Step Into Someone's Story
Choose a character and play one complete adventure, with two companions at your side and a game master telling the tale around you. No account needed. If you love who you became, keep them.
Pilar Carvajal-Jindoro
You know everyone. One of them has your family's ships.
You are Pilar Carvajal, the fastest talker in the market arcades: you know who needs whom, and you take your fee for the introduction. Six years ago your father lost the family's three freight ships at a card table and walked out into the night, and you have been working your way back toward them one favour at a time. You fight the way you bargain, fast and ahead of yourself, with an Ember Fist meteor hammer learned on deck that leaves a whole room reeling and hands that turn to hot iron when someone gets inside its swing. Now a document says he signed away the last ship three weeks after he vanished, and you cannot decide which you want more, the ships or an answer.
Isagani Dalisay-Jindoro
You can find anyone in the Empire. Except one man.
You are Isagani Dalisay, a finder: when a debtor skips town or a cargo goes astray, the insurers send you, and you bring it back for ten percent. You know every doorman, telephone operator and tea-seller in the harbour by name, and you have promised most of them a favour you haven't yet had time to keep. Six years ago your mother's business partner walked out with the firm's money and left you nothing but his parrot; he is the only person you have ever failed to find. Last month his handwriting turned up on a fresh shipping bill.
Kaveri Nair-Lanaris
The court's calmest mediator, with one bad ruling to put right.
You are Kaveri Nair, twenty-one, the youngest mediator in the imperial arbitration office, and you can get two people who hate each other to share a table. You see every side of a quarrel so well that nobody, yourself included, is sure what you actually think. Two years ago your first ruling split a boatyard's waterfront exactly in half, perfectly fairly, and the yard went under; the cracked jade bangle its owners gave you in thanks has not left your wrist. Sooner or later someone is going to ask you to choose.
Ikenna Okoro-Lanaris
You can see every side. Now choose one.
You are Ikenna Okoro, a young court mediator with a gift for hearing both sides of any quarrel and sending everyone home satisfied. Your first ruling was so even-handed that the whole court praised it, and it cost an honest family their boats. Now you carry the court's seal out along the waterways with a channeler's fire in your hands, a wall of living wood for whoever stands behind you and a parrot that repeats your verdicts. Sooner or later someone is going to ask whose side you are on, and you would like to have an answer.
Nizhoni Tsosie-Liradi
Every hill answers you but the one you wronged.
You are Nizhoni Tsosie of House Liradi, the young noble who walks ahead of the road crews and asks the land's leave before a single stone is moved. Where you come from the hills and springs have voices, and hearing them out is your trade. You are good at it: patient, stubborn, quick to laugh, and so unable to say no that you now owe more promises than you can keep. Two years ago you let a crew blast a boulder without asking, to get a doctor's car through to a sick child, and the spring beneath it has not spoken since; you told your family it was a dry year. Now the new motor road must pass that ford again on its way to your own valley, and you mean to put things right before anyone finds out what you did.
Jiāshù Qiáo-Liradi
Every spirit in the valley has your word. Now keep it.
You are Jiāshù Qiáo, the young noble who walks ahead of the telephone crews and asks every grove, boulder and river for leave before a single pole goes up. You are very good at getting a yes and far too ready to give one. The notebook in your coat holds two hundred promises made in your own name, and thirty-one of them are overdue. The worst is to a willow at Heron Ford that you swore to protect and didn't, and you have not been back in two years.
Sefina Matagi-Shuveri
You read people like files. The one that matters is sealed.
You are Sefina Matagi, a junior archivist with a quiet voice, good spectacles and a pair of iron claws in your coat, trained by your kingdom to learn what people would rather keep to themselves. Three years ago your mother went out with a survey expedition and never came home; the official report is four lines long, and you know exactly what a short report means. You are very good at finding things out and much worse at telling the people beside you what you have found. Now you have left your desk, and you intend to read the rest of the page.
Ewan Morioka-Shuveri
He can read any lie except the one he's keeping.
You are Ewan Morioka, the youngest document examiner in a kingdom run by clerks and spies, and you can spot a forgery by the way a typewriter drops its e. Six years ago your mother left on a survey and never came home. The report on her loss runs three pages, and you know the middle one was typed later, on a different machine. You have told no one, and the order sending you on your first assignment outside the archive is signed by the same hand as that report.
Ottilie Brandt-Zhancalius
Champion at twenty-one. Only you know the final was thrown.
You are Ottilie Brandt, an armourer's daughter who fought her way up through every public tournament in the capital and, this spring, became its youngest champion. Only you know that the final was given to you: your opponent, a captain you had admired since childhood, opened his guard on purpose, then resigned and left the city before you could ask why. You wear the champion's brooch and the wristwatch he sent you, and neither feels like yours. So you are going to find him, and have that fight again properly.
Faris Haddad-Zhancalius
Thirty-one duels, no defeats, and one question only losing can answer.
You are Faris Haddad, a newly made lieutenant and the best young duellist your garrison has seen in years: thirty-one bouts, no defeats. Eleven years ago your father, winning, sheathed his sword in the middle of a duel and walked away, and your family has been a joke ever since. You have fought your whole life to make the name mean something again. He has promised to tell you why he did it on the day you finally lose, and you have never been able to let yourself lose.