SATAH: Welcome to Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. I'm your host, Satah, and I'm showcasing multiple possible experiences of self-paced games by inviting guests to play them alongside me so I can compile our stories together. You can support the show financially at patreon.com/foliopod, or join as a free member to get access to the bonus podcast feed. January's stream is going to be next week, and as of the release of this episode, you still have a few days to vote in the poll that determines which game I'm going to play.
Today we are finishing our games of Alone Among the Stars, a tabletop roleplaying game about exploring space and experiencing wondrous sights by Tikuma Okada. With me again are Jess Levine and Dusty. Check out their links in the episode description and follow them both on social media to hear more about their ongoing and upcoming projects, like the new edition of Jess' satirical sci-fi skirmish game PLANET FIST and Dusty's TTRPG character interview podcast, Intarotgation.
In the game text of Alone Among the Stars, it says, play until you get tired, and then decide what to do with the record of your journey. If it brings you joy, you can keep it. If it brings you pain, you can burn it. For reasons of podcast production instead, I asked everybody to do exactly five planets, and it seems, hopefully, like it wasn't painful enough for anybody to want to burn it, because here it is. You've been listening to it.
So let's head out into the black, see what our explorers find on their final two planets of this chapter of their journey– the chapter that we are privileged enough to witness– and wish them luck as they continue off into space for the rest of their lives. Whether that's literal, continuing to explore in a ship, or whether they land, much like us all, here on Earth, orbiting through the stars, infinitely, together, and alone… among the stars! Like the tabletop role-playing game.
GAME: PLANET FOUR
SATAH: Good morning, astronauts.
JESS: Okay, how many things on planet four? We didn't name planet three.
SATAH: Let's go to another planet.
JESS: So that was… that was Aurora two, because I rolled two on the die, which isn't how I did it for the rest of them, but it is for that one.
DUSTY: Let's continue on this journey. Okay, one.
JESS: One!
DUSTY: One thing on my next planet.
JESS: Star Wars Biome Planet. There's one thing to find here.
SATAH: Three. [Cards being dealt, die clattering]
So you won't believe it. But the first thing that I discover? I discover while I'm resting. [Laughing] I am so inspired by this character really taking the time that they need. It feels– I was just thinking as I- as I put these cards down, a couple of them– I'm putting them down, you know, face down, and a couple of them were obviously upside down. I can tell from the print on the back and it put me in tarot mode where I was thinking of cards reversed. And so being in the place of thinking about cards, uh, as oracles and guidance… I guess technically, the cards aren't telling me shit. The die is telling me to relax and sending a lot of signals. And much like tarot, isn't necessarily the universe, but there is always a message in the messages you get from symbols.
So. Jack of hearts. Hearts are "ruins." Hell yeah, baby. And jack is "the desert."
So I am going to make this another one of the abandoned planes. And I think that the specific thing happening here is that I've come to this planet and am fairly sure that I'm not going to find the thing that I'm looking for. Like I've- I've looked and I've run– maybe, maybe at this point I've started to develop a way of pinging for the ships that's, like, relatively reliable to sort of– or I think I have. And I've, I've looked all over this planet and haven't had any luck yet. And I think part of me is starting to believe there's a fated aspect to this. So if I don't find something, it's not there?
I think that's actually the most satisfying thing here. I've looked and I come to this conviction, like, "I haven't found it, therefore it's not here. It hasn't been left here for me. Or it's not, it's not my destiny or my fate to find a ship here. So I'll- I'll move on."
And I'm Saturday chilling outside my ship; I don't want to get back in quite yet. And I'm in the middle of this desert. Maybe I also can't take off because there's this sort of like windstorm happening, but it's not super dangerous. I'm able to be outside in my protective weather gear and just looking at this storm.
And then as the storm clears and I'm just relaxing for a little bit, making sure that it's not going to come back up, a bunch of sand dies down and I see it: an abandoned ship, that same model of ship that I've seen over and over again. It was hidden by the storm and it was also under a dune that like a- a- just a pile of sand, that has now been blown away by the storm and I see it. And it's a double– it's- it's a double whammy of feelings, both of, um, "Oh, I was so sure. I was so sure that there wasn't one here."
And then that other part of me going, "But it did reveal itself to you."
So I've got warring prophecy girl things going on inside of me of, "This can't possibly be right," and also, "This is proof that it is." And I try to push both of those back to the back of my mind and walk over to the ship and start looking around in it.
It's mostly full of sand. It's hard to tell how long it's been there. I think I'm trying to get a sense of that now, but it's often difficult because they're just kind of left in natural environments or crashed, and so it's difficult to keep track of.
DUSTY: I rolled a six. So this one means I find this planet as I'm resting. I think… after the perilous feeling journeys of the last two, I decided to take a break and kind of go set my coordinates for a more familiar, um, scene. Maybe a planet that I have been to previously where there's people I know, places I love, food I could eat.
And kind of just in the cockpit writing notes about my findings, trying to figure out what to do next. And I see on the radar, a cluster of moons and such like that appear, but there seems to be another planet that shows up on my radar. And I kind of pull up my visuals in the cockpit and see that there seems to be a small, almost Pluto-sized planet– which is just kind of a turn of phrase, as I've never been to Pluto. But I've heard about it from all the stories and whether people or not they consider it a planet, I think in my heart… if it has a name, it should be called a planet at that point. Similar– different to moons. Moons have names, but they're moons.
But it's a small planet surrounded by a cluster of maybe five or six moons. And I decided that I have time. I don't necessarily need to go back to that place immediately. No one there is exactly expecting me. So I think I decide to go check it out and I find…
King of clubs. So another floating in the air situation, and clubs are plants or other forms of life.
And I think as I'm descending down onto this planet, it's hard to describe what there is from above, almost as if there's a huge cloud or marine layer above this whole planet.
And as I start descending, I see that there is something huge in the sky. Something enormous that immediately pings on my radar as if it's trying to contact a bigger ship, the size of maybe a destroyer or something like that.
And I see… as I finally descend through this cloud, this giant plant in the air. Almost floating like a Miranda with the giant petals, but like a lotus, as it's flat. And it's this beautiful amalgamation of colors. The green vibrant life that you see from healthy plants and petals of all different colours of pinks and blues, of purples, of colours indescribable with my human vernacular.
And then I notice that these clouds are actually coming from this enormous flower or what have you. That almost from the center, almost like a cyclone of dust and air and wind, it's floating up into the sky. And you see that seems to be not stopping, which, really– I had to think how long that would have to go to cover the entire planet.
And this seeks my attention towards the earth below it. And below… is nothing. Not that there's no earth or no water– there's definitely earth, but this dust has been falling around for so long that whatever was down there has been covered by the dust, or been absorbed by it.
So this planet itself seems to just be this one indescribable unimaginable flower? Can you call it a flower anymore? This planet is now not just a planet, it's whatever this thing's is home. It's the pond that it lays in and lets itself propagate, but this propagation has ruined anything else that will live here.
And that is enough to have me decide that I should not be here and I do not want to be here, lest I become like the dust below. I put a quick log to set back towards that course of where I was going to and look back on that flower one last time… in fear.
I think, in my logs, I just call this planet Dust, because that's all that's left.
SATAH: I guess I decide to hang out on this planet for a little while longer to look around because I've seen this, and what do I discover next? Something that is arduous to get to.
Eight of diamonds. Diamonds are "living beings." Eight is "on a glacier." Huh…
So I think the first thing here is that… so having seen the ship, I turn my radio– I think it's always on, because I left that radio frequency at the last place. I've been leaving it a couple of places. And it's always receiving, but I wouldn't– I'm not always necessarily paying direct attention to it. But in this moment I see the ship and I start to pay direct attention to it.
And I think… hmm, timey wimey bullshit. I'm listening to it and there's nothing and there's nothing and there's nothing and there's a signal suddenly coming in. And the way that it sounds– I can tell from sort of the decay of it, that this is a signal that has been broadcasting for a very long time, but I know that it hasn't because I didn't hear it until now. It just suddenly appears, already very old.
But with the help of that new thing that I've been experimenting with– the, like, locating thing that doesn't seem to successfully find the ships, but has been helping me learn how to narrow in on locations– I find the source of the signal and it's on this planet and I start following it.
And it is a– I have to do it in my plane, in my ship, and it is a miserable flight. The storm doesn't pop back up, but… it's shifted the ground and the sand so much that my usual navigation systems don't feel as reliable? Because, you know, they're trying to ping parts of the ground to say like, hey, you're too close, or go this way, or whatever. And I'm just getting fed weird information, because the ground isn't as solid as it should be. It's all shifted.
And so my ship is giving me strange signals as I'm trying to navigate. And it's bright and hot and I haven't been able to– I haven't found any water to sort of wash off in. So there's just still sand everywhere. I did my best to sort of brush off, but you know what they say about sand! It's coarse and it's irritating and it gets everywhere. And sitting in the pilot seat is, like, uncomfortable and it– I don't like the feel of the– my grip on the controls feels gritty and wrong and I can't seem to get it away. And it's just all very overstimulating and uncomfortable.
And the desert transitions into a different type of desert. It goes from sand desert, slowly, to snow desert as I move up towards the poles of the planet. And then, suddenly, it's open water. And the wind's a little worse here. I think I should probably go up into the atmosphere, like I should– I should get higher to avoid some of the planetary interference, but I am worried that– as soon as I start to do that, the signal starts to dissipate, because it's quite weak. And so I'm worried that if I go up to make my flight easier, I will lose the signal and not be able to locate it again. So I stay, and it sucks.
And I get there. I land on this glacier. And I find living beings.
I won't get too graphic, but I think that what I find is… not people. I find… animals. The equivalent of big, weird, space polar bears, you know, that obviously, the people I'm following or person I'm following– still not totally sure– were discovered by, at some point, and overpowered by. And it seems that the reason that this signal started broadcasting suddenly while sounding so strange is just that it is coming from a receiver that was inside someone's suit that got… ripped open by the elements or by these animals. And I think there's still room for there to be timey wimey shit in there, but that is definitely part of it.
And… you know, luckily they're all well-fed right now. They're not as aggressive as our polar bears. They see me land and come out and they're watching and they're obviously not thrilled that I'm there and they're territorial. But I'm able to observe. See that if it were in fact my companions here– maybe it wasn't, maybe it was someone totally different– but whoever was here is not here anymore and they weren't prepared to deal with these particular creatures. And I don't stick around. I go and I discover one more thing.
JESS: And I find it by "coming upon it suddenly." I– I am– I seek out experiences of awe. Such as a six of diamonds, which is "on the snowy peak of a mountain," there are "living beings." I'm not going to find any plants or at least we're not going to talk about it. And that's going to make my character very sad. No, we are because animals eat plants, and so that's what they're doing. And so that's– that's my excuse to make my botanist happier, because she deserves it.
She's on the snowy peak of a mountain and… this time it's real snow, actual snow this time. Snow planet. And I love the idea of snow meerkats. Right? So– they, if I'm coming upon them suddenly, it's because I'm trudging along in the snow and then they just like, boop! Boop. Boop! Boop. Just like all over this like field of snow on the cap of this mountain, just popping in and out. It's like a half meter deep snow and they're just, like, presumably burrowing under it and making tunnels and then just, like, sticking out their heads and looking at me and going down.
I'm trying to figure out why they keep coming up. Is it just to like check on me, or could they feel that through the vibrations and the movement of the snow? And then one of them comes up just as this like insect comes buzzing by and they just like nab it.
Insects aren't plants. I lied. It's more animals. And that's what the card told me to do. So I'm following instructions.
So. They pop up and just, like, nab this little insect as it buzzes by, because, you know, snowy ground doesn't really make for a lot of nutritious meals unless there's snow plants, which my botanist would love to find out. But, uh, yeah. So I think they– they snack on whatever flies through the air and they're kind of my constant company as I move on by. They're– they never come close to me. They probably can detect my movement just like through the snow, very attuned to their environment. But any time an insect buzzes by, they just like, [Bloop-y suddenly appearing sound], and nab it and go right on back under. Um, and I do manage to snap a few photos of them, which I am very satisfied to have happen.
Are- are these little gophers all I find here? I suppose they are. Well… I was delighted by them, both my character and myself, and so that's fine. Big snow planet. There's gophers, like, literally everywhere. Also, I'm behind schedule because I keep staying and writing about the life cycles of plants in a physical notebook. And so I'm like, big snow planet. Gophers, we got it. I'll get back on schedule. That way they won't yell at me. And I'll do that by skipping the rest of snow planet where there's no plants 'cause it's snowy.
SATAH: [Die clattering] All right, a three means that it is something I "come upon suddenly." That makes sense; it's probably while I am beating a hasty retreat. [Card flipping] It is another living being, but deep underground this time.
So I think that the setup of this is that I… I do retreat. I get out of there and decide to like head- head off of this planet. But before I do that, I do need to find somewhere to just rinse off so that I'm not miserably uncomfortable, covered in sand and grit, as I'm traversing the skies and stars.
And so I fly around and I'm looking for– I go back, away from the poles… [Big yawn] to where things are warmer. And it's like, "Oh, well, if there's a big ocean up there, there's probably a body of water that is warm." Because I can't– I don't really want to rinse off in the glacier, in the snow desert. I've done pretty well with survival so far, but why take the unnecessary risk of hypothermia?
And… yeah, I just look for water and end up finding a signal of- of a series of underground caverns with underground rivers and all that kind of thing, somewhere in the desert. And I find a natural cave entrance that I can go into and head down there.
And I find a living being… I think it's something in the water as I'm bathing. And I think what I want this to do is remind me of the eels that I found? Those- those nocturnal eels.
Because I think part of this here is… I think this is the first time that I've seen solid evidence that the person I'm following could have died. It seems likely that they have probably died in some of those other crashes, or there's a reason that tent was abandoned ,they didn't come back to it. But I was always able to believe maybe the reason that they're able to keep going in this loop is because they do get out and then they reset themself in some way. And this is forcing me to confront like, I mean, have they died over and over and over? Is that what's happening here?
Or did I just come to the end of the line? Was this the last one– did I not do it? Did I miss my chance? Was this– is this their real death? And- and anything I find in the future is further in the past than this one is. And getting that sense of despair and hopelessness. Like, I'm not good enough for this. I should go home. What's the point?
And I think these strange fish appear and I think it's something like… I'm trying to think of what– what a– what a– what a fish could be… doing. [Giggling]
The water changes temperature… notably… near them? Like, these fish come in from a stream and they start investigating my legs and they're- they're passive, and they're curious. And I jump a little bit as they come closer to me because they are somehow carrying– I think at first they're- they just must be carrying a cold draft, but actually, it seems like these fish generate cold. Or they absorb heat, I think is probably the way that– I don't remember how thermodynamics works. Um.
And it's this small thing, but it's something that, again, I've never seen before, and would have never had the reason to see if I'd stayed on my home planet. And I remind myself that this- this is part of it too. That I'm not just getting wrapped up in a big mystery, but this is also just… for me. And for my growth, and for my desire to see the things that the world has to offer. I don't need an excuse dragging me forward through my life. I am allowed to just… want to see what is out there and want to see cool, new, weird things.
And so… I hang out in the water for a little while longer until I'm feeling clean and I seal myself up in, like, a fresh vac suit… that I think there's, you know– there's a whole production of me pulling– it's- it's like, sealed, vacuum sealed, still. And I bring it down into the cave and then open it there, ripping the plastic off and put it on, so that there's– I don't open it in the ship or out there so that sand could get in it. It is all fresh, no sand. And I put it on and feel super refreshed and ready to be less frustrated if I don't find answers. Because that isn't entirely what it's about.
[Cards being gathered thoughtfully]
I want to preface that I'm not intending for that to be a reason that if I can't find a way to wrap this up neatly in the next planet, because we are doing five planets… it wasn't intentional that I am giving a thematic reason– like, ooh, the point of the story is that there's no point of the story. But… if that's what makes it work… isn't it beautiful that that's what the cards gave me? That that's what the cards and the die and I created together? An excuse for the cards and the die and I to create together something that isn't totally a cogent narrative? [Laughing] It's games, baby! Forget it, Jack. It's tabletop… town. Tab– table– it's table– it's game- it's- gamers… [Sighs, softly:] Okay.
GAME: PLANET FIVE
DUSTY: I think from there, I am to go back to the planet I used to go to. At least I think I'm heading towards that planet. So let's try… [Die rolling] I got three this time. [Cards being dealt] One, two, three.
JESS: Okay, one last planet. And then maybe maybe she has to turn around and head home for a bit. [Die rolling] That is a four, so there are four things on this planet that we're going to talk about. [Cards being dealt]
SATAH: Let's see… so normally, this game, you kind of just go 'til you're done. Because of the podcast, there's a limit here. And so there's a little bit more weighing on this roll than there normally would be any given planet roll. Let's see how much– I'm- I'm legitimately nervous. This is so funny. Okay, let's see. How much do I find on this last planet?
[Die clattering] Three. Not bad. I was– I was genuinely scared that it would be a one.
JESS: [Card flipping] And the first one I find… how much you want to bet that I'm going to come upon it suddenly? [Die rolling] No! Resting. We're starting out with rest. It's the end of, like, a very long mission, set of planets. And so I think- I think I'm wearing down a little bit.
And so she comes upon, resting, a seven of diamonds. Lots of animal life on these ones. "Near a volcano." Hot planet! Here we go.
Volcano. And it's going to be a living being near a volcano.
Okay– I'm immediately… okay. You know how there's, like, theories that life doesn't have to be carbon-based? And it could be based on another element? I don't know what it is right now. It's something really toxic to us, I remember that. Cyanide? Sulfur? Whatever it is, there's, like, theories about, like… what if other– life existed in the, like, bases of volcanoes, that was made of this other thing. I also think there's an X-Files episode based on this speculation, um, but I'm pretty sure it's more than just X-Files.
Anyway. It's real. In this universe. And I know because she finds it.
I don't think that's unexpected. I- I think she's seen a lot of weird stuff in her travels, but. She does have a little microscope built into her suit, so she's able to like, you know– she's got like a– she's got a sixth finger on her suit that is the tube of a microscope that she can use. Yeah, I love that.
And so she's, like, poking around in this lava, using the protection of her suit. And, like, in the coals, and she's zooming in, and she's like, "Wait, that's not mineral. That's a cell. But that's not–" She, like, goes in closer, because these microscopes are fine enough to see atoms. It's sci-fi. We're good. We can fit that on her– on her suit. She's like, "That's not carbon. Cool!" Even if it's– even if it's a thing that happens, it's, like, really cool to run into and find.
And this one– it's probably unique. Every planet, you never know what you're going to find. And so even though it's like single celled, it is single celled of a different type of cell. And that's so cool to her.
DUSTY: And… uh, five. So! Another deal while I'm resting, which I think is just a continuation of where I was. I'm still heading towards this planet that's not called home, but might as well be my cousin's house. Family that is not too familiar, but enough to share a drink with.
And I see another blip on the radar where there shouldn't be. And I stop, and the wanderer, the curiosity in me, immediately begins to fight with the logical side, where the past couple of planets I just discovered near this sector have been nightmares brought to life. Do I really want to discover more? But then if it's undiscovered, who's going to put it there so no one finds it? And this goes back and forth, until the curious side of me is the one sitting in the cockpit as I descend upon this new planet.
And as I get closer I see that it's not too different than the ones I've seen before, but definitely– you can see why no one has visited, as it seems to be constantly moving, as if there's something happening on the surface, or even above the surface, incredibly fast.
But what I find upon first… queen of clubs. So "in deep water," I see another "plant or immobile forms of life."
The water of this planet is actually what's closer to the surface. The gravity, the geography, the geological currents or what have you, have ended up with the sky and the water have been replaced. So as we're approaching, I have to quickly set my ship to be submerged, to put all its water- uh, water safeties on before it starts flooding. And I do that just before we actually enter.
And when we enter, the water behaves differently. You see that it's recognized molecularly, and by the systems as water– it doesn't seem to be causing any issues, as if we just filled into liquid nitrogen or something. But it's sluggish. The ship which I was entering atmosphere almost doesn't do a full stop. But I rapidly de-accelerate it. I see that the buffers for that on my ship are straining and I decide to kind of slow down, as fast as I can without causing damage to the ship, or myself on the inside.
And I see that as I go closer, I'm seeing, now, huge bodies that are akin trees. And I see that, if I look back, they go almost back to the surface of where I entered. But am I getting closer to them or just seeing them as I go? And they seem to be seaweed or something equivalent. These leafy kelp materia… plant life… kind of swaying, but enough have been gathered where they're as thick as tree trunks.
As I'm flying through I see that they go all the way… down? Up? It's hard to say when you've entered the planet through its water. But they reach all the way through before you kind of blast through to the other side. And you see that these seaweed, these kelp, these underwater trees, are kind of swaying, almost as if there's a bunch of tentacles floating from the sky down to the surface. Which is an incredible yet terrifying visual.
SATAH: Let's see how much more relaxing I do on this journey, huh? The first thing I discover… [Die clatter] is arduous to get to. Alright. It is a ten of clubs. Clubs are "plants and other immobile forms of life" and ten is "on a cliff face."
I think that part of what it is here is just that… this being the very first thing that I discover, I think… it's just a really bad flight. And landing. I think– I'm starting to remember, you know, when I left, the person at the garage warned me that this p– ship– I keep wanting to say plane, which like I guess, but not– it loses a bit of the drama.
I was warned that this ship is meant to be for relatively short journeys, or rather, it's meant to travel a lot, but it is meant to stop frequently in between legs of the journey, somewhere that it can get some maintenance. And I've been pushing it. Able to extend it a little bit just because I have enough experience in manual labor and that sort of stuff that there are basic repairs that I can make, but it is definitely getting past what I can do.
And so the flight is just unpleasant. The controls haven't totally recovered from what was going on on the sand planet. It is disorienting. They need to like reset their like– their baseline is all fucked up. There is still sand in some places in the ship, though I- I- I stay in my vac suit for now, as I'm– and probably pull out a vacuum, and I'm trying to clean it up.
And then… it's just an unpleasant landing. It's difficult to find somewhere to put down because my sensors are acting up, and so I don't totally know if I'll be landing in a super safe spot, or what I'll find there; I just kind of have to put down at this point. And so I find that's somewhere relatively high up, shorter distance for me to go from space. I'm on top of this cliff. And I find plants or other immobile forms of life.
What is it?
Roll out of the ship with sort of the distinct vibe of being in a fight? But it's with the ship? And I'm setting up my… tent. Like I'm like, I don't– I don't care what happens. I need to spend a night outside of that ship because it's driving me nuts.
So I'm setting up my tent. And– I- I test the ground to see– you know, can I- can I secure the tent to this or do I have to use… I'm sure that the tent has artificial… has- has ways of being secured to many different types of ground because it's meant to be for different, like interplanetary– [Stumbles over the word a couple of times] interplanetary exploration. So it can be on rocks and in dirt and whatever.
But I'm testing the ground… ooh. And I think… I think that I landed on a rock cliff, and I start poking at the ground to see which secure, uh spikes– which– what- what level of spikes I need to pull out in order to secure it into this ground. And I realise it's soft. It's very soft.
And I keep probing at it and analysing it a little bit. And I realise that– I'm looking around and it looks to me like I am on this big semi-mountainous region with these big sheer slate cliff faces going down into an ocean. And it dawns on me as I'm poking around at this ground that this is not inorganic material at all. I have landed on a huge plant of some kind. It's almost like– the texture I have in my mind is very thick moss, but a little more solid than that in the middle. And it's hard enough that it could feel like rock with moss growing on it when you first land on it. But as you apply different types of pressure, it's non-Newtonian, or whatever. And I realise that this big cliff that I'm on is a giant growth out of this ocean. And all of the cliffs around me are not land. It's almost like a big, weird above-water-level coral reef that just looks exactly like a bunch of, uh, shale and granite and whatever.
And so… it's great, because it's actually very easy to secure my tent here!
JESS: [Die rolling] And… the next one is also while we're resting.
I kind of lost the resting with the coals, didn't I? Why was she resting at a bunch of coals? It's done. We did it. She was supposed to be resting; she's like, mandatory rest period, but she has more that she wants to see before she go home. So it was actually that she was supposed to be resting.
This time she is resting. She overworked herself a little bit. And so… she finds… "by a gentle river," "living beings." Is she not going to get any more plants? Did we draw all the plants already? She's going to be very sad about the end of her journey if so.
So three of diamonds. It's by a gentle river, which is of course on this planet, a gentle river of lava. And so there's just this slow lava flow. And so far, the only signs of life have been these single celled organisms that I identified in the, like, embers of hot rock.
And then I see movement, faster than the current of the- the lava flow. And I start to realise… is there something alive in there? Then I see something resembling, like, a fin. And I stop. And I'm- I'm not moving on. I'm not- not until I know more about this. Is it alive in the lava? She does see a lot; this isn't the strangest thing she'd ever see. But it's a difficult environment for life, no matter what your foundational element is.
So she sets up and hides herself a little bit and activates her camera. And then… it crests. I'm imagining like a– like an armadillo but with a spine, kind of like a brontosaurus. They have, like, just, like, a few spines on their back, right? Regardless, that's what she saw earlier, and then it crests and does this little, like, squirmy dive up and down. And whatever it is, its natural environment is the lava.
She wonders, is it like a whale that has to, like, come up? Is it coming up to get something from the air that it needs for sustaining itself? Or is this like a fish? Like, can this thing survive in the lava? Does it get what it needs from either the lava alone or other creatures in the lava?
And here's the thing. For all the high quality science fiction equipment that she brought with her, none of it is going to survive being submerged in that lava enough to make meaningful observations. So whatever's going on under there will always be a mystery. But she's trying to learn to appreciate that.
SATAH: [Die clattering] The next thing is something that I come upon suddenly. [Card flipping] And it is a six of spades. So spades are natural phenomena and six is on the snowy peak of a mountain.
Hmm… so I think– I stay the night on the weird cliff and then the next day… I get to– "stay the night," I say in air quotes, because I think my night and day cycles are probably pretty random at this point. But I get some sleep in the tent and then I pack up. And… I pat the outside of the ship grudgingly like, "Okay, I took some time. I'm not mad at you anymore. I'm sorry. We've just been spending too much time together."
And I head out to explore, to see if I find a ship.
And I think for some– I- I- I am immediately thinking, like, very simply that this is just a planet where rocks and plants have switched places. [Laughing] Which… sounds so stupid. But… I'm thinking that the natural phenomena I find is that… I'm flying and… yeah, there's this mountain, this snowy peak mountain. And I think that I see– for the first time– because the rest of this planet, I quickly realise, the plant life on it is all huge. There aren't flowers, there aren't trees, there isn't even really grass or anything. It is all just those huge cliff-sized growths.
And at a certain point, I see trees. And I'm curious. I want to know, what are the circumstances in which trees grow here? And head towards this mountain.
And it's not literally "rocks and plants have swapped places," because I don't even know what that means, but it is… the thing I thought were trees is a rock formation. And maybe it is– I think the impression I get… it's almost like they are stalactites and stalagmites, but I don't know how they could have grown because there's no ceiling? And so my best guess is just that there's been some sort of major change in this– how this– in the environment of this planet, where it used to… be somehow in a form that this could be created here. These huge stiff rock forms that branch out. They look like naked trees, you know; we're in the snow, there's frost and snow forming on them. They don't have leaves or anything. They just look like huge tree trunks and boughs reaching out to touch each other.
And I think that's the other thing I realise: they are all touching each other. And I have no idea how these could have formed here, but it's this beautiful petrified forest, sitting on top of– again, one of those big plant growths that is this land. I think even sinking into it a little bit. I'm staring at the- the base and wondering what this is going to look like in a hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years, because it looks like… especially as snow falls on it and extra weight gets added, more stuff calcifies, whatever… it's pressing into the earth. Air quotes "earth." This plant. And I wonder if it will all just fall through at some point. If that's one of the reasons that this place looks mostly so flat, is that things do land on the surface, but ultimately break through, and then… because the ground is alive, it is a plant, it just grows back over it.
And, of course, I have to wonder if that's happened to a ship. Of a person in a time loop. That I am following. And I have to wonder if my searches here are maybe fruitless, and what I've missed, even on other planets, because the elements have taken… nature has- has stripped clues away. Maybe they've been leaving notes, but they were on old-fashioned paper and degraded. And it's just a reminder that there's so much I don't know. There's so much I could be missing.
And I think what it does is just strengthen the realisation I had on the last planet of like, I can't do this for this mystery. I have to just… I have to find joy in the journey. And… that has to be the thing that I do on purpose. The exploration has to be the thing that I do on purpose, and the other stuff can happen to me. I have to pursue the thing that I can pursue. And that is possible and consistent. And extra things that happen that are out of my control are just a bonus on top. And not the thing that I should be basing everything on.
DUSTY: What else do I find? [Card flipping] So. Diamonds are "living beings" and nine is "deep underground."
I think… this journey that I'm coming through as I descend from this water down to the surface… it's really– it's hard to tell what's happening, as there is air between where I am, but it almost feels like the whole earth is inverted, almost? That this empty pocket of air is leading me towards sediment and rock and all that.
And I am met with almost a solid sheet of rock, of mountain. It seems that… that there is this water layer, then there's this. And I see that there's plenty of tunnels and things to venture towards. So I decide to pick one and go.
And these tunnels go winding and forward and forward. It seems barren, and then you keep going and going and going. And it feels like I've been through this rock and underground for an hour, or– even though I check and it's been ten minutes.
And I see more natural light, and come out the other side from… almost a volcano? But it's… it's a hollow mountain; that's where I fly out from. And though I've been driving through rock and sediment and the crust of what would normally be first, I'm met with kind of a green oasis.
And… there are humanoids, at least, that look here, that see my ship. And it seems to be a small village or something. A city. Not huge, but there's definitely at least a dozen plus different kinds of buildings. So I land just outside of it, and I see… one of them run up to me. Not threateningly. But they go up to ask some questions. And they look strikingly similar to me, to other humans I see, that colonised all these planets.
And they start talking about how they've never met anyone off planet. How they've never seen a ship like mine before. Was it hard to get here? How did you get here? And as I'm explaining the situation, I see that their face becomes… both interested, and then it gets... not dour, but… concerned? Confused? As they hear all that I'm saying, and their eyebrow furrows, and they explain back to me how that can't be true. That's not how they were taught about this planet. They were told that this planet was just– you go through the paths, you go through these caves. The water, the endless ocean, does not exist. It's only a fairy tale.
And you see they're furrowed, and they run back to the town and start speaking with people. And then you hear their voices get louder, and more people are running towards them and you see them pointing at you. And I decide this feels like it's breaking bad. And I was telling them information that they maybe shouldn't know or did not know and were lied to their whole life. So I get back into my ship and I fly off. And as I'm starting to lift off, I see some of these people running towards me, and then I decide this is not my place, or my story to tell. So I run off.
JESS: 'Kay. How about the next thing? "Arduous to get to," makes sense. She's scaling a volcano.
I lost the resting thing again. I just get really excited about what I find. She– she was resting this time and that's why she was sort of taken by surprise, right? She's like, "Oh, nice little gentle lava flow. It's kind of relaxing. And then she, like, sees the spine crest and she's like, hey, what? Hey, okay, cool. Let's go hide somewhere and just set up a camera and I can justify it to anyone who's reading my mission logs, because I was supposed to be resting, and I stayed in one place. Even if I was working." I know that logic. It's very familiar to me.
Anyway. This one's arduous to get to. Let's find out what it is. [Card flipping] Five of clubs! [Chanting] Plant life, plant life, immobile forms of life.
And a five is in a treetop. We got trees on lava planet? You got trees on your planet? Are we interpretive, or are they actual…
I think. That… so, we've talked about how we've got an alternate, like, atomic base for life here. We've talked about it with animal life, but not with plant life. And there is a tree made up of… I don't know, cyanide? Whatever it is that it's actually theorised. That one.
And it's bizarre in its colouration, and it's bizarre in its texture. But some of the basic forms of it, the trunk, the branching… something that looks almost more like solar paneling, as if it like grew these glass and metal panels in something that resembles leaves, is just standing near the very top of, like, a volcano peak that I've been climbing. With those panels pointed towards the sky. And whether one could call it a plant really depends on how you define plant, but… she's a botanist. She knows a tree when she sees a tree. Presumably those panels seem like they might even be doing, you know, some equivalent of photosynthesis. This is a tree. And that's so cool.
And this is where she really has to like, make herself– oh, no, she doesn't manage it. She stays. She fought to get up to the top of this peak and she needs to know everything about this tree. And she like takes a leaf as a sample in like a little hard container, and like microscopes it to all hell.
And, um, this is just so, so cool. Like… I think this is some of the most that she's ever found something that is so distinctly… not of life as she knows it, and yet taking on such an analogous form. A tree that is in no cellular respects a tree. But… a tree.
And she camps that night under that tree at the tip of this volcano, but. Nothing is wrenching her away from that tree until she's had more time with it.
And then she has one more thing to find on this planet before she finishes her mission.
DUSTY: Pulling my last card… which is the two of hearts. More "ruins". I've had a very ruinous journey. So I find more ruins "under the light of the moon or moons."
I think how this goes is that I decided to slide back through this hollow mountain, and the cave structure, using the– just my previous coordinates to go the right way. And then I get back to that huge slat, that layer of earth between the air and this ocean, or the endless ocean as that person described it to me, and decide to just travel along it to see what I could find.
And as I'm doing so, I see that this layer of sediment of the rock, of this whole mountainside, encompasses the entire planet. It's not a huge planet by any means, but… I fly at high speeds for maybe about an hour, and I end up at the same coordinates. Not found any breaking of land. It's just all these caves and tunnels going downward.
I try a different direction, just to be sure. And then from there, I finally see something popping up… or down. My perspective is really, truly out of sorts here.
And… I see the structure…. the only thing I could describe it from visual is a- a temple. And when I get there, I see that there is… craggy rocks near what should be, um, stairs. And that's when I fully gather that whatever sun or light source there was has been replaced, as it does get… it's hard to really say, because all the light is entering through this water. So it gets darkER? And it's replaced with a different kind of light, where instead– I was getting the warm yellow of the sun nearby, and now it's this kind of shimmering white from the moonlight reflected off this twin moons that are rotating across this planet, causing almost double shadows, as they are just far enough where if you're standing in the right spot, you see two shadows coming off, at different angles. And those shadows get larger and larger as I ascend this crumbling temple.
It's structured almost as if a tiered pyramid, almost, but not quite– it's not as pointy. And I see, towards the top, it's a room that sits maybe twenty feet by twenty feet with a door on either side, seemingly, that you could enter from the other side of this temple. And a hole in the ceiling to let light through.
And you see… on the table, this pedestal, this monument there, is… not a book. It's written words, but it's on a page longer than would fit in a normal book, with handles almost, as if you could roll it up. And on it, I read, um in a language that I can actually understand, about what happened here. That the planet was actually never supposed to be like this. That there was something dangerous coming down here and… the scientists and mages– not sure what they mean by mages– the scientists and mages of this planet did a ceremony of sorts to… turn it to how it was, so that whatever entered from the endless ocean would not destroy life as we know it. And it's written, at the end, with great condolences and the name of about seven or eight people.
And the moonlight shines right onto it. This ink, almost… luminescent, glowing in all these prismatic colors as the moonlight hits it.
And that's sign enough for me where… I decide I should go again. This is definitely not my place. And if the endless ocean is what I came through, I again do not want to know what's out there causing them to be concerned enough to change a whole entire future generation's way of life.
So I get in my old trusty ship and head out. And decide I do need to go to a place I know, at least for once. I set the settings to go through the water and change it as I leave the atmosphere and go to space, and decide to head home, and… or, close to home as one could be. And get a strong drink. I think I've had enough excitement for a few lifetimes.
In my log, uh… I just name this planet Inverse. That's what it is.
SATAH: [Die clattering] I couldn't be more delighted to announce… that the last thing I find… is something I spot… while I am resting. It is so correct to me that the last card of this game is a card in which you should not at me, because I am. Saturday. Chilling.
Dear god, I hope that people know that meme. I never know when something was in Tumblr containment. Because it was my everything.
And it is… [Deep inhale] a jack of clubs. Oh. [Thump of hand hitting chest] Part of me was thinking maybe… a ruin, or a person, but nope. "Plant or other immobile form of life" "in the desert."
Well, what on earth… is a desert. On the planet that I've been describing so far? What is the definition of a desert? [Typing] So if it's little precipitation… maybe this is…
I was thinking about like quote unquote "cheating" and going up onto the moon of this planet. I think I am actually going to do that, because I think… I like the idea that this planet is entirely these plants. And there are those big rock formations. I guess… I could just find a really big rock formation and have that basically be a desert. Sure.
So, out of curiosity of how these big tree-looking rocks came to be, I start investigating, and I find a huge stretch of rock and land on it. And I sort of peter around, I tinker at it. I take a couple samples, but there's not much I can do with them. I'm not, like, a biologist, or a scientist in any way. I can't really study things. There's stuff in the ship. I can plug samples into the ship and it can spit out what molecules and elements are in it, and I can get some amount of understanding from that, but not very much. And… so I don't- I don't really learn anything, but… and I think that's a little annoying to me at first, but then I'm like, "Oh, I'm doing– I'm- I'm looking for answers again. I should just enjoy this big, weird stretch of land."
It's all– I think it's very smooth. The image that I'm getting is, you know how stalactites and stalagmites often– they have that almost eroded look, because they're formed with those slow drips and whatever? And so, this whole stretch of rock is very smooth. It looks like it was eroded. Part of me wonders if maybe significantly more of this planet used to be underwater and that's how a lot of this happened. But I don't know because I'm not a scientist.
But I… decide to just chill out on this stretch of land for a little while longer. [Yawning] And I see plants and other immobile forms of life.
I am going to massage this slightly. Just because… I think probably this is supposed to very much be naturally occurring. But the thing I find while I'm on this, like, a meandering useless walk, stretching my legs before I get back into my ship… is a little farm- portable farm thing. It's– I'm thinking of– in No Man's Sky, you can build these farming stations. So it's not like it's terraformed, but it's– I mean, it's essentially like… it's a tiny portable greenhouse, the size of like, a medium garden pot, that is– it's the type of thing that you do as an experiment so you don't have to commit a full crop to seeing if you can successfully grow something, even in artificial conditions, on a planet.
I see this– in a dip in the desert rock, nestled down, in a little bit of shadow– this series of pots with that company logo on them, the company of the ship that I've been following, the captain I've been following.
And the first ones that I see are dead. Obviously very old. And I'm curious and I keep walking down the line, and there are a lot of them. And they're different, too– they're different types of plants, like this really was an experiment to see what would grow here.
And I keep walking. And I stop. Because one of them is just starting to push up into the air, a fresh bud. This has to have been planted within the past couple weeks. And I turn on the radio… and I don't hear anything… and I look around, there's no ship in the sky. I haven't seen evidence of another person. And I think, "Oh, this one's– this is the most recent thing I've seen. I should wait. I should stay here. My ship is flying poorly anyway; I should just stay. I can stay, and I can wait, because maybe they'll come back."
And I catch myself and I pull out my little card with the radio signal that says "I'm right behind you." And I hand draw on a little smiley face or a heart or something, and I stick it on the youngest looking plant. And I go back to my ship. And I take off. 'Cause I'm not going to just wait here for this mysterious pilot that I'm chasing to come and answer all of my questions for me. I'm going to keep living my life and exploring and finding new things. And if this is truly… destiny. If this is fated, like I've believed a number of times over this journey, it'll happen when it needs to happen.
JESS: And she comes upon it resting. She's tired. Even after the time spent with this tree. It's been a long planet, a long mission. And I think it probably happens while she's sleeping at the base of this tree. Let's find out though. What is it? [Card flipping] A jack of hearts. We're back in the desert. This is the last jack. "In the desert." Volcano can be desert? Question mark? Hearts. "Ruins." Ruins! This is only my second ruins! Only my second heart. Randomness is cool.
The very last thing she finds.
She wakes in the morning. And… the… the leaves, the- the solar panel leaves, they turn to track the sun. And because of that, one of them had sort of been hiding the other. Like she'd been inspecting one leaf really deeply, but it's not like she looked at every leaf close up. And so one of them was sort of obscured by the other, but when it rotates, when she wakes, she just looks above her.
And… maybe they don't shed leaves. I don't know. She doesn't know. She'll never know. But maybe they don't- they don't have like a fall spring cycle. It's much more long-term, these strange cyanide trees.
And so… the carvings on the bottom of the leaf are still there. Who knows how long those have been there, but they look unlike anything else she's seen. And they don't look like the sort of naturally forming patterns that are on the tree's texture itself. It could be– she can't really know, but something in her, the botanist in her says those were carved there intentionally.
Two symbols. And one connecting it.
DUSTY: Set my coordinates to the one planet I know. I lock them, so that you don't get changed accidentally and decide to take a good long nap.
SATAH: I think about going home to check in with my friend in the garage, and having them repair the ship. And then, instead, I just… mostly, as I've been navigating, I've been using the data we took off of that first ship? And for the first time, I close that, and I pull up a local star system map that I can find just pingin' around on the radio- the radio waves.
And I look up a settlement. Or a station. Somewhere I can find to land and get my ship looked at and put in a best shape again, so that I can keep going without putting myself in danger. And I plot a course to it.
JESS: Did someone fall in love at the base of this tree? Did someone climb it and carve their initials into one of these panels? Did they– did they have initials? Why the panel… and not the trunk? Is it a custom? Does the trunk shed?
A thousand questions go through her mind the moment she wakes up and looks up and see these carvings, these symbols.
She'll keep those questions with her. She doesn't write them down. She doesn't note them in her journal. That's not what she's been sent out here to do. She'll have a photo of the carvings, and she'll have her questions inside her; thousands of them, every time she goes out on a trip like this.
And maybe someday, she'll read a paper from a scientist who followed her. And they'll explain, they'll answer, one of those questions, but… never all of them. Probably not this one.
But there's something really fun about that, you know?
SATAH: [Cards being gathered] And that's… that's my journey! Thanks for… thanks for joining me.
DUSTY: That was my space journeys.
S'fun game! I really enjoyed how both simple, but really, like, evocative all of these prompts were. All of these planets were just off the cuff, but I would definitely– I'm gonna steal some of these for my own projects, for my own ideas.
I– I like world building stuff, so this is just a perfect game for me. Shout out to you, Takuma Okada. Alone Among the Stars. A good game. Very good, fun game.
I… have been your, um, not lonely, but curious space cowboy, signing off.
OUTRO
SATAH: This has been Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and epistolary TTRPGs. To find where you can find the show, check out foliopod.carrd.co. Sign up as a paid member at patreon.com/foliopod to vote on games and participate in live streams, or join for free to get access to the bonus feed with edited audio-only versions of the streams a couple of weeks after they happen.
You can find Jess Levine at jessfrom.online, jessfromonline on Bluesky and Twitter, and check out her games at jumpgategames.itch.io.
You can find Dusty at dustehill, D-U-S-T-E-H-I-L-L on Twitter and Bluesky, check out their games at fromdusttodice.itch.io, and hear them on Goblets and Gays.
You can find Satah– that's me– at posatahchips on Twitter and Bluesky, and check out my other work at gaygothvibes.online.
This week, Jess and Dusty and I finished our games of Alone Among the Stars by Takuma Okada, linked, as always, in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and take care out there.