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

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

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

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

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

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

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

There had always been those who naively believed that hellstone could, in some way, in some novel form, actually be tamed—could be brought under control, made safer or more convenient, be “domesticated,” as the case may be. And there have always been opponents to that idea. When Eleanor Greer invented the process that would later go on to be cemented as the standard process for refining hellstone for safe use and safe shipment, the President of the Mining Guild at the time, a man by the name of Arn Goldman, would, allegedly, tell anyone who would listen for more than a minute or two, that Greer was a fool for trying: “it’s no coincidence,” he is recorded as having said, “that hellstone’s the very same color as blood. Anyone who doesn’t take that as a sign is stupid enough to deserve what’s coming to ‘em.” 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: Nowhere to go but down. 

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (eyes) [00:05:09, 00:26:00], references to cannibalism [1:54:50] 

Now, what’s deceptive about a sleepy little town — which, though I’ve argued before that Ruin’s Gate was far from, but for the sake of poetry, let’s say the sentiment stands — is that, sleepy as they might seem, that doesn’t mean there isn’t always something going on under the surface. Trouble brewing out of sight. Pieces moving on chess boards in back rooms. Plans hatching, plots thickening, deals being made in the dark. And in Ruin’s Gate, in those days, there was plenty of dark to go around.   

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: Reunions and reconsiderations.

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror (eyes) [2:01:00]

Meanwhile, in the writings of Confessor Leviticus to her final congregants, this pilgrimage is characterized somewhat differently. She speaks of the pilgrimage not as a promise, or even as a journey, but as a kind of fortification, a taking up of arms. This should hardly be surprising: the visions granted to Leviticus by God were filled with this kind of martial imagery, and she seems to have seen herself as a kind of warrior or soldier, rather than a shepherd or a leader. But the idea stands, nevertheless. The pilgrimage isn’t so much about making oneself closer to god, but instead about enacting a service for the people of Antarras, undertaking a transformative journey wherein those strong enough to make the journey are also deemed strong enough to protect those who cannot protect themselves. 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: The soul of Antarras. 

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

In The Early Saints of Antarras, Apostle Celéne Osgood—who would go on to later undertake her own pilgrimage and become Confessor Psalms, the noted Evangelist—writes of the sermon given by Confessor Joshua upon returning from their pilgrimage. The pathway, Confessor Joshua is said to have declaimed, is not holy because it is the precise pathway Confessor Genesis once took, but because of the footsteps of those who followed him. The act of commitment undertaken when an Apostle sets out on that path is simultaneously an act of contrition, of devotion, and of service—to the town or community one comes from, as well as the one they will go on to serve in God’s name. It is that act that makes the pathway holy, and the meaning it has accrued as others have taken it, as feet have bled and skin has burned and prayers have alighted on the wind. To walk the path, Osgood writes, is to make a promise—a promise that is not upheld until the Confessor who returns from the journey devotes themself to the service of those not strong enough to walk the path themselves. 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: The pilgrim’s path. 

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

The origin of what have come to be known as hellbeasts—distinct from the native animals found on the planet—has also been debated by historians of Antarras. Where the line between animal and hellbeast falls is not arbitrary, but neither is it universally agreed upon. Are the hellbeasts endemic to the planet, or are they, like us, invasive, coming to Antarras from somewhere else, like that unknown place the church calls the Burning Beyond? Do they evolve, the way fauna does, or change at all according to their environment? And, if so, what were they before they became the monsters that haunt our very nightmares? 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: A colossal emergence. 

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast  Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/  Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/  Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah  Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts 

The first hellstone mutations that appeared, in the earliest groups of settlers, were in fact less likely to appear on the miners and more likely to appear on those who handled the pure, unrefined hellstone after its removal from the mines—couriers, bankers, or those scientists who first worked to develop the refining process that would come to be standard. The image of the mutated specter, a potent and lingering phantasm of anxiety in the mind of the Antarran settler, didn’t become the norm until much later, when external pressures to meet new quotas forced the miners to stay underground for longer and longer shifts. 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: Something moving in the Ruin.

GET YOUR "SAY OK TO THE CLOCK" SHIRT HERE: https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-unexplored-places Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

CONTENT WARNINGS: drug use (0:09:30)

One can’t help but wonder, thinking back on the early days of Antarras, just how and why the staple institutions ended up with the influence they did. Could it have turned out another way? Could, for instance, a different church have found purchase in the hearts and minds of the early settlers? Could a different corporation from Earth have gotten here first, before Creon Construction, Communications, and Co.? How different would life on Antarras have looked, if just one decision had been made differently, just one change in the way things were when it all started? Realistically, there ain’t much use wondering that kind of thing: the world we’ve got’s the one we’re stuck living on today. But one can’t help but wonder… 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: Promises you’d best intend to keep.

Anamnesis by Samantha Leigh: https://blinkingbirchgames.itch.io/anamnesis

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

Funerary traditions on Antarras vary by town. The early settlers brought with them a range of belief systems, cultural traditions, and dispositions towards death, so in the earliest days, there were as many cremations as there were burials, and almost as many mourning practices as there were settlements cropping up on the planet’s surface. Eventually, most of the planet settled into the same—or at least similar—general traditions, though there were some smaller settlements that held out against the planet-wide preference for cremation and kept well-tended cemeteries of their own dead nearby to town. But for most, superstition won out against any Earth-based cultural beliefs, and the dead were usually burned for fear that what was buried might not always stay that way. 

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: An act of remembrance.

Anamnesis by Samantha Leigh: https://blinkingbirchgames.itch.io/anamnesis

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts

 You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who was alive that doesn’t remember the day the sun didn’t rise. You’d be even harder pressed to find anyone who could agree on what to call it. The eclipse, the great cloud, the long, dark night. No one wanted to talk about it, when it happened, so no easy name ever came into common parlance. Everyone had their own way of thinking about the darkness outside, and locked alone and scared in their homes, they took to thinking of it however they might.

This week, on Ruin’s Gate: The search begins.

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

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast Follow us on Tumblr: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/ Art by Ben Prevas Music by Andrew: https://andrewperricone.bandcamp.com/ Indigeneity Consultation by Wind: https://twitter.com/windjammah, https://qomrades.com/ Transcripts: https://unexploredcast.tumblr.com/transcripts