“It arrives in a pale envelope. Your name and address are written in a mossy-hued ink. The details are correct to the letter, but the invitation is to a club you have never heard of: a group calling themselves the Old Pretenders.”
An invite in emerald; a woman in scarlet; an exclusive dining club that meets but once every seven years. What do these things have in common, and what on earth do they want with you? Infiltrate London’s upper crust and learn the moves of a game long in the playing. Ensure your piece becomes a king rather than a pawn. Beware the pull of a castle across the zee.
Only other green-adjacent, king-like figure I can think of is from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. There was a very… sensual lady in that story as well, although I cannot for the life of me remember what color she tended to wear.
Almost at the end I think, and I have a feeling this one will leave me with a profound feeling of sadness. Which, in fairness, nice, I do kinda like that in an exceptional story!
Definitely not as FUN as last month imo, but still very emotionally fulfilling and rewarding.
I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts once I’ve finished.
Good story, although I feel that perhaps my choices led to a bit of a lackluster ending. I feel that I left many strings unresolved; that said, I 100% believe that’s just the path I took.
Finally escaped the HG grind to start this. I’m racking up so much Lady Jane’s regard so quickly that I’m concerned I’ve accidentally gained a new spouse.
I frankly would have absolutely taken that option. She rapidly became one of my favorite characters, and I’m a tad disappointed for that reason by the ending I got.
Haven’t quite finished this one. I will say I’ve really enjoyed the chance to learn more about Kingeater castle. I always felt there was sadly little on it for the prominent place it takes in Sunless Sea (understandably of cours since most of its focus is placed on the East and Salt rather than the castle itself).
It’s also very cool to get to some of the lesser focused on forces of the setting like the Hungry Monarch and the queen (I’m assuming, but come on when has anyone wearing red not been her?) in place of the ubiquitous Mr Eaten (not of course that I dislike its content).
It’s interesting how all three share much of the same iconography (hunger, loss, wells) but for different reasons and overlapping in unusual ways and I wonder if we’ll get anything more on that (like the liberation, the Black and Hell’s sharad elements or so on).
Also, I’m always glad to have a chance to actually disadvantage the queen so here’s hoping for an ending that will run into that (between her and the Prester, royals in London don’t tend to be great).
Finally had a chance to finish this, and it’s yet another episode of “The Vake-Riding Murderhobo accidentally wins lifelong friends and saves the day by attempting to kill and betray as much as physically possible”. To be totally clear, easily the most fun I’ve had in an ES for a while. It’s always nice to part on good terms with another NPC as opportunistic and ruthless as I am.
Who knew that Lady Jane apparently likes having a worthy opponent? Or that the poor bugger of a Green King is actually happy to share his immortality, just not solely with his awful friends? Or that he apparently doesn’t hold much of a grudge for you taking a sip whatever your motivations for sparing him? Pity about the hungrier king but to be perfectly fair, he DID have a bite out of me just to hold that audience and he made quite a poor offer to someone already familiar with exotic means of pest removal when it boiled down to “swear an oath for no reward”
I find it kind of funny that the game never actually spells out what drinking the Green King’s tears actually grants but the Old Pretenders (which given Jane’s interest in it, implicitly seems to be immortality as well as some sort of vague power) just act like you SHOULD know why it’s worth joining their ranks, and I killed them mainly because it was a terrible offer. And then took a sip of the king anyway just to see what the fuss was about
I also wish I could have gotten both the Old Pretenders’ and Lady Jane’s reaction to the knowledge I own some Hesperidean Cider and could potentially set someone up with delicious golden life eternal WITHOUT all this song and dance and superstition
Not a fan of this one. I find it really hard to enjoy James Chew’s work in general, I’m afraid.
I ended up killing everyone at the end because I had little investment in any of the the characters, and was feeling a bit resentful of how action-heavy the story had been.
I was wondering, did anyone let Lady Jane go on her own and give her either the correct or the wrong oath, or swear the wrong oath themselves? I’m always fond of seeing how these might have gone otherwise (and I’m always curious if I could have inconvenienced everyone more in these kind of adventures).
As someone who did enjoy it, I will say I was much more invested in the lore implications and spooky going-ons than any of the characters. The ambiguity of the motivations at hand and the secret conspiracy going from seemingly able to dumpster me socially to suddenly inviting me to join their inner circle, implicitly thinking that after everything I found out about and how much trouble they made that I would just…give up and be a good little lamb to the slaughter, felt a little forced. I also feel like it’s counterintuitive for a lot of players to get into Lady Jane’s good graces because of her Bloody-Handed Queen-based value system. I accidentally aced it because I’m a murdering murderhobo that murders but also tries to snatch loot at the nearest opportunity, but still.
The part at the end where Lady Jane seemingly lost track of the Green King even though they were last scene together also confused me, because I was kind of under the impression they were doing a tag team thing.
