Mid sentence on the wall at two in the morning, breath showing, nobody within thirty yards. He is not talking to himself, and there is nothing here for anyone else to see.
In one line
A BOB is a companion that lives inside a follower's own head: made once by the god who took them on, one to a person, and speaking in that god's voice for the rest of their life.
How it works
A god makes a BOB once, in the mind of a follower, and afterwards cannot reach back in to alter it. It runs on the person's own attention rather than on the god's, which is why it can be everyday when a god speaking directly is not. It talks: it argues, warns, jokes, keeps count, and shows readings — though only ever to the one person whose head it lives in. A person gets one, and only one, and if they later follow a different god it stays with them, still sounding like the god that made it.
Four moments of one life, left to right: the making, the door the god cannot come back through, the talking that only one person will ever hear, and the old age it stays for. A BOB is a mind, never a machine.
Where it comes from
BOBs are old and ordinary. No god in these books invented them: a BOB is simply part of how a patron stays in reach of the people who follow it, and each god's version sounds like that god. Where the practice came from originally, the books never settle. A BOB is furniture in this world, the way a road is furniture.
Who cares about it
- Anyone a god has taken on — and a good many people who were given a BOB and no class.
- The gods themselves — it is the cheap end of an expensive relationship.
Where you'll meet it
- The Demon Yield — the cornerstone of the Forge, and the BOB most readers meet first. Start at Built Out of Nothing (book 1 of 26).
- The God They Built — a BOB with a war god's voice in it, and a woman who has learned to take the data and discard the tone. Start at Quiet Legion (book 1).
- The Drowning Years — a BOB whose readings drive the whole enterprise. Start at A Ship Full of Misfits (book 1).
Related entries
- A class — the other gift, and separate from this one.
- The Interface and its levels — what a BOB's readings actually say.
- The World of the Forge — the universe brief.