Episode 1: A Light in the Woods | Overlight: Fractured Paradox

Matthew Mercer (0:00)

Hello, and welcome to Overlight.

I'm so pleased to welcome you all to this beautiful world. We're having our first episode tonight. I have a couple of announcements. First, we would love to thank the Renegade Game Studios people who made this gorgeous world, and the artists who contributed the art to that book. It's really stunning. You can see this GM screen that has the art as well.

SPEAKER_2 (0:25)

It's so gorgeous.

Matthew Mercer (0:27)

Thank you so much, Renegade Game Studios for helping to make this show possible. We also want to tell you folks to go to renegade.com to check out Overlight and all their other games. They have a lot of tabletop games. If you check out Becca Scott's Game the Game on YouTube, you can see her playing a lot of the Renegade Studio games. So go check those out. They're really wonderful folks. And you're going to get to see this game today too.

Also if you want to find out more about Overlight, you can check out geekandsundry.com and there are going to be lots of articles talking about the game and the world. So that's it.

I'm going to introduce our cast right now and then we'll get started.

Rachel Seeley (1:10)

Cool.

Josh Dempster (1:11)

Let's do it.

Rachel Seeley (1:12)

OK. Hi, I'm Rachel Seeley. I'm playing a Banyan, which you'll find out what that is later.

Josh Dempster (1:23)

And I'm Josh Dempster and I'm going to be playing a Trixian, which is basically a tiny lizard bird man, so very clear and not vague at all.

Havana Mahoney (1:33)

I'm Havana Mahoney. I'm going to be playing a Zenith Monk named Thokmay.

Philip Jean-Marie (1:37)

Nice. Hi, guys. My name is Philip Jean-Marie. I'm playing Udos and Oramel from the Shard of Vale, who is a gilded laborer.

Matthew Mercer (1:46)

All right. And with that, we will start episode one of Overlight, A Light in the Woods. Welcome back. I just want to thank Caleb Drool for that amazing introduction. I mean, you guys didn't see it. You'll see it after or on the break or something.

Josh Dempster (2:42)

I felt it. I felt how awesome it was, right? Reverberated through the chroma. It is. For all the colors of the rainbow.

Matthew Mercer (2:47)

Mind-blowingly gorgeous. So I can't wait for you guys to see it. But you guys saw it. It's awesome. Thank you, Caleb. And with that, we begin Episode 1, A Light in the Woods.

The overlight touches us all. But in so many diverse ways, it's sometimes easy to forget that we're all under the same unending boundless light. Each folk living on their respective shards, the many-legged Nova Pendera on Nova, the Zenith order of monks and the ape-like Hamanu on Zenith, the bird-like Teryxians of Quill, the varied Banyari of Banyan, the Harkin of Hark, who are much like you and me, the masked Orumel of Vale, and the fiery mighty Pyroi of Pyre. Each of the vast floating continents we call shards steadily moves one above the other in what we've come to call cycles. Because in this world that has no sun and no moon and no day and no night, we measure time by the movement of these shards. And in this world are the Skyborne, a small subset of folk from every shard who are able to channel the overlight to perform bold and miraculous feats. Some say the Skyborne will heal this fractured world. Others say the Skyborne are a sign that we are all doomed. But for the Skyborne, there is much to discover. And perhaps one day they'll prove all the rumors to be true.

Today, we find ourselves on the forest-like shard of Banyan. On the edge of the Great Forest, a group of three Skyborne wander, admiring the scenery. At first, they seem like a strange assortment of folk. In passing, one might lose themselves in wondering how and why these three came to be a trio. But once you've met them, once you've known them, you see that they are as strangely suited for one another as is each shard that hangs in the boundless space once known as Sky.

We have Udos, who is tall as a reed and strong as an ox, his hands capable of turning the humblest of materials into strong pieces that are essential to shipbuilding. Though his folk, the masked appreciators of fine art called the Aramel, claim vigor as their central virtue of the Overlight, Udos is one of the few that claims another, the low but forceful red light that signifies might. We have Fennel, part small mammal and breast tree. Fennel's form is a duality of nature that was born on the forest shard of Banyan. In the woods, the folk, and in the folk, the woods, as the saying goes. Banyan is a forest land that boasts a bounty of diversity with several species of Banyari coexisting. Compassion is the declared virtue of this green, vibrant land. But Fennel herself proclaims another virtue as her own. The moving, driving virtue of will.