Moonlight Over a Ruined Village

            Tonight, there is turmoil in the village. More so than usual. While the village has never been known as a choice destination, things have recently gotten much worse. There are no gentle terms for a disaster of this sort. The village is now infested with vermin. And by vermin, I mean rats. Yes, an influx of rats has swept into the village, and it has gotten too large to ignore. Indeed, the vermin have grown brazen as their number has increased. The village can endure it no longer.

            Unfortunately, the River Road crew is no longer the guardian presence it w...

            For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves in a city that has had enough. The tales of wailing ghosts and sewer goblins that pervaded their city had annoyed them, but left them mostly unbothered. Yet the recent string of attacks that left wounded citizens in their wake was too much for them to bear. So a group of concerned citizens decided it was time to take control of the situation.

            On a fateful autumn night, the denizens of the Riverbank Community Orchestra became an enraged posse on the trail of the vampire killer that stalked their streets. The trail led them to a...

            This tale is about a young woman who was worried about her sister. She watched her forge a unique path that led from the dull banality of their suburban life to the rich vibrancy of the mountains and the forests that lay beyond. Yet the further away she ventured, the more others pulled her back to the struggling village that needed her. This is interrupted by the arrival of a small, petty man in a suit who takes it upon himself to stop her from abandoning her place in the village. Yet there remains a dark voice that calls her deeper...

            Tonight, a kitsune lord has been wounded most grievously. His eye was savagely removed from his head by a lone Raven who has the vastness of the skies in which to make his escape. The earthbound Wolves can do nothing but storm about their stronghold and rage at the audacity of this lone Raven. The reign of the Wolves of the Mountain has been revealed as little more than a sham, and its leader Daigo can do nothing but mourn its passing.

            But that is not really the case. In fact, a closer examination of the facts shows little has chang...

            Tonight, we find ourselves amongst the upstanding citizens of a respectable town. Although this town contains the ruined village, its denizens hold fast to the belief that their town is not a village, and it is not ruined. Yet they live beneath a shadow that threatens to shatter the lie these good citizens have constructed around themselves.

            The more respectable neighborhoods are now being emptied of life. The young people have left their childhood homes to settle in the glistening towers of the big city. They are seeking the prosperity their elevated social status has guaranteed them since birth. Their chi...

            For tonight’s tale, we continue our Purloined tale series. If you haven’t listened to the previous five episodes, the events of this one may leave you somewhat confused. Or maybe they won’t. This part of the tale is pretty straightforward. If you do get confused, feel free to revisit the earlier episodes in the series.

            In this part of the tale, we finally have to start dealing with Goro. This Kitsune has been making a nuisance of himself since humans first started to inhabit the area. On this particular occasion, he came to the village to find out why Kens...

            Tonight, we look back at the tale that started this entire podcast series. Roughly two years ago, I released Moonlight Over a Printed Face. It was the first tale in the Ruined Village Podcast and it introduced us to five of the main architects of the Ruin that is plaguing the village. To commemorate the release of that tale, I am releasing a revised edition of it. That means the text was revised and then re-recorded. However, the tale is the same as it was when it was released two years ago.

            Since then, the narrative has expanded to the point...

            For tonight’s tale, we will spend most of the evening in that second hand electronics store. Our returning listeners know it as the center of the ruin at the heart of the village. For the doomed soul known as the professor, he calls it business as usual. For that is the place where he spends his waking hours. Yet on this fateful day, he is greeted by an old adversary. The demon fox lord, who all of us know by the name of Tomisaburo, has come to enlist the aid of the professor in his latest scheme. Tomisaburo aims to rein...

            For tonight’s tale, we examine the fifth entry into our purloined tale series. The proper title of the series is the Banquet of the Rat King. So that’s where this tale is going. If you haven’t listened to the previous four tales, you may be somewhat confused by this one. If you feel like you cannot handle that level of danger at the moment, please listen to those tales. Otherwise, proceed at your own risk.

                        For this entry, we take a closer look at that odd little character that everyone seems to hate. Simon made a nuisance of himself for the enti...

            For tonight’s tale, I engage in brutal combat with my recording equipment to eventually tell you the tale of a brood of vermin. The first members to enter the scene are our two vampire lovers. They are brooding over their last hunt, even though they have no regrets for the life they stole. They are soon joined by Lord Eugene McNeil, who makes them listen to the Eagles while he asks them what the deal is with the word undead. Neither of them are amused by this flaccid attempt at humor.

            They are soon joined by a vampiric spider creatu...

            For tonight’s tale, we continue with the fourth part of our Purloined Tale. That means you need to listen to Moonlight Over a Purloined Tale, Moonlight Over a Cage of Fangs, and Moonlight Over a Feast of Poison to truly appreciate the full ramifications of the shocking events of this part of the tale. So if you haven’t listened to those yet, please do so before you listen to this tale.         

            In this installment, we join Kensuke, Robert, and his band of Raven cohorts as they accompany a mysterious noblewoman who calls herself Gonzaemon. They had been looking for her to lend h...

            For tonight’s tale, we join our two courting lovers as they take their first steps into the dark netherworld of vampirism. For this is the night of their initiation into their new lives as vampires.

            Before, they were but playing with the darkness. Yet this naive posturing was done in earnest. It was an artless attempt at following the dark path as it had been laid out before them by the tales of old. Though those actions would have been ridiculed had anyone been paying attention to them, they performed them in defiance of the very rules that form our noti...

            For tonight’s tale, we explore the third part of the Purloined Tale. So if you haven’t listened to Moonlight Over a Purloined Tale and Moonlight Over a Cage of Fangs yet, please do so before you listen to this tale. If you do not, you will not know what the hell is going on in this tale. One cannot even imagine the amount of turmoil that would be caused by that level of confusion. So go ahead and listen to those two tales.

            In this episode, we join Kensuke as he deals with the consequences of mauling a poison-filled...

            For tonight’s tale, we explore the second part of the Purloined Tale. So if you haven’t listened to Moonlight Over a Purloined Tale yet, please do so before you listen to this tale. If you do not, you run the risk of not really knowing what the hell is going on in this tale. And that, gentle listener, is a fate too horrific to be imagined. So go ahead and listen to that tale.

            As for this tale, we find Tomisaburo staring into the gaping maw of a wolf that has sworn to kill him before he can take his sev...

            For tonight’s tale, we explore the second part of the Purloined Tale. So if you haven’t listened to Moonlight Over a Purloined Tale yet, please do so before you listen to this tale. If you do not, you run the risk of not really knowing what the hell is going on in this tale. And that, gentle listener, is a fate too horrific to be imagined. So go ahead and listen to that tale.

            As for this tale, we find Tomisaburo staring into the gaping maw of a wolf that has sworn to kill him before he can take his sev...

            For tonight’s tale, we join two young lovers on their way home from an adventure. Yet this was no ordinary date. For they went out in search of a vampire. They wanted to make contact with this denizen of the dark, for they walked the path of the damned as well. They were vampires. Well, not in, like, the literal sense or anything like that. It was complicated and you probably wouldn’t understand, so stop asking about it. Do not presume to judge these two young pilgrims too harshly. You too probably did some weird shit too when you were y...

            For tonight’s tale, we join two young people who together chose to commit the greatest act of defiance in the very face of the ruin at the heart of this world.  They met each other, talked things over, and reached the agreement that they had fallen in love with each other. They overcame multiple obstacles to do this. The greatest of which was determining which one of them fell in love first. Since this was a mystery ill-suited to their youthful spirits, they agreed that they fell in love at first sight. But the question lingered.

            Their love was not allowe...

            For tonight’s tale, we sneak into the icy depths of the archives to steal part of a tale to break the heat of the summer. This tale deals with Tomisaburo, the mastermind behind most of the ruin at the heart of the River Village. While we may know him as a cunning strategist who always manages to stay ahead of his hunters, that was not always the case. He used to be a rash and impetuous little upstart that actively pursued danger. Well, maybe not much has changed since then. But he has gotten a lot better at escaping thos...

            For tonight’s tale, we check in on the River Road, which is the cultural center of the ruined village. Though it is not without its own form of tortured beauty, it is plagued by trash. Yes, people still throw their trash on the ground. Usually it comes in the form of wrappers for dog snacks, cigarette butts, beer cans, and chicken bones. Or at least, people assume they are chicken bones. However, the recent discovery of discarded syringes has caused a degree of concern amongst the denizens of the village. That is a level of ruin they are not at all co...

            For tonight’s tale, we join a public servant on her first day at her government job. Typically, that would be the sort of thing to make her parents proud. This is especially true considering their humble expectations for their daughter. Armed with a liberal arts degree and a boundless imagination, her parents naturally expected very little from her. Those expectations were further diminished by her involvement in the incident in the ruined village.            

            Their wayward daughter foolishly ventured into the ruined village to engage with its denizens. This was done at the behest of one of her teachers who insisted on engagi...

            For tonight’s tale, we find the ruined village in a precarious situation. The hapless inmates of the village have lived their lives in fear for too long. Mostly, they fear stepping in things that have no business being out in public. Too many dogs have walked amidst the spider azalea and have never returned.  The police have cowered in fear while the lawless elements have ruled over the village for too long. As a result, the powers that be have decided to put an end to this situation. Tonight is the night that the government tries to help.

        ...

            Tonight’s tale begins in a hole, dug deep into the earth by a creature that wants nothing to do with the world. The hole is merely a space in the earth for him to occupy until he passes from this world. For that is all this creature wants. He seeks oblivion.

            Yet the outer world would still claim this creature’s time and labor. The creature is awakened from his wretched slumber by merciless lights that flash in his eyes and a thunderous pounding in his skull. So the creature answers the phone he had been sleeping on, and discovers...

            For tonight’s tale, we join a doomed soul that has been locked away. He was first removed from society, and then from all sources of light. His sanity did not survive. The years he spent in his perpetually darkened cell could not be counted by his broken mind. He clawed at unforgiving walls and pulled at iron bars until his body failed him. He devoted his wretched life to vain attempts at escaping that darkness, and he failed every time. Soon the denizens of the darkness found him and dined on his flesh and blood. Before long, he was forced in...

            Tonight is the night we conclude season four. It began with the cult of the Spider taking control of the ruined village. They assigned the River Road crew to punish Tomisaburo, deal with the Devil monk, assist the faceless man, and locate the weasel. Over the past season, they have taken bold steps to accomplish some of those tasks. Some of it may have even been intentional. However, the weasel eludes them still. With his ability to make copies of himself, it seems like he will plague them forever. Yet that was before Tomisaburo got involved. He was the one who tau...

            For tonight’s tale, we join a lone stranger who fancies himself something of a celebrity. He has journeyed to a nearby resort town to investigate a strange incident. The employees of a local distillery claim mysterious entities have interfered with their production operations. The entities themselves defy explanation, as their actions are too erratic to be those of humans. However, the skills necessary to perform those actions are too advanced to be those of animals. The locals suspect supernatural forces are at work. Some even go so far as to declare them to be deities from the local mountain.

            For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves in the parking lot of an electronic store. The reputation of the store has always been negative. Yet the discovery of animate corpses on the second floor of the premises has damaged the store’s reputation beyond repair. These corpses were animated by the pedantic psychopath known as the Turkey. He has operated unopposed for so long that the situation has festered and worsened right before the eyes of the community. The Professor, who is the acting manager of the store, is desperate to rid his store of the animate dead. Moreover, he wants to fre...

            Tonight, we will visit a lonely second-hand electronics store. It was once the center of a criminal conspiracy that came close to destroying the ruined village, and its situation has not improved much since. The management has been replaced by a member of the River Road crew known as the Professor, who has a reputation for being the most sober member of the drunkest group in town. Assisting him is the Craftsman, who is in charge of repairing the electronics.

            However, the craftsman used to be the notorious Turkey, a pedantic little shithead who was once at the center of the very...

            Tonight’s tale concerns a pitiful creature known as a weasel. It awakens to find itself surrounded by darkness, pain, and death. Venom is coursing through its body and threatening to wipe out the weasel’s mind. But there remains within it an undying worm of self-preservation that empowers the weasel to escape. 

            After a great deal of unpleasantness and a change of clothes, the weasel steps out onto the River Road and its memories come back to it. No, they come back to him. He remembers a time when he was the chief player in both the river village and the m...

            For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves beneath the ruined village. Our guide through this realm of unforgiving darkness is the ethereal Sachiko, the charming snake deity who has captured the hearts of the River Road crew. With her in the tunnels are the devil monk and the weasel. They are her unwilling guests as she unravels the mystery of why the faceless man now looks like Chico Marx.

            Yet something is different about her this evening. She no longer has any semblance of patience for these creeps that are ruining the village she has claimed as her own. She had a good...

            The world is falling down around us, and the situation does not seem to be improving. The streets are still congested, the sidewalks are more broken than they were before, and all public places are more crowded than they have any right to be. But there are a few remaining places we can go to escape the madness. For we still have our ruined village beneath the moonlight.

            One year ago, I started this podcast to provide all of you with a place to safely observe a village as it falls into a state of ruin. We started with a drunkar...

            For tonight’s tale, we join Sachiko as she rides the bus to meet with her colleague. Since she is a snake deity, every interaction she has with the human world is strange to her. So she puts in the effort to understand the humans around her and the nature of their actions. Doing this enables her to move about amidst the humans largely unnoticed. Yet on this bus ride, she encounters something too strange for even this ruined village. For on this bus, she happens to look at the passenger in the seats next to her. When she does, she fin...

            For tonight’s tale, we find ourselves back in the ruined village. Strange events continue to occur there, and their grotesque players continue to lurk in the darkened corners of the village. Yet they are largely held in check by the efforts of them boys and their crew. Now the village can even pass for quaint on its better days. However, one strange figure still terrorizes the doomed inmates of the village. More importantly, the town drunk and them boys still have an old score to settle.

            The man with the printed face, or the faceless man, as he is also known, sti...

            For tonight’s tale, we join another solitary pilgrim who has the audacity to walk on the river road after nightfall. The night on which he chose to do this dangerous activity is the night of the Wild Hunt. Though this tradition is forgotten amidst the chaotic events that happen in the ruined village on a regular basis, the gods have not forgotten. This night is when supernatural denizens are led by the Queen of Winter. They hunt for living souls to enlist in their endless hunt.

            This solitary figure finds himself amidst an assembly of otherworldly creatures being led by t...

            For tonight’s episode, I explain why there was a delay in the release of this episode. That involves me recounting a strange incident that occurred while I was conducting field work for the next episode. This episode will serve to give you an idea of the hardships and dangers I face to bring these episodes to you on a semi regular basis. Despite the informal nature of this episode, it still includes references to violence, excessive alcohol consumption, charlatanism, and profanity. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we follow a lone fox as it emerges from its burrow. It has just healed from wounds dealt to it in the past, and it needs to hunt to regain its strength. So the fox ventures out to capture its prey. After a successful hunt, it returns to its burrow. It is that satisfied it has secured its survival for the immediate future.

            However, the prey is far from normal. It was infected by some unknown force that animates it into a grotesque mockery of life. The prey captures the newly healed fox and drags it from the sa...

            For tonight’s tale we follow a lone IT specialist as he whiles away his life working for a pharmaceutical company. However, this is no normal pharmaceutical company. For it has government contracts to produce chemical weapons that can be used to remove the bones from the living. Fortunately for out IT specialist, he knows all about those contracts. In fact, he is not even an IT specialist. He is a spy that was sent to that company to find those very chemicals. He was sent by none other than the spider deity, who has claimed control over the mountain vill...

            In this episode, I will talk to you like a normal person and give you some insight into what it’s like to do field work in these two ruined villages. Please be warned that I will resort to the use of course language to do so. I may also mention violence, occult activities, and antisocial behavior. For those reasons, and probably others that I am too far gone to even notice, listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we revisit an incident that had a monumental impact on both the River Village and the Mountain Village. Yet we will not concern ourselves with that tale, for it was not true. Not only that, it was a shameful falsehood intended to cover up the folly of the wolves of the mountain. That had been charged with protecting the mountain, and they had been found lacking.

            This is the tale of the young man who forced the wolves of the mountain to own up to their ineptitude. Our hero was a proud resident of the mountain village...

            For tonight’s tale, I explain why this week’s episode is late. I also give you a bit of insight into how these episodes are made, and what it's like to deal with the denizens of these villages. Though this is not a full episode, I still managed to include profanity in it for some reason. Listener discretion is advised.

            For tonight’s tale, we look upon an abandoned house. It was the scene of a horrific attack on a family that left one dead and two wounded. The attack was so brutal and savage that the surviving brothers could live there no longer. At least, that’s was version of the story that was told to a lone priest, who had previously been content to passively observe the village around him. However, this tale inspired him to take an active role in investigating the house. He is a member of a secretive sect that specializes in communing with the dead. Their...