BlackwaterDnD

Adam:
Welcome to BlackwaterDnD, where good friends tell better stories. This series, Sin Eater: Absolution is a miniseries using the Sin Eater system created by Anica Cihla. The Kickstarter for Sin Eater will be available on May 26th, 2025. Much of what you hear Adam say around the ritual of sin eating is read directly from the sourcebook. This series is proudly sponsored by Hero Forge & Hunter’s Entertainment. For this story, the Sin Eater will be played by the wonderfully talented Jess Lupini, and I, Adam Lucas, will be acting as her journal.

Content warnings include: themes of death // desecration of a corpse // gore // misophonia // religious undertones // mentions of blood // complex family dynamics // depictions of mental illness // depictions of vomiting // depictions of disease // disordered eating // class inequality // depictions of spirits & the undead // mutilation

The life of a Sin Eater is not always a pleasant one. Regularly confronted as they are with what crawls from the deepest pits of the human soul, each episode may take us to a place that mirrors real world sources of pain and trauma. A list of the topics, themes, and subject matter featured has been included in the episode description. It is important to know that if at any point it becomes too much for you, our listener, and for both of us, Jess and myself, we can take a break - that is an important part of this. Recognizing when we need to step away. After all, the meal that we will prepare here will not spoil until we are ready to return.

Episode I: Gluttony

Adam:
Welcome to Episode One of Sin Eater: Absolution. With me is Jess Lupini. Hello, Jess.

Jess:
Hey, Adam.

[both restrain a giggle]

Adam:
Every time. [Jess laugh] Jess will be playing our Sin Eater, Caradog. Last we left off, we had worked together to create Caradog of Barley and Bile, an orphan of a recent plague, scarred and forgotten. They turned to being a Sin Eater to survive this cruel, cold reality. So, wipe your damned mouth, and get ready to take another bite.

The Evagrius Manor sits on a central hill overlooking the city of Shura. Caradog, you slink through the fading light of dusk, up the winding path that leads to the back of the imposing manor. As you approach, slipping through a seldom-used wrought iron gate, you see a figure, a silhouette filling a tall narrow window, framed by elaborate stone carvings and perfectly manicured creeping ivy. You cannot make out any details of the figure, but you feel the weight of their gaze, until you reach a small door meant for the various servants of the house. You pull a cord and a soft, solemn tone rings out.

The resonant tolling of the knell signifies that you have arrived, for only one who attends the dead would ring this bell. The door creaks, or perhaps it wasn't the door but the man who opened it. Paper-thin skin clings to a hand that beckons you inward, and you follow this ancient servant inward. No words are shared as he ushers you through the winding hidden passages, that only the servants can confidently navigate. What are you thinking?

Jess:
I have very few moments of positive emotion, genuine positive emotion, in my life these days. Very few times where I feel anything other than a numbness, or a fear, or simply looking to make the time move a little faster, and will that it would. But, these moments where I am entering a new space, a new home, a new family, are exciting, and I am in this moment just a little bit on edge in a positive way. Excited to see what might come next.

Adam:
Okay. You come to a halt before a door, and a silent gesture from the withered retainer indicates that this next room is your destination, and that you must enter alone. How do you enter?

Jess:
It's just a regular, like a wood door?

Adam:
Just a regular wood door.

Jess:
I look down to my feet, where the small ghostly pale white cat that accompanies me everywhere is making little figure eights around my legs, and I push open the door a crack, and making eye contact with the cat. Eidolon is her name.

Adam:
Eidolon?

Jess:
Eidolon.

Adam:
Amazing.

Jess:
I gesture with my gaze to the doorway, and she enters before me.

Adam:
Okay. You lose sight of this white shadow as it slips into a deep darkness. Do you follow?

Jess:
I do. I touch the servant on the shoulder first, in a sort of acknowledgement. Almost just, almost an odd, anti-social touch, that to the wrong person might be read as creepy or strange. But, I intend it well, and hope that the servant recognizes my intent.

Adam:
Hmm. Mhmmm. Okay.

Jess:
And then I push into the room.

Adam:
You step forward, and as the door closes behind you, you are left in a profound darkness. This solemn chamber, made for this recondite ritual you are here to conduct. Heavy velvet curtains are drawn tightly, blocking what little light the stars might afford this night. This room is powerfully dark, but, within your supplies you have simple beeswax candles and a block of a very particular incense. How do you lay them out?

Jess:
Before I do, Adam, what do I smell?

Adam:
[sighs deeply] You smell that lingering mustiness of old wood and leather. You smell the acrid scent of chemicals made for preserving a body. You also smell the smells of fresh food. And beyond that, that’s about it.

Jess:
Hmm… I… In the silence, in the dark, I am attuned to the, as faint as they are, the sound of my cat's breath and footsteps, and I hear her move towards what I can only assume from the scent is the food. I call her back, she chirps, and of course does not come. She is a cat. Why would she? This is why I enjoy her company. I kneel down right where I am and take out the candles, and light them one at a time, with my eyes closed.

Adam:
Okay. At what point do you open your eyes?

Jess:
When I am confident that nothing in the room is changing.

Adam:
Okay. And do you light the incense, or do you wait?

Jess:
I wait.

Adam:
You feel a stillness to the room. A stillness that even moves Eidolon to cease their constant prowling. There is something about being in this room with the dead that brings everything to a halt. And you light the final candle, and you know that everything in this room is as it should be, as far as things should be for you.

Jess:
I pull out my journal and read the text that I've first scrolled, and then embossed again on the cover. It just says, ‘For the Boy’. I feel it with my finger, the indent that I've made many times with two or three quills over the years. And I keep it in one hand as I look up and look around me.

Adam:
Okay. The candles you have lit provide a dim flickering light. And do you light the incense at this point?

Jess:
[sighs] I feel like you want me to light the incense, Adam.

Adam:
It’s up to you.

Jess:
I don't want to light the incense.

Adam:
You don’t want to light the incense.

Jess:
I'm not ready to light the incense.

Adam:
So, you see before you a body laid out, washed and prepared for your work. And it seems to stretch and grow in the eerie light of the candles. There is a deep, stifling silence within this chamber. A silence that can only be found amongst the dead. A silence that seems to absorb the smallest of noises. The soft whisper of the candles, the creak of wood, the faint rustle of your clothes. The light padding of your cat moving around. As if the body before you resents any intrusion on the eternal silence that death commands. In the presence of the dead's stillness, there is an echo of finality. An overwhelming certainty that this silence is permanent and absolute.

Jess:
What food is there in the room?

Adam:
What food did you request?

Jess:
I think I need-what information was I given about this particular person?

Adam:
You see before you, Laute Evagrius. Laute was actually quite beloved. Not because of any particular personality traits or choices, but because of his extravagance. He was a known reckless spender. He was a known host of extravagant parties. He was also often heard of paying lavish sums for the finest foods and latest health fads. He is a well-built man. Athletic. Toned muscles. This was a man who ate only the finest. For gluttony need not be eating in excess, but can be in eating of excess in quality. Laute was such a man, for his greatest sin was gluttony.

Jess:
I… When I was contacted by the family, and they would have asked me what meal I required to release the spirit of Laute, I would have requested the simplest, stalest crust of bread, and thimble full of the finest ale that they could obtain.

Adam:
And I must ask again. Do you like the incense?

Jess:
I light the incense.

Adam:
The air soon becomes thick with this incense. Its mephitic scent mingling with the aforementioned smells of fresh food, and that lingering mustiness of old wood and leather. Before you sits Laute Evagrius, but perhaps not every sin is truly deserving of forgiveness. And no one will know what you work towards, whether it is salvation or damnation. After all, this is your burden to bear alone. So if you would, roll a d6 or flip a coin for me.

Jess:
Okay, I'm gonna roll a d6. [dice clatters] It's a two.

Adam:
Even. You are preparing a meal to forgive, to take it upon your own head. You're eating to absolve. If they were an enemy, or if this sin is one that you view in particularly negative light, why are you choosing to absolve them? How do you view the sin of gluttony?

Jess:
I… There are sins of… There are sins that… Are primarily committed by the rich, by the wealthy. And there are sins committed by everyone in equal measure. Gluttony straddles the two. One can be gluttonous in poverty, one can be gluttonous in wealth, but, I know that I would commit the exact same sin if I were in his position.

Adam:
Interesting.

Jess:
And so, as I cannot separate myself from my work, I have pity for the very fact that gluttony is a sin, because it feels like such a natural, natural component of human nature to me.

Adam:
Hmm. And you're almost falling prey to one of your three sins. As we discussed in the prologue, your sins are banality, wrath, and in this particular moment, parasociality, as you cannot help but forgive someone that you feel a… Manufactured closeness to, and empathy for.

Jess:
I get out a quill and a pot of ink. I take out my journal, I turn to a new page, I write in a… almost unexpectedly flowery script at the top of the page, ‘Laute Evagrius’. And immediately below I write ‘A note to the heir to my sins. I may have absorbed some of the gluttony of this man, and I know not how much, but when the time comes to consume my sins, for which I hope you will absolve me, count this amongst those that require absolution.’

Adam:
Okay.

Jess:
I close the journal.

Adam:
Amazing. It is now time. Prepare your altar, Sin Eater. Lay out your map before you. Place your coins. Set aside for now, for the piper will be paid in due time. With you, you possess some ritual implements, some items intrinsic, made in the mind and stitched to soul. Roll me a d6, twice.

Jess:
That’s a two and a six.

Adam:
Amazing. So your first item is bark from a tree with the initials ‘AR + CM’ carved into it. Who were these people? Who were they to the dead? Who were they to you?

Jess:
We all know the practice of carving initials into a tree, or the dirt, or, any surface, a rock or a cliff, to commemorate a relationship. Two people who have chosen to be together. But, there is a lesser known reason why one might carve two sets of initials into a surface like this, and it is to bind those two souls together. Sometimes without the knowledge or permission of one of the parties, and once, in youth, Caradog met someone who they wished would not leave. And, they attempted to bind the two of them together, and it was unsuccessful, but this failure is something that they have removed from the tree where it lay, and taken with them as a reminder of what happens when one attempts to do something that they’re not prepared for. And how disastrous the results can be. The… Yeah. I’ll say… The ‘CM’ are my initials, and the ‘AR’ are those of the
person that I tried to bind.

Adam:
Wow. Unsuccessfully.

Jess:
Yep. A story for another day.

Adam:
Mhmm. You also have with you an earthenware ocarina wrapped in a square cloth, crusted with blood that seeps from the instrument each night. You dare not unwrap it. You cannot bear to look upon it. What about it distresses you so?

Jess:
When my family died, I was destroyed. And I acted in wrath and in anger. The reason I took my would-be revenge on the neighboring farms after we lost our crop and I lost my family, is that we asked for help. We asked our neighbors for help and they denied us.

Adam:
Hmm. Mhmm.

Jess:
They denied us. And so my family was forced to resort to desperation of asking a traveling merchant of shady character for a magical sort of assistance. A substance that he said we could spread and sow in our fields that would help the plants grow. And of course, it did not. But, what it did do when it eventually killed my father, is leave some sort of strange curse upon this ocarina that sat on our mantelpiece. And it seeps blood, which I know is his blood. I know it's his blood [Adam sighs deeply in awe]. And it's endless. I know not of where it comes, and I don't know why it stops, but it disgusts me, and I can never let go of it.

Adam:
Amazing. Fantastic. You also must find the items extrinsic, found in the home, sutured to flesh. On the body before you, components from your surroundings. There is a list. I would like you to choose three of them.

Jess:
Mmm. Is this family devout?

Adam:
They outwardly appear so, but you know in the act of hiring you. There’s more to that. It can't be quite as simple as this family is unwaveringly devout, because if they were, why would they need the attendance of a Sin Eater?

Jess:
I pick up a candle and begin to look around the room, searching for something that smells of blasphemy.

Adam:
Hmm... Amazing. I am going to give this to you.

Jess:
Okay.

Adam:
So you search for an item reeking of the hidden blasphemy that this household goes to great lengths to hide. What is it that you find?

Jess:
I find… I find a desk, a drawer in that desk, that is stuck and does not open. And so I spend a moment, pull out a small knife, and I'm able to will the lock to move, and open that drawer. And inside I find sketches. Tens of sketches of bodies desecrated and mutilated.

Adam:
Which of the items extrinsic does this fulfill and where do you place it?

Jess:
Despite the outward appearance of devotion that this family has to the church, I recognize these images as a sign of divinity, in some way, for them. There's a power here. There's a force surrounding them that indicates these were important in some divine way to this family, and I don't understand how or why yet, but I can tell that… Their devotion, whatever it is, is not to what it outwardly appears. I place this sign of divinity, these disgusting images, at the crown of Laute's head.

Adam:
Amazing. Two more to choose. Two more to place.

Jess:
I see a carving that looks to be from somewhere else, certainly nowhere nearby. I don't recognize it. I don't have a great deal of worldly experience, but it looks to be of some kind of animal or beast that I've never seen before. I believe this is a relic of travel. I place it at Laute's feet. And then… I break off a tiny piece of the bread that has been left for me. Generosity, I place in one of his hands, cold and stiff, and in the other, intelligence, a drop of the contents of the thimble.

Adam:
Amazing. As you finish setting up, I would like for you to describe the tableau that you have created in this room, including these items, intrinsic and extrinsic.

Jess:
Before me, on this mat, at the altar I've created, this bark with these initials. My incense, my two candles, and then on the other side of them, the oozing, weeping ocarina of my father. I look up towards Laute and I see, set just above his forehead, this display of… Drawings, that I do not yet fully understand. A relic of his travels. Carving of the beast. And now, barely loosely held by friction and a little surface tension, a tiny crumb of bread and a tiny drop of liquid, one in each hand.

Adam:
Amazing. Anything else?

Jess:
I think the only other thing is Eidolon is curiously sitting at the feet of Laute, tail twitching back and forth, as she observes.

Adam:
Fantastic. Now, Jess, it's time for you to dim the lights. It is time for Caradog to speak thrice aloud the sins before them, and it is time for you to write your final entry for Gruffold before embarking on the ritual itself.

Jess:
Okay. I snuff out one of the candles, and I can feel the ash in between my fingers. I take a pinch of salt and I place on my own tongue, a piece of ash, and I move to Laute and I place a grain of salt in his mouth, on his tongue. Salt for the dead, ash for the living. I… In now the half-light, I return to in front of my altar, and I speak aloud.

Jess (as Caradog):
“The gluttony of excess, the gluttony of wealth, and the hypocrisy of my own.”

Jess:
As I do this, I note each of them down in the journal.

Adam:
There is a song that you sing while you prepare your meal. Are there lyrics? Are they in your native tongue, or a language long dead? Is it a song usually sung with others, living or dead, or is this a solitary dirge?

Jess:
Mmm. As Carodog opens their mouth, the voice that comes out changes slightly and… Only Eidolon, for she's the only one in the room with ears still to hear, would hear a… A strange, lilting chant, with a harmonic undertone to it, that would ring out very quietly as Caradog sings. In a language that few in Shura understand, and fewer still speak, but a language they learned from their father. And they sing, and, depending on how good the hearing of someone else in the room might have been, if there were anyone else there, they might hear the ocarina play.

Jess (as Caradog): [chanting]
“Hmmmmm. More and more, you take your fill. Never sated. Never still! The weight you feel, the glutton's embrace, devours all your time and space. Bread and ale, Falante calls, the emptiness inside you crawls. Fed in body starving soul. Evagrius, you take your toll.”

Jess:
And I exhale.

Adam:
[impressed exhale] Carodog. It is now time. Prepare your feast. What recipe do you choose? Is it based on the sin specific qualities of the ingredients themselves? Are your decisions influenced by your own past misdeeds and misfortunes? Or is it determined by the life lived by the sinner?

Jess:
I… I have certainly caved to one of my own sins in this particular meal, of parasociality. I have taken too much of myself to this meal. As I was invited into the home of this family, who I know to be wealthy, who I believed to be devout, who I expected I could ask for almost anything from, I would not let myself. If I am to absolve somebody of gluttony, I cannot, in the moment of asking for the meal, be gluttonous myself, by asking for the meal that I would want. I had to ask for something very… Well, barely there, which is how we ended up with this crust of bread, this thimble of ale. I also bring with me a pinch of salt, and this will be the simplest meal for absolution that I could possibly consume, in this case. I hope that… I take out my journal and I write down, below everything I've written so far, an additional note for the boy, ‘I... must confess another sin. I… I am in this moment guilty of lust, a lust for more, a passion for more time spent in this house of this family. And I hope that another one dies soon so that I may have a better meal, for I am hungry. I am so hungry. And while I know this bread, and this drink will absolve this man of his sins, of his gluttonous life, it does not sate me.’

Adam:
Wow. How do you incorporate your intrinsic and extrinsic ritual items as you gather your culinary necessities?

Jess:
I have already used the ocarina, and so I cover it with a piece of cloth. I do not want to see it anymore. It makes me sick. I, however, cannot help but notice the blood continue to seep through the cloth, and I know to myself that I must at some point wash those. I place my hand on the tree bark. I feel the shape of it, the roughness. And then I move on to the body, to the items extrinsic, the images, I force myself to look at each of them. And I don't enjoy it. And I am relieved that I don't enjoy it. And then, I am upset that I feel relieved in that, that it even entered my mind that I might. I take this carving from the feet and… I begin to… I'm about to do something gross, Adam.

Adam:
I'm ready.

Jess:
This carving has some hard edges of the almost stone-like wood it is carved from. I begin to roughly push the carving into the bare feet of this dead man, until it pierces the skin. I put down the carving for just a moment, and I move on, to his hands. As he is long dead, rigor mortis is no longer freezing the body, and so I'm able to bend the arm, bringing the crumb of bread to his mouth, and then touching with the other hand, the drop of ale to his mouth. And I set them back where they were. Lastly, I take out my quill. I dip it in the pot of ink and then I dip it in the weeping wound in his foot. And I write.

Adam:
What do you write?

Jess:
‘It ends as it begins.’

Adam:
Okay, now we come to a pivotal point in the ritual. You have two coins before you. Remuneration for the piper. I would like you to flip each coin twice, and note the harmony of the result.

Jess:
Okay, so I'm going to flip the Baker's Coin first. [coin rings] That's heads, which means black bile. And again. [coin rings] Tails, yellow bile.

Adam:
Okay, the Baker's Coin exists in balance.

Jess:
And now, the Butcher's Coin. [coin rings] Tails for blood.

Adam:
Okay.

Jess:
And… [coin rings] It is balanced. That's heads.

Adam:
Amazing. The four seasons of the soul in perfect harmony. The recipe you chose, this austere, simple piece of bread, and this small but lavish sampling of ale… Tell me, how does this represent each humour in such a measured way?

Jess:
The four humours, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood, exist separately with some overlap, and black bile, in this case, the coldness, the dryness, the melancholy is in this austere bread, this stale bread.

Adam:
And as you look upon the bread, you are visited, as you always are, by memory. Melancholy. You see two humours simultaneously in this moment. For one leads to the next. You see blood. Enthusiasm, openness, a gregarious disposition. You see Laute amongst his peers, hosting a magnificent party. He is a whirlwind of congeniality. Everyone wants to spend some time with Laute, for Laute is the center of the event. He is beloved by numberless people. He sups upon the finest foods. He sips upon the finest of beverages. His life is one of perfection, of excellence, of excess. And this memory, these moments of him at his height, are quickly contrasted with him alone, in his room, with no one. For you cannot be everyone's friend without being truly alone. Oof. There is no one in Laute's life that truly knew the man. And you see as he sits alone in his room, after an extravagant party thrown, a heavy exhale, leave him. He is alone. He suffers, like all of us do from a deep and abiding sadness, when left in a solitary moment. How is the blood, this enthusiasm, how is this represented in the meal that you have prepared?

Jess:
I think that enthusiasm, that warmth, is what I feel the tiniest piece of as I take that miniscule shot of ale, that warmth of the alcohol moving down your throat. Within that is the blood.

Adam:
Amazing. Phlegm now. Aloofness, reservation, taciturn dispositions. How is this represented in the meal?

Jess:
This is barely a meal. There's nothing to these two items that one could consider a meal. This is… The faintest, most minimal satiation. The coldness, the wetness of the gurgling stomach that is still hungry, that is phlegm.

Adam:
The vision that you saw of black bile, melancholy, and blood, enthusiasm, came as you flipped both coins simultaneously, the Baker showing black bile, the Butcher showing blood. And once more, you show you and once more you see a twinned vision, as the coins flip and reveal yellow bile, ambition, and phlegm, aloofness, reservation. You see, Laute desperately wanting to find true connection. You see this warmth in him that he desires to share. And in that you see him confronted with a moment, an opportunity to share it, as many years before, love is professed. But, love professed from one well below his station. And in this moment, he must act phlegmatically. He must be aloof. He must deny this love. For it is a choice of true connection, or keeping what he has. And he chose family. In that moment, blood being thicker than water.

Jess:
Caradog is deeply below. Deeply below Laute’s station. And that moment… I have been, in my mind, as I succumb to the parasociality, I have been placing myself into Laute's life in some way. And this moment of seeing in a vision, his rejection of someone so below his station, who he even feels so strongly for, in favour of the blood of his family, it interrupts this fantasy instantly, and so completely that I vomit.

Adam:
Okay. Bring forth the bile. Bring forth the barley. With this, you'll vomit before you. For better or for worse, your meal is made. It is time to partake in the goodness that you have created in balancing the humours. So tell me, Caradog of Barley and Bile, how do you consume this meal? Does your manner of consumption relate to the sin, or sins, of the dead? Does your consumption of it change based on the fact that you have succeeded here in your preparations?

Jess:
I know what I must do, even though I have that shaking, sick feeling after one throws up. I, through the shivering and shaking, I slowly pick apart the bread, as I place each crumb into my mouth, one by one, and force myself to swallow. And Eidolon comes up towards me, and sits in front of the small pool of bile that I expelled onto the altar, and she begins to lick it. I push her away without stopping the consumption of this bread, but you cannot stop a cat who has decided what they want to do. And so eventually I give up. I finish the bread. I shoot the ale back. I place the thimble on my finger. And I close my eyes.

Adam:
You sit in a self-imposed darkness for a moment. But the ritual is not yet done. You must place your two coins upon the eyes of the dead. In this instance, they serve as a clean remittance for the ones who will ensure that the soul does not linger. Now your work is done. End the ritual, unring the bell, close the door and salt the threshold. To sever the link that you have created, you must speak thrice. A word for the person that was, a word for the body that is, and a word for the soul that is no more.

Jess:
I stand up, looking down upon the body and I speak,

Jess (as Caradog):
“Sated. Starving. Released.”

Adam:
[heavy sigh] And it is now time to clean up after your meal, which involves more than just the meal that you've prepared. The handling of the remains is often predicated on their most prominent sin. How do you… What instructions do you leave for the family in the disposal of the remains of Laute Evagrius?

Jess:
I tear a page out of my journal, and leave a note beside the body. The instructions. And I write, ‘For the dogs’.

Adam:
Okay!

Jess:
And then I move closer to the body, now empty of any spirit or soul, I… I pluck the illustrations, these images of mutilated bodies, into my hands and I lean close, too close, my mouth near the ear of Laute, or what was once Laute, and I whisper,

Jess (as Caradog):
“We are friends, are we not? So I shall do my friend a favour, for old time's sake.”

Jess:
And I hold the paper over the candle, as I destroy this divine sacrilegious evidence of what I do not know, but it is gone from this world reduced to ash.

Adam:
Ashes for the living, salt for the dead. Your corporeal work has finished, and the soul of Laute Evagrius is released. It shall not linger in this world. It shall not turn, and be consumed by its own sins. For those sins of the dead are resolved, as you have seen fit. Their soul has found the salvation only you can offer. In this moment, at the end of it all, has the body changed? In this resolution? Is there a scent in the air? Or perhaps has nothing happened at all? For what is the weight of sin really?

Jess:
In my journal, I note down. ‘I smell a faint odour of brimstone in the air, and my successor should take note. I do not know what this means, but, something is wrong with this family. Something that makes me sick. I do not believe it is only my own sins that have made me so. I must leave this room before I cannot.’

Adam:
You fold the bottom corner of your final page upward, back towards the spine. Your journey continues, onward and upward, for the time being. Blow out the candle. Knock three times on the surface around it, to the left for what was, to the right for what will be, and knock once above the candle, for the results you hoped for have come to pass. Breathe. Take a moment to come back to the here and now. The emotions you are feeling are real. But the story of the Sin Eater is contained within the confines of your page. The confines of this story we tell. If anything lingers, find comfort as you see fit. Burn the pages, rip them up, hug a pet, do what you need to find peace. Too many cooks may spoil the soup, but many hands make light this heavy work. You are encouraged to share your story, which we will, with other Sin Eaters so they may add, edit, and adjust. Build on your work and begin anew. Annotate, recreate, redesign, to keep the art or burden of sin eating alive. As you finalize and make ready to move for the door, Caradog, in the end, you are left once more with that silence. A silence that speaks of the end. An end to laughter, words, dreams and sorrows. The living are left to listen, to fill the quiet with their own unspoken questions, but the dead remain unmoved, locked either in a silence that neither answers nor asks, or locked beyond the walls of the living. It is a silence that feels like it will never be broken. And with that, the sins of Laute Evagrius are eaten. And Caradog, you leave the manor with a hidden hope to return once more. Thank you for listening.

Adam:
Sin Eater: Absolution is performed by Jess Lupini and Adam Lucas. Special thanks to our campaign artist, Cenzi, who you can find as @cenzi03 on Instagram. Music and effects by Epidemic Sound and Si Rutherford. For more stories, come follow us everywhere at @blackwaterdnd, and make sure to check out our Main Campaign on Monday nights at 8pm PST at twitch.tv/blackwaterdnd. This show is made possible by our sponsors who support us and allow us to tell the stories we want to share. We are grateful to be sponsored by Hero Forge, who offer fully customizable miniatures made with their online 3D character creator! Head on over and design your own Sin Eater, and get them printed in a variety of materials, including colour printing options! With new content added each week, check out www.heroforge.com to start bringing your character to life! We would also like to thank our sponsor Hunter’s Entertainment. Hunter's Entertainment is a premier purveyor of tabletop RPGs and board games, providing amazing alternative systems for whatever setting or scenario you want to bring to the table. With titles like Kids on Bikes, Alice is Missing, God's of Metal: Ragnarok, and of course, Sin Eater, Hunter's brings beautifully written & designed books to dive into with your players. Check them out at huntersentertainment.com and sink your teeth into something new. Finally, we’re thankful for our Patrons for joining us on our first adventure within Shura. You too can come join us on Patreon, where you can check out behind the scenes info, our talkback show Chatwater, as well as exclusive Sin Eater bonus content and so much more. Head on over to patreon.com/blackwaterdnd for all the info. Thank you for listening, stay hungry and be safe.