Line #57 Podcast/TheSiltVerses


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cove.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"A god must feed. A god must be fed. This is a fact agreed upon across every territory of the Peninsula. And so, really, the only point of difference between the people born to the water and the people born to the land...is the precise nature of the sacrifice we need to make."'']]
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4	->''"Ease away my grateful skin, Trawler-Man,\
5	I will rejoice at skin reshaped in silt,\
6	And my fragments will swim in the currents of the abyss.\
7	Fill my eyes and mouth with thick and choking mud, Trawler-man;\
8	I will exult in the death of sight, sensation, and noise.\
9	Bear me away into black depths, Trawler-man;\
10	I will forget my pain and the name I once wore.\
11	Rise like a dark river in my throat, Trawler-man.\
12	And my drowning lungs will sing of Tides and Flesh."''
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15	''The Silt Verses'' is a {{Horror}}/NewWeird podcast by the makers of ''Podcast/IAmInEskew''.
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17	Carpenter and Faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed god called the Trawler-Man, travel up the length of their deity's great black river in search of miracles and revelations. As their pilgrimage lengthens and the river’s mysteries deepen, the two acolytes find themselves under threat from a police manhunt, but also come into conflict with the weirder gods that have flourished in these forgotten rural territories.
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19	The show can be found on [=iTunes=], Spotify, Acast and Sticher. A third season is currently airing, and the podcast is now hosted by the Creator/RustyQuill Network.
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22	!!This podcast contains examples of the following tropes:
23	* AccidentalMurder: During his first experience with the Trawler-Man, Faulkner accidentally drowns one of his brothers to death to fully experience the song.
24	* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Faulkner acts like one towards Carpenter, much to her exasperation. In Faulkner's narration we learn that he deliberately [[InvokedTrope invokes]] it - first with his older brothers and now with Carpenter.
25	* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler: Sid Wright attempts this when he turns against the Grindinglord and instead starts worshipping sleep live on-air, causing his listeners to fall asleep permanently]]
26	* AxCrazy: Siblings Mercer and Gage spend most of season two as this. [[spoiler:Gage gets better, while Mercer gets worse.]]
27	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Faulkner's brother Charlie asked him to keep him submerged enough to listen to the words of the Trawler-Man's music and only let him when he gave Faulkner a thumbs-up despite how much he thrashed. Read AccidentalMurder above to see how it went down.
28	* BigBadWannabe: High Katabasian Roemont, in season 3, who plots to dispose of Faulkner and fancies himself a manipulative successor to Mason. [[spoiler:Roemont makes zero effort to conceal his dislike of Faulkner, his attempt to have Faulkner killed is bungling and clumsy, and Faulkner sees right through him, effortlessly removing any of Roemont's support before having him killed by crab angels.]]
29	* BigBrotherBully: Charlie threathened to "pound the shit out of" Faulkner if he let him up from the water too soon.
30	* BodyHorror: Anyone sufficiently touched by the various gods of the setting. Highlights include a boat that's been covered in stretched and twisted flesh, a man turned into something not unlike a worm or maggot, and various crustacean saints of the Trawler-Man described with some unsettling vestiges of their humanity.
31	* BrokenPedestal: Carpenter develops this for the Trawler-Man the further up the river she gets.
32	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Carpenter. As a kid, after her grandma was killed by the police due to her faith, Carpenter was sent to a reform house for "deprogramming" while her older brother Em was sent to prison and was drowned in a flood in a solitary confinent cell after summoning the Trawler-Man.
33	* DoubleStandard: Worshippers tend to see the revelations of other gods as grotesque despite theirs being no better. For example, Carpenter and Faulkner are disgusted by the gigantic worm-like appearance of Abel that was granted as blessing by the Scrivener despite being in awe of a BodyHorror flesh/boat fusion made by the Trawler-Man in the previous episode.
34	** Worshippers of government-sanctioned gods see worshippers of "false-faiths" as uncivilized for their use of [[HumanSacrifice Human Sacrifices]] despite doing the same thing for their own gods, but with convicts and slackers.
35	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The first season ends with Faulkner missing and presumed dead, the Trawler-Man coming back due to Carpenter's SmiteMeOMightySmiter moment, Sid Wright getting gunned down during an act of rebellion (and the station putting his replacement under armed guard), Hayward promising to hunt Carpenter to the ends of the earth, Paige barely escaping the Trawler-Man's wrath with the police, and Carpenter encountering... something and mutely accepting that she'll be EatenAlive as she dies from her wounds.]]
36	** Season two ends little better. [[spoiler:The war between the Peninsula and the Straits that had been worried about all season finally begins as with the Peninsula commencing a full scale ground invasion. Paige and Hayward's homegrown god to steal sacrifices from the legal gods has backfired, with the effect having upset the balance of nature itself as prey kills predator, seemingly automatically. And Faulkner frames Carpenter for Mason's murder after Faulkner beats him to death for orchestrating the Drowned Church's ascent to legality.]]
37	* DudeWheresMyRespect: In the first chapter Faulkner calls Carpenter out for constantly mocking him at his first pilgrimage.
38	* FantasticNuke: The [[spoiler:wither mark]] floods a large area and warps it into a sea-themed EldritchLocation, [[AndIMustScream Hallowing]] its inhabitants in the process.
39	* FolkHorror
40	* GeniusLoci: The [[spoiler: Amicus Hotel, AKA the Rapture-And-Bliss]], is a god disguising itself as a motel to lure in victims.
41	* HorrorHunger: The field god Hayward encounters.
42	* HumanSacrifice: Required by every god in the setting. To list just a few instances:
43	** The Trawler-Man's ritual sacrifices are tied to stakes on the shore of the river, and either drown or are devoured by his [[EldritchAbomination angels]].
44	** Sacrifices to the Slag King are drowned in the cement of the foundations of every new building. It's treated like a ground-breaking ceremony.
45	** As part of a rebranding effort, a marketing company decides to change patron gods. To "welcome" the new god, a few dozen underperforming employees are melted alive.
46	** When we meet Sid Wright, he's in the process of killing himself via overwork and sleep deprivation to honor a god of instant coffee.
47	* {{Jerkass}}: Carpenter. Aloof and antisocial and always ready to mock Faulkner for something.
48	* KnightTemplar: Daigler is a devoted servant of the Cloak, willing to force a confession by any means up to and including his own personal God.
49	* MadnessMantra: "There's them that lead and them that chase"
50	* NaiveNewcomer: Faulkner is a recent convert, though what he lacks in experience he makes up for it in devotion.
51	* OurAngelsAreDifferent: An angel is any non-human servant of a god. Examples include limpets and crabs for the Trawlerman, and animated electrical pylons for the Saint Electric.
52	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Hayward, before his numerous encounters with the "false-faiths" of the Peninsula.
53	** Shrue tries their best to be this, speaking out against the war and in favour of sustainable sacrifice. [[spoiler: Unfortunately they again and again are forced to either sacrifice their morals or their authority, demonstrating the futility of being a reasonable authority figure within a corrupt and exploitative system.]].
54	* {{RetGone}}: [[RealityWarper Val]], a saint of the Last Word, wiped [[spoiler: an entire Linger Straits town]] off of the face of reality just by telling it that it never existed. She’s also capable of bringing things into existence.
55	* SimultaneousArcs: Season two. The four main characters are split up; Hayward and Paige are both in the CLS, and Carpenter and Faulkner have been separated by [[spoiler: the tidal wave in the season one finale. They reunite; then, Faulkner frames Carpenter, and the two are separated again.]]
56	* SmiteMeOMightySmiter: [[spoiler:Carpenter to the Trawler-Man. Unfortunately, he happened to be listening.]]
57	* TakingYouWithMe: What worshipers of [[spoiler: Paige's new god, The Many Below,]] can do upon death, throwing a major wrench in the works of the HumanSacrifice business.
58	* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Pancakes and coffee, for Carpenter.
59	* WhamEpisode: The season two finale. [[spoiler:In the final minutes, Mason reveals his machinations to Faulkner, along with his plans to modernize their faith and commercialize it into legality with the help of Adjudicator Shrue, only for Faulkner to beat Mason to death in a rage, along with Mason's co-conspirator, Sister Thurrocks. Even worse, Faulkner then proceeds to frame ''Carpenter'' for Mason's death, to keep his own power in the church.]]

Context Podcast / TheSiltVerses