The Twelve Words
Twelve words are enough to play: one meaning each, numbered so that line six is line six in every language, and each opening onto a whole page for whoever wants more.
Twelve words carry the Game. Cell — three to thirteen people who choose to walk together, by name, with a first Quest: a fully functioning part of the whole. Quest — one real thing a Cell does in one season and can point to afterward. Commitment — I will ___ by ___, said aloud at the table. Turn — the weekly gathering: did, gap, will, offer, ask, story, Offering, thanks. Season — about ninety days, from one turning of the sun to the next. Flame — the Game itself, carried by one person to another who is ready. Story — what happened, told so it can travel beyond the table. Offering — what each person puts in the middle of the table, freely, each week. Carrier — the one who brought you the Flame, and the Cell they came from; it never changes. Home Cell — the Cell that holds you. Supercell — three or more Cells that have become one another's home. Proposal — a better way, written in a sentence and sent up on the Season Sheet.
Two more are handed to the child who asks: ØNE, the Source everything comes from and goes home to, and Heaven, the way things are when everything is in right relationship, here and now, a little more each week.
The twelve are a floor, not a fence. Beyond them there is no fixed number: the rest of the words are handed where the road meets them — at the door, at the table, at the Gate, in your own Home, in the Room — each given the first time you meet it, in one line, and linked after.
Also called: the words, the twelve, one meaning each Stands on: A Word on Words · Word Tools · The Language of LIØNSBERG Opens onto: On translating · The LIØNSBERG Lexicon · Cell · Quest · The Turn · Season · The Season Sheet · Proposal In play: door · table Sources: The Twelve Words, in The Little Book of the Great Game (canon-grade; the chapter states it is the floor of the lexicon) · The LIØNSBERG Operating System, standard 3 of the minimum standards (draft) · The DNA of Heaven, Part XII (Fable synthesis, unreviewed) · lionsberg.wiki: The Twelve Words Open: Word 11 was Ring before it became supercell; the Operating System and A Ring of Ten Circles still read ring — two live words for one thing. The Twelve Words chapter sends Commitment to The Pledge and Turn to a template page, so two of the twelve open onto pages whose names differ from the word.