The Invitation
The word from a person that brings someone into the Game. It travels hand to hand.
The Seed arrives through someone who trusts you. That is the whole mechanism of the door: not a campaign, not a sign-up, a person. The Invitation is offered and never pressed — attraction, not promotion — and it is answered in the receiver's own words, where others can hear it, because a yes that was never said is not a yes. Silence is never agreement, and agreement can be withdrawn.
It is load-bearing because it is where consent enters. Nobody is governed who has not agreed; every later rule the Game has rests on that first freely given word. It is also where the Game's refusal of enclosure shows: no one is turned away, no one is carried who has not chosen to walk, the Game is a free gift, and the gate does not close behind anyone.
How it is played. Speak to people you actually know, at the pace of trust, and give them the whole of it rather than a pitch: the Story, The Playcard, and your honest account of what your table has done. Let them read the room's terms at the door before they answer. When they say yes, they say it aloud where there is aloud and in writing where the room is written. Then comes The Pledge — what they will give for the season ahead — and Form a Cell, and their own Carrier line. Anyone may leave in peace at any time; The Way Out is part of what is offered at the door, and saying so is what makes the yes real.
Also called: Answer the Invitation · Universal Invitation · the invitation Stands on: Consent · Mutual Consent · The Flame · Wake up Opens onto: The Pledge · Form a Cell · Cross The Threshold · Enter The Game · Pass The Flame · The Way Out In play: door Sources: The Invitation and Accept The Invitation (root pages) · the Player+ Modules lexicon, the invitation · Pattern Language, §Voice (draft) · The DNA of Heaven, Part V — the Invitation and the door (Fable synthesis, second draft) · lionsberg.wiki: The Invitation, Accept The Invitation Open: Two root pages named The Invitation exist in the canon — one at the root and one inside the Invitation folder of the Core Documents; which is the home is not stated. · The seed makes the spoken, witnessed yes a requirement; the canon pages read it as a norm.