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Myths' Valley

Batalha de Mitos · chapters 6 and 7 · 1887

An inheritance, a crossing and a village that says nothing ever changes

You inherit a wattle-and-daub house in the Recôncavo, cross the bay by saveiro and meet Pedro at the pier, a year before Abolition.

Hear the crossing Chapters 6 and 7

How the game opens

Nine lines over the bay

From the letter in Salvador to the arrival at the pier. Open each line to read it in full.

Right after the crossing

Hey! That's you, right? The one from the capital. I'm Pedro. Pedro Nolasco da Encarnação. Fisherman — that's what a man can be around here. I've been waiting for you at the pier since early. The priest read the notary's letter at Sunday Mass, and the whole village already knows the late man's nephew was coming. Sorry for the startled look. It's just that the crossing from the capital out here is awful long, and you came anyway. I'll tell you now: nothing changes here. Things have always been this way and they'll stay this way. Your uncle lived up there, past the village. Fenced field, wattle-and-daub house, clean land. Nobody's touched a thing since the burial. Outside that fence, every inch has an owner, and a living one. There's no such thing as no man's land here.
Pedro Nolasco da Encarnação

Invitation

pinned to the square's notice board

"To the residents of Bom Jesus and the surrounding area: come to the farm on the appointed day. There will be a great event, with plenty for all."

"All are invited. Come."

There is no signature. Only the seal — red, with no coat of arms.

The thread of the campaign

The farm is the setting of chapters 6 and 7 of Batalha de Mitos, Ramon Santana Santos's transmedia universe from which the game grew: there Pedro faces Matinta Pereira — the old woman who consumes men's vitality through bargains and flies again as a rasga-mortalha owl — finds the sapphire shield and spear of the farm's former master and helps free the enslaved women, who leave to found a quilombo. The game is dedicated to the real Pedro, the author's great-great-grandfather, documented in the family tree. Chapters 6 and 7 are already playable in the 3D valley, from the arrival at the farm courtyard to the confrontation with the Matinta; Iara's lagoon is what is still missing.

Battle of Myths · original text by Ramon Santana Santos

The night at the farm and the Matinta Pereira

Chapter 6

Invitations reach the whole hamlet on a cloudy morning. Pedro goes with his grandparents to the isolated farm. After the party, the hostesses call the bravest men inside. Six go in. Faced with the proposal to confront the mysterious old woman in the closed room, five back out — only Pedro accepts.

On a cloudy morning when the sun hid faintly behind the clouds, everyone in that hamlet woke to a rather peculiar attraction. There was an isolated farm in a distant, little-visited place, which had sent out many invitations to all the residents of the surrounding region. It said that people should come to that place, for there would be a great event there. As is very common in such small places, everyone knows everyone, and the invitation spread quickly, stirring them to be at the appointed place. Pedro Nolasco da Encarnação, a young fisherman, was one of the most eager residents wishing to attend. Even without knowing that farm, which was very isolated, everyone believed it was a place full of plenty and that there were beautiful mulatto slave women brought from Africa.

Moments: The invitation · The crossing through the forest · Arrival at the farm · The call to the brave · The circular hall and the narrow door

Chapter 7

Pedro enters the room. The old woman conjures mirages so that he will touch her hand and thus give up his energy. He recognizes the Matinta Pereira from his grandparents' stories and flees. The creature awakens in the form of an owl and destroys the farm. Pedro hides everyone in the ruins of the manor, finds a sapphire shield and lance in the chapel tower, and with the help of the spirit of the farm's master kills the beast — the two turn to stone. The enslaved women are freed and leave for the quilombo.

After a few exchanged glances between Pedro and the young mulatto woman, both of them, together with the older lady who was there, entered the room one at a time. As they passed through the narrow door there was no strange noise. This new room had a windowless hemispherical shape, much like an igloo. In it there were two candlesticks holding tall candles and a large four-poster canopy bed, both adorned with knitted white cloths. On it lay a woman wrapped in light sheets with gold and silver details. Pedro stopped short on realizing that this place was truly very strange. There was no comparison with any other experience in his life. As he stared at that great bed, he was pulled by the arms by the two women who accompanied him. When he stood before the woman under the white sheets, he asked whether it was really necessary to be there. Now that he could see her up close, the woman seemed to be very old and also sick. He didn't understand exactly what he was supposed to do, and he asked a series of questions. Many convincing answers were offered by the women, whose aim was to force him to go on.

Moments: The windowless room · The mirages and the outstretched hand · The escape through the corridors · The flight of the owl · Shelter in the ruins · The enslaved women's account · Sapphire shield and lance · The final battle · Liberation and the quilombo

In development

What you can already play and what is still just story

The village, the farm and the night of the Matinta can already be played; each card says what is still missing.

Playable in the 3D valley

The traveler chooses their own name, and the narrated crossing, with a painted clip for each line, ends aboard mestre Quirino's saveiro. Pedro leads 16 steps: walking, running, meeting Tonho and Dona Candinha, fetching the key from Dona Zefa, opening the house and the chest, planting, lighting the fire, restoring the well, supper, sleeping and receiving the invitation.

in the game

Playable in the 3D valley

Pedro and 22 villagers who speak: 21 with a voice generated in Portuguese, and only mestre Quirino in a bubble. Each has a home, a trade and a routine, and every house opens inside (27 interiors). Quirino visits the pier on day 14 of each season.

in the game

Playable in the 3D valley

52 data chains and 154 steps, including arrival, farming, bridge, lookout, faith, village requests, fishing, weapons, capoeira, cart, saveiro, plateau, ridge, yard and farm. The notebook tracks objectives, deliveries and rewards; the minimap marks the focused quest.

in the game

Playable in the 3D valley

Till, plant manioc cuttings, water, grow with each day watered and harvest; cook manioc flour and pirão, sleep in the bed and store items in the chest. The inherited house starts with the basics and receives furniture as building projects are completed.

in the game

Playable in the 3D valley

The flood knocked down the posts of the Rua Principal bridge, on the river in the north of the map, which is deep: only the bridge crosses it. Pedro hands over his grandfather's axes; the player gathers 36 pieces of firewood, prepares 12 planks and 4 ropes, and raises the bridge through J's building projects tab.

in the game

Playable in the 3D valley

Seu Benedito's high ground lies beyond Dona Zefa's, facing the great river. Between the house and the plateau, eight pickaxe strikes clear the boulder; above, the goat descends when the traveler arrives, and a sign identifies the Santa Casa land. Dona Zefa's land (1,800 réis) and the plateau (2,600 réis) can be bought.

in the game
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From Cabral to the eve of Abolition

What the village had already lived through

The game takes place in 1887. Open each event to explore its historical context.

19 places

From Salvador to the farm across the river

The capital, from which the traveler sets out on the predawn tide, aboard a saveiro loaded with roof tiles and salt. Brazil's first capital (1549).

“Bigger than it looks on the map”: a whole morning before the far shore becomes more than a dark line. The game's sea follows DHN nautical chart 1108.

Where the saveiro drops off the traveler and Pedro has been waiting since early morning. “Watch the tide: it tells a story.” Tonho's post in the morning and afternoon.

A triangular plaza with a well, benches and, in the 2D, a wayside cross and a notice board with the invitation. It's where the village begins and where Dona Candinha grinds sugarcane.

A stone-and-lime chapel raised on February 25, 1652, on the shore, on the sea side. In the 3D valley it is a Tripo model generated from text describing the real facade (wavy pediment with a cross and pinnacles, blue arched door, oculus, bell tower on the left); the wayside cross stands in the churchyard.

Up the hill, past the village: a fenced field, cleared ground, a bed, a chest and a clay stove. “From this fence in, it's yours.”

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32 words

To read the Recôncavo of 1887

A figure of Brazilian folklore, strongest in the North: an old woman who turns into a bird at night, whistles ominously near houses and asks for tobacco — whoever refuses her meets misfortune. In Batalha de Mitos she consumes men's vitality through trades (“at first it was only small everyday things like tobacco and cigars”) and reveals herself in the form of the barn owl, the rasga-mortalha.

The popular name for the suindara, the white-faced barn owl (Tyto furcata) whose cry sounds like cloth tearing — rasga-mortalha means “shroud-tearer”; in the countryside it is taken as an omen of death. In chapter 7 it is the bird form of the Matinta Pereira, with black feathers, and it is carved on the headboard of the old woman's bed.

A community formed by enslaved people who fled captivity, often deep in the forests. They existed in the Recôncavo in 1887 and were a real destination for escape: it is to a quilombo that the women of the farm set out at the end of chapter 7.

A traditional sailing cargo boat of the Baía de Todos os Santos, linking Salvador to the ports of the Recôncavo with roof tiles, salt, manioc flour and passengers. The traveler arrives on a saveiro out of the Rampa do Mercado; Cosme leaves on the “six o'clock saveiro.”

The region that embraces the Baía de Todos os Santos — massapê clay, sugar mills, tobacco and manioc fields: Cachoeira, Santo Amaro, Maragogipe, Saubara. Three bands, tide's edge, mid-slope and high tableland, and the game's map uses all three.

A small settlement around a chapel, without the status of a town or city. Bom Jesus dos Pobres, today a district of Saubara, was a fishing arraial in 1887; calling it a town would be anachronistic.

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