User:Ch4zm/October 2025/Seattle Lore Jam

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Seattle Sneakers

Lore

Prompt

 
 

I am working on lore for a sports team for a competitive cellular automata league (golly.life). The team is the Seattle Sneakers. For the past 192 years, the team has had limited success in the postseason - unlike some teams, they have not had a total drought of Hellmouth Cup series appearances, and they have managed to win the Cup a few times, but only three or four times in 192 years. Meanwhile, they have had multiple near-misses and heartbreaks, long playoff droughts, coming in second or runner-up two years in a row or 3 times in 5 years, etc.

I would like to devise lore for a curse affecting Seattle. I would like to incorporate Seattle lore, geography, or sports history. The name of the curse ties into the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, it is called the Curse of the Ancient Mariner. As supplementary information, I am providing you with both the full text of the Seattle Sneakers wiki page (please IGNORE any text like "SS.png" or "BTX.png") as well as the full text of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner poem. Please help provide some suggested stories and lore around this curse.

 
 


Round 1: The Albatross of the Salish Sea

The Albatross of the Salish Sea

Description: This curse is a direct riff on your "Ancient Mariner" idea. In their inaugural Cup-winning season (one of those rare, tantalizing victories), the nascent Sneakers collective, in a display of emergent hubris, "killed" an ancient, beautiful, and harmlessly neutral "glider-albatross" pattern that was migrating across the game board. This entity, a native configuration of the cosmic Salish Sea, was not an opponent, but simply there. Its disruption has hung around the collective's "neck" ever since. It doesn't prevent them from making the playoffs—in fact, it compels them to wander the postseason wastes ("water, water, everywhere..."). But in critical, Cup-clinching moments, the "rime" sets in: their patterns suffer a sudden, catastrophic "pattern decay," becoming becalmed and stagnant, unable to find the "wind" (momentum) to make the final kill. They are doomed to be the Mariner, forced to watch others celebrate while they, and their fans, are left "alone on a wide wide sea" of postseason mediocrity.


Round 2

"Just good enough to break your heart"

Based on the Seattle Sneakers' history of agonizing near-misses, their "High Priestess" Arcana (connection to the dead), and their daredevil "Don't Look Down" culture, here are 5 lore entries centered around "The Curse of the Ancient Mariner."

Shooting

1. The Shooting of the Glider-Albatross (The Origin Story)

Poem Reference: "With my cross-bow / I shot the ALBATROSS."

The Lore: In the primordial eras of the Golly League (pre-Season 1 recorded history), the Seattle Sneakers were playing a friendly exhibition match against a nameless, now-extinct collective from the Void. During a critical generation, a rare, benevolent pattern known as a "Glider-Albatross" drifted across the grid. It was a neutral distinct oscillator, mathematically perfect, signaling a "good south wind" (positive momentum) for the simulation.

Instead of letting it pass or using its wake to build a stable defense, the Sneakers' aggressive algorithms—living up to their "Sine Metu" (Without Fear) motto—targeted the anomaly. They fired a glider-stream "crossbow" pattern and dismantled the Albatross for spare cells to fuel a rush. They won the game, but the simulation "shrieked." Since that day, the Sneakers have been marked. They killed the luck that made the breeze blow. Now, whenever they reach the precipice of a Championship (the "Kirk" or the "Lighthouse top"), the wind mysteriously dies, and their patterns stagnate in the water.


Painted Ship

2. The "Painted Ship" Stagnation (The Playoff Choke)

Poem Reference: "Day after day, day after day, / We stuck, nor breath nor motion; / As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean."

The Lore: This aspect of the curse manifests specifically during the Cold League Championship Series or the Cup Finals (e.g., the agonizing losses to the Flightless Birds and the 1-4 loss to the Alewife Arsonists in Season 8).

Analysts call it "The Doldrums." It is a horrifying emergent phenomenon where the Sneakers' cellular automata rules suddenly enter a loop of high-period oscillation. To the fans, it looks like the team is playing—cells are born and dying—but mathematically, the board state has ceased to advance. They generate "Water, water, everywhere" (a flood of chaotic "soup" cells) but "nor any drop to drink" (no stable, scoring gliders are formed). They become a "painted ship"—visually impressive, theoretically sound, but utterly incapable of forward momentum against a dynamic opponent. They are forced to watch the other team skate circles around their frozen, rotting deep.


Life in Death Overtime Condition

3. The "Life-in-Death" Overtime Condition

Poem Reference: "The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she... The game is done! I've won! I've won!"

The Lore: The Sneakers' Major Arcana is The High Priestess, signifying a connection to the veil between worlds. The Curse has twisted this. In the poem, Death and Life-in-Death play dice for the Mariner's soul. Death wins the crew; Life-in-Death wins the Mariner.

This is the metaphysical explanation for why the Sneakers rarely finish last but rarely finish first. Death (Total Elimination) did not win them; Life-in-Death (The Runner-Up Spot) did.

The Curse: The Sneakers are doomed to survive but not triumph. They are the "Spectre-Bark," a ghost ship that terrifyingly makes the playoffs year after year (Season 8, 11, 13, 15, 18, 20, 22), haunting the bracket.

They win the "dice game" to stay alive in the regular season, often scraping by on tiebreakers or tie-breaker losses (Season 3, 10, 18, 24). They are condemned to eternal "overtime"—a state of existence where they are too good to die, but too cursed to live as champions.


The Wedding Guest

4. The "Wedding Guest" Fanbase

Poem Reference: "The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone: / He cannot choose but hear... / A sadder and a wiser man, / He rose the morrow morn."

The Lore: The curse extends to the fans in "The Slurve" (their stadium). Being a Seattle Sneakers fan is described not as a choice, but as a supernatural compulsion. When the Sneakers enter a playoff series, the "glittering eye" of the team's collective algorithm holds the city of Seattle transfixed.

Even when the fans know the "Pattern Decay" is coming—even when they see the "slimy things" (unstable pixels) crawling on the grid—they "cannot choose but hear." They are forced to witness every heartbreak, every Game 7 collapse, every "near-miss." When the series ends, the fans do not riot; they simply file out of The Slurve, spiritually drained, "sadder and wiser men," possessing terrible knowledge of how hope can rot. This cycle repeats annually, a ritual of communal penance for the ancient sin of the Albatross.


Eras

Create a label for each era

  • Hellmouth Cup - the curse of the ancient mariner, the shooting of gilbert the albatross
  • Toroidal Cup - death vs life-in-death - "winning" the dice game against Death, only to be tormented by life - getting swept in a Cup series by MILF, a long string of losing tiebreakers at the doorstep of the postseason, then they finally win a rematch of their Cup series with ORL (Toroidal/Season 20), thinking they've finally reached the top of hte lighthouse - only to be thrown right back into the meat grinder, 4 more seasons of poor finishes and heartbreak
  • Rainbow Cup - multiple appearances in a cup season, finishing second, third, fourth; then winning a cup series in Rainbow/Season 16, then reaching the cup series but second place heartbreak in Rainbow/Season 17, then reaching the cup series but third place heartbreak in Rainbow/Season 18 - the three-peat that never was
    • RIP Gilbert became the rallying cry of Seattle opponents
    • Invokes the curse
  • Klein Cup - cup series win drought - 24 seasons marked by near-misses, heartache, and 4 Cup series losses - including 2 at the hands of their anti-rivals and frenemies, the OSHA Violations. Repeated postseason heartbreak, early on. Then, they finally crack the formula and manage to make it to several Cup series, but suffer brutal heartbreaking losses. (Many ugly close-quarters fights in the Division and Championship Series with the Butchers and Solarpunks, specifically, fueling rivalries with those two teams.)
    • TODO: return to this.
    • Sneakers-Butchers (Seattle-Tucson)
    • Sneakers-Solarpunks (Seattle-Albuquerque)
  • Hellmouth V Cup - cup series win drought - multiple last place finishes, multiple division series losses. seattle's losses and droughts and endless slogs through 24 thirsty seasons are becoming a kind of fractal of suffering, endlessly zooming outward, the scale ever expanding.


Toroidal Tie In with Baltimore Texas Incineration

"These are great ideas but one in particular stands out: the Dice Game, the Toroidal Season 20 Finals. See, the tie-in here is that the Baltimore Texas are incinerated at the end of Toroidal Season 20, so this is an amazingly perfect tie-in with that lore. It's as if both Seattle and Baltimore, two Cold Fire teams who continually choke in the postseason and who stumble at the very doorstep of success, are both being considered for incineration. Seattle wins the Cup, wins the Dice Game against Death, and so Death (err, maybe the Commissioner) moves on to its next incineration victim, the Baltimore Texas."

(I also provided Baltimore Texas team overview, and Cancel Texas Memo text.)



1. Cake or Death (The Toroidal Season 20 Finals)

Poem Reference: "I moved, and could not feel my limbs: / I was so light—almost / I thought that I had died in sleep, / And was a blessed ghost."

Poem Reference: "The game is done! I've won! I've won!' / Quoth she, and whistles thrice."

The Lore: The Toroidal Season 20 Championship Series against the Orlando Business Majors was a grueling campaign to break the "Cold League Choke Artist" label. When the Sneakers finally clinched the title in the decisive game, the stadium erupted. The "Albatross" seemed to fall from their necks; the drought was over. They had reached the "Lighthouse."

But as the team gathered at center grid to hoist the Cup, the celebration was interrupted by a sudden, static silence. The Commissioner materialized not with the trophy, but with a microphone. There was no preamble, only a simple, absurdist ultimatum delivered to the exhausted victors: "Cake or Death?"

The Sneakers, drunk on victory and assuming this was a ritual of celebration (Cake representing the "sweetness" of the win), shouted in unison: "Cake!"

The Commissioner smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Very well," he said. "You have chosen Cake, the sustenance of Life-in-Death. You shall eat, and you shall survive." He then turned his gaze toward the East, toward the home of the Baltimore Texas. "The Baltimore Texas shall receive Death." Then disappeared from the screen, leaving everyone confused.

Shortly after, the Commissioner's Office announced that the Baltimore Texas would be incinerated in an emergency ceremony. (...etc...)




2. The Designated Vessel (The Burden of Ten Ten)

Poem Reference: "The souls did from their bodies fly,— / They fled to bliss or woe! / And every soul, it passed me by, / Like the whizz of my cross-bow!"

The Lore: Moments after the Sneakers shouted "Cake," the Cancel Texas Memo was executed. On October 10, 2021, the Baltimore Texas—the league's other perennial "Cold League Choke Artist"—were incinerated.

The Sneakers realized too late that they hadn't won a championship - they had "won" an eternal grind as the league's Designated Vessel of Suffering.

The Cosmic Exchange: The Universe only had room for one "cursed franchise". By winning the Cup and choosing "Cake" (survival), Seattle unknowingly designated Baltimore for incineration.

The Curse of Survival: While the Baltimore Texas were granted the mercy of the void (and eventual reincarnation as a blank slate), Seattle was condemned to be the Designated Vessel of Suffering. They are the "Ancient Mariner," cursed to remain un-incinerated, sailing endlessly through the Rainbow, Klein, and Hellmouth II Cups. They carry with them the guilt of shooting Gilbert the Albatross and relegating the Baltimore Texas to incineration, and forever eating the stale Cake of heartbreak after heartbreak, while ghosts of Gilbert and Texas whizz by them like shots from a crossbow.

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