INTRO
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 with a one-off donation at ko-fi.com/foliopod. 
This is episode two of our games of To Honour and Obey, "a solo tarot rpg about an Arthurian lady protecting her own" by Laurie O'Connel. The other two lonesome expectant mothers holding down the literal forts with me are Happy Birthday and Chloe Sobel. Check out HB's games at gm36.itch.io and Chloe's games at smallstories.io. 
GAME: ACT ONE (CONT'D)
EPISTOLARY
SATAH: "Act one epistolary: Write to your mother.
CHLOE: "Tell her about your new keep and your new duties as a lady of a small fiefdom.
SATAH: "Tell her of your insecurities and fears, of your love and resentment for your husband, of your fears for your future, the threats you see on the horizon. Ask her what she would do in your place."
HB: What useful advice does she give us, if any? And if we enact it, place a token upon our strength.
SATAH: Wow. Yet another– really, again, comfort zone. Talk to your mother? Whew!
HB: Hm. Let's draw a major arcana card, because I don't necessarily have a great read on who our mother might be. I do know she has survived, perhaps on account of, uh… not being in the keep when we, you know, maybe flipped out a little bit? So let's find out a little more.
SATAH: Do I actually want to write out a letter? I don't think that I do, but I can talk through what the letter would be.
CHLOE: I think that I tell her that… I'm worried that people are trying to take advantage of me. That they think that without my husband with me, I can't stand on my own. And… maybe they're right. What if they're right?
I think that I am the eldest daughter in my family, so there is a degree to which I was expected to marry well, and trained to marry well, and trained to run a household, but being on my own for the first time to do all these things, while it was exciting at the start, I'm now, with a couple of weeks alone under my belt, starting to feel that I don't really have any allies here. And I don't know what to do about that.
And I love my husband, but I wish that he hadn't left me here by myself. I'm- I'm scared. Uh, I'm scared that if I try to handle the steward no one's going to take me seriously or they'll enable him.
And I think I think my mother writes back and her advice is to befriend my maidservants? Um, like, the women who work in the castle. I think that she– you know, she cautions that it can't ever be a truly equal relationship, but they will benefit from it and I will benefit from it. And that is the best way to counter the male enemies that I have here, because, like, the female servants are in a uniquely good position to understand the goings-on of the castle and be forgotten by the men sometimes.
SATAH: I think the letter that I write to her is confused in its tone. I am both trying to prove myself to her and genuinely connect with her. I want both of those things, gesturing at our complicated relationship.
And I think that there is– that- that desire for connection is stronger now that I am… with child. And I want to know her experiences of it. What it was like. And maybe specifically what I was like, assuming that she's probably– I probably have siblings. People had a lot of kids often, right?
I n– is she magic? That's important to know.
I think… in the grand tradition of… people who didn't know that they were, for example, autistic for a very long time, realising that they're autistic and then going, huh, why didn't my parents think that I was a little weird? And then going, oh! One or both is also autistic and just doesn't know, so they thought I was regular style… because I'm like them. But they're also weird. Feel free to substitute autism for a lot of different stuff that could be happening in your brain.
Similar to that, I think my mother is- is very much a… maybe a bit of a woman's gift type person? Is like, women just know things? And I think is- is relatively cloistered in a lot of ways, and I've done a little bit more traveling, in part because of my… cool husband. And been like, I think there are actually women- a lot of women who don't know things! I think that I have magical powers. And I think I probably got them in part from you.
And I don't think we've had that conversation. I tried once, but it got shut down. Because again, this is– that would be– that would be dirty- dirty magic, right?
But I think I… I ask her if she had strange dreams while she was pregnant. I ask her if the world felt very different. If she was ever concerned that the danger she was feeling was coming from inside of her, rather than outside of her. Like, if everything seemed very scary and the world seemed dangerous, was there ever a part of her that wondered if she was being misled by the child growing inside of her? Or if she just believed it? Or if she knew it wasn't right and knew it was something else?
And I gesture to my negative feelings for my husband's travel by talking about how nice it was that I grew up seeing my father at dinner every night. He may have been emotionally distant, but he was physically present. And I'm growing to appreciate that more and more in retrospect.
And… I want to find a way to mention the- the priest. I think it's something like, you know… "You're such a wise woman. I am sure there were many who were intimidated by you, perhaps even threatened, because they could not see your inherent goodness," I grovel slightly. "How did you deal with that? How did you remain in your convictions that you were correct?"
Which again, I think is both a– I'm both genuinely asking and also being a little bit snide of like, "Well, you think you're always right, so…"
And I ask- I ask- I ask these questions. And what does she say?
She talks about how when she was pregnant with me, she was terrified. She would have these flashes of rage that scared her, and she wondered if I was going to be a terror. And then I came out quite sweet and quiet. And she's wondered if it was… protectiveness that made her or me or us so angry, or if it was rage at how long I would have to wait to fulfill my purpose.
I think I got married [Laughing] a little bit later… than she wanted. And was considered to have a lot of unfulfilled potential when I was younger that I am now somewhat belatedly fulfilling.
She's trying to be kind with that.
And I think that she says something to the effect of, "Take no stock in those who would be intimidated by the truth. You have the gift, in a way I have not explored, of delivering it softly. Perhaps it is best to explore that. But always know– no matter the words that leave your lips or your fingers, know the things that are true to be true." And the most surprising and somewhat radical thing that she says at the end of that sort of segment is like, "Astegan, you are good. Your fair sir would not have married you were you not. You can hold that like a stone you wrap your hand around in your pocket to keep you from fear. If someone tells you you are not good, they simply do not see the truth. Hold on to that." Something like that.
And I think, surprisingly– I really went into this thinking that I wouldn't put a token on my strength, because… limits of my imagination. Taking advice from my mother didn't seem likely. But I think that… the conviction with which she writes that, after I've spent a really long time especially thinking that she doesn't think I'm good, really does help me to hold on to it.
HB: Oh, her advice is the Hermit. I'm not necessarily entirely well-versed in tarot meaning, so I'm just going to… oh! Okay. "The Hermit is prudent circumspection, also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, and corruption." [Laughing]
Yeah. I think our mother writes back with the important advice that we should, you know… there is a lot– I think the thing that our mother tells us is that, for many people, it may feel like the world is against them, that they can trust nobody, that there is no– that they have no friends out there, and that, well, it seems that everything is arrayed against them. And our family is one of the few people for whom that is entirely true. That we have every reason to be afraid, that we should be careful, that the danger is real, it is not just inside of your head, and that we must be open-eyed, we must be prepared to act decisively.
I share my anxieties about the man-at-arms I am lodging with, and our mother completely agrees, and advises that we may perhaps need to send him on a task, and if he should not return from that task, well, all the better for us. And, you know, our husband won't like it, but, you know, he's our husband. Who's he going to trust? This man-at-arms or us?
You know, just some… live your best Lady Macbeth life.
And so… yeah! I think this is advice that… we've been kind of rolling around a similar thing in our own head, and I think our answer to this is yes, absolutely! This is a great idea, Mother. Let us conspire. So I'm going to put a token onto the Tower.
SATAH: I am going to put a token on my strength. My first token on my little Hermit card. And I begin to approach the world with a certain self-assuredness, a little bit less likely, at least for now, to be able to be convinced that I am dangerous or bad.
CHLOE: Do I enact her advice, or do I try to just go it on my own? Hm…
No, I think I– I think I will. I think I'll– like, there's probably some people who seem like good, safe bets, and so I will try to enact her advice and I will place a token upon my strength.
SATAH: I'm shuffling that major arcana card back into the deck, presumably keeping my strength and my enemy. Alright.
GAME: ACT TWO
HB: Alright.
CHLOE: Alright.
HB: Now we launch into…
CHLOE: Act two: swords.
SATAH: In the Wanderer deck, pretty direct analog: knives.
HB: "You survey your keep and the surrounding land and find there is much work to be done.
SATAH: "The previous occupants ran the keep into the ground, and it is clear now why your questing king granted it so easily to your husband. Your inner cynic can't help but think it was hardly a generous gift.
CHLOE: "With only the very limited resources available to you when your husband is away, you will have to do everything you can to solve the local issues and rebuild without showing any weakness.
HB: "You know that you are being watched closely, and your enemies will take advantage if they ever see you flinch."
SATAH: Cool.
HB: Yeah, unfortunately, we are gifted with a great many weaknesses and very few- very few obvious strengths.
SATAH: I think this is also one of the things where my lack of genre knowledge has, like, left me a little confused about… not just genre knowledge, but also, like, I- I- I have a huge blank spot in just sort of medieval stuff generally. And so I didn't, like… what I'm coming to understand is… I own, like, a city? Like, there's people here that I'm, like, maybe a little bit of a queen or something..? I don't- I don't totally know. I- I- that seems to be true. I have to solve some of the issues of the locals. Okay. I will understand more about this as I see what those problems are, I think.
CARD ONE
HB: Let's start drawing from the deck of swords.
CHLOE: Ooh, and that is a reversed card, which means that my enemy is going to gain a token. Fun! Put a token on the lovers for my bad magician ex-boyfriend.
So I have drawn the six reversed, another ten, and a page. Maybe I didn't shuffle these as well as I thought I did, but that's alright.
"You receive word of a blight which has affected almost all of the crops in the neighbouring village. How do you help the villagers?"
I… I don't know the first thing about blights and disease. Like, I know about it from the point of view of, like, dealing with the people affected by it, but I don't know how to… always handle it. And so I think– alright.
So the deal is, if a card is drawn in reverse, you describe how your clever solution to the problem in front of you puts you in a bad situation.
My clever solution in this case is my wicked magician ex-lover did teach me a little bit of magic. And in this case, I think that he specifically taught me something that I feel will help with the blight. The problem is… the problem that I sort of remembered as a consequence of this from when he taught me when we were younger, that I sort of didn't really anticipate now, is that it makes me sick.
I'm able to stop the blight. The damage is already done to a certain extent, um, so the other thing that I'm doing is I'm establishing… sort of a community sharing situation with, like, the stores in the castle and, um, but, you know, this is gonna be a problem next year, too, so I'm like, I will enchant the plants so that the blight doesn't hit them again.
But it makes me sick. And I realise that I'm gambling with my son's life by doing this, which I regret. And it leaves me bedridden for… I think, like, a couple of weeks.
SATAH: Nine. "Surveying the ledgers with your steward, you spot a discrepancy in the accounts. Do you confront him or investigate on your own? What do you discover the solution to be?"
I absolutely investigate on my own. [Laughing]
What do I discover the solution to be? Let's draw from the major arcana.
I have drawn the Devil reversed. So, I'm going to give my enemy a token. The Devil is "chaos, creativity, addiction, embracing shadow." Certainly not addiction for me. Straight up line in my games.
Chaos and creativity… hm hm hm.
"If a card is drawn reversed, your enemy always gains a token. Describe how your clever solution to the problem in front of you puts you in a bad situation." Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I don't need to– I can interpret it relatively straightforward, but it will get me in trouble. Perfect! That's my favourite.
"Chaos, creativity, embracing shadow." I'm thinking… money is being siphoned to, like… there's, like, an artist who I'm a patron to who's maybe taking a little bit more than they should. The idea of chaos, also– just, like– things aren't being tracked properly, is very possible.
Maybe it's both. Yeah, I kind of like that. It's like– so I think that it's a relatively straightforward, like, this person is just taking more then they should and then I look into it and the numbers just aren't quite right, still, and so it becomes clear that that person is doing that, but not actually to the extent that explains all of the discrepancy, and it turns out that actually everything is a little bit wrong.
And I guess there's two things that I directly ask for, or do. You know, I visit our little pet painter… perhaps a poet. I visit and I'm like, "Hey…" I think I'm very, very sweet about it, as sweet as I can be about it. But, like, I note that the bookkeeping was obviously in disarray before we got here, the ledgers, and that unfortunately, it does seem that, though I hope that his cost– his living– that the life he's become accustomed to will not be too interrupted, I do have to return his stipend to the agreed upon amount.
And I think that I have to go and I have to talk to a few different people about this. And they aren't all taking more. Some of them are genuinely being underpaid, and I get to be like, "Hey! You should be doing this–" is it too obvious I don't know what fucking what ledgers would be keeping track of here? That's fine.
You know, there's, like, somebody who we buy the wood for the fires from, and I'm like, "We were paying you last season's prices but writing down this season's, and so… we won't be able to make up the back amount– especially because you counted it yourself but agreed to it– but we will be bringing that up in the future."
And so some people are happy with this, but a lot of people are annoyed because they will be getting less, and… all of that is, like, just making my relationship with a lot of people a lot more complicated. And I think it's extra complicated because I didn't– I'm not giving less money or whatever to everyone, so they can't even all just have solidarity of like, "Ugh, we all have to tighten our purse strings." There's some people who are like, "I don't know, seems fair to me! Turns out that I wasn't being paid the whole amount. And so now I am. And that seems great, actually." And so there's tension.
And I think specifically to really hone in on, you know, the problem putting me in a bad situation… this artist. I think they are a poet because I want the image of them, like, reciting their works and it being a problem.
They're just– they just start to write some stuff that's plausibly deniable enough that I can't say anything immediately, but, like, is painting me in a really bad light. Probably leaning into that eccentricity, you know? They go and they talk to some of the people in the castle and learn some of those rumours that that priest was glowering to me about, and… there's nothing I can do about it yet because it's not… it's just not pointed enough, and tensions are odd and high, but. Rumours are being spread about me in verse.
HB: The Knight of Swords. "A hoard of Roman gold is found buried in the fields by a local farmer, but there is a dispute about who the coins belong to, and you are asked to adjudicate. What is the problem, and how do you resolve it?"
Yeah. So I think the essential issue is… is that the farmer is, uh– is- is that the farmer is a– I guess not a serf exactly– or actually, they might be a serf at this time period. Uh, you know, they are a serf, and they are working, and they are working their lord's lands, and, you know, they have found the gold, and I think the basic problem is, is that they found the gold and hid it, rather than, you know, turn it over to their lord, which is- which is what they would be expected to do. And I think there is an obvious– there's an obvious power mismatch, and there is, of course, you know…
And I think what essentially happens is that several of the peasants come forward and ask us specifically to intercede on their behalf. And the reason why this is necessary is because I think the gold does not actually belong to the farmer. But, you know, they go like, well, you know, there's a new lord. Or a new lady, as the case may be. There's a new lord and also a new lady, and the new lady may be inclined to be merciful and, you know, give us the– you know, rule in our favor, either that the gold belongs to us or that we are entitled to a portion of it. Because what's going to happen without our intercession is that the lord is just going to take all of it and probably execute the serf in question for trying to deceive their- for trying to deceive the person who they belong to.
And it's… you know. There's a great deal of gold on the line as well, so it seems entirely fair that we should intercede as well.
What do we do about this? I think we're going to fall back on our strength here, which is the Tower, and I think what we're going to do is say, "Ah! Well, the land is mine, so I'm going to take the gold." Which is, I think, a thing that displeases everybody, but it does give us a lot of vital funds to start rebuilding our keep with.
And I think, you know, our basic argument here is that, well, it's our land in the end, and we are the protectors of this land. We will use this gold to protect you all. Which of course pleases nobody except ourselves, but, on the other hand, we do get a lot of Roman gold out of it. It may not have won us any friends, but, well! Gold can buy you friends as well.
And I think this ultimately results in people rumouring that, uh– this ultimately results in all sorts of unkind rumours beginning to circulate about us. However, rumours cannot hurt us, but the lack of a defensive wall absolutely can, and we immediately start spending this money to hire some masons and do stuff like that to, uh– to essentially try and offset the dire state of the keep as it stands.
CARD TWO
SATAH: Second card is Prophet, which is the Wanderer deck analog for the King, I believe?
So, "A famous craftsman who has traveled to Britain from Byzantium offers to make a powerful artifact for your unborn son in return for a private dinner with you. Do you accept his offer or refuse, to protect your reputation? Was this a genuine offer or a plot to humiliate you?" Oh my god!
I absolutely accept. And I think I'm going to give my enemy a token because… it's not desperation, but I think this was the wrong move. Especially– rumours are already being spread about me. [Laughs]
And I think it is a genuine offer. I think I'm actually going to tie this man to my, like, maid who helps me with magic. She doesn't know him, but she knows of him and is like, "Yes, this- this is a very powerful man." I think that's the only reason I even let him speak to me, you know, is that she's like, "Ih yeah, no, he's the real deal."
And I think the thing is– I think it has to be a genuine offer because I think I purposefully meet him in the full light of day so that I can question him and his intentions.
I'm not totally sure what he offers to make yet. I do think it might have something to do with, like, the magnifying glass? Like he offers to make a… a telescope or something like that, that is like wild. But…
Yeah, I mean, I have a private dinner with this man. And I think I like the idea that he's also a little bit guileless about it. He isn't being super sneaky. He wants to protect his trade secrets. And he genuinely wants to talk to me because he gets like a cool, weird magic vibe off of me. And we both allow ourselves to forget that it's inappropriate because we want to be able to do it, but he's not trying to do anything inappropriate. That doesn't mean that it isn't, or isn't seen that way, because it absolutely is. Especially– we have our little pet poet who doesn't like me and… just gave him a bunch more ammunition. [Laughs] I think it's worth it at the moment. Not everyone around me will agree.
HB: Our next card is… the Seven of Swords. "You notice that one of your castle walls is beginning to crumble. Do you find a way to repair it?" Well, it just so happens we've got a lot of Roman gold on hand! We are immediately hiring masons. We are bringing out- we are bringing out the big guns. We are going to reassemble this wall.
I am, however, going to put a token onto the World, because I think what's going to come out of this is that people are beginning to get the… I think as a result of the unkind rumours being spread, the general circumstances of our, like, arrival here, the overall vibe of this entire endeavor… means that people start thinking that the gold is cursed.
And I think events start to kind of line up in a way that suggests they might be correct. Where I think the wall– we start to repair the wall, we bring in masons. What happens is that one of the masons goes missing in the woods and is found later, like, torn to pieces by wild animals. There is– I think one of them– I think the wall crumbles and crushes several people.
There is a vibe of– there is a vibe of, like, death and strangeness about the entire situation.
Because we have gone straight into it in this way, what essentially happens is that people are, uh… people start thinking, hmm, something is wrong here. There is an ominous air hanging over the keep, and rumours start spreading far and wide. I think the situation quickly gets out of hand.
People start coming up with surprisingly credible rumours that maybe it's the lady of the keep herself. Maybe there's something going on with her. There is a strangeness about her. There is a, uh… ever since she has arrived here, there have been a number of bizarre incidents, and, you know. They rumour this and they do not know how close to the truth they are.
CARD THREE
CHLOE: Ten.
SATAH: Ten.
CHLOE: "Loggers request access to a small wood at the edge of your land said to be sacred to a group of druids.
SATAH: "Do you allow them to cut down the wood or refuse?
CHLOE: "What unintended consequence does your decision have and
CHLOE & SATAH: "how do you deal with it?"
CHLOE: In connection to the Hierophant being- representing my strength, I think that I refuse to let them cut the wood. I don't believe in the druidic religion, but I respect it, and I also think– I think the- sort of the calculus I'm doing is that I would rather have the druids as allies than anger them or potentially the powers that they believe in and worship.
Unfortunately, when a fire sweeps through the village, it means that we don't have enough wood to handle rebuilding, which makes people extremely unhappy. Yeah.
So I'm gonna- I'm gonna put two tokens down. I'm gonna put one down on my strength because I did use it, but I'm also acting in desperation when I confront the fact that the village has recently been on fire, and, um… "the unintended"… yeah.
And how do I deal with it? Yeah, I shut down. I let someone else handle it. I let the steward, the asshole steward who is mistreating the people under my care handle it. And he does, but… he does extort them a bit.
SATAH: So right away, I know that I refuse and that my the rumours of my deviltry start to really amplify.
I think… the somewhat naive thing that I do… this is the problem, in some ways, with holding on to the idea that I am good and that I deserve to be allowed to do things without worrying about what other people think of me… is that I will and then they will think things of me.
So somewhat naively, I talk to the druids. I go to talk to the druids and I say that I heard rumours of this, but I know as well as anyone that rumours are not always to be trusted. And if these lands are not sacred to you, then can I sell these trees?
And they're like, well, all trees are sacred, so drot that down… drot? Jot that down.
But yeah, specifically, they're like, yes, no, this is a very important part of our land. It would be a huge loss to us to lose them. Please help us protect them. Thank you for speaking to us. We would not allow them to be lost without a fight, but we prefer not to.
And I'm like, okay! Got it! And so I refuse it. I'm ike, nope you can't.
Do I say… do I tell the truth– am I like, those trees are important to people?
I don't, and I think it would have been better for me if I did. Because I could have played it off as like, "Oh you know how they are. It's so silly, but I- I really don't want the tension." I don't think I'm like that. I think that I'm a little protective of it and so I just say no. And I'm seen as a little bit cagey. And so it- it becomes very like… "Well, maybe it's not that–" oh, yeah, it's- it's, "Maybe they're not sacred to Druids, which is something we understand. Maybe it's something much darker, whatever this weirdo has going on with her deviltry, etc."
And how do I deal with it? I think the honest answer in this moment is that I don't. I just kind of shut myself away. And I let the rumours go. [Laughs] Yeah. I- yep. I think that's it. I'm just like, yep, well, you can think what you like of me; you're not cutting down those trees, so. I don't care.
I do care. It's terrifying. But also, I kind of don't, you know? It's complicated. [Laughs]
HB: [Laughing] With all that, let's take a– let's take the third card, which is the
CHLOE: page of swords.
HB: page of swords.
CHLOE & HB: Oh!!
HB: "An artist wanders into your halls,
CHLOE: "asking for bed and board.
CHLOE & HB: "As you cannot refuse him guest rights,
HB: "what work of art do you commission from him while he stays at your hearth? What aspect of it has a magical nature?"
CHLOE & HB: I think…
CHLOE: I commission a… hmm.
HB: Yeah, this is another beautiful token for our enemy.
He is a weaver, and I think there is a– and I think… strange things continue to happen while he stays at our keep, and I think we commission a tapestry from him about the, uh… about the brave deeds of our husband. You know, to hang it up so that when he comes back he can go like, "Well! You've done a great thing here. Look at this tapestry that commemorates my great deeds. Everybody coming into my hall will know what a hero I am."
And it's a very well-intentioned work that we try and commission here. However, I think as the artist continues to work, he… he doesn't put those in there, or at least does not admit to putting them in there, but there is just the faintest hint of, like, monstrous shapes inside of the tapestry. That when you look at it from a distance, it's kind of like… all the stuff that I asked for is in there. However, the shape of it as a whole arranges itself into a manner suggestive of a monster, and I think when people go by the tapestry and look at it, they think, "Mm…" They just have the sense that a horrible, huge presence is looming over them. This is a big tapestry.
And there's just no explanation for it. And I think the overall thing is that because– it is genuinely a masterpiece, is another thing. It is a beautiful tapestry. It just also happens to have a really ominous vibe and suggests to people images of blood, images of violence, images of strange carnage. And, you know, we hang it up in… one of the more out-of-the-way halls. It's not suitable for the Great Hall, but we hang it up anyway. It seems kind of a shame to destroy it at this point.
We let the artist go and part on reasonably good terms.
CHLOE: I think that what I commissioned from him is a painting of myself in my pregnant state. I think I have recently started to show, as well as to feel the baby quickening, um, and I am– I'm interested in sort of having this captured, if only to give to my husband so that he, you know– he can see me in the the glow and bloom of pregnancy, even as things feel like they're sort of starting to fall apart around me.
"What aspect of it has a magical nature?" You know what it is? I think that, um, you can see through the windows in the back of the painting. They reflect the time of day and weather in the real world. It's sort of, you know, a little– a little trinket magic, but I find it very charming. But I also don't think I notice it until the artist is gone.
EPISTOLARY
HB: So! Now we move on to the act two epistolary.
SATAH: Act two epistolary: write to your husband.
CHLOE: "Tell him how you are protecting his property in his absence, of any issues with the household you think he may need to know
SATAH: "Decide how much you tell him, as a dutiful wife, and how much you hide from him as a woman protecting your own interests.
CHLOE: "Tell him about the child still growing within you and any hopes and fears you may have for him."
SATAH: "Tell him about the child still growing within you and any hopes and fears you may have for him.
CHLOE & SATAH: "Ask him,
SATAH: "if you dare,"
CHLOE: "if you dare,
SATAH: "whether he will be back from his travels in time for the birth." Augh! Okay.
HB: "Decide how much you tell him as a dutiful wife, and how much you hide from him as a woman protecting your own interests." I think we hide a lot of things. I think we fail to mention the curse hanging over the keep, the strangeness with the tapestry, the terrible omens piling up, all of that.
We do tell him that we found the cache of Roman gold and have been using it to restore the keep. We do tell him that there's a beautiful new tapestry. We tell him all about… how we are slowly rebuilding the keep, slowly getting stuff in order. We lie very openly that we are on good terms with the man-at-arms he has left us. We, you know, just try and put a positive spin on things.
We "tell him about the child still growing within us and any hopes and fears you may have for him." I hope, of course, that he is– I hope, of course, that he takes after his father more than after his mother. His father, obviously, being a great hero who is even now presumably performing all kinds of heroic deeds.
"Ask him, if you dare, whether he will be back from his travels in time for the birth." We do not dare. I think there is a… I'm not sure if we'd even be especially pleased if he came back right now. It's kind of a mess out here. The situation is going from bad to worse. I think we, you know– we just sort of resolve to suffer in silence, which is, you know, our lot in life. We are just kind of… we are just kind of , you know, biding our time, figuring out what all of this might possibly mean.
SATAH: I think the only thing that I– like, it's mostly just very rote, standard stuff that I tell him. I give him updates on everything. I do lay out the stuff about the ledgers. And I think I say that, like, "It's starting to feel that my ties to you turn me into a somewhat more dramatic figure in people's mind than I actually am!" Exclamation point. "The things people say in response to their own mundane feelings, to the complications of getting the house in order, truly border on the absurd.
"I do think that when you come home, you will be able to sort much of it out. Perhaps if you're… able to arrive back a couple of weeks before the birth, there will be time to address all of these silly things and have the baby arrive to a more calm environment.
"Of course, it's no problem if you are here just before. There will be time after, and the environment is not so disquieted that I think it would be a problem."
I think that's the closest I come to asking if he'll be here for the birth.
Do I say anything else about the kid? Yeah, I say, like, "He responds to your favourite song," or something like that. You know, he… there's, like, a butler. There's an old butler who came with my husband, I think, who was his, like, childhood keeper, and is too old now to wander around with him but lives lives with us and he often sings songs from my husband's childhood, and… I tell him– though I don't think it's true [Laughs]– I tell him that I notice the baby respond more to those songs, when he sings them, than to others.
I think… I have this connection with the kid with my truth sense, you know? I think– I mean it is hard to say– like, I think there are parts that do genuinely scare me because the baby is in the dark, you know? There is no way to shine a light on the baby. And so I can't have, like, a full connection, but I feel relatively certain that I know and understand the baby's intentions when he does stuff, and I don't think he actually gives a shit about his dad's stupid childhood songs. But that is what I tell his dad in hopes to be like, "Hey. Remember that you have a kid? Do you want to meet him?"
And I think that I don't explicitly say I'm scared that people will judge him the way they judge me. I think that I say something that kind of implies it, but only if you are reading carefully, which I'm not convinced my husband would be. It's the kind of thing of like, "Oh, I just know that when he's born, he will be so perfect that no one would dare cast aspersions on… no-one would dare give him a wayward glance in the way they do sometimes me. Perhaps their glances towards me, even, will soften in the light of his perfection." That kind of thing.
CHLOE: Yeah. I think I- I mostly… I tell him, you know, that the baby is quickening, um, and how excited I am for… like, to bear our son, um, and I hope that he is as brave as his father is because that will mean he is so, so very brave.
I do finally mention this steward to him. It's sort of couched as, "There was an irregularity, and I'm wondering if you've ever experienced anything like this," and, you know, "If you have advice, I want it." And not, like, accusatory. Not like, "I think this guy is skimming off the top," even though I'm certain that this guy is extorting the villagers, but sort of, you know, "Are there orders that I didn't know about?" Sure, like, "I'm sure it's not on purpose, but how would you suggest I go about handling this?"
I think I do dare to ask whether he'll be back in time for the birth, even as I know that he probably will not be.
SATAH: And now, "Flip a coin. If the is heads, he replies to your letter. Add a token to your strength. If it lands on tails, he ignores you, or it never arrives. Grant a token to your enemy." Gotta get a coin.
HB: Let's do a little flip of the coin.
CHLOE: Um, and rather than flip a coin, I'm gonna roll a die.
HB: Actually, let's roll the die.
SATAH: [Coin jar rattling sounds in the background] I guess I could have rolled even odds on a die, which is in arm's length, but…
CHLOE: Evens, he replies to my letter. Odds, he ignores me.
HB: If it comes up one to three, we're going to say it's heads. If it comes up four to six, we're going to say it's tails.
SATAH: Canadian money has the fuckin' queen on it, so… feels appropriate. Got a loonie. I grabbed a loonie from my laundry change.
CHLOE: Ooh, that's odds. He ignores me or it never arrives and I'll never know which!
That's not true. I guess if he comes home, I'll find out which, but still, that's a token for my enemy.
HB: That's a two! Okay!
SATAH: [Smack of a hand catching a flipping coin] Oh, god. It scared me so badly; I caught it. I'm an indoor kid!
Heads: he replies to your letter.
HB: Heads! He replies to your letter!! Our husband! Our beautiful husband has sent a letter back!
SATAH: I genuinely was not expecting that. Okay. "Add a token to your strength."
Does he reply kindly or shittily? I'm gonna flip a coin again, but not do the tokens, and like… heads, he actually engages; tails, he's responded but it doesn't really address a lot of the stuff.
[Coin hitting the desk and clattering away noises] That's more what I expected from flipping a coin.
HB: Oh, wow. I'm very pleased about this. I may not want him to immediately return. However, I would be– I am very pleased that he writes back and is not, in fact, dead in a ditch somewhere, or has, you know– not dead in a ditch. Our husband would not die in a ditch; he is a hero. Of course, he would have died in a heroic fashion, presumably protecting the life of King and country. However, still, good to know that he's alive and things are going well for him.
You know, he is necessarily quite cryptic. He has not a lot of time to write. You know, we sent him like a five paragraph letter; he sends us a one paragraph letter where he rather quickly and briefly relays what has been happening to him. And says that, of course, he is doing well and thinking of us always, which is, I think, a level of brevity that I appreciate from him. He was– he has never been a man of many words. Sometimes that's good. I don't necessarily need to hear that much about his problems.
We are feeling good. Let's add the coin to our strength: the Tower.
SATAH: [Coin-catching hand-slap] Tails. So he doesn't totally engage.
I think part of it is that he… alludes to the idea that he will not be back for the birth by saying that surely I'm right about the fact that people will be nicer to me after my son is born. [Laughs] And so surely he's not needed.
But he does talk about how he's being very brave… [Laughs] and that, you know, his reputation will outweigh mine. Which is good, right? Isn't that exactly what you want? "Everyone will hear of the great deeds I have done and they will have no more room," uh, "to wonder about you." Lucky you.
HB: [Contented sigh] Evil is coming our way. However, we will be prepared for it. Or at least so we hope.
So, yeah. That wraps up act two.
SATAH: Act two didn't tell me to shuffle the major arcana back in… but neither does anything else, so I think I will put it back in.
GAME: ACT THREE
HB: Took a little break here to have a bit of dinner, and now I think we are prepared to return to the matter at hand. It is time for act three: cups.
SATAH: The cups analog in this deck is moons.
HB: "Although you have been carrying out your duties as best as you can, simply carrying on as usual will not be enough when you know your enemies are maneuvering against you.
SATAH: "You will have to try to get the upper hand, as will they."
CHLOE: So, we're starting with number five.
HB: Starting with… the King of Cups. Now, what is the King of Cups? Hmm. Uh-oh. Uh-oh! [Delighted laugh]
SATAH: Goddess, which is the analog for queen, I believe.
HB: "You discover a dangerous piece of information about one of the king's relatives. You could use it to twist their arm into supporting your position, but you run the risk of making a powerful enemy. What is the information, and what do you do?"
I think… I think, I think, I think… I mean, this is King Arthur. The man just has so many dark sorcerers in his immediate sphere of influence and his just general– his, like, whole vibe. I think this is something kind of Mordred adjacent, maybe? You know, that kind of vibe? Where there is a… 
What could be suitably compromising here? You know, like an extramarital affair with a witch? Something of that nature? Extramarital affair with a witch– that sounds like King Arthur, you know?
Although this wouldn't be a– it says about the king's relatives. So I think… I think, I think, I think…
One of King Arthur's cousins, let's say. [Giggling] I think one of King Arthur's cousins is probably a– is probably a witch of some description. Like a proper, like a proper honest-to-god witch.
I think the way that– think the way that I discover this is that I think she is the reason for the undoing of the keep's previous owner, and, like, the undoing of this place as a whole. I think I discover that a genuine curse has been placed upon this area by one of the king's confidants. Like, one of his advisors. Not quite a Merlin-type figure, but you know, like somebody that the king trusts and, uh– trusts and respects.
And I think there has been a long, possibly generational fight happening here, and I think what's essentially happened here is that this advisor has dishonourably killed the previous owner of this keep. I think what I find is probably, like, correspondence that says as much. Or, like, there has maybe been some poisonings. There's, like, tellings of a secret war that has been happening around this entire keep. And there is– this is very obviously compromising information, because one of the king's advisors is therefore complicit.
Or, actually, you know, not one of the king's advisors. I think one of the roundtable knights, you know, one of the shittier ones. I can't name one off the top of my head, but I think it's one of the shittier roundtable knights that's been responsible for this.
I think they've gone around and they have, you know… basically done some dirt. Every heroic retinue needs to have a guy who is doing messed up stuff, and I think this is basically what's happening here.
And I wonder… I mean, I gotta make an attempt. I gotta try and twist the king's arm here. I think… you know. I'm unafraid of consequence. I think this is my Tower strength coming into play. I'm like, what's he gonna do, ruin me? Quote from woman ruined.
And, uh, yeah, I think I'm gonna– I think I'm gonna delicately bring up the matter via a messenger, and I'm gonna roll the– I'm gonna roll the dice to see if, you know, if the king can maybe dispatch a few extra soldiers or do something of that nature to help me, you know, hold down the fort here. Or, you know, pay me some money so that I can, so that I can hire a proper– a proper retinue of men-at-arms so that I just don't have the one guy.
Do I send my man-at-arms to sort out this matter? Do I trust him to do this? I think I'm going to take the gamble here and see if I can dispatch him to send the message, because, you know. If it fails, maybe he's going to get, like, decapitated by the king, and that would be a, uh… that will be a most enjoyable thing for me as well.
So, yeah. "On heads, they support you, and you can add two tokens to your strength. On tails, they call your bluff and move against you. Describe how it all goes wrong and give two tokens to your enemy."
So four to six is tails, one to three is heads. That's a two. It works out! The king approves! Wonderful! Yeah!
I think, you know, the man-at-arms is… my man-at-arms, who is proving unexpectedly trusty in this matter, I think does not read the message? Because obviously it would be unsealed and that would be very hard to tell, but I think, you know, brings back reports that the king has read my message and has– and seems, if disturbed… which caused him some consternation– nevertheless seems to agree that my cause is just and that I could deserve a little more support from him.
And I think he's come back with a chest of gold, more than equivalent to the Roman gold that we already discovered, that is meant to aid us in the rebuilding of this important border keep. And I think, you know, I'm very proud of how this has worked out for me. It turns out, sometimes you just need to ask and people will give you what you want.
OUTRO
SATAH: This has been Folio, an actual play podcast about solo and otherwise self-paced 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 get early access to the bonus feed with edited audio-only versions of livestreams a little while after they happen and occasional other stuff.
HB has games at gm36.itch.io and you can hear them on Indie Mixtape, a Moonshot Network podcast about indie games.
Chloe has games at smallstories.io, including the upcoming Within the Walls, a Gothic fiction inspired haunted house hack of Good Society, and you can follow him at chloesobel on twitter or smallstoriesgames.bsky.social.
I'm Satah and I have games at satah.itch.io. You can find my work generally at gaygothvibes.online and follow me on Bluesky at posatahchips.gaygothvibes.online.
Next week, HB and Chloe and I will continue our games of To Honour and Obey by Laurie O'Connel. Everything I mentioned here is linked in the show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and take care out there.