Just finished this ES today and am now safely ensconced and warm back in London. This one was fantastic, and I enjoyed it a great deal. It had one of my very favourite ES things: a new area to explore at my leisure, filled with interesting characters. I particularly liked the various descriptions for the ‘Airs of Avernus’, and how we could learn more about the three ringleaders before confronting or redeeming them. It made them more fleshed-out as characters. In the end I chose to redeem all three; after all, it is the Christmas season.
Thanks to Gavin and the others for all of their hard work on Lamentation Lock!
Ah, Lamentation Lock, what a nice and cozy place. Would love to visit it for a family vacations. Not. ;)
Anyway, I really enjoyed the story, and unlike some, I was very glad that we had actual opportunity to sail there with our own ship (was feeling like I am actually sailing to CC in Sunless Sea), and a little disappointed that returning to London wasn’t in-mechanic sailing. World seems bigger without instant-teleports.
In any case, I was surprised that the three redeemed people actually traveled with us on our ship - I had impression, that they were aspects of our character, that would poof to nothing upon leaving Lamentation Lock.
I redeemed all three, which I was glad about. The line about “murder, betrayal, and theft” are all aspects of what you do was too fitting for my “foreign office clerk.”
I agree that travel time makes the world feel bigger, but another zee journey would just have felt like filler after all the currency-grinding and time-cycling you have to go through to get to that point.
I liked that the story itself asked the questions I had running through my head at the very end. I am hoping that they will be answered by the end of the Season.
Any theories as to what the black shadow is, and who the Warden is? I got the impression that he was a prisoner as well, in so far as I understood how the Lock works.
Great story. I loved a new location stuffed with sticky atmosphere, complicated carousels in different branches and various outcomes of relations with ring leaders. At first, I was irritated by space limitation, tying me to the Lock and cutting me off Opportunity Deck and my routine activities in London, but that was a nice experience touching my own feelings and not just my character’s. That’s what’s I often find so fantastic about Fallen London. I loved a seafaring too just for a sake of roleplay and sense of steady travel from Sunless Sea.
A story left a bunch of nice questions to speculate. What is a purpose of a place? Why Warden surrendered a coin to me and let me out, while I’ll use it in unpredictable and possible egoistic way? What was a shadow I encountered in the beginning? And a guide to Cumaean Channel principles of work was a great discovery, I even drawn a couple of schemes trying to come in terms with physic possibility of that. And did someone saved this amazing garland stalagmites on the back of the location? edited by curtistruffle on 1/2/2018
[quote=CatLady][quote=curtistruffle]And did someone saved this amazing garland stalagmites on the back of the location? edited by curtistruffle on 1/2/2018[/quote]
ahh… my computer keeps glitching, and i wasn’t able to finish reading the hollow-eyed turncoat’s story. time keeps resetting when i leave the rooms, even though it takes 0 actions to do so. hope i can finish this story soon, i honestly wish i hadn’t started it. the writing is interesting, but the mechanics are just tiring; not my cup of tea. wastes too many actions. perhaps its just my internet connection, though. edited by Pidge Pudge on 1/6/2018
Excellent story; of the 3 I’ve played, it’s either tied for first or a very close second after Steeped in Honey. Well done, Gavin and the Fallen London crew! (I’m on the verge of leaving, having chosen to redeem all three.)
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you find yourself in need of a lot of Romantic Notions, you may want to hang out at the entrance and watch the boats go by FOR A LONG TIME. I wish, in retrospect, that I’d done this, as I need them for a fancy new address. Now I’m resorting to the less-reliable “spend[ing] time in my room.” Sigh…
I was in the middle of becoming a PoSI when I did Lamentation Lock, so I needed 500 (I had 100+) for the Respectable Address. In retrospect, realizing how easy it was to get 45 honey at a go (in the Empress’ Court) or 47 honey (also at the Empress’ Court–had no Bohemian favours to trade at that moment), this would’ve been WILDLY inefficient, so it’s probably for the best. Not sure why I didn’t bother to just do the math.
What number are you talking about, out of curiosity?[/quote]
I consider this story a refresher on what makes your character who they are. I thought a story built around your Quirks instead of just utilizing them for challenges was interesting.
I was, as usual, somewhat annoyed to have the writing presume things about my character, mainly that she must have either been violent, larcenous, or duplicitous, but that in turn made me think about the overriding theme and tone of Fallen London. I thought of that memorable line that unlocks the Whisper-Locked Box in Sunless Sea. In light of that, it’s fairly consistent.
[spoiler]I found the Redemption options misleading. I’m sure the irony of redeeming criminals back to their old crimes was intentional, but I think the characterization of them as people who are set apart from others, as figures of legend who stand above the rest of the rabble because they’ve transcended petty crime- which is contrasted against the constant, almost mindless bustle and activity of fellow inmates who steal and gossip and lie and fight- was misleading in a way that didn’t challenge my perceptions so much as show me one thing and then change it at the end. I did end up redeeming all three as a result of my misapprehension, which may be my fault for not reading between the lines, but it still managed to annoy me a little.
I have some theories about this place so far. It seems distinctly Bazaarine in nature, for one, and I suspect that it’s meant to catch people who are trying to escape the Stories and return to the Surface, including Great Game agents trying to give up spywork.[/quote]
Wonderful theory.
As for the writing assuming such things about our characters… more or less we have to be violent, larcenous and duplicitous to get through the initial stories, even if we make the most moral choices further down the line in places like the University or the Velocipede squad. I chose to see the story as an explanation of this paradox: Jolanda did a lot of unsavoury things at the beginning (who hasn’t done a heist?) and this story was her chance to redeem herself and be the moral person she strives to be now. edited by Jolanda Swan on 1/15/2018
