Quillby

BELIEFS NEED EVIDENCE

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01 Opening
Quillby beat 1 of 5

Quillby is a careful porcupine who carries a quill pen and a small notebook. The notebook is the Belief Ledger. In it, Quillby writes down what Red thinks each hidden Blue piece might be.

But Quillby has one rule for the ledger. "No reason, no entry."

02 Quillby
Quillby beat 2 of 5

In the middle of a game, a Red piece pointed across the board. "That one's their 10. I can feel it."

Quillby's pen didn't move. "What did you see?"

"Nothing exactly. It just looks like a 10."

03 Quillby
Quillby beat 3 of 5

"Then it stays a question mark," said Quillby. He drew a small, neat ? next to it.

A few turns later, that same piece ran four squares in a straight line. Quillby wrote immediately: Runner (2). Reason: moved more than one square. Only a 2 can do that.

"So it wasn't the 10," said the Red piece, a little embarrassed.

04 Quillby
Quillby beat 4 of 5

"Most hunches aren't wrong because you're foolish," said Quillby kindly. "They're wrong because there wasn't anything to go on yet."

He flipped back through the ledger. Every entry had a reason beside it: - Never moved, guarded by two pieces. Maybe the Moonstone, maybe a decoy. - Struck our 7 and won. At least an 8. - Retreated from our 5 twice. Probably weaker than 5.

Some were certain. Some were only maybes. But every one had evidence.

05 Closing
Quillby beat 5 of 5

Late in the game, Red had to choose which still piece to attack: the one in the left corner, or the one in the right. Red's hunches said left. Quillby's ledger said something else. The right-corner piece had been guarded every time a Blue piece came near. The left one had been left alone twice.

Red went right. It was the Moonstone.

Quillby closed the notebook with a quiet snap. He felt calm, the calm of knowing why you believe something.

That's Quillby's rule. A guess about a hidden piece only goes in the ledger with a reason you actually saw. Change the entry when the evidence changes. The game rewards what you saw, not what you felt.

Hear it as an audio drama

A short play starring Quillby, from BluffForge. Different voices, same idea. Listen any time after you read.

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Read the drama script
  1. Narrator: From Spark and Anvil and BluffForge — this is Quillby, in chapter 1 of the BluffForge cast.
  2. Narrator: This drama uses an AI-generated voice. Voiced via Gemini 2.5.
  3. Narrator: This is the story of a Blue runner, and of the moment it told Red exactly what it was, without meaning to.
  4. Blue Runner: For most of the game I just sat there. Red couldn't tell what I was.
  5. Red Piece: That one's their 10. I can feel it.
  6. Quillby: What did you see?
  7. Red Piece: Nothing exactly. It just looks like a 10.
  8. Quillby: Then it stays a question mark. No reason, no entry.
  9. Blue Runner: Then I saw a gap, and I couldn't resist. I shot four squares forward, all at once!
  10. Quillby: Runner. Reason: it moved more than one square in a turn. Only a 2 can do that.
  11. Blue Runner: Oh. I forgot. Running far is the one thing only a runner can do.
  12. Red Piece: So it wasn't the 10.
  13. Quillby: Hunches aren't silly. They just haven't earned a reason yet.
  14. Narrator: Quillby crossed out the question mark and wrote the new line, without any fuss.
  15. Blue Runner: My speed is my gift. It's also my fingerprint.
  16. Quillby: Write down only what you saw, and change it when the evidence changes.
  17. Narrator: How a piece moves is evidence. That's the runner's story.
  18. Narrator: You've been listening to a Spark and Anvil chapter, written by the Spark and Anvil writing team for ages 9 to 14.
  19. Narrator: Apps stay free forever.
  20. Narrator: Curriculum aligned to Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards.
  21. Narrator: Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 for educational reuse. Visit Spark and Anvil for the full transcript.

The BluffForge ensemble

Quillby is one of the friends in BluffForge. Each friend shows you one idea by how they act; meet them all and you have the whole subject.

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