New Resident Orientation Handbook for Recently Defeated Evil Overlords

Form ORT-1, revised. Issued at intake. One copy per resident. Replacement copies are available at the front desk, including for residents who destroyed the first copy as a matter of principle.

A note before you begin

Welcome to Sunset Dominion.

Most residents read this handbook shortly after losing something enormous. They read it angrily, in a beige room, while refusing to unpack.

That is fine. The handbook will keep.

Your previous life is over. Yours is not. Both are administrative facts.

— L. Mei, Facility Administrator

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Section one — Arrival and intake

Your arrival was arranged before this handbook reached you.

Whatever the arrangement, portal transport ends with a formal handoff to Sunset Dominion staff. Remain with your escort until the handoff is complete. Their visible relief upon departure is common and need not be reported.

PORTAL NOTICE: Passage may smell of ozone and regret and may taste faintly of electricity and old sorrow. These are documented properties of portal transit, not commentary on your circumstances.

Please complete before your first meal:

• Transfer or retirement paperwork received
• Personal artifacts declared and receipted, where applicable
• Curse disclosures filed with the Medical Wing
• Dietary requirements submitted to the kitchen
• Room assignment acknowledged
• Emergency contact listed, if you have one
• Preferred form of address recorded

The emergency-contact field is optional. It is often left blank, and no one on staff will remark on it.

Section two — Titles and forms of address

Your titles will be recorded as supplied. Daily conversation is a separate administrative category.

• “The Eternal,” “The Undying,” “The Deathless.” Recorded as written. The Medical Wing will still put your name on a clipboard.
• “Emperor,” “Empress,” “Overlord,” “Sovereign.” Recorded. These titles do not confer authority over other residents, staff, the thermostat, or the seating chart.
• Full ceremonial styling. Preserved in your file. Spoken use may be shortened during medical emergencies and the wait for toast.

Staff will make a reasonable effort to use your requested form of address. Hearing Mr., Ms., or your surname does not constitute a second deposition.

Section three — Your room

Rooms are assigned by wing, availability, and medical need. Where a choice is available, you may be asked whether you prefer morning sun or a more dramatic sunset.

The walls are beige and will remain beige. Requests to repaint them in a personal heraldic color are logged and denied. Requests to have them darkened by ambient dread are denied and additionally referred to Facilities.

There is a call button beside the bed. Do not hex it. A hexed call button becomes everyone’s problem remarkably quickly.

Section four — Meals

Breakfast is served from seven to nine. Lunch is at noon. Dinner is at five.

Blood service, flame-treated options, and a full vegetarian menu are standard. Black plates are available on request and require no explanation.

FOOD COMPLAINTS: Submit them to Administration, not directly to the kitchen. Grak has survived service to a warlord and formal culinary training. He considers only one of those experiences harrowing.

Section five — Medications, curses, and other ongoing conditions

Medication rounds and appointments are handled through the Medical Wing. Please distinguish, on your intake form, between:

1. A curse laid upon you by an enemy.
2. A curse laid upon you by yourself, in your twenties, for career reasons.
3. A side effect of something you drank in 1974.
4. Ordinary arthritis.

Category four is the most common finding in the building and the most frequently misfiled. There is no shame in it. There is considerable shame in blaming your knee on a rival for six months while declining an ibuprofen.

Nurse Ratchford is seven feet tall, is an ogre, and has the gentlest hands in the building. He is not going to be intimidated. Let him take your blood pressure.

Section six — Devices, equipment, and games

Doomsday devices may not be constructed on the premises.

Limited dispensation exists for hobby robotics, alchemy, and engineering, subject to inspection. Inspections are announced in advance, which gives you time to hide the things that are merely against the rules and leave out the things that are seriously against the rules. That distinction is the information Administration is collecting.

POWER CORES: Household level only. A core “approximately sufficient to power a small city block for six minutes” is not household level.

Summoning is prohibited. This includes demons, the undead, eldritch entities, and delivery food.

Communal games are leisure equipment, not command exercises, succession tests, or a means of establishing territory in the Common Room. Pieces may not be enchanted, including when the enchantment is offered at no cost to the facility.

Section seven — Staff

Do not attempt to recruit the staff. Every one of them has been offered a position by a resident, usually with a title attached. Carlos has an offer letter pinned to his corkboard and is not taking it down.

Section eight — Activities

The current schedule is posted outside the Activity Center. Bingo is Tuesday.

Offerings change, but generally include writing, art, exercise, games, and at least one activity whose title Carlos has made less alarming for the weekly schedule.

BINGO DISPUTES: Carlos’s ruling is final. There is no appeals process. An appeals process has been proposed twice, both times by residents with governance experience. Both proposals were referred to Carlos.

Participation is voluntary. Every new resident announces that they will not be participating. Administration keeps no record of how long that lasts. Carlos keeps one.

Section nine — Grievances

Sunset Dominion maintains a real grievance procedure. It works slowly, and it works.

File Form 47-B through Resident Services. Every submission is stamped RECEIVED, dated, and filed by category. Some categories have their own drawer. One has its own cabinet.

An emergency is not a grievance. Tell the front desk first, even if the emergency began as a point of procedure.

Section ten — Emergencies

In any facility emergency—mechanical, medical, or magical:

• Remain where you are unless staff direct you otherwise
• Do not stabilize anything with personal magic unless asked
• Assist residents with mobility devices before assisting yourself
• Do not treat the event as an opportunity

The last item is included because it has been necessary.

Section eleven — Resident or prisoner

The paperwork says resident. The containment policy is less delicate: residents do not leave the pocket dimension.

Within Sunset Dominion, you choose your meals, your company, and how you spend your time. You may refuse activities. You may file complaints. You may spend the afternoon composing a legal argument about why those freedoms do not settle the larger question. Form 47-B has additional pages.

There is one exception to the rule against leaving: supervised field trips approved and organized by staff.

A field trip is an outing, not parole. It includes an itinerary, escorts, a head count, a return time, and more waivers than were required to invade most small kingdoms. Residents may object to the destination, the seating arrangement, and the snacks. They may not create a separate itinerary after arrival.

The phrase field trip is not an administrative synonym for release. The transport comes back. So do you.

For today, you have a room, dinner is at five, and the complaint forms are at the front desk. That is enough orientation for one defeat.

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Questions may be directed to Resident Services. Complaints may also be directed to Resident Services. This is why Resident Services keeps the stamp close.

About this piece: This is a promotional, non-canonical dispatch inspired by The Retirement Home for Evil Overlords. It contains no major spoilers and changes nothing in the novel.

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