Oblique Companions
A 6d6 Table for Letting Go and Letting Grow
Now available as a Creative Commons artifact
We’ve been walking the long trail of creative practice—sometimes in a sprint, sometimes with a yogurt cup in one hand. Along the way, something quiet and surprising emerged. A deck. A table. A set of prompts not designed to steer the work, but to let it breathe.
Inspired by Brian Eno’s notion of surrender—not as defeat, but as release—Oblique Companions is a Creative Commons tool for anyone making art, story, or sense in strange times.
It’s not a game. It’s not a system.
But you can roll 6d6 and see what it tells you.
Use it when:
- The draft goes silent
- The project starts to feel too tight
- You’ve finished something and don’t know what’s next
- You want a whisper, not a roar
Here’s the full 6d6 table:
| 1d6 | 1d6 | Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Repeat yourself, but with reverence. The echo isn’t a flaw. It’s a form of care. |
| 2 | Say goodbye in the middle. A farewell can be a beginning, if you place it right. | |
| 3 | Treat the draft like a dog walk. You’re not going anywhere in particular. Just out. Together. | |
| 4 | Write the part they’ll never read. And love it anyway. | |
| 5 | Let one page be unreadable. Smear it. Encrypt it. Let mystery interrupt the message. | |
| 6 | Leave room for the machine to dream. Not just to respond. To misunderstand beautifully. | |
| 2 | 1 | Don’t finish the map—leave a trail. A perfect guide closes doors. A trail invites company. |
| 2 | Return to the side character. There’s always a Gluten-Free Golem who knows more than they’re saying. | |
| 3 | Say it as a T-shirt. Condense your thesis into 11 syllables and let it strut. | |
| 4 | Use a tactic that hasn’t worked (yet). Dust off the oddball. The one that never landed. This might be the time. | |
| 5 | Cut one beautiful line. Not to punish yourself. To prove you’re not afraid. | |
| 6 | It’s not the last version. (It never was.) Every version is the first of something else. | |
| 3 | 1 | Offer it to a future stranger. Someone you’ll never meet may need this more than you do. |
| 2 | Drop the frame but keep the feeling. It’s not about games. Or essays. Or zines. It’s about the ache that made you start. | |
| 3 | Frame it as a field report. Not a manifesto. Not a pitch. Just what you saw out there. | |
| 4 | Make the parody first. The real version will sneak up on you after. | |
| 5 | Don’t explain it. The reader isn’t lost. They’re exploring. | |
| 6 | Ask what it’s *also* about. Tariffs are grief. The zine is a forest. The blog post is a love letter to your 14-year-old self. | |
| 4 | 1 | Let one character hijack the scene. Truth Panda speaks. Or Frau Modulator modulates. Let them. |
| 2 | Trust that the stream will carry it. Let go of the launch. Make the message float. | |
| 3 | Let the joke carry the grief. Mask it. Lace it. Let the punchline hold the ache. | |
| 4 | What happens if you never explain it? | |
| 5 | What would the dog say about this? Not your inner critic. Your inner canine. Curious, loyal, slightly judgmental. | |
| 6 | Burn it like a candle, not a bonfire. It doesn’t need to explode. Just glow long enough to make a little light. | |
| 5 | 1 | Leave room for future annotation. Margins matter. |
| 2 | Bring the first idea back, slightly changed. It’s older now. Let it be stranger. Let it shimmer. | |
| 3 | Break the scene, not the spell. Let something interrupt. But stay in the story. | |
| 4 | Name the emotion, not the output. Say: “This one is a grief zine.” | |
| 5 | Lose the point, but keep the pulse. You might not know what it’s about, but it’s still alive. | |
| 6 | Let the setting write the rules. What kind of system would a haunted library invent? | |
| 6 | 1 | Archive the glitch. Not the glory. What if the error was the invitation? |
| 2 | Pretend it’s already in the public domain. Would you still write it this way? | |
| 3 | Invite a machine to edit the myth. Not to correct. To reinterpret. To remember differently. | |
| 4 | Say it like a goodbye letter to a glitch. | |
| 5 | Annotate the artifact. Let the footnotes have feelings. | |
| 6 | Stop mid-sentence. Let the reader carry it. Let the dog finish the thought. |
Use it. Remix it. Print it. Shout it across a misty ravine.
Creative Commons BY 4.0.
If you use it in a zine, TTRPG, or conversation with a judgmental dog—let me know. I’d love to see what it becomes.