Embrace 18: If Honey Is Power

These Flimsy Rituals

CW: possession, body horror, use of corpses, insects, uncertain reality

"But you know what unites the theories we had about that place? In all of them, the Cut is subject. It’s something attached, a barnacle lodged to the city.

But the Cut is not addition or reflection or parasite. It’s not mirror, but window - mud-caked, fogged and frosted. If we’re lucky, we can spy glimpses of the silhouettes inside. We can see the wonder, a whole ecosystem - spirit-grown and built from alien perspective."

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For millennia, the Winter’s Lodge has sat as anchor in the midst of the Cut. An enormity of forlorn architecture, stubborn and static. In that time it has been multitudes - temple and estate, battleground and meeting place, staging-post and hideout.

For the last few centuries though, it has been home to a covenant of weavers and spirits. They have turned it into a sanctuary, a halfway-house, a home.

It is here that Oken wakes. He finds himself in a room unexpectedly warm and comfortable, but this is not to last. The weavers of the lodge have taken on uncanny housemates. Mel is here - amongst her rebuilt hivemind - and she means to hold Oken to his promises.

~~ PEOPLE ~~

Carn nim Daker: The slayer of Caerdroia and Rodella, the founder of the Jackals.

Eviron Yves: A weaver. The Winter’s Lodge, look to their wisdom for guidance.

Lillylium: An ancient and powerful envoy, rumoured to have survived Caerdroia.

Mel: Once an envoy of the remnant, Relict. Brought to Embrace with Oken, she has rebuilt her gestalt consciousness beneath the city.

Soka: A teenager who tried to rob Oken’s sanctum. She is now a part of Mel’s hivemind.

~~ FACTIONS ~~

The Winter’s Lodge: A group of weavers and spirits who call the lodge their home. They provide a halfway-house to those who need it, largely ghosts new to the Cut.

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Episode title from Leisure Bees by Tacocat.

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Follow the show on twitter @flimsyrituals

Find our website at flimsyrituals.com

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Hosted by Adam Dixon. Starring Beck Michalak and special guest Nate Crowley.

Produced by Thryn Henderson

Series art by Ben Swinden

Music taken from Kai Engel’s Satin