Right now Barathrumite+ patrons are deciding which of these former runners up will be given a second chance to shine. They will cast their votes by Friday, November 22nd, 11:59 PDT, and then we will know who is most loved. Arconaut+ patrons, you can expect to see the winner in early December (delayed a week due to holiday time).
Until then, live and drink.
Peck
"It's been said that Qud is a layer cake of civilization. Among the myriad materials of those layers are metals of various kinds: flat iron, mirrored brass, tarnished chrome, algae-caked palladium. When you take account of all these metals, you notice a commonality. Holes. Small holes bored into every hundredth or so metal surface I've seen. And if you're like me, you can't help yourself; you reach into those bewitching burrows to see what gifts lay therein. I've found my share of goodies this way, but the best of them all is the egg omen. You see, the egg omen is when you reach into the narrow darkness and through some sharp twigs pull out a smooth, beautiful egg. A tinpecker egg! Bless those industrious birds. They take the edifices the Eaters left behind and reshape them to their motherly needs. No metal is hard enough to withstand their eager pecking! Of course I return the egg to its nest. I don't need an egg. But the egg *omen*... the egg omen is most fortuitous..."
Ursunculus
Many things get made in the workshops of Grit Gate, and no system of organization, even one devised by the assiduous Barathrumites, is without flaw. Take one episode as evidence of this principle: an experiment, begun in the carbon-wet alembics of Barathrum's study, where the saliva of an urshiib was brewed with primordial soup, distilled, and set to dry. Say something recognizable formed, diminutive though it remained, and was taught the way of the world through a slow osmosis of culture as it leaked into the microcosm of the enclave. Say for a month that thing was accounted for, until another promising project took off, and the logging of its whereabouts lapsed. Sure, it'd still be seen from time to time, scurrying across the fulcrete or scaling a ream of graph paper. Of course no one would recall precisely where it was last seen, or when, for it was always just "around". Until it wasn't. Until, unnoticed by the eyes of its progenitors, it scampered past a malfunctioning force projector to make its way in the world.
Boreom
"Let every soldier Spray-a-Brain an Oak
and urge it forward. Thereby shall we both
Increase our might and hide it from our foe
Until we reach the gate of Yawningmoon.
Therein awaits the usurper Macoun,
who vies to draw the Gods up from below
but watches from the sky and shall not know
Our army hewed from Boreom, bespoke."
— Willow Shakesprig, Macoun
Ebenshabat
"WOULD YOU LIKE A STARAPPLE, FRIEND?
THEY ARE LOVELY. THE JUICE IS INSIDE.
OH, MYSELF? HAH HAH HAH. NO, FRIEND. I WON'T BE EATING ONE.
I COULDN'T.
MUST I, ANYWAY, TO APPRECIATE THE JUICE?
CAN'T I ADMIRE THE AESTHETICS OF THE APPLE FROM AFAR?
AREN'T I IN A BETTER POSITION TO JUDGE THE APPLE, ABSTAINING FROM THE JUICE, AS I DO?
HAH HAH HAH, FRIEND!
I ENJOY OUR CONVERSATIONS.
THERE, THE HIGH SALT SUN! IT CASTS NEXT TO NO SHADOWS.
BUT SOON IN WILL TRACE AN ARC ALONG THE WIDE SKY.
AND THEN, WHY, WOULD YOU SIT WITH ME? IN THE SHADE OF A STARAPPLE TREE.
YOU MAY EAT A STARAPPLE WHILE YOU DO. THE JUICE IS INSIDE."