File a Citizen — The Black Index of Montavera

The Window · Before the Stations

Your Name

The citizen's name

The Office keeps no list of approved names. Yours will do. It usually does.

I acknowledge the two laws: this citizen is human, and has no class, no level, and no prophecy. They choose a kind of life.

Station 1 of 6 · Field One

Your Trade

Choose a trade that interests you, troubles you, or feels uncomfortably familiar. Your trade is the work you did before the city began paying unusual attention to you.

More info — what a trade gives you

Each trade gives you three things: Knowledge — what experience lets you understand; Connections — who recognizes, admits, or employs you; and a Knack — a permission, not a bonus. A knack lets you attempt something with unusual confidence or access. It never guarantees success.

Station 2 of 6 · Field Two

The Ear

Everyone in Montavera hears a little. You are someone who did not — or could not — stop hearing. There are exactly two ways it begins. The Bureau recognizes both. It prefers neither.

Select

Stumbled Upon

You heard something singing and could not unhear it — a drawer, a grave, a kettle that sang with the music of a person who had never entered the room. Nobody invited you. You put your ear against the wrong wall, and the wall noticed.

Select

Gifted Grace

Someone taught you — a grandmother who hummed while she worked, a neighbor who heard lies like rain, a stranger on a bridge who told you to listen.

Station 3 of 6 · Field Three

Your Debt

Who or what holds the debt?

1 · Who expects something from you?

What is owed?

A useful debt is specific, and has room to change: settleable, but not tomorrow, and not without consequence. A debt that can never be settled is a sentence. Neither is forbidden. Know which one you are choosing.

2 · Why does it matter?

3 · What happens if you do not provide it?

4 · What would it cost you to pay?

Station 4 of 6 · Field Four

Your Bonds

Two people who make you a known citizen. Montavera runs on being known: doors open for people whose people answer letters, and merchants extend credit to the bonded. Place them in the city — on a street you can walk to. A bond is not armor. It is a place the game can reach you. Spend carefully. The city keeps the carbon.

Bond the First

Who they are — their name

One true sentence about them

What they don't know — the part of your life you keep from them

What they'd do — if they knew everything

Bond the Second

Who they are — their name

One true sentence about them

What they don't know — the part of your life you keep from them

What they'd do — if they knew everything

Station 5 of 6 · Field Five

Your Pressures

The Open Petition · Form P-1

Every citizen holds one open petition at a time: a single sentence — what you want the city to notice about you. Filed examples: “I want the city to notice that I keep the night market safe.” · “I want the city to notice my rain-songs.” Petitions may be amended. They are never erased. If you filed a Want above, your petition is usually that want, stated for the record.

My open petition — one sentence

Station 6 of 6 · Field Six

The Prior Life File

Six entries. You fill three now. The city keeps the other three sealed, and no window — this one included — will open them for you. They are discovered through play. When a sealed entry is finally filled, you decide what it means. The city provides the fact. The meaning is yours.

Entry One — Open

Something you remember clearly

Entry Two — Open

Something you have been told about yourself

Who told you — and what you think of their telling

Entry Three — Open

A possession whose origin you cannot explain

Entries Four to Six — Sealed

Filed by the city. Not by you. Not today.

Sealed

Entry Four. Someone who remembers you differently.

Sealed

Entry Five. A promise you do not remember making. Someone, somewhere, is keeping it for you.

Sealed

Entry Six. A question the city seems to recognize. A clerk pauses at your file. A form comes back with a field pre-filled.

Application for Citizenship

Choose a door

Answer in order

Collect the jacket

File a New Citizen

Quick Filing

Already Filed

The Window

Your Name

Your Trade

A New Filing

The Ear

Stumbled Upon

Gifted Grace

The Voice You Hear Most Clearly

The Fragment You Were Taught

Your Debt

Your Bonds

Bond the First

Bond the Second

Your Pressures

The Open Petition · Form P-1

The Prior Life File

Entry One — Open

Entry Two — Open

Entry Three — Open

Entries Four to Six — Sealed