist to the classic archetype. She writes the following sentence: "Tarin is put to work carrying a shovel behind cowephants, sharing his rare meals with a baby dragon he hides in the woods."

Warriors are raised in rough-and-tumble worlds where all problems can be solved with a strong punch in the jaw. Sad to say, but even though the sky is big enough for everyone, people still find reasons to fight. Warrior kids are hunters, brawlers, fighters and tough kids. There’s not much time to learn tact or subtlety when someone is waiting to beat you up.

Example: Cat loves the legendary Chinese heroine Hua Mulan, who joined an all-male army  to protect her family. She writes the following sentence: "When each family in Cobar Province is forced to send their youngest male to invade Five-Peak City, Mingma, an only child, disguises herself as a boy to keep her elderly father from the battle."

[Think about Your Character's Childhood]

Where was your character born?

Who were her parents?

What principles does she believe and defend?

What does she take for granted?

What events shaped her childhood?

How did her family feel about the Temple?

How big was her family? Any brothers or sisters?

How did they interact with each other?

Was she the youngest or the oldest?

How did they relate to people from other worlds?

What are unusual aspects of her homeworld?

What does she consider highly unusual?

[Toys of the Trade: Origin Generator]

(S)he was a young

abnormally normal person

acolyte

artificial intelligence

army brat

a seer of the future

battlerina

beggar

born leader

bright-eyed bookworm

champion of the people

child of prophecy

clever trickster

creative prodigy

farmer

ghost

good-natured thief

heir to the throne

identical twin

immigrant worker

local sports star

mad genius

masked vigilante

mysterious orphan

promising warrior

reader of minds

reluctant student

shy nerd

traveling performer

unusually intelligent dog

amnesiac

---

caught between two cultures

cursed with curiosity

cursed with strange powers

from the wrong side of the tracks

interested in arcane lore

keeping an embarrassing secret

strong as an ox

tortured by strange nightmares

trained in unusual skills

who could, and did, eat everything in sight

who has a way with animals

who lived 5 seconds in the future

whose parents had unusual hobbies

who was one of a set of identical quintuplets

who was painfully shy

who was the fairest in all the land

with a bad attitude

with a heart of gold

with a monkey's tail

with an extra finger on each hand

with a perfect sense of taste

with a silver tongue

with bad luck

with eyes the color of the sun

with lofty dreams

with something to prove

raised by a(n)

arrogant

bickering

blind

boring

carefree

disciplined

distant

doting

evil

excitable

gruff

lazy

lethargic

loving

loyal

mysterious

selfless

silent

spectral

tyrannical

undead

unintelligible

---

absent minded professor

ancient mariner (with a tendency to rime)

ancient mentor

band of merchants

band of sky pirates

bounty hunter

brewmaster

circus troupe

cult of storm-worshipers

dray of squirrels

fae

gadgeteer

gang of hooligans

general of the armies

giant

giant bird

gifted artist

group of academics

hive mind

itinerant clergyman

mad scientists

mother and/or father

orphanage

pack of wolves

pair of grandparents

pair of robot parents

panel of judges

robot

secret society of magicians

stepmother

traveling circus

tribe of hunter-gatherers

troupe of troubadours

warrior clan

on a(n)

city on a turtle's back.

cluster of worlds tethered together by rope.

domed city inside of a giant blob of water.

giant household object floating in the sky.

graveyard.

in a thriving university.

inner surface of a hollowed-out world.

in the belly of a sky whale.

luxury sky cruiser converted into a mobile town.

migrating sky whale.

military base.

prison painted in pastel colors.

reality simulation.

ruined, once important world.

skyship's brig.

small farmworld.

head of a migrating stone giant.

throneworld of a great empire.

town dedicated to growing beautiful, singing flowers.

town on the edge of temple's light.

world where nothing interesting ever happens.

world where sound doesn't work.

shuttle between worlds.

Step 5: The Troublemakers write a sentence on each player's passport, describing her character's departure from home.

Each player takes turns being the Troublemakers' target. Start with the youngest player and continue clockwise around the table until everyone has done this step.

[DIAGRAM]Mickey Mouse table cycling through each turn of troublemaking. Caption: Each player will take turns being the Troublemakers' target. Players 1, 2 and 3 first make a trouble for Player 4's character. [DIAGRAM] Then Players 2, 3, and 4 make a trouble for Player 1's character. [DIAGRAM] This continues for player 3... [DIAGRAM] ...and player 4.[/caption][/DIAGRAM]

On your turn, the other players, called the Troublemakers, collaborate to create the circumstances that led your character to leave her homeworld and find her way to the Temple.

As a Troublemaker, you now know each character's origin. With that knowledge, it may be easy for you to come up with a reason for each character to leave home. To help crystalize your thoughts, there is a list of eight archetypal departures for you to choose from: Castaways, Exiles, Fugitives, Graduates, Heroes, Orphans, Recruits and Runaways.

Like the origin archetypes, these are inspired by the many ways past storytellers have managed to get their young heroes away from home. You've seen stories where kids stumbled into magical wardrobe, get plucked away by tornadoes, or simply ran away to chase dreams of adventure. Think of how this character found her own peculiar way to the Temple.

You may notice that some of these archetypes sound like they overlap each other a little. Because many of the most famous coming-of-age characters have bits of many of these archetypes in their background, this character probably does, too. Feel free to mix and match archetypes as you see fit. This list just helps to clarify your thoughts and flesh out the details.

Castaways become lost and separated from their home. They’re the ones that fall down rabbit holes, walk into magical portals or get swept away by tornadoes. They might miss home at first, but quickly get wrapped up in the Temple’s affairs. Castaways decide to stick around and make a new home in this amazing world.

Example: Dev, Cat and Bebe are the troublemakers and they will continue the story of Allie's character. Her origin begins like this:

"Alkira's father is a wealthy spice merchant to whom she pretends to be the ever-dutiful daughter, but secretly coerces her younger sister to take the blame for all her foibles and mishaps."

The troublemakers consider the possible outcomes for this spoiled brat. What would compel her to leave this cushy situation and become a pilgrim? Cat is the first to suggest that she may not have left willingly. She could've been the victim of an unfortunate accident, like Dorothy being sent to Oz by a tornado. Bebe suggests that there may be suspicion of fowl play since Alikira's younger sister certainly has a motive for seeing Alkira kicked out of home. After further discussion, they create the following departure for Allie's character:

"On Alkira's fifth birthday of the year, her sister gives her a very rare and prized spice fly, whose wildly disproportionate strength Alkira only realizes as it snatches her away and takes her to the Temple at the center of the universe."

This departure takes Alkira away from home, but keeps her spoiled brattiness intact while doing so. Now she's at the temple, with no way to get back home. It will be quite a bit of culture shock the first time she is made to do chores around the dorms.

Exiles are banished from home and take shelter at the Temple. They broke some kind of law or taboo, or possibly just angered the wrong person. In either case, someone doesn’t want these kids anywhere near. So they’re sent to the Temple, which is about as far away as anything can be.

Example: Dev, Allie and Cat are Bebe's troublemakers. Bebe's character was inspired by her favorite anime series:

"When Blue Village mystics defeated the 8-Eyed Wolf-Spirit, the demon could only be contained in a baby named Iho, who is shunned by villagers whose loved ones were killed by the demon."

Following that line of inspiration, Dev proposes that the wolf spirit should somehow be unleashed unexpectedly, which leads the local chiefs to rightfully be concerned about whether it's safe to keep Iho in the village at all. Allie envisions some kind of epic freakout on the magnitude of Akira, in which the protagonist is overwhelmed by his superpowers and becomes a grotesque giant horror. Cat cautions that this might be too dark for a game with a light mood, so she proposes a compromise.

"Iho finally makes friends with the village stickball team, but finds himself exiled when the 8-Eyed Wolf Spirit ate the ball during a critical play."

This departure presumes that as an exile, Iho found sanctuary at the Flying Temple, which is a pretty safe assumption. It doesn't address how he got to the temple, but that's okay, too. The departure only needs to explain why he's not at home. The rest can be implied.

Fugitives, like exiles, broke some kind of cardinal rule of their society. However, they’re on the run from their law. Fugitives are hoping to avoid punishment, regardless of whether they consider themselves innocent or guilty. Keeping a disguise or living in hiding can be tough for a kid, so the next best thing is to find asylum at the Temple.

Example: Allie, Bebe, and Dev are Cat's Troublemakers. She just created her character's origin in the model of Robin Hood:

"Chanda raises golden tigers as pets for the wealthy, but she dreams of joining a band of brigands to steal from the evil Lord whose daughters mistreat their pet tigers."

The Troublemakers conspire to fulfill Chanda's wish, but make it something she didn't plan for. So, she wants to be a brigand, stealing from the rich, eh? Allie thinks Chanda should get an opportunity to act on this impulse and free the tigers to boot. Dev thinks it would be fun if Chanda was inspired to create an elaborate caper around the golden tigers, fooling the Lord into thinking he got swindled. They create the following departure:

"When Chanda delivers her monthly shipment of tiger food to the Lord, she disguises the cats as endangered brass-spotted leopards to sneak them past the guards, to the protecting monks at the flying temple."

They've glazed over exactly how Chanda gets to the flying temple, but they've established how she left home and implied why she can't come back. The Lord's daughters will be mighty peeved when he learns what happened to their prized pets.

Graduates grow up knowing from the time they’re born that they will one day go to the Temple. It’s just tradition! Sometimes a kid’s parents will be former Pilgrims and she won’t even know it. Other families just send their kids away hoping they will come back with valuable skills to raise them out of poverty.

Example: Allie, Bebe and Dev are making a departure for Cat's character, who was inspired by the the legendary Chinese heroine Hua Mulan:

"When each family in Cobar Province is forced to send their youngest male to invade Five-Peak City, Mingma, an only child, disguises herself as a boy to keep her elderly father from the battle."

The Troublemakers now think of a reason for Mingma to leave home. Well, technically it sounds like she has all the reason in the world to leave home already. She's on her way to Five-Peak City to participate in a huge battle. Allie reminds Bebe and Dev that they're telling a light mood/big scope story, so this departure probably should brush aside the gruesome details of war. This isn't a place for re-telling Saving Private Ryan. Bebe and Dev understand perfectly, they suggest that Mingma may have actually figured out a way to resolve the conflict between Cobar Province and Five-Peak City peacefully. That way Mingma can be rewarded by being allowed to leave home and train at the Flying Temple to become a monk.

"This testosteronic war stems from a misunderstanding about how to most efficiently prepare a bowl of noodles, which Mingma is more than willing to teach both armies in exchange for a mutually assured peace, a strong yak for her dad's farm and a ticket on the first dragon off this sausage world."

The bit about the dragon was Bebe's idea. Cool dragons are cool, dontcha know. This departure introduces a new talent for Mingma, her culinary wisdom can quell even the most aggressive and violent of conflicts. That is an ability that might be worthwhile to note when it comes time for her to get a temple name.

Heroes hear a call of duty. They are compelled to perform great deeds of courage and honor in the service of a higher calling. When you’re a kid out in the worlds, there are probably fewer callings higher than joining the Temple. Not all heroes share these motivations, though. Others are already on some kind of quest and the Pilgrimage is just a step along the way towards that greater heroic destiny.

Example: Bebe made her character's origin from a thought-experiment about giant monster worship:

"Keilana's island is protected from giant monsters by the reptilian angel Lizdogal, who she keeps sated with offerings of fish and glowing ore."

Now Allie, Cat, and Dev are Bebe's troublemakers, so they're going to think of a reason for Keilana to leave home. Cat likes the idea of Keilana leaving home on a mission, being very heroic. A lot of the reasons other characters leave are because of circumstances beyond their control. They're pulled away as refugees or become lost in some supernatural fluke, but Keilana can be different. Keilana can have a quest. But what quest? Allie suggests that whatever it is should tie back into Lizdogal, the giant reptile that protects her island. Dev is thinking back to all the giant monster movies he's seen and he recalls at least a handful of times aliens tried to kidnap them for their own nefarious purposes. That could be a reason for Keilana to leave home.

"One day, an imperial cloud cruiser traps Lizdogal in a net and carries it away, but not before Keilana cuts the ropes and stows away with a mission to make sure these poachers are brought to the highest authority: the Flying Temple."

How does Keilana quell a ship full of hardened imperial sailors? How does she commandeer the ship and bring it to port at the flying temple? Pff. Details! If those need to be addressed, it will probably come up in the next step when characters get into trouble at the temple. For now, Allie, Cat and Dev are satisfied with their reason for Keilana's departure.

Orphans have lost their family. There are many ways for a kid to become orphaned. An angry spirit may turn Mom & Dad into pigs. The village could be wiped out by disease. A kid could be cursed with immortality, watching her relatives grow old and pass on. Orphans come to the Temple to find comfort with a new family.

Example: Bebe, Cat and Dev are the troublemakers for Allie. She created a character whose origin is inspired by the street urchins in Charles Dickens novels.

Continuing in the spirit of Charles Dickens, Dev thinks Tarin should get an unexpected benefactor who wants to adopt her somehow. Cat suggests if the only family Tarin has ever known is these cowephants, that it'd be hard to pull her away from them. Becoming an orphan is a pretty typical way of getting a kid away from a family in these kinds of stories, but feels too heavy for a Farce story. Allie reminds Dev and Cat that Tarin doesn't literally need to be an orphan, just get separated from her family somehow. Dev has an idea of how to combine the benefactor-thing and the orphan-thing.

The Flying Temple is hardly the destitute boarding house in a Dickens tale, but no doubt Tarin will find it just as unsettling. As every smelly kid knows, taking baths sucks up all the valuable free time you could be spending getting more smelly. Simple math here, folks.

Recruits are those rare children who actually get sought out and invited to join the Temple’s ranks. These kids have unique skills or abilities that would be valuable during a Pilgrimage. In the vastness of the universe, there is bound to be someone who can talk to watermelons or shape clouds into bunnies. Those kids get recruited to become Pilgrims.

Example: Needless to say, Dev had a particularly famous costumed avenger in mind when he created this sidekick character's origin.

Allie, Bebe and Cat are the troublemakers, but decide to go easy on Farha. Well, for now anyway. They start thinking of reasons why Farha might leave home and Bebe is the first to suggest that the pilgrims might just plain ol' invite Farha to join their super-duper school in the sky, Potter-style. Allie likes the idea of a comic book sidekick suddenly invited to join what amounts to the cosmic police force, so she puts it all together for the group.

After all, when you're an acrobat, there's no greater wish than to be able to fly. That's what the troublemakers figure anyway. So this is a nice, simple way for Farha to get to the temple without much fuss. Still, with both he and the Falcon out of the picture, who will keep the streets clear of the superstitious and cowardly lot of criminals? This might be an issue that comes up later in the pilgrimage if Farha's absence results in a surge of criminal activity on other worlds. It could also be a factor if Farha decides to return to the worlds at the end of the pilgrimage.

Runaways choose to leave home. Unlike exiles or fugitives, runaways find their home life unbearable. The elders may try to convince a runaway to go back home, but if she’s stern enough, she can stay to become a Pilgrim. These kids are rebels at heart, so even at the Temple, they might be hard to discipline.

Example: Earlier, Dev created a character who came from a nomadic tribe living in a symbiotic relationship on a giant sky whale.

So with that as a starting point, the troublemakers Allie, Bebe, and Cat think of a reason for Prapun to leave home and come to the temple. There doesn't seem to be anything in particular that would be boring about where she lives. There are poachers to fight off. All the milk you can drink. The scenery always changes. Ah ha! Maybe that's the problem. Perhaps it's this constant moving that Prapun gets bored of. She wants to become a monk in the one place that's sure to remain stationary no matter what: the temple at the center of the whole universe.

"Prapun develops a prolonged case of motion-sickness which only gets worse with the all-dairy diet, so she packs her bags, fetches her pet parrot and heads for the center of the universe."

The hitch to Prapun's plan, of course, is that she's too young to become a monk right away. Allie wonders if this is such a good idea after all, since Prapun would have to go on a pilgrimage which would still exacerbate her motion-sickness. Dev actually thinks this makes sense. Prapun figures that a short pilgrimage is worth it since she just knows that she'll want to be a monk regardless. Dev also knows that the way the story develops may not be as guaranteed as all that, so Prapun's destiny may not be so certain.

[Think About How and Why She Left Home]

Why and how did your character leave home?

How old was she when she left?

Did she get a chance to say goodbye to anyone?

Does anyone realize that she’s gone?

Did she become lost or was she recruited by the Temple?

How did she find her way to the Temple?

Were there tragic circumstances that forced her to leave home before she was ready or did she choose to leave?

Does anyone suspect that she went to the Temple or became a Pilgrim?

Does she think she’ll meet any people from her home world when she goes on the Pilgrimage?

[ Toys of the Trade: Pilgrim Departure Generator]

One day, she/he

became an escaped fugitive

became a real child

became lost

got bored

got sent on a quest

graduated with honors

grew thirty feet high

left home to fix mistakes that were made

left in a huff

received a summons

ran away

was asked by pilgrims to join them

was exiled from home

was orphaned

was tossed into the sky

---

after a shipwreck,

after falling in a rabbit hole,

after reading a magic book,

bringing home medicine,

carrying a memento of home,

during a great war,

hanging on to a flock of birds,

holding an unusual artifact,

in an angry mob,

in the Living Storm,

thanks to an old friend,

through a magic portal,

and found the Flying Temple.

Temple Troubles

Step 6: Each player creates her character’s Banner, what it means, and writes this down on her passport.

Each player takes turns doing this step. Start with the youngest player and continue clockwise around the table until everyone has done this step.

[DIAGRAM]Mickey Mouse table cycling through each turn of troublemaking. Caption: Each player will take turns doing this step. Player 1 goes first. [DIAGRAM] Then Player 2... [DIAGRAM] Then player 3... [DIAGRAM] ...and player 4.[/caption][/DIAGRAM]

Your Pilgrim's Temple name is the two-word nickname she earns while she is being raised at the Temple as a young visitor. Temple names sound like "Running Cloud," "Furious Gecko," or "Stainless Steel." In this step, you will create the first word of that name: her Banner.

A Banner is a verb or adjective that serves two functions as you play the game. Firstly, it lets you set some terms as to how your Pilgrim will get into trouble as you tell your stories. Secondly, it communicates to the Troublemakers what kind of troubles your Pilgrim would get into. In other words, it's a way of saying, "I want my Pilgrim to get into trouble this way, not that way."

Think of your character's Banner as a metaphor for how she gets into trouble. If her Banner is "Ancient," maybe she gets into trouble by acting wise beyond her years. If it is "Green," perhaps that's a metaphor for her inexperience and naivete. A Pilgrim with the banner "Broken" suggests a Pilgrim who gets into trouble by being easily injured or, perhaps, has a broken heart.

Example: Bebe's been posting on game forums in her spare time, sharing ideas for descriptive banners. She comes to the game with a list of ideas already picked out.

Marked - Bears a symbol of curses and bad luck on her hand.

Honorable - Follows an out-of-fashion code of conduct.

Generous - Assumes all generosity will be reciprocated.

Green - Naive about the nature of romance and love.

Callous - Freely plays with the hearts of others.

Imperial I- s from a family of despised and worshiped rulers.

Glorious - “Blessed” by the gods, with an obnoxious holy aura.

Lucky - Child of the God of Luck. (Both good and bad luck.)

Caged - Is a martial arts master, but has become a pacifist.

That last idea gives her a bit of inspiration. She thinks it would be fun to play a "gentle giant" type of pilgrim. Someone really large and intimidating, but wouldn't hurt a fly. She decides on the following banner and interpretation:

Titanic - Very large and thus often challenged to fights.

By this interpretation, she wants her character to be get into situations where he must avoid using his considerable size to gain the upper hand.

Banners are often verbs or action words, too. Try thinking of an action word like "Flattering" and how that would be a troublesome characteristic. Perhaps this character's first reaction to meeting anyone is to compliment them graciously. She thinks she's being polite, but in fact she comes off as insincere and schmoozy.  Another interpretation might be that she comes from a royal background. She presumes that everyone else she meets is part of a royal family, too, and treats them accordingly.

Example: Allie has played Do a few times already, so she has a list of Banners she shares with the rest of the group to get some ideas flowing.

Tangling - Finds herself in the middle of love triangles.

Flattering - Frequently mistakes people as being royalty.

Leaping - Attempts at agility lead to a world of hurt.

Shaken - Causes earthquakes at inopportune moments.

Defending - Will not tolerate anyone maligning her home town.

Bending - Creatively interprets rules to suit her needs.

Whispering Indulges her family’s reputation for gossip.

Denying - Frugal upbringing makes her shun any indulgences.

Preaching - Evangelizes her religion at every opportunity.

Allie ultimately decides on another Banner, representing a troublesome trait that she thinks is appropriately light-hearted:

Flocking - Keeps a flock of birds in a headdress.

Having a whole bunch of birds living inside a pompous piece of headgear seems like a ready source of problems later in the story.

The best Banners aren't outright insulting, regardless of how much trouble they suggest. Try thinking of a word that is neutral or even complimentary. That will make it all the more ironic as a source of trouble. Say you are making a character that you want to get into trouble because she is smelly. Instead of "Smelly," which doesn't have a lot of room for interpretation, perhaps "Fragrant" would be a better word. That way she might get into trouble either by people disliking or really liking how she smells.

[Think About Your Character's Banner]

How does the Banner reflect how she gets into trouble?

What word could be a veiled insult or taunt?

Is it an action word that paints a strong visual image?

A reference to a funny anecdote?

A descriptive word that says something about her personality?

Does she tell people what her Banner means?

Does she disagree with other people’s interpretation of her Banner?

Who gave her this Banner? Why?

[Comic]"Hey Dolka! Hey Dolka! Wait up!"

"Oh hey Loku, what's wrong?"

"I passed all my tests early! I brokered peace deals between the kingdoms of cats and dogs! I've flown higher, farther and faster than everyone, but the monks still won't tell me my Temple name!"

"They didn't tell you? Your Temple name is Summer Cloud."

"Summer Cloud? Because I am so bright? Because my diplomacy is like a gentle shade on a hot day? Because of my unparalleled flying skills and my rapid ascension into enlightenment?

"That... and because you're full of hot air."[/Comic]

Step 7: For each player, the Troublemakers write a sentence about her character getting in trouble at the Temple.

Each player takes turns being the the Troublemakers' target. Start with the youngest player and continue clockwise around the table until everyone has done this step.

[DIAGRAM]Mickey Mouse table cycling through each turn of troublemaking. Caption: Each player will take turns being the Troublemakers' target. Players 1, 2 and 3 first make a trouble for Player 4's character. [DIAGRAM] Then Players 2, 3, and 4 make a trouble for Player 1's character. [DIAGRAM] This continues for player 3... [DIAGRAM] ...and player 4.[/caption][/DIAGRAM]

The other players, called the Troublemakers, now describe a time when your character got into some kind of problem, misunderstanding or, you know, trouble.

Later, when this character is on the pilgrimage itself, she will experience special conditions referring to that term: Trouble. Those conditions are called in trouble or out of trouble. To be out of trouble simply means she is unfettered by any unfortunate situation. You are free to describe her doing whatever she likes. On the other hand, to be in trouble is a more restricted state. When your pilgrim is in trouble what you are allowed to describe her doing is more limited, imposing certain constraints on your storytelling liberties.

The various states of trouble are explained more fully in chapter XXX in the section titled, aptly, "What it means to be In Trouble or Out of Trouble" on page XXX. Those details aren't really relevant right now, but it's worth knowing that this won't be the last trouble your pilgrim experiences. For now, let's turn to the matter at hand: Your Pilgrim getting in trouble at the temple.

The other players, the Troublemakers, are in charge of coming up with the unfortunate situation in which your pilgrim finds herself. When the Troublemakers target your character, you can offer suggestions but they have ultimate authority over this sentence. Through discussion and consensus, they will craft a sticky situation for your character.

If you are a Troublemaker, this is your chance to practice creating complications and dilemmas in an ongoing story.  You’ll team up with the other players for a while to craft a sentence for a young visitor. The easiest way to start making a trouble is to ask “What could possibly go wrong for this kid?” A good trouble is like the beginning of an funny anecdote. It introduces people, a place and an untenable situation.

Example: Bebe is the youngest player, so she is the first one to have a trouble made for her character. Dev, Allie and Cat are the Troublemakers. They review all the information that Cat has on her passport so far.

Worldly Name: Rikko

Origin: A young army brat caught between his family's aggressive personalities and the local pacifist tribes surrounding the sky navy base on a turtle-city.

Departure: One day, he ran away from home to the Temple so he could learn how to solve problems peacefully and hopefully come back home to teach his family how to do the same.

Banner: Titanic - Very large and thus often challenged to fights.

With this information, the Troublemakers begin discussing possible troubles for Rikko at the Temple. They first look at his Banner and wonder how he got that nickname. Bebe reminds the group that Rikko is very large, which is the most obvious reason for him to have that banner.The troublemakers take this into consideration, too.

Their discussion process is described in the examples in the rest of this step.

Squares...

Here's a way to look at Troublemaking that might help:  Think of making a trouble like carving a situation out of clay. Each little detail – where the trouble is happening, who is involved, what the possible consequences might be – those are the sides that you carve out of the clay lump. Be careful not to fall into the trap of making things so hard that there is absolutely no solution. It’s one thing to create a dilemma with difficult choices, but it’s another thing entirely to create an immovable obstacle that just stops the story dead in its tracks.

Example: Cat first proposes that a gang of bullies at the temple would try to recruit Rikko as their new hired muscle. Even with his great size, he can't fight off the whole group of them. Cat suggests that because he is a pacifist, he won't fight back when they ambush him.

Allie believes the idea of falling in with the wrong crowd has potential, but doesn't present a dilemma. It states a scenario, but doesn't present dangers, risks or possible consequences for joining the gang. It's simply saying, in effect, "Rikko gets beaten up by bullies."

[Caption: A trouble with no resolution is like a square, it’s inert and immovable.]

Triangles...

Granted, the whole job of a storyteller is to come up with solutions for these seemingly insurmountable problems, so don’t go too easy either. You could be tempted to create a situation that is too heavy or too black & white. Your first idea might be a situation with a simple yes/no binary solution that, once answered, doesn't move the story forward any more.

Example: In an effort to turn Cat's suggestion into more of a dilemma, Allie offers a solution. She suggests that two rival groups of bullies might be fighting to recruit Rikko. Each group threatens to beat him up even more if he is reported to be allying himself with the other gang.

Dev notes that this trouble still doesn't have enough nuanced consequence to it. Once Rikko decides which gang to join, his story will again be in a point of stasis. Dev suggests augmenting this trouble so it is less binary.

[Caption: A trouble with obvious resolutions is like a triangle. It may be imbalanced now…

[Caption:…but once you make a decision, the triangle lands on its side and becomes just as immobile as the square.]

...and Circles

What you really want is a trouble that could lead to more troubles regardless of how it is resolved. Your goal is to so many sides into that block that it becomes a sphere, that will roll along on its own with a slight poke. You are creating an unstable situation that creates an interesting story regardless of the outcome.

Example: Finally, Cat steps into the discussion again. She likes the ideas presented by Allie so far, but agrees with Dev that the trouble should be less binary.

She suggests using the threat of violence as the trouble. She proposes that the teachers at the temple presume Rikko to be a bully, blaming him for all the other real bullies' misdeeds. This presents a number of problems for our large hero.

For one thing, if Rikko tries to clear his name, it will earn the emnity of at least one bully. Rikko may be a gentle giant, but he doesn't want to get beaten up by anyone.  Bebe also notes that inaction isn't an option, either. Eventually, Rikko's parents will learn about his supposed behavior, undermining the peaceful lesson he wants to teach them. Rikko must do something.

Dev suggests that this scenario should be made more immediate, putting him in a specific scene that exemplifies this dilemma. Cat proposes that Rikko is being punished for his last transgression by washing all the dishes from the mess hall. Allie asks what this transgression might have been to warrant such a punishment.

Dev gets an epiphany and proposes the following sentence to start things off.

When a vase breaks during a field trip through the Hall of Giant Vases on Tiny Pedestals, it's obvious to everyone that Rikku the titanic oaf knocked it over.

Allie then modifies and refines this sentence this to include the punishment noted earlier.

Rikko is washing dishes as punishment for breaking a vase during a field trip through the Hall of Giant Vases on Tiny Pedestals, when he notices the actual culprit about to knock over a stack of  freshly polished plates!

Cat then introduces some specific antagonists to this scenario.

Rikko is washing dishes as punishment for breaking a vase during a field trip through the Hall of Giant Vases on Tiny Pedestals when he notices Dolma, the actual culprit, about to knock over a whole stack of freshly polished plates right under Elder Sleepy Bear's nose!

It's a long sentence, so Bebe suggests it's not so important to note the field trip or where it took place as where the current trouble is taking place. Bebe is not a Troublemaker, though, so it's up to the rest of the group to decide whether to take that suggestion under advisement. They do, so Allie  refines the sentence into its final form.

Rikko is washing dishes in the sub-basement kitchen as punishment as punishment for breaking a vase when he notices Dolma, the actual culprit, about to knock over a whole stack of freshly polished plates right under Elder Sleepy Bear's nose!

And with that, the Troublemakers are satisfied with their trouble. Next, it will be another player's character's turn to be the Troublemakers' target.

[Caption: A good trouble is like a circle. It is inherently dynamic and unstable. It naturally rolls into the next trouble, which rolls into the next trouble, and so on.]

By following the guidelines here, you won't just make it easier for the Storyteller to use it as a platform for storytelling, you also make it easier for later troublemakers to think of long-term consequences. For more tips on being a Troublemaker, try asking the group some of the following questions.

“Are we using the Banner?”

The Banner is your way of explicitly saying, “I want my Pilgrim to get into this kind of trouble.” Use that as first inspiration as you create a Trouble. If the Banner describes that Pilgrim as being very curious, try creating a situation where she goes snooping around one of the Temple’s secret rooms and uncovers something she shouldn’t have. If she’s headstrong and proud, put her face to face with someone who would challenge her honor. If she’s nervous around boys, maybe she has to ask a boy out on a date. Don’t feel restricted by that interpretation, but try not to contradict it either.

Example: In the examples above, Dev, Allie and Bebe always kept other people's misconceptions about Rikko's as the central source of his problems. Though the final trouble drifted from being explicitly about him being picked on, the size was still was a factor in his current situation. Because the teachers presumed a big, tough-looking kid like Rikko was up to no-good, he is punished for someone else's misdeed.

“Where is this trouble happening?”

The Temple is a big place, full of many interesting locations for a young visitor to get into trouble.  Think of any personality quirks she has, then create a place and a time when those quirks would be the least appropriate. You may also consider a location for this trouble that would be useful for storytelling later one, when another player might take inspiration from this spot to include new elements in the story.

Example: Allie made sure to note in the trouble that Rikko was washing dishes in the sub-basement kitchen. She didn't go to great length describing this place, just the fact that part of Rikko's punishment is being here was enough to inspire unpleasant visions. The basement of a basement would surely have dank mildew and unpleasant odors, for example. These notions may be useful for a future storyteller who might include those aspects in her story.

See the Temple Trouble Generator on page XXX for more ideas for locations.

"When is this trouble happening?"

Time is as much a factor in trouble as place, so you may try including an element of that in your trouble, too. If you feel like the time of day or year can help add some color to the trouble, specify the occasion or reference it in more subtle ways by showing time elapsed. 

Example: Allie's other contributions to the trouble was mentioning a stack of dishes. That implies Rikko has been washing dishes for quite a while. Perhaps he is even almost done completing his punishment when Dolma shows up to wreck everything all over again.

See the Temple Trouble Generator on page XXX for a list of special occasions in which young visitors have been known to get into some shenanigans.

“Who else is involved?”

For a young visitor, the Temple is a lot like a boarding school, with some of the equivalent rituals like field trips, tests, classes, teachers and even dances. If you’re introducing some other characters, think of the stereotypical school personalities you might find and translate them over to the Temple: bullies, principals, popular kids, brainy kids, assorted faculty.

Before creating a new side character, first try to simply add more details about an existing secondary character. A persistent villain, a mentor whose lessons you remember in a crisis, or a hapless cabbage seller caught in Pilgrims’ antics could each be a recurring character. You’ll quickly build a stable of side characters everyone can bring up in their stories. This technique has a name, by the way, it's called "Conservation of Characters."

Example: Cat efficiently introduces two antagonists into the trouble.

First, she introduces the actual culprit responsible for knocking over the vase. The culprit's name is Dolma, but otherwise goes undescribed. We don't even yet know if Dolma is a boy or girl. Allie and the Troublemakers are fine with this, as Dolma is simply necessary as a foil for Rikko. If further description is necessary, it will come up later in the story.

Second, she introduces an authority figure named Elder Sleepy Bear. In choosing this name, she quickly outlines this teacher's personality. For one thing, his banner is Sleepy, from which we can assume that he is sleeping on the job when he's supposed to be watching Rikko's punishment. That presents further problems for Rikko, since Sleepy Bear will be woken up by the falling dishes. Sleepy Bear doesn't have any further description of his personality, so we don't know what will happen if he wakes up, but given past experience it will probably be trouble for Rikko.

The Temple Trouble Generator has a list of some of the monks and elders who may be involved in a trouble, either as disciplinarians or victims of your Pilgrim's awkwardness.

"Do we need to push this trouble farther?"

Sometimes you'll initially make a trouble that doesn't have any clear momentum. There's no anticipation to see what happens next. Let's say you made a trouble that went something like this: "Marc gets frustrated with Jadyn playing teacher's pet in class, blaming her for his bad grades."

That certainly establishes a conflict, but it doesn't really introduce a trouble. Lu has the motivation to do something that would get him into trouble, but he hasn't actually done anything yet. If you push this trouble a little farther, you might have a trouble like this: "Frustrated with his bad grades and Jadyn playing teacher's pet, Marc decides to break into Elder Squinting Owl's office to steal the answers from the big test next week."

That's better! Still, he hasn't gotten into trouble just yet. He is close, though. We just need to add one little twist that puts him in a moment where he could face disciplinary action. Something like this: "Elder Squinting Owl suddenly appears just as Marc is breaking his office to steal the answers for the big test next week."

Now that is a nice, precarious situation, ready for another pilgrim to swoop in and save the day.

Example: When Cat stepped into the troublemaking discussion, she proposed that the trouble actually take place while Rikko is being punished for a past incident. Dev creates an initial incident that would be the reason for Rikko's punishment.

While it may seem more intuitive to make that incident the Trouble, Dev and the others realized that moment only had one logical outcome: Rikko getting punished yet again. So instead, they just assume this has occurred and sees what happens next. Making this leap inspires the other Troublemakers to create the antagonists and moment of tension described above.

"Does this trouble fit the scope and mood of our story?"

Small/Light troubles focus on light-hearted subjects with a personal perspective. Small/Heavy troubles are also personal, but more mature themes that may be un-fun if you’re not in the mood for serious drama. Big/Light troubles are global or even cosmic scope, but about sillier situations. Big/Heavy troubles are serious affairs with a grand scale and somber tone.

Example: The trouble Allie, Dev and Bebe created is doesn't impact the whole universe. Its consequences won't last for centuries. It will only last for a moment in Rikko's childhood. The incident doesn't suggest any grim subtexts or adult themes. It's just a kid getting in trouble for broken dishes. All in all, this is a trouble that would work well in a sitcom story. That is, a story whose scope is small and whose mood is light.

"Have we tried creating a problem that's not a problem?"

There are some tricks from the world of improv comedy that might be helpful in creating a trouble.  Think of a problem that wouldn’t sound like much of problem otherwise, like “I have too many cookies!” or “I am way too rich!” or “Too many people love me!” The key word in all of these is “too.” Too much, too soon, too fast, too awesome.

Another way to do is is to think of good news then add an unfortunate twist to make it bad news. Some good news might be “Elder Sweet Cane baked a cake just for you!” Then, with a slight twist, “You’re having an embarrassing allergic reaction from Elder Sweet Cane’s cake.”

Example: In a sense, Bebe suggested this notion from the very beginning with her interpretation of Rikko's Banner. She chooses "titanic," thus making his intimidating appearance making that a reason for him to get in trouble. She she subverts the notion of a big tough guy throwing his muscle around to get his way. Rikko is too tough-looking. He can't catch a break, despite any assurances that he's harmless.

[ Toys of the Trade: Temple Trouble Generator]

(S)he

becomes jealous

breaks _____'s heart

breaks tradition

causes a ruckus

challenges someone else's faith

connects with his/her ancestry

disobeys a law

disregards borders

encounters a god

finds ______'s property

forms a bond with _______

gets into a fight

gets other people into a fight

gets too curious

gets wrapped up in a mystery

has her/his heart broken

insults a nation

misunderstands a custom

recognizes a family member

reveals a secret

runs afoul of bullies

in

a circular well sealed by a great verdigris-covered bronze disk

a disused courtyard covered in vines and ghosts

a mist-filled valley where one-thousand grave markers slowly gather moss

a misty bamboo forest canopy

an enormous, intricate model of the universe

a step-waterfall, each drop of steep ending in a small pool ringed by fallen boulders

a strange-smelling cave forbidden to young visitors

the classrooms where visitors learn ancient lore

haunted swamp with snakelike vines

hot springs where snow monkeys relax

kitchen where exotic food lives

koi pond known for wish-granting fish

library with enormous bookshelves, no ladders

memorial hallway of ancient statues

stone garden with carefully arranged boulders

teachers’ Lounge, forbidden to all young visitors

the Abbot's study

the Buried Temple

the Great Room of Big Vases on Tiny Pedestals

the Infinite Row of Prayer Wheels

the Menagerie, where rare beasts find sanctuary

the Old Dam

the New Dam

the Port, where visiting sky ships dock

the Stairway of 888 steps, on which one must pray with each step

the Temple's core

the boys' dorm, where girls are not allowed

the endangered paper crane observatory

the flying dojo

the girls' dorm, where boys are not allowed

the mess hall, on pie day

turbulent skies surrounding the Temple

during

Annual Mother’s Day Visit of the Seven Pantheons

Bamboo-Whacking Day

Elder Gassy Horse’s birthday

The Great Interworld Puppy Parade

The Hatching of the Phoenix

The Parade of Easily Startled Dragons

The Passing of the Sticky Comet

The Temple Dance

a haiku recital

a lovely day to play flying tag

his/her turn to take Elder Stainless Steel’s favorite pet for a walk

his/her turn to wash the dishes

the Daily Lighting of the Lanterns that Shine Across the Universe

the first day of flying lessons

leading to trouble with

Elder Droning Cricket, who teaches international diplomacy, speaks slowly and neveraddsspacesbetweenhiswords.

Elder Marble Feather, the Temple’s flaky liaison to the deities and spirits of the universe.

Elder Squinting Owl, who is so old that he only has two senses at a time.

Elders Sweaty Brine and Salty Fish, married for longer they can remember and professors of resolving family disputes.

Monk Gnarly Beard, a gruff man whose heart melts at the sight of any puppy in trouble.

Monk Legal Eagle, who teaches how to resolve legal disputes, but has no sense of humor.

Monk Old Spring, inventor of complex ways to accomplish easy things, who has a whole wing of the Temple devoted to his toaster.

Monk Spinning Toes, who trained with the Battlerinas and knows the secret of the five-point palm pirouette.

Step 8: Each player creates her character’s Avatar, what it means, and writes this down on her passport.

There is no turn order in this step. Everyone can do it at the same time.

[Diagram] Mickey Mouse table with all chairs highlighted. [Caption: Players 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all doing this step at the same time.[/Diagram]

This is the second part of your character's Temple name. The Avatar is a noun that represents how your character  solves problems and, most importantly, how she might help the worldly people she meets on the Pilgrimage.

The Avatar usually refers to a place, thing, animal, or an abstract concept.

If the Avatar is a thing, like Pillar, Blossom, Hall, Tower, Tile, or Berry, that part of the Temple may be important your character.  If your avatar is an object, it might even be something that your Pilgrim actually carries or wears, with which she solves problems. Your Pilgrim's avatar may be "Blossom" if she solves problems by sharing her ideas with others, like a flower spreading its pollen. The avatar "Lantern" suggests your Pilgrim has a special connection with the Temple's bright lamps, perhaps so much so that carries one with her at all times.

Example: Dev has played Do before, so he's seen a handful of pilgrim names already. from his memory, he puts together a list of ideas, such as:

Trophy - Holds merit badges in many obscure survival skills.

Cape - Will only rescue people while wearing a cape.

Snow - Claims to be the king of any snow-covered land.

Grass - Can create impassable barriers of tall grass.

Chime Speaks any language.

Path - Knows the location of anyone’s true love.

Dust - Can blind people from intense feelings.

Bench - Knows a secret of anyone sitting next to her.

Coal - Sees the fate of any rock, ore, or metal.

These are all fine ideas for a story told in a variety of styles, but Allie, Dev, Cat, and Bebe are trying to tell stories with a light mood and a big scope. So Dev suggests that his character may actually have a kind of superpower, newly discovered when he arrived at the temple.

Smile - Naively irreverent to any local laws or traditions.

Dev describes his character as a hopeless optimist. A wide-eyed Pollyanna whose naive disregard for appropriate behavior is forgiven because of his innocent outlook on life. In this banner, Dev is saying that whatever problem comes up, his character's smile will resolve the situation.

An animal Avatar, like Tiger, Wing, Claw, Mane, Phoenix, or Monkey, suggests different things depending on the cultural references. On some worlds, snakes are often associated with temptation and betrayal. Other cultures turn serpents into mythical dragons that bring good luck. Wolves, birds, mice and whales all have different meanings, too. By picking an animalistic Avatar, you use those associations as a short hand for your Pilgrim’s personality. The Avatar "Eagle" brings to mind a Pilgrim who solves problems with keen eyesight and sharp claws. "Mouse" may mean she prefers to solve problems through stealth... or gnawing on things.

Bebe loves animals, so she thinks of all sorts of ways to turn them into Banners. She thinks about their personalities and historical associations.

Bear - Enforces the law and the rules.

Bull - Feigns clumsiness to get to the heart of a mystery.

Bird - Specializes in high-flying acrobatics.

Frog - Is covered in a hallucinogenic slime.

Phoenix - Child of fire giants known for explosive tempers.

She even expands her ideas to animal body parts and sounds.

Tooth - Can chew through any natural barrier.

Claw - Raised by wolves and behaves as they do.

Horn - Sticking a horn in her ear lets her hear all truths.

Hiss - Whispers the secrets of any wooden object.

But in the end she decides that her character will have a unique ability, much as Dev chose to do. While Dev's character is the more social one, Bebe envisions a character who solves problems with ingenuity pumped up to absurd, perhaps misguided levels.

Mutt - Combines objects into new devices.

When pressed for elaboration, Bebe describes her character as the sort of person who would have invented the spork. Just as a mutt is an indistinguishable mix of animal breeds, her inventions are a mixture of other familiar objects. She wants to see her part of the story a time where there's a quick montage of her character working over a problem and then finding a way to solve it by fusing a shoe to a hat.

Abstract Avatars like Pride, Light, Hope, Destiny, Storm, or Streak, create very poetic Temple names, but run the risk of being less clear in their meaning. These may represent skills or strange powers your Pilgrim employs to solve problems. It's not uncommon for Pilgrims to hail from worlds that may have granted them unique abilities. The Avatar "Light" may mean your Pilgrim solves problems by shining bright lights or constructing illusions. "Hope" could mean your Pilgrim is prophesied to accomplish great deeds in her lifetime.

Cat decides she would like to use a more abstract notion as her character's avatar. Something that isn't explicitly an object, place or animal-type thing. She looks in the book at the example of play on page XXX and finds the following list.

Legend - Always has a fable to tell for any situation.

Wave - Offers blessings of the gods through ritual dance.

Reflection - Appears to be from whatever country she is in.

Spark - Brews potions that exaggerates secret emotions.

Song - Summons woodland creatures by singing.

Lore - Knows the secrets of many different obscure cults.

Stream - Guides peaceful people into battle without harm.

Aroma - Can prepare a feast to please the gods.

Cat tries to maintain her composure as she realizes the book is describing her reading the book. She focuses on the task at hand, creating an avatar for her character. Seeing the odd superpowers that her friends have made, she decides to make a character who solves problems through subtle ritual magics.

Flame - Speaks to ancestor spirits through lit candles.

Cat imagines her character lighting different candles each devoted to a different ancestor spirit. The other players suggest that when a candle runs out, she can't talk to that spirit anymore. Cat likes this constraint because she now imagines a short girl carrying around a pack of giant candles. Pushing this cartoonish image makes it feel more appropriate for a Farce story.

[Think About Your Character's Avatar]

How does your character get people out of trouble?

What motivates her to help others?

Are there particular people she prefers to help?

Is her style of problem-solving brash and forthright or subtle and stealthy?

How did your Pilgrim earn this Avatar and who suggested it for her?

If the Avatar is an object or place, what significance does it have to your character?

If it is an animal, how does that creature stand as a metaphor for her personality and problem-solving? [/Sidebar]

[Comic:

"What's wrong, Li?"

"Oh nothing. It's just my new Temple name. They called me Li the Giant Hammer."

"So? It is a pretty big hammer and you kind of use it for everything."

"Hey, it's not my fault there isn't any problem that can't be solved with a giant hammer."[/Comic]

Step 9: Each player writes a sentence on another player's passport in which her character comes to the other character's rescue.

Each player takes turns doing this step. Start with the youngest player and continue clockwise around the table until everyone has done this step.

[DIAGRAM]Mickey Mouse table cycling through each turn of troublemaking. Caption: Each player will take turns doing this step. Player 1 goes first. [DIAGRAM] Then Player 2... [DIAGRAM] Then player 3... [DIAGRAM] ...and player 4.[/caption][/DIAGRAM]

Starting from the youngest player and continuing clockwise around the table, each player takes turns being the Storyteller. When it is your turn, choose another player’s passport and write a new sentence beneath the one the Troublemakers just wrote.

Your new sentence describes your character rescuing this other character from her trouble. This is the true heart of the game, in which your Pilgrim does cool stuff to help people. This is your chance to describe your character taking charge of a situation and solving some problems.

While we're here, it’s important to distinguish what exactly is happening at the table from what's happening in the story.

At the table, you are describing the resolution of short event. You already know how this event begins because the Troublemakers have set up all the initial situation for you. They’ve established a time, a place and some other characters and arranged them all into a scene. More importantly, they have created an untenable situation that your character must ten. Ten is a verb, right? If something is untenable, you'd think that it could be tenned, which would make your character the tenner. Anyway, your creativity and wit are now in the spotlight, the other players can sit back and watch you figure it all out.

In the story, your character will resolve that trouble. There is no question about if the trouble will be quelled. It may be quelled by accident or even despite your character's initial intent, but it does get resolved. Your job in this step is to explain just how the heck your character managed to do the deed.

Example: Allie, Dev and Cat are the troublemakers. In a previous step, they collaborated, perhaps conspired, to create a sticky situation for Bebe's character Rikko. They took a number of things into consideration, like Rikko's Banner "Titanic," the scope and mood of the story, and what would generally make an interesting cliffhanger. With all these things taken into account, they created the following trouble and wrote it on Bebe's passport:

"Rikko is washing dishes in the sub-basement kitchen as punishment as punishment for breaking a vase when he notices Dolma, the actual culprit, about to knock over a whole stack of freshly polished plates right under Elder Sleepy Bear's nose!"

Now it's someone else's turn to take the reins as a storyteller. It can't be Bebe, because her character is the one that's in this particular trouble. So it must fall to Allie, Dev or Cat's character to be the hero. A troublemaker must now be the one to resolve the trouble.

After a moment's pause, Dev thinks he has a way to solve the problem and volunteers his character for the mission. The rest of the group wait anxiously to hear how Dev's character solves this problem.

You may be wondering how you should phrase your sentence. If you're writing it in the in the first person, the sentence would sound like "I fly to a new world." If you're writing it in the third-person, it would sound like "She flies to a new world." So what is the correct way to phrase your character's forthcoming heroics?

Author-Style

In general, most Storytellers will tell their stories in the third-person, with their character as a separate entity doing her own thing in the story. Let's call this "author-style." It's considered the default style of playing Do.  In this style of play, your sentences are phrased like “my Pilgrim stumbles into a pie throwing competition” or “a pie flies into my Pilgrim's face." The advantage of this style is that you’re not afraid to make your Pilgrim look foolish when she gets into shenanigans. The disadvantage is that some Storytellers may feel less invested in a Pilgrim’s story if they don’t personally identify with her in the first-person.

Example: In most Do games Dev has played, the Storytellers write their sentences in the third-person. Playing with Allie, Bebe and Cat is pretty much the same. When it's someone's turn to be the Storyteller, such as this moment when Dev is put on the spot to think of a solution to Rikko's trouble, the rest of the group give the Storyteller a few moments to ponder.

The etiquette at the table is very relaxed at this moment, allowing Allie to get up for a glass of water and Bebe to take a bathroom break. It's a natural point for everyone but the Storyteller to let their brains rest for a moment.

Once everyone is back at the table, Dev will read aloud the sentence he just created. Dev doesn't mind that this creates a quieter sort of experience overall because he likes the big reveal he gets to make as storyteller. The rest of the group likes this style of play also because it creates natural breaks for chatting and creative rest.

While they chillax, Dev is still thinking about how to solve this problem. This is his character so far.

Name: Amdino

Origin: Amdino was a bright-eyed, innocent automaton built by a loving gadgeteer and raised inside of a giant cluster of molded bamboo that she called her lab.

Departure: One day, he read a forbidden book in the gadgeteer's library, which hurled him through the sky towards the temple.

Banner: Curious – Snoops into people's private business while trying to understand human emotions.

That information in mind, he must now figure out how Amdino will solve this trouble.

"Rikko is washing dishes in the sub-basement kitchen as punishment as punishment for breaking a vase when he notices Dolma, the actual culprit, about to knock over a whole stack of freshly polished plates right under Elder Sleepy Bear's nose!"

A simple solution, nothing too flashy, but entirely reasonable given Amdino's Avatar and other established personality quirks. Also note that Amdino is a bit of an unlikely hero in this scenario. He doesn't come swinging in on a rope to save the day like some swashbuckler, he's just be-bopping along through the basement when he stumbles into this situation. Nevertheless, Rikko's no longer in trouble. The situation is resolved as Dev says it is.

The advantages of the author-style is that it forces you fit a solution into one sentence. There's not a lot of space to ramble when you're trying to fit in a whole idea into that restricted of a format. This advantage is also what makes the author-style difficult at times. It may feel a little solitary when you're wracking your brain while everyone else is just chilling out. As you can see in the example, though, you can still discuss your ideas with the rest of the group. It's just that the final decision is up to you.

Actor-Style

Some may prefer to perform in the first-person, acting as their character would in this moment. This is called actor-style, or, as it's more commonly known, role-playing.  In this case, you describe your character's actions as if you were doing them. You might say something like, “I spin on my tip-toes, hypnotizing the dragon long enough to let my friends escape” or “The dragon's flame barely singes my scarf as I fly away to safety.”

If your character is speaking to resolve the problem, you may even go so far as to speak as your character, using whatever vocal affectations or accents you imagine for her.

You can call in other players to take on the roles of the side characters and act out a conversation between the two. That can be fun because it was those very players who introduced the side characters in the first place. You’ll carry on this scene until it reaches a moment where everyone feels the trouble is resolved. This type of storytelling is pretty common for players who have an interest in theater or improv games.

Example: When not playing with Allie, Bebe and Cat, Dev is part of another group of players who are much more, well, engaged is a polite way to put it. He plays in another pilgrimage with his friends Kaylee, Myles and Jara, who are all involved in the theatrical arts.

Jara is a theater major with a talent for slapstick characters. Myles is part of an improv comedy troupe who enjoys riffing on other people's contributions in a smoothly flowing immediate story. Kaylee is a part of the local Renaissance Faire, so she's used to hamming up fake accents and such.

When Dev and the rest of these players get together for Do, resolving troubles is more about acting out a scene than writing a sentence. Dev is expected to act and speak as his character, with the other players temporarily taking on the roles of the other people noted in the Trouble. For example, if the trouble noted above came up with this group, Kaylee would volunteer to act as Dolmas and Myles would volunteer to play Elder Sleepy Bear. Jara would step in if any new characters need to be involved in the scene.

Together, they act out and speak as their respective characters until the scene comes to a natural conclusion. They all know beforehand that this scene will end with Dev's character resolving the trouble. The fun of role-playing the scene is figuring out how that conclusion comes about.

One of the drawbacks of role-playing is that it blurs the lines between player and character, which may lead to sensitive situations for younger players. A word of caution if you do decide to role-play: If your character is resolving trouble through negotiation and social interaction, then you can role-play that whole exchange with the other players.

Example: When Kaylee first started role-playing, she had a character who got into trouble by being very rude. She had a lot of fun making snide jabs about other characters, until she noticed that Jara's feelings were hurt by one of Kaylee's comments about her character's weight.

Kaylee was confused at first.. "What's the big deal?" She thought, "I'm just playing my character. It's only a game."

Shocking that this didn't assuage Jara's hurt feelings. After the game, Jara and the rest of the group spoke to Kaylee trying to find a way for Kaylee's to express her character's troublesome trait while not actually making the game un-fun for everyone else.

From that point forward, Kaylee tried to stay more conscious about her friend's sensitivities. For her part, Jara became more open about the issues she found offensive.

If your Pilgrim is doing anything action-oriented or that would lead her into any danger, stick strictly to descriptions and flowery gestures. Use your words. Do not put yourself or the other players in harm’s way. (In other words... No, you can’t really fly.) Even so, role-playing takes a lot of energy and you might find yourself worn out after only an hour of play.

Mixing it Up

No one says you have to play in one style only. Chances are that your group falls somewhere in between these two extremes styles of play.

Sometimes the drama bug might bite you, so you act out your stories in-character. Other times, you can stay “back stage” manipulating elements of the story from detached position of an author. And when you’re creatively pooped, you may even prefer to be a part of the audience, sitting back and collecting your energy while watching the other players tell or act out funny stories.

If you do mix up these styles, it’s best to pace yourself so that you “zoom in” and act out only the really important scenes. Then you can “zoom out” to make troubles, describe scenes and watch your friends be creative. These are all perfectly fine ways to play this game, they’re just different personal tastes.

As you can see, there’s a lot of room for interpretation between these two different styles. Still, for the sake of space, this game assumes you are playing in a storytelling mode. The examples of play focus on that style, too.

And so, as Storyteller, you essentially have free rein to decide how your Pilgrim resolves this problem. Having so much creative freedom can be daunting when you're the spotlight. The earlier example of Dev playing with Allie, Bebe and Cat, is very much in the storytelling style, as are the rest of the examples of play featuring these players.

For further guidelines and tips on being a Storyteller, try asking yourself some of the following questions.

[Caption: Some players prefer a more distanced style of play, like a third-person narrative. You describe what your Pilgrims and the other characters say and do. On the other end of the spectrum, some players  enjoy role-playing the resolution of this trouble. You and your recruits speak in-character as the Pilgrims while the other players speak as the worldly characters.]

"Is my character trying or doing?"

There is no "try" in Do, to paraphrase a certain green elder monk.

When you are the Storyteller, you may find yourself asking permission for your character to do something, as if expressing a desire or an intent, but not a fact. That’s understandable if you’ve played games where a dice roll or another player determines whether an event in the story is going to happen.

But remember, as Storyteller, you decide how the trouble is resolved. This game isn’t about success or failure, it assumes your character will do what you say she does, but has to face the consequences of that success afterwards. In other words: Whatever you say happens, happens.

Let's use a pretty straightforward situation as an example.

Example: In an earlier step, the troublemakers created a troublesome situation for Wil's character Tasha. The short story, Wil's character Tasha was transformed into a kitten. That's a tough first day of school. To be more specific, this is the actual trouble written on her passport:

"Tasha's curiosity gets the better of her in potions room, where she knocks over a vial of dust that transforms her into a kitten."

Renny volunteers to be the one whose character comes to the rescue. Renny decides that his character, Ming, just happens to notice this little transformation. Not a problem at all! These will be routine situations on the pilgrimage. Good practice for a would-be pilgrim to solve this kind of situation. If only Renny was as confident as his character. This is Renny's first time playing Do, so he's a little tentative when he says what Ming does.

“Ming tries to rescue shake the dust loose from Tasha's fur to change her back into a human.”

There's no need to be shy about it, Renny! All this sentence does is describe Ming's intent. On a more meta level, it also communicates Renny's ultimate desire to turn Tasha back into a human. Those are good things to discuss while crafting a solution, but the solution itself should offer a clear, concrete action.

Wil and the other players assure Renny that they trust him. Whatever Wil says Ming does is what Ming does. Whatever happens as a result of Ming's action is what happens. With that authority in mind, Wil revisits his initial solution.

“Ming slaps on a pair of gloves and vigorously shakes that cat like no cat has been shaken before, thus loosening it from her fur and turning Tasha back into a human girl."

That more clearly and confidently declares what has just transpired in the story. Of course, this is a very simple example. It doesn't entirely take into account the full breadth of what makes a forward-moving resolution to a trouble. Let's continue!

"How does my character's Avatar help?"

When you chose your Pilgrim’s Avatar, you described how your Pilgrim usually helps people. Review those notes on your passport and ask for feedback from the other players if you hit a creative block. Try to think in terms of metaphors and analogies. If your Avatar is “Mane” then you might ask yourself, “How would a lion solve this problem?” The answer might be, “With a ferocious attack of claws” or “A thoughtful, careful plan and a quick, precise solution” or “By taking a nap and waiting for someone else to do the hard work.” All of those are good beginnings to your story, using the Avatar as the seed of inspiration.

Example: Wil volunteers his character to come to Jason's character's rescue. Wil's character is named Tasha, as noted earlier. Jason's character is Vangar, a young dwarven warrior prince inspired by the Viking-like dwarves in Jason's favorite fantasy novels. Boy, Vangar is in some real trouble at the moment. Here's situation that the troublemakers created for him.

"When Elder Climbing Rope chooses Prince Vangar to be captain of the Asthmatic Airball team, the young dwarf gives a pre-game pep talk that convinces the scrawny players that they're iron warriors striding into battle against orcish hordes."

Oof. A dense sentence to be sure, but clearly puts Vangar in a sticky situation. Those kids were having a hard enough time playing Airball without thinking they were invincible. The easy way to solve this problem would be to just make it not happen anymore, like so.

"Tasha tells the kids they're not warriors and they quit the team."

But that's not any fun. It doesn't move the story forward and generally deflates the contributions that the Troublemakers made in crafting this whole scenario. In more fundamental terms, it doesn't tie into Tasha's avatar at all.

Fortunately, Wil knows better than to just whip out a lame solution like that. The first thing he reviews is Tasha's Avatar, which is noted on her passport.

Lantern - Carries around a lantern at the end of a staff that reveals the truth.

Wil thinks this is the perfect situation for Tasha's unique abilities to come into play. He thinks it would be kind of deflating for the proud warrior prince Vangar to be totally denied his glorious victory, though. Wil tries to come up with a compromise that will suit everyone. A solution that will also establish an interesting relationship between Vangar and Tasha for the rest of the pilgrimage to boot.

"Vangar is totally smitten with Tasha when she flies into the middle of the field dressed as a Valkrie, distracting him from the fact that her lantern reveals both teams to be comprised of scrawny kids."

This little crush has interesting implications for the story going forward. That's some new material that both Wil and Jason can play with as they show Tasha and Vangar on the pilgrimage together.

"Who is helping or getting in my character's way?"

Often the trouble will involve an antagonist that your character will have to engage in order to come to some meaningful solution. Consider that antagonist’s motivations and desires. What compromises would your character have to propose to get this person to back down? No trouble, or antagonist, exists in a vaccuum after all. Surely there are relationships and emotions that your character might use to her advantage.

"What does success cost my character?"

You might describe your character achieving her desired resolution, but then you have to show the consequences of that victory. Because these are formative experiences with her would-be companion, you can use these costly victory stories to establish the relationship between these two characters. During the Pilgrimage, there may be occasions when those very relationships are what must be sacrificed in order to save the worlds she visits.

___'s parentt's show up. Cost: Makes him loook uncool when he was really trying to get a new image.

"Did my character succeed by accident?"

You can use the environment or even other non-player characters in your story. You can describe how she deals with each turn of events. Explain what coincidences occurred that allowed her to succeed at resolving this trouble. Show how she feels about having that thrill of victory being denied to her. As Storyteller, you have a wider view of the story than your Pilgrim does. Guiding your Pilgrim towards a better story may be contradictory to what she wants personally. Also, your storytelling is not limited to her actions alone. You can describe how the environment and coincidences conspired to resolve the trouble, despite or because of her actions. While it's assumed most of the time that your Pilgrim has a direct hand in the Trouble's resolution, you can just as easily describe your Pilgrim being a clumsy screw-up who only accidentally quelled the Trouble. This is especially appropriate for stories with a light mood, so your Pilgrim becomes a bumbling comedic character.

Bad: “Turik might stumble across a clue to the mystery by walking in the garden.”

"What doesn't go according to plan?"

Nobody’s perfect, especially Pilgrims. You’ll find that a perfectly planned, perfectly executed resolution doesn’t lead to a lot of situations that are very interesting to tell stories about. There is often one snag, one loose end that may not affect the ultimate outcome of this trouble in the short-term. It leaves open possible sources of trouble later in the journey. When you describe your character quelling a trouble, feel free to leave some unresolved plot points if the group thinks they can pick those up again later.

___ stands up to a bully, but the bully i still going to be around. Stand by Me style plot hole.

"Why does my character come to the rescue anyway?"

Maybe it really does all go according to plan, but the really interesting story comes from your character’s motivations. You are resolving this trouble because the rules are telling you to do so, but your character doesn’t know that. Describe what’s going on in her head as she’s solving this problem. Explain her feelings about the character she’s saving. Narrate her thought process as she pieces all the parts of the puzzle together. Note what she’s paying attention to when she comes to save the day. Perhaps quelling the trouble looks like it comes easily, but young emotions boiling beneath the surface reveal how challenging that act really was.

___ rescues ___ because he feels a kinship.

"What does my character's action feel like?"

You may want to add more flourishes to your story beyond simply describing a series of events. Try describing how your character resolves this trouble in terms of one of the five senses. Simmer on the scintillating sensation of lightning slithering through Summer skies. Create the cacophonous clopping of a clutch of clams. Meditate on the aroma of Monk Mossy Musk’s mashed mango marmalade. Witness the wonders of a world wider than the weirdest, wildest warrior’s worries. Tango with the tingling tastes of ten thousand types of trees. Oh yeah, and alliteration can be fun, too.

___ has an alliterative resolution with hallucinogenic slime.

"Does my character's action fit the scope and mood of the story?"

Storytellers should maintain the scope and mood agreed upon by the group. If your stories are meant to be small in scope, your Pilgrim shouldn't be moving mountains and changing the courses of rivers. If the stories are big, then by all means, move those mountains. During the Pilgrimage, there may be a need to be undercover. In this case, it's best not to be flamboyant, you're just mysterious out-of-towners passing through.

___'s initial suggestion is too downbeat for a Farce.

Step 10: Each player writes a new sentence in which her character says her full name.

There is no turn order in this step. Everyone can do it at the same time.

This sentence follows a very particular format: “I am Pilgrim (Worldly Name) the (Banner) (Avatar).” The sentence might be something like "I am Pilgrim Bartok the Broken Barrel." Or perhaps it is "I am Pilgrim Linmei the Metal Force." It could be "I am Pilgrim Denmat the Turning Wind." Whatever your character's full Pilgrim name is, write it on your passport.

With your character's full name, you now know the most important facts about her. Her worldly name tells you a bit about her origin and why she left. Her banner reminds the Troublemakers how she gets into trouble. Her Avatar lets you know how she solves problems and helps people.

The newest addition to her name is the title "Pilgrim." The title means your character can fly and that she has a degree of authority in worldly affairs. She is a traveling diplomat, quelling worldly troubles.

She is also a keeper of the peace, dealing with small-scale problems that may balloon into larger issues if left unchecked. As a representative of the Temple, a Pilgrim has a degree of diplomatic immunity when traveling to foreign worlds.

However, she is still just a presumptuous kid to most people’s eyes. An impatient adult may not respect her authority.  Ready or not, the worlds now have a new Pilgrim ready to help them resolve their problems. Now you have a Pilgrim character and you're ready to tell stories from the Pilgrimage!

Example: At the end of the character creation process, Ryan, Lenny, Matt and Dev each take turns introducing their new pilgrims.

Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to create and quell troubles.

You wrote about how she was raised on her homeworld and gave her a worldly name. Then the Troublemakers described why she left home. They also described a troublesome experience she had at the Temple. Finally, you described how your character helped out her new companions on the Pilgrimage. In the end, your character got her full Pilgrim name and title.

Throughout all these steps, you had a taste of what it's like to be a Storyteller and a Troublemaker in actual play.

To be a storyteller, consider a few simple guidelines:

• There is no "Try" in Do. Your Pilgrim does resolve the trouble, however you say she does.

• Take inspiration from the Avatar. Your Avatar is a metaphor for how your Pilgrim solves problems and helps people.

• Engage the antagonist. Each trouble has someone with whom your Pilgrim can talk to or negotiate with. Incorporate that character into your resolution.

• Consider what success might cost. Think of the sacrifices your Pilgrim might have to make in order to achieve her goals.

• Consider if your character succeeded on purpose. It may be that your character didn't even intend to resolve the trouble, but events conspired to make it happen anyway.

• Think of what may not have gone perfectly. Feel free to describe any new snags that your Pilgrim may have left open despite resolving the trouble.

• Consider your character's motivation. Even if the resolution is plain and simple, you can still make an interesting sentence by describing what motivates your Pilgrim to help others.

• Push the trouble to a moment of tension. Each trouble is a fun, precarious situation prepared for a pilgrim to come to the rescue just in a nick of time.
  

• Be sure to fit the scope and mood of the story. By default, your stories have a big scope and light mood, try maintaining that care-free sense of adventure and shenanigans.

To be a Troublemaker, consider these guidelines:

• Think of a problem that's not a problem, like having too much of a good thing.

• Take inspiration from the character's Banner. Each Pilgrim has a banner that tells you how the player thinks she should get into trouble. Use that as a source of ideas and discussion.

• Mention where the trouble is happening. There is a list of locations around the Temple where a would-be Pilgrim might get into trouble on page XX.

• Mention when this trouble is happening. There is another list of special events and holidays when a would-be Pilgrim might get into trouble on page XX.

• Mention who else is involved in the trouble. There is a list of monks and teachers on page XX. Any of these might be an antagonist or a helpful mentor during a trouble.

• Conserve characters. As you introduce new antagonists or side characters into the story, consider whether it would be better to just add new details to an existing character.

• Be sure to fit the scope and mood of the story. By default, your stories have a big scope and light mood, try maintaining that care-free sense of adventure and shenanigans.

With these tips and techniques in mind, you're ready to play the actual Pilgrimage!

Chapter 4: Example Pilgrims [Unfinished]

Quick list of Character Concepts
These pilgrim concepts were created when people were asked to put together the nearest adjective and noun.
Pilgrim Painful Gargoyle is a brilliant sculptor of brilliant sculpture: Beasts from marble so pure they emit blinding light.
Pilgrim Troubled Engagement means well, but must learn to stop forging marriage documents for couples without their permission.
Pilgrim Daily Sun eats one star a day. This was a problem on Sunday, when he devoured half the weekend. Now we have 6-day weeks.
Pilgrim Liable Throat is an avid throat-singer with an unfortunate knack for improvising litigious and self-incriminating lyrics.
Pilgrim Dusty Pen famously wrote her first treatise on enlightenment at age 5. But she hasn't been able to write another word since.
Pilgrim Multipurpose Paper can shape paper into any tool he needed 15 min ago or will need in 15 min, but not one needed now.
Pilgrim Little Fears is a big, tough kid. He stands up to gods and monsters, yet he's scared of anything smaller than himself.
Pilgrim Printing Paper always secretes printed words onto any paper nearby, often ancient secrets. It's a glandular problem.
Pilgrim Religious Bias thinks anyone's opinion is a fact. Doesn't trust actual facts, though. Oddly, this makes her a great negotiator.

Step 1: As a group, the players gather the stuff needed to make characters.

Abbie, Bebe, Cat and Dev are getting together to play Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple. The examples throughout this chapter will help guide you through this process. Their examples of play are presented as a conversation, so you can hear about their experiences in their own words. If they do something at the table, that's noted in brackets [like this]. When they write something on their passport, you'll see that as an inset next to their comments. Any additional notes are highlighted in a sidebar.

Allie: Hey everyone, thanks for coming. Are we ready to play?

Cat: Yup, what do we need to do first?

Dev: The book says we have to make our characters first.

Allie: That's right. We're going to be telling a story as we play the game, but that story still needs its main characters. We'll make those characters by telling stories about their origins and how they met each other at the Temple.

Bebe: So are we going to be rolling dice to learn our Strength and Dexterity?

Allie: Nope, we're just going to follow the steps in this chapter and write down details of our characters as we make them. The only stats in this game are our character's names.

Cat: Just the names?

Dev: Yeah, our stories are going to be about our characters getting into trouble and rescuing people from their trouble. So the really important stuff for us to know is how you want your character to get into trouble.

Cat: And how I want her to rescue people from their trouble. Got it.