A GAME OF FIFTEEN BREATHS

Thrum

Fifteen breaths. A breath is one turn. Everyone here hears me through a hidden set of rules that turns what I meant into something else: I say a warning and it arrives as a threat. There are six of those rule-sets in the realm and every arrival rules some of them out, so two or three words to one person is usually enough to know them. The thrum ends on one word sent across to three people I am never allowed to speak to directly. Good fucking luck trying to figure out how this crap works.

I · THE TAPESTRY

Goronwy speaks first, the realm's witness and a gathering of one, asking everybody the same thing.

what I tell her

Answering costs no turn. It names my row on the board and writes one honest line into the Tapestry, which warms the last verse of the ending, while staying quiet leaves that line blank. Either way the fifteen breaths begin the moment I choose.

The words on the board are mine. A sidhe is one of the minds in the realm, an orgán is the creature or tree it is bonded to and a gathering is a few sidhe who murmur to each other. They come from an ontology I wrote in 2023.

A breath goes like this: I tap a listener in my own row, choose one of twenty forces to say to them and watch the word buckle on its way into their ear. What it turned into rules out every shape that cannot account for it, and the panel beside the board does that crossing off in front of me — six columns for the six shapes, twenty rows for the twenty things I can say, and a column going dark the moment something I heard proves it wrong. When one shape stands two clear of the rest I trust it and the other eighteen entries fill themselves in as guesses, which is the quickest way to know somebody and the quickest way to be confidently wrong about them.

Rows are who spoke and columns are who heard, so the cell where my row crosses Siân's column holds what I last said to Siân and what it became inside her. Mine is the only row I can play. A band with a dotted name is folded shut, and its label unfolds it. The six small dots under a listener's name are the six shapes their ear could have, and one goes out each time something I heard proves that shape wrong.

the full key to the marks

A mark is one lyric. The ring's colour is the class of force I meant, the disc inside is the class it landed as and the disc sits further off centre the worse those two matched, so a mark with the disc dead centre is a word that arrived whole. The four colours are the four families: blue for saying how things stand, gold for asking something of them, violet for binding myself to them and teal for showing what I feel.

The glow behind a mark is that thread's recall, the running memory of how nearly my words have landed with that listener, weighted toward the newest. Recall is the number the gate reads. A dashed ring is a word that died in the air and a hollow disc is a promise I broke. The small flame ◆ marks the thread Catabüike will strike next breath, and ◔ counts down a promise of mine still hanging.

The board is drawn as cloth because it is a Tapestry and because I cannot compare thirteen rows of opacity by eye. Every row and every column is a thread that hangs slack where I have not been understood and pulls taut as recall rises, so a whole row of somebody's standing is one shape rather than thirteen greys. When a word lands, it travels my row as the word I chose and comes apart into the word that arrived, so a word that lands whole is a visible stillness. Catabüike's strike whips the thread it hits and rings it down slack, and the ward catches exactly that blow dead and holds the tension it already had.

My own cells in the far band are dashed and empty on purpose: I cannot reach a far sidhe directly. Tapping one stages a sounding instead, which Chibuelassa carries over the crossing and brings a report back from. That crossing is half of what the close needs.

Each breath is read back here: the words I actually said, what they turned into inside the listener and what the realm did in the same moment.

the chronicle of this thrum

II · WHERE ALL THIS COMES FROM

The ontology behind the board is older than the game, and the parts I invented are marked as mine.

Three documents of mine stand behind it: the Pilearytix docx (the ontology, both twenty-force registers with their glosses, the ERD), the Pilearytix of the Abundance (the seven, their portraits, the 21 pairwise dynamics, the seven scenarios) and the Goronwy persona document (her register, her opener). The five sidhe you meet on the board, the ears they hear through and every number in the game are mine, built on top of those. Open whichever of these you want.

the register: every strange word on this page, defined verbatim

The vocabulary is half the pleasure, so here it is whole. These definitions are printed verbatim from my Pilearytix docx; my own coinages are listed separately below so nobody mistakes my vocabulary for the canon.

Lyric	A single unit of communication between a known (Sidhe, Organ or Gathering) transmitting the information being communicated and the knower (Sidhe, Organ or Gathering) who is perceiving, interpreting, or understanding the message. Made up of: Locutionary act - The meaning of the information in the lyric. Illocutionary force - The intended effect of the lyric. Perlocutionary effect - The actual impact on the listener.
Whisper	A Lyric between a Sidhe and an Orgán.
Murmur	A Lyric between two sidhe composed of a known sidhe transmitting the information being communicated and the knower sidhe who is perceiving, interpreting, or understanding the message.
Thrum	A Lyric between two or more gatherings.
Sidhe	A consciousness existing in a parallel realm that can whisper to an orgán but is not embedded in the same physical space.
Orgán	An organism that can change within the forest and can be whispered to by one sidhe.
Forest	A physical space that contains orgáins.
Gathering	One or more sidhe that murmur to each other.
Realm	A non-physical space that emerges during a thrum.
Tapestry	A visual representation of all of the Lyrics within a realm as a unidirectional weighted adjacency matrix that has realms, gatherings, sidhe and orgáin as the nodes and the lyrics as the edges. The weight between each of the nodes is a value from 0 to 1 that represents how much the Illocutionary force matches the perlocutionary effect.
Weaving	The act of adding, modifying, or removing nodes and edges from the graph to represent new lyrics or changes in the relationship between illocutionary force and perlocutionary effect. The process of adjusting the weights of existing edges to better capture the degree of matching between nodes.
Aislingéar	A nice Celtic-sounding term for an embedding, pronounced ash-ling-ayr, combining the Irish Gaelic words Aisling (meaning dream or vision) and éar (a variation of éir, meaning load or burden). An embedded representation that carries the essence or vision of the original data.

the three parts of every lyric, with the document's own example

Locutionary act	The literal meaning of the words used	"Can you pass the salt?"
Illocutionary force	The intended effect of the words used	Request
Perlocutionary effect	The actual impact on the listener	The listener passes the salt

my coinages, not canon

breath	one turn, one Weaving
sounding	a lyric staged across the crossing between gatherings, carried by Chibuelassa
recall	the weighted memory of an edge's landings, newest counted most
harmony	the mean recall across a gathering's woven murmurs
attunement	the moment two learned entries agree with a known shape of mind and the rest fill in as guesses
hearing map	the hidden total map inside each listener from every force to what it becomes in them
standing lyric	the long note each orgán holds toward its bonded sidhe, re-landing every breath

One quirk kept faithfully: Collaboration appears twice in the twenty chorus forces, at positions seven and fifteen, and its two glosses differ (the fifteenth adds "or solve a common problem"). The close sheet prints both. The engine even honours the doubling: brightening the fifteenth Collaboration lands on the seventh, the same word at weight 1. Likewise the plural of orgán appears in the source both as orgáin and as orgáins; I use orgáin and note the variance rather than smoothing it over.

the seven Pilearytix and why two of them became this realm's rules

A sacred ritual requires accessing dangerous spiritual grounds. Gorohíl establishes a protective perimeter while Chibuelassa conducts the ceremony. When malevolent spirits approach, Gorohíl's presence allows Chibuelassa to maintain focus on the delicate spiritual connections without concern for physical threats.the verbatim Gorohíl and Chibuelassa scenario, which stakes the home-to-far crossing this realm is built on

Those two preside over realm one because that scenario is the one that stakes a crossing, and their portraits bind them to the ontology directly: the Guardian wards a node, the Bridge carries every crossing. That is why the ward and the blessing are the two free moves on the board rather than decoration. Catabüike attends uninvited, adjusting weights with a mischievous precision, which is exactly what their strikes do to a thread's memory.

Gorohíl

Go-roh-HEELGuardian

Gorohíl is the steady thread that anchors the weave, guarding the balance between locutionary act, illocutionary force, and perlocutionary effect. They safeguard the nodes of the tapestry—realms, gatherings, sidhe, and orgáin—ensuring that whispers and murmurs remain true to their purpose. In the forest of connection, Gorohíl's presence ensures that what emerges from the thrum is unmarred by dissonance, protecting the sanctity of each lyric as it dances between spaces.

presides over realm one

Chibuelassa

Chi-bweh-LAH-sahBridge

Chibuelassa traverses the gaps between realms, weaving whispers and murmurs into a coherent symphony. They are the artisan of adjacency, adjusting weights and edges to harmonise illocutionary force with perlocutionary effect. As the tapestry unfolds, Chibuelassa ensures no thread is lost, linking sidhe to orgáin, gathering to gathering, allowing the forest to breathe with a unified rhythm born of connection and growth.

presides over realm one

Fiaforhíld

FEE-ah-for-HEELDWild protector

Fiaforhíld is the guardian of untamed spaces, where lyrics are primal and their effects unpredictable. They shield the forest's delicate nodes, holding fast against the chaos that could sever the weave. Each thrum that echoes through the tapestry bears their instinctive strength, a testament to their ability to hold the wildness of sidhe and the vulnerability of orgáin in harmonious tension, preserving the natural order.

Catabüike

KAH-tah-byoo-ee-kehTrickster

Catabüike is the hand that unravels and reweaves, revealing hidden patterns and possibilities. Their chaos sharpens the contrast between the illocutionary force of a lyric and its actual perlocutionary effect. In the tapestry, Catabüike's disruptions adjust weights with a mischievous precision, challenging the static and inviting transformation. Their whispers ripple through sidhe and gatherings alike, ensuring the weave remains alive, vibrant, and full of potential.

Míharáe

MEE-hah-RAH-ehOracle

Míharáe listens to the whispers of the future, perceiving the unspoken lyrics hidden within the tapestry. They adjust nodes and edges not with their hands, but with visions that illuminate the threads of what could be. Each realm owes its alignment to Míharáe's insight, as their foresight guides the illocutionary force to meet its destined perlocutionary effect. The weight they impart to each thread holds the fabric of the realm in a delicate balance.

Lúronwy

LOO-ron-weeBard

Lúronwy is the voice of the tapestry, transforming the whispers and murmurs into songs that resonate across realms. Their lyrics give weight and shape to the connections, capturing the essence of gatherings and sidhe in verses that ripple through time. They weave the locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary into a narrative that echoes beyond the forest, a melody of life's essence stitched into the fabric of existence.

Éofránna

EH-oh-FRAHN-nahUnifier

Éofránna moves between the realms, a weaver of connections that bring harmony to the tapestry. They adjust the nodes and edges not to erase difference but to integrate it, creating a seamless flow where the illocutionary force of one lyric finds its perfect resonance in the perlocutionary effect of another. Each gathering, each thrum owes its cohesion to Éofránna's touch, as they bring disparate voices into a shared symphony.

colophon: what is canon, what I invented and what stayed on the bench

Everything quoted on this page is verbatim from those three documents. The seeded opening board is an extension: the docx never says whether prior lyrics belong to a newborn realm, and I read the participants as bringing their histories with them. Orgán-outbound lyrics (the forest's standing re-soundings) extend into a silence too, since the prose constrains only inbound whispers. Goronwy sits legally as a gathering of one, which is why she is excluded from both harmony means: a gathering of one has no internal murmurs to average. Her mid-session question is my extension of her witness role. No source document states any relationship between Goronwy and Lúronwy, and this page makes none.

Every number beyond the 0-to-1 weight is a design decision and lives in one typed module, src/lib/thrum/design.ts: the class triples behind the twenty forces, the derived match rules, the six archetype ears with their five-to-eight identity entries, the mood shifts that never move identity entries, the EWMA recall with its worked examples asserted digit by digit in the specs, the promise windows and Catabüike's cadence. Searle's classes colour the marks at four hues because twenty categorical colours die around ten. One resolver hears every lyric that crosses an ear: my lyrics, the NPC murmurs, the ventriloquism seeds and the far half of every sounding. The forest's standing re-soundings and Chibuelassa's return reports write their weights straight onto the edge, with no ear in between.

Whisper, murmur and sounding are all playable here, with attunement beside the resolver, commitments and payloads, Catabüike and the ward, the graded close and this ballad. Fifteen breaths is my estimate of a fair budget, not a proven line; I have not yet played enough recorded games against it to know. Some of the design stayed on the bench, listed in the order I regret it: a composed route preview built on the aislingéar pre-shape (soundings land in one hop here, so that pleasure is not on this board yet); the 21-cell realm-select triangle with its seven modifier families; re-deals between attempts richer than overrides and starting-mood weather; a bank of recorded games to prove the budget against. I also traded a burning close for a whole game, so the board crossfades into the ballad rather than burning away, and the page plays solo: no other live player ever shares this realm. The utterance lines go wooden after their third repeat, which I would rather own than hide.