London’s fad for fossils has drawn the Carpenter’s Granddaughter to the Neath. Her search for the truth behind her mother’s legacy will draw her deeper still: to the Gant Pole where great beasts dwell and die. Will you support her expedition? Can you avoid the attentions of the fell haruspices who reside there? And will you return the same as you were?
In addition to a new, substantial, stand-alone story every month, Exceptional Friends enjoy:
Access to the House of Chimes: an exclusive private member’s club on the Stolen River, packed with content[/li][/ul][ul][li]Access to Mr Chimes’ Lost & Found, a shop in the Bazaar where you can exchange currency earned through playing Exceptional Stories for exclusive companions and items[/li][/ul][ul][li]An expanded opportunity deck: of ten cards instead of six![/li][/ul][ul][li]A second candle: Twice the actions! 40 at once!
You no longer need to log in to claim your Exceptional Stories! If you have an active subscription when one is available, you’ll receive it automatically.[/color] edited by babelfishwars on 4/29/2021
Great work on the story! Simple mechanics, but tried and tested plus dialogue and lore is quite interesting. Has anyone taken the choice which allows them to not return the same as they were? I’ve unfortunately forgotten how to format spoilers on the forum, so I’ll just echo the description above.
Has anyone drawn her card after completing the story, yet? Are there any new options?[/quote]
Ah well, thanks for the information! I am still in the middle of the story so as yet I know nothing about any cards it may grant. edited by Catherine Raymond on 4/29/2021
I’ve taken and echoed the results. Apparently my character’s now a great swimmer, has better eyesight and slightly inflates when taking the biggest of air-gulps?
As for the story as a whole, I quite liked the Carpenter’s Granddaughter and what I got out of it but well, maybe I’m a little biased from obsessively burning through the FL lore but the central conflicts of the story seemed like no-brainers to me. Yes the Carpenter’s Granddaughter, you SHOULD publish this helpful information on how to reject monke and become whale because when all the cool kids are becoming space bats, Rubbery cosplayers or ceiling-climbing boneless men anyway, it’s only a matter of time before transhumanism becomes a fashion trend-and all the cool kids ALSO commit crimes of humanity to get ahead; nobody complains about the Merciless Modiste’s dark past. Absolutely Red Science me up, we’re all probably going to have to become SOMETHING inhuman to escape London if the Bazaar has to go for a sixth city anyway if we don’t want to live in Parabola-and it’s nice to keep our options open. No, there is nothing inherently wrong about the Red Science when even the Judgements are underhanded enough to side with the Liberation of Night (the Halved), undermine their own compacts of civilised cold war (the Sapphir’d Kind, the Halved again technically) and absolutely body Judgements too weak to fight back in the name of their own supremacy (the King of Hours), and unless somebody does something drastically immortal we’re all going to be eaten and utterly subsumed by the Sapphir’d King when we die anyway (which now that I think about it, makes Stone’s degree a bit more cruel). Or abandoned at the Far Shore under teaming bodies of the restless dead, assuming that isn’t just a different prelude to the former.
I can’t rightly judge if the thing about being judged by higher powers resounds better for someone with no idea of what the Judgements are, because I very much do and the idea is ridiculous to me. I’m pretty sure the Beleaguered King and the Red-Handed Queen are the White and his…colleague? Family? Rival? Whatever the Red is to him, playing out some sort of rivalry through proxies. edited by Hattington on 4/29/2021 edited by Hattington on 4/29/2021
Another ES that I quite enjoyed, continuing at this point what feels like a fairly long string of them! I’ll admit that the weakpoint of the story was definitely the "moral dilemma" throughout. As a trans person and also just a longtime player of FL it felt a little quaint; hell yes, **** the judgments, change your body however you want with whatever means are available and let everybody know about it. I also enjoyed getting to spend time with The Carpenter’s Granddaughter, given my forays into both science at large and specifically paleontology I feel like we should be able to become even better friends (if not more ;) ). I also just appreciate having the consequences of our choices clearly marked, which seems to be a trend these days and it’s one I’m very grateful for. Overall just a solid, lightweight story, with a cool chance for me to modify my character. Exactly what I needed after a week locked up in my cabinet noire.
RE: the question of the "change" you may choose to have made to yourself. I engaged in diving at the Magistracy several times after completing the ES and noticed no difference in my performance or in the storylet texts whatsoever. edited by Catherine Raymond on 5/2/2021
Does this story make any use of the quality related to how many lectures you have been to? It’s just I think I need just one more lecture to go in to the next category, so if it does I’ll wait until her card comes round again.
It doesn’t seem to require this quality for anything, but I suspect it may affect some flavour text in the first part of the story (and if it doesn’t, it totally should).
Well, I enjoyed this. As a newbie I was concerned that my stats would be too low for success but was pleased to find this not so. My character is hunting the Vake FOR SCIENCE so it was an excellent introduction. And the Mary Anning tribute most pleasing.
I think my character’s ideal solution would have been “look, I’m absurdly rich and have a private zub of my own, so why don’t I fund some more trips down, and we can publish when we’ve got a really solid headstart and our friend has finished his work”. Followed by a certain number of private trips down to discuss the Red Science with said friend, and maybe some mutual assistance on work that’s easier with more than one pair of hands.
But that would be rather a lot of extra content, both for an ES and for a potentially very small subset of the FL audience :)
Great story, neat lore, nice to learn more about the Carpenter’s Granddaughter. Good work all round!
[quote=Tigerfort]I think my character’s ideal solution would have been "look, I’m absurdly rich and have a private zub of my own, so why don’t I fund some more trips down, and we can publish when we’ve got a really solid headstart and our friend has finished his work". Followed by a certain number of private trips down to discuss the Red Science with said friend, and maybe some mutual assistance on work that’s easier with more than one pair of hands.
But that would be rather a lot of extra content, both for an ES and for a potentially very small subset of the FL audience :)
Great story, neat lore, nice to learn more about the Carpenter’s Granddaughter. Good work all round![/quote]
Yeah, it’s one of those ESs that has to ignore the fact that our characters are generally absurdly rich and powerful.
Yup; setting things up so that endgame players benefit more from ESs would mean that early- and even mid-game characters either couldn’t do them at all (so no new subscribers) or would get the impression that FL rewarded paid content with much higher EpA than free (which is untrue and would put a lot of people off).
I don’t know what proportion of characters who go through any given ES are new players (in, say, their first six months), but I definitely understand the need to make paid content welcoming to those people. I’d like the game to carry on growing, which means it needs a supply of new players.
I seem to have lost the story somewhere during a short hiatus. I remember starting it and going to the lecture, and agreeing with the Carpenter’s Granddaughter, and then figured i’d come back to it later. maybe it was a ‘you’ll be away for some time’ option? Does anyone remember where the next leg of the story can be found?
