Tales and the Almanac

Tales are the pet world's storylines, told as scenes where they happen — the Plot at dawn, a place in the Hollow with its keeper behind the counter, a region of the Wilds — with small games between some scenes, scenes that wait on the world ("give it a day or two"), choices that change the child, and endings that leave something real. None of it is required: the world can be played as an open world and nothing else. The Almanac keeps them: the tales new, going on, waiting and told, the Ways, the journal, and who in the Hollow thinks well of you.

Storylines

• The Seed Thief — something takes the honey biscuits in the night, and Doc Pellory reads the glow-dust on a leaf. A watch to keep, after dark.
• Fenwick's Forty-First Word — Auster's Woolli has known forty words for six years, and this morning said a forty-first.
• The Lost Kite — Old Tam's Wingi went up to the Shelf and didn't come back for the spin, and the fog is down like a lid.
• The Calling — for the grown.

Heart-to-hearts

Once every six days or so, at home in the evening light, the child brings something up — one thing at a time: being scared of the dark, whether roshi dream, why you look after them, where roshi go, what they want to be, a falling-out at the Spring, being old enough. Two or three answers; nothing is the right answer.

The notice board

Errands pinned up in the Square under Wanted: four a day, the same four for everyone, changing at midnight (UTC). Short tales from the Hollow's people — a scene or two, sometimes a small puzzle — for their regard, a few points on a Way, now and then a handful of kernels.

The games

The Night Watch (the Plot after dark), the Fog (the Shelf), and the festivals' — the Bake-off, the Roshi Show and the Tall Tale at the Harvest Fair, the lanterns and the moonlit race at the Lantern Moon. Played a move at a time; seeded, so a night replays the same.

The rules

A tale never takes nux, kills, or takes a seed; a gift of kernels comes from the Hollow's daily share; a seed comes from the world, never from nothing; only the hand makes food. The child's name is said; yours never is.