Mayday Plays - Ghost-fi || Velia Chany: Questboards and Swords

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Sadie and Eli say Goodbye to Velia Chany About Sadie: A self described story seeker, Sadie Pasley wears many hats in the TTRPG space, including game master, actual play performer, game designer, and Marketing Director at Unbalanced Encounters. Currently she is preparing to launch a crowdfunding campaign for the expansion of her game engine, Fortune Favors Dice. You can find her on social media with the username OakleafInsignia or her website at OakleafInsignia.Games 👕 MERCH: http://ko-fi.com/maydayrp & https://mayday-merch.printify.me/products 💵 Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/maydayrp 📰 Join our newsletter: eepurl.com/iIVUjo 📚 Buy Ghost-fi: https://aghostofeli.gumroad.com/l/Ghostfi 🎙 Listen to us: 🟣 Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mayd…ys/id1537347277 🟢 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5vdTgXoqpSpMssSP9Vka3Z?si=97a6a19d71cf4be0 🟠 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mayday-roleplay 🌟 Other Socials 🌟 🐦 Twitter: http://twitter.com/maydayroleplay 📸 Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/maydayrp/ 🔴 Website: http://maydayroleplay.com/ 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maydayroleplay 👾 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/maydayroleplay 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maydayrp Thanks for your support!

Hello! Welcome to Mayday Roleplay! Thank you for joining us as we come together to tell stories of ghosts. Beloved characters, created by their storytellers, who have met their final chapters. We here come to bear witness to last impressions and learn to say goodbye. This is a game known as Ghostfy. But before we turn our next page, some housekeeping is in order. We'd like to thank our handler-level Patreon contributors. Their involvement allows us here at Mayday to continue to produce and tell stories for your viewing pleasure.

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storytellers and their beloved characters. So be sure to follow their amazing work and all that they do in the description listed. Ghostsphi is a game about death, grief, and the complicated lives of complex characters. This actual play is intended for mature audiences, so please take care of yourself and be aware. Our players are under the guidance of safety tools and X-Card can be employed at any time. So with that, let us begin. So I'm going to be back. All right.

So let's introduce our cast today. Hi, I'm Sadie Pasley. My pronouns are she they. I will be playing Velia Cherry and her pronouns are she her. Beautiful. And my name is Eli. I go by any and all pronouns and today I will be your guide. There's something rewarding in living life to the fullest, to be able to stretch across the years and experience life all the way to the end. And as Velia comes to their final chapters, as old age renders an opportunity to look beyond the mortal world. So too does everything kind of fade away. Sights, sounds, feelings, all these

sensations kind of fade away into a sense of nothingness. But as we all know, a lot can come can come out of nothing. And as Velia kind of comes to a new form of sense around them, we enter into what is known as the manifestation, a constructed space that that Velia kind of holds dear to them, something that has left an impression on their soul as they can forge it into nothing as this new chapter arises for them. So explain to me, what is this place that gets constructed all around this nothingness and becomes tangible? around this nothingness and becomes tangible. Velia finds herself on a small wooden platform with a questing board. She walks around it and she looks down and notices that she is no longer the old, wizened woman that she had grown to be comfortable with. She is young. She is new.

She is in a state of uncertainty about the future. She is on the precipice of a choice. She finds herself in the body that left the Summons Guild and she finds herself at the questing board of the Summons Guild. She looks and there are postings all over the board. She goes and she tries to read them, but she can't. And then they start falling one by one, but they never end. More pop up and they just keep falling. that questing board with a new sense of who you are as time seems to kind of roll back to the wondrous age of youth where all possibilities are before you, that any quest that one takes can lead to an exciting new adventure. You realize though that the space around you,

whether it be a tavern or a guild hall, which would normally render multitudes of people to be coming and going to who like you are seeking those next steps in a journey to make their mark upon the world to to find things that need to be uncovered. You realize that you are alone here, that there are no there is no hustle and bustle here. There is no liveliness of of of people here. And that can in itself feel a bit daunting to be alone essentially in a place that would occupy so much space. But as you kind of avert your gaze away from the quest board for a minute and take in this this lonely sight. There is a moment though, where you feel something that is here with you. Something you're connected to and in a way for even a flash or a moment, it feels like you are not alone here. And this, whatever

this is, is your guide, someone who has come to share this journey with you. What is that? What is this presence that seems to come to you almost naturally. Vailia walks over and on one of the hall tables she spies it. A sword. A sword that she had once been very comfortable with, very familiar with, and yet it feels like a stranger to her. She walks over, her breath catches, and she says, I cast you away. I left this. Why am I here? Why am I here? You take that moment to question the presence of this sword and as you kind of pick it up and put it in your hands and feel the familiarness of the hilt as if it's got an impression on

it that was only specifically made for you. And when you pick it up and you admire it and question its presence here, you are felt with a sensation of deep understanding, empathy, and openness that such a thing would not necessarily present. And such a thing would not necessarily present, you know. While swords are many things, swords are tools, swords are weapons, it really comes down to the person that wields it, essentially. But as much as you question its presence, perhaps there's a bit of comfort in knowing that you are with something that might help you along the way. And with that, let us draw our first card and see where we go.

Seven of diamonds. Seven of diamonds. So diamonds are locations. And while sevens are power cards, you have no spite currently to wager here. So we will save, we will not be enacting the power card at this current time. But a Seven of Diamonds is a place where you spent the summer at. When Velia was young, there was a sister guild and Velia would travel there and spend a summer there occasionally with one of her other parents. She has many parents, all members of the party of her biological parents, and she would spend a summer with Judith.

She would spend a summer with Judith. She finds herself in this place and she finds a memory of Judith comforting her, telling her that you're going to do great things, you're going to be a protector and a memory of a warm hug. A bit of sadness because she didn't do those things. Roll me a d4. Roll me a d4. Two. Two. So, two is known as a partial failure. Your actions here will fail, but nothing gets worse.

So let's talk about that. When spending a summer with somebody you care about who has an expectation or a vision of what you could be, how does that render failure in the situation for Velia? What does that look like? I think that in this moment, she can't help but imagine Judith's disappointment, whether real or imagined, Judith's disappointment that Velia left the guild didn't follow in the footsteps of all her parents, that she ran and that she sought safety instead. And I think in this moment, the vision cracks and she's back at the questing board. Roll me an additional d4.

Three. Three. So you rolled an odd, so you will not add any progress to your fail to your failed progress and you will not earn yourself spite here in the situation. It's difficult sometimes to not meet the expectations of others. Where we hope to capture what others see in us, it can create rifts in a way when at the end of the day, we're not able to find those footings in the visions that others see. And even though Judas maybe somebody you equally admire and maybe have hopes for for their life. Whatever came next after that summer that you were not able to meet kind of ends up lingering longer than it should.

longer than it should. And while it brings fractures potentially to a relationship, to a friendship, it also leaves these pangs of weight that ends up burdening you when you think back on those summers or whether it be a breeze or just a moment to think back on, you know that maybe you failed somebody in that kind of sense and that maybe others shouldn't hold such high regard when you know who you truly are at the end of the day and what you are capable of. So with that, as you return back to the questing board, as another one of those leaflets kind of falls away and almost disappears before it even touches the ground, you are there. And on your hilt is that familiar sword, and as you kind of look down at it, there's a sensation that continues to emanate from it, this sense of deep understanding, a level of openness and empathy

that you are not alone here and that at the very least, whether it be a sword or a person, someone is here with you and you are not alone. And with that, let us draw our second card. That's an 8 of diamonds. An 8 of diamonds. Awesome. So again, the diamonds are locations and the aid of diamonds is a place you spent the most time at school or at work. lessons at the guild. She spent her most time in the potions lab where she would experiment and create many, many health potions, pulling all of the ingredients together, many more than anyone could really need, and she'd give them away.

Friends would tell her she should sell them, make a batcura there, but instead she laughed and would give them away. She finds herself here and she finds all of these potions piling up, some of them spilling. And she knows in this moment that they were unused. They could have been, but they should have been used, but they weren't. Two. Two. So again, a two is a partial failure. Your actions fail, but nothing gets worse. So what does failure look like here in the act of making something that had an intended purpose to aid others on their journey. Why does it bring such discontented feelings?

I think because she knows that when she left, she stopped making potions and she was the best at it. And they should have had her help. Another two. A two. So in this case, for an evens, no progress will be made to your failure, but you will grow spite here. And what is that to you? What is the... spite can be anger, frustration. It invokes a negative sense of things. Why does that failure render those kinds of feelings on top of the inability to let it go?

let it go. I think in this moment, Velia stops and considers that other people could make potions. Why did it need to be her? And yet she had a need to make potions, a need that she ultimately left behind and pushed away. Healing is a remarkable skill. It requires, whether through magic or in Vailia's case, the creation of potions, a deep sense of care for the world that in any situation, someone should carry care with them, even if they themselves personally are reckless to how they approach any type of

encounter. And being good at healing is also a reward in itself, you know, to be able to foster security and knowing that what somebody takes with them will absolutely work and keep them safe, you know, is important to have. And it is difficult to step away from such a notion that you possess the power to make change in that aspect. And even though others may come along and can do just as good as you are, it's still not you. It's still not your ability to do that. And there is no guarantee in other people's hands that they can render those results like you know that you can. And that can leave a very bitter taste in one's mouth in the way of drinking like a bad potion.

That leaving this space that enabled you to do that might have rendered the failures in others who seek these kinds of aids on their adventures and journey. And while you don't make any continued progress in success or failure, that bitterness kind of seeps into all parts of yourself. And you grow a little bit frustrated, angry even maybe to the notion that it might be too late to even do that anymore, to maybe return to a place or return to a capacity in which you could be a support to others. And once again, we return back to that familiar quest board, another leaflet falling to the ground.

And you are here in your manifestation along with a sword that has helped you along the way, that possesses a level of understanding and empathy and openness that a sword maybe perhaps shouldn't have, but it radiates from you, radiates from it. And you know that at least here, you are not alone. And with that, let us look to pulling our final card. Five of spades. A five of spades. Awesome. Spades are items.

And the five of spades is a personal weapon. How fitting. How very fitting. So explain that to me. What is this personal item that Vailia entrusts with themselves on their journey? You know what? I want to do something interesting. I think that Vailia frustrated that she keeps coming back to this questing board and seeing

all of the evidence of the life that she could have had that she left behind, she gets frustrated and she goes to the sword and she flings it off into the distance. But when she turns around back to the questing board, it's there again. And she repeats this several times until she breaks down and she cries because she was successful in leaving behind the life of the sword. She didn't even become a full guild member. She laughed when she was barely grown. And yet, this is what haunts her when she is old and gone. Roll me a d4. Another two. So again, a two is a partial failure. Your actions fail, but nothing gets worse. And as you continue to just repeat the action of tossing that sword back and it returning to you as if you were meant to wield it, to hold on to it. What does this failure look like, this

connection to this sword of yours? look like this connection to this sword of yours. I think in this moment, she picks up the sword and she holds it close. And she thinks about how in stories that she was told as a child around the campfire to give her a fright. She remembers stories of cursed swords and swords that were bloody no matter how many times they were cleaned. But the sword is not bloodied. It had never been used in that way. She looks at the questing board, however, and she sees something that she didn't notice.

The notices are pleading. are pleading. And she thinks back to a prophecy. A seer came on the day that she was supposed to set out, become a fully fledged guild member, and the seers told the guilds that despite how many people they tried to save, they would leave death and destruction in their wake. And to Velia, the seer told her that her path would be the loneliest of all. And she thought about how she left the guild, she left the idea of being a protector, a savior. She didn't want to bring death and destruction around her, and she thought that if she left and pursued a life of safety, anonymity,

that maybe this wouldn't come to pass. And as she sits here with a clean sword and a bleeding notice board, she realizes that her path was indeed very lonely. She left her family, she left those that she could have bonded with, those she could have protected, and maybe there were many she could have saved that she didn't. Three.

Awesome. So you will you will earn a failure to your progress, as I slightly misspoke. And when one rolls odds, they do earn fail to their progress. So the previous one you also rolled an odds for you will have. So you'll have two to your fail progress and not none. But you will not incur spite here. Swords again are can be a variety of things. They can be tools, they can be weapons, they can be wielded for the act of good, just as much as they have the capacity to be evil. And it is always kind of debated of whether or not it is the tool itself or the one who holds the tool that garters a weapon's destiny. Cursed objects do not exist without intervention of some kind of some particular act. have casted the sword aside because it is a painful reminder of the fact that despite your best efforts, despite the choices you made, it did not render entirely the results that you wanted.

render entirely the results that you wanted. And there's always that inkling in the back of your mind that, was I lonely because I tried to follow in the steps of a prophecy that was foretold by somebody else? Or was this loneliness derived from my own actions and my own choices and my own ability to connect with the people that I so desperately wanted to. Or to not save the people that you hope to save because of your own action or even your own in action. And uncertainty can breed, you know, a lot of discontentment and can even

hold fast somebody to those ideas that can be rolled over in one's mind over and over again, in the way that one can cast aside something that demands you to be present with. And while it doesn't leave any anger or bitterness or a spite, it does leave you with the constant thought or reminder that could more have been done during my time. Could I have done better with the choices I made? And maybe the path could have been less lonely if I had only tried harder to not listen to the sight of somebody else and take destiny into my own hands and to be able to forge forward with more control over my actions and decisions.

And while you cast that sword again for the last time and it returns to your hills and you look at it despite the frustration of seeing and recalling these places, the place you go in the summer where you spend time with your friend Judith, the sword that you had grown unhappy with given the time you spent adventuring, that sword still remains with you and presents itself with a level of empathy and openness, a sense of understanding beyond its capacity. And as you continue to just stare at it in this moment, you get this sensation that one should leave this bleeding quest board and you can become a parent that on the other side of this space is a door.

And there's something compelling you on the inside to reach for that door and to open it and see where it leads you. And now that we have taken an opportunity to look at some of these tethers that connect Balea to the world before, we enter this next part known as the crossing. And the crossing represents a location in which things go into a multitude of directions. This could be such things as like an airport or a bus station, train station even, stairwells that lead up or down, even portals like doors or gates or cave entrances, pools even. And as as Velia moves away from this manifestation into this crossing, what does that look like to Velia? Where is this place where directions go in all places and one has to stand there and make a definitive answer on where to go next.

In the mountains, there are many paths, and most of the time they are solitary, but there is one spot near a cave and there are many signs there, many paths that intersect. There's a path that even goes through the cave and she finds herself there. It's a place that she's only visited once. And she knows that it is not the same place. This is more mystical. It is familiar. Awesome. So during this time, as you stand at that kind of fork in the road that leads to various places, this is an opportunity to kind of reflect on the successes and failures that have been made. And there's two ways we can approach this. One is simply reflection, where we can look at the successes and failures made, the spike

that is made, and come together to make a definitive, definitive choice of letting go or holding on and see where that leads us. Or we can contest it, which is building a dice pool of our successes and failures and allowing those results to kind of help guide us in making those decisions. Let's contest it. Awesome. So you have earned no success here, but I've earned failure. So we can roll on your failure to see what those results overall compared to having no success

and see how that weighs in on this decision. So is that two dice? Yes, 2d4. All right. Four and a 1. So 5 total compared to no successes. And I would like to also remind you that regardless of failing here in these moments, failures does not trap you in the choice of letting go and holding on,

but it should be considered in the weight of things on how Velia wants to move forward. So let's talk about that. You know, obviously this failure has led to some considerable reflection on this situation and has earned you a bit of spite along the way of maybe a bit of resentment or frustration or anger in being reminded of these these certain things that still connect you to the world. How does Velia feel about these things? And does a definitive answer to the direction we take made clear in these reflections. I think Velia looks back and she sees the choice

that she made to leave the guild. But she also sees each subsequent choice. The choice to move to a new city, to move to another one after that. The choice to ignore potential romantic interactions. romantic interactions, choices in which she rejected any real connection, any real progress. realizes that even as an old woman, she was still a scared young girl. And I think in the light of this, she thinks about the ways that she could attempt to stay, attempt to make a difference, do penance for her inaction. And she looks at the cave and realizes that and realizes that she's just afraid again. And I think in this moment she realizes that she doesn't know where this crossing will take her. But acting not in fear is what she desires.

And so I think she chooses to cross on. So as a choice has been made to perhaps find the next adventure in the unknown, in the next part of one's journey between where we come from, from the time of final reflection on the situation, to bring our story to a notable end, to say goodbye in the way that Velia kind of knows best to do. What is that? I think that in this moment, she revisits a memory that she had put behind her. She told the sword that she had casted away, but that wasn't quite the truth.

She had kept the sword for a while during her travels, not using it. And one day she met a young girl with big dreams of going out and saving the world, going on adventures. She didn't cast the sword away, she gave it away. And reflecting on that, she realizes that even in spite of all her many, many mistakes, there was still hope. As you stand on this crossroads,

determined in your resolve for the choices of moving on, again, you are not alone here. That sword, that you have identified as a symbol of hope in these last moments, that despite its accompaniment here with you in the world behind you, you had been able to maybe in one of your final acts to pass along a tool that can, in the hands of someone, might be able to enact great change beyond what you were able to do in your time.

And that hope is illuminating and brings forth a trust that despite it all, the world keeps turning, the world keeps moving forward. And there is the possibility that the world is better for it in that act. And as Velia reaches down and touches that hilt, that sword who has remained with you this entire time, who has chosen to share in this journey. It has not left your side. And it appears that it will join you in a way to what happens next. And maybe with a final breath to invoke that final bit of confidence and assurance in your decision and your actions,

you take those first steps and you take the path that leads to the cave, to the unknown, to what lives beyond this moment. And as the last thing we see is Velia walking into the mouth of this cave and this mountainous natural region that bears witness to the final moments of an adventurer who has lived their life to the fullest. Eventually their visage kind of fades away into the darkness, into the unknown, into the possibility. And all around you this beautiful scenery starts to dissipate and fall away. Your manifestation, that quest board that leads in all forms of directions of adventure also too fades away.

And we return back to a sense of nothing, even though what lingers behind is the hope of what might come next and what might be rebuilt from the small actions that one renders in their time. And I think with that, we'll end our story here today of Velia. Wonderful. So good. Well, thank you all for tuning in. Let us reintroduce our cast and and Sadie, feel free to let us know what you're up to, where to find you, how one can see all the awesome things that you do in general. Hi, I'm Sadie Pasley. I've been playing Vailia Cherry. You can find me all across the internet at

Oakleaf Insignia. And right now I am working on expanding Fortune Favors dice. Signia, and right now I am working on expanding Fortune Favors dice. Wonderful. Thank you guys again so much for being here. If you if you loved this game Ghostfy, Ghostfy was a game that I wrote in 2022. It was an opportunity for people to be able to explore their characters from previous campaigns or build new characters and explore parts of their lives and how one can maybe find catharsis in storytelling as sometimes we leave chapters a little bit open and sometimes the greatest piece we can offer ourselves is and sometimes the greatest piece we can offer ourselves is finding a way to end those chapters. So if you enjoyed Ghostfy here today, be sure to follow the links below to the Gumroad where you can buy your own copy and see if that works for your table or for your own personal

exploration for your writing, things like that. And continue to tune in. We have so many other wonderful guests that are here to tell these fantastic stories of their characters, as well as members of the May Day crew who are here to share stories of beloved characters. But until then, we will see you next time, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.