I CUT her loose.
Sheesh that was to karykeion. Apparently quoting you killed the spoiler tag.
edited by Wilhelm Leibniz III on 6/29/2018
[quote=Robin Alexander]Now a few people have played, I did have two questions:
And what was the purpose of the paperweight, if you chose to pick it up, and can it be found in the "Myself", as I can’t seem to spot it?
I already forgot but wasn’t it a Knob of Scintillak? It should be under Goods.
edited by Wilhelm Leibniz III on 6/29/2018
Stygian Ivory, actually
I heard that you can allow the Starved Men to shape you, but when I tried to do that it only gave me the option to make my escape. How do you let them shape you?
edited by JainaEgo on 6/29/2018
[quote=Jaina ]Stygian Ivory, actually
edited by JainaEgo on 6/29/2018[/quote]
Ohhhhhh my bad. Then its under Zee-treasures
Why the quirk change though? How is it bad to get the paperweight?
By the way, I noticed they ditched the quirk-loss warnings. I do not bother with them but perhaps people would like to know it is a quirk consuming adventure.
[quote=Wilhelm Leibniz III][quote=Jaina ]Stygian Ivory, actually
edited by JainaEgo on 6/29/2018[/quote]
Ohhhhhh my bad. Then its under Zee-treasures[/quote]
Correct. Sells for 2.50 Echoes at the Bazaar, if you wish to do that.
[quote=Jolanda Swan]Why the quirk change though? How is it bad to get the paperweight?
By the way, I noticed they ditched the quirk-loss warnings. I do not bother with them but perhaps people would like to know it is a quirk consuming adventure.[/quote]
Agreed. If you’re gonna try and get me killed, I’m taking your stuff. Not ruthless, only fair.
Exactly. Plus… ruthless? How was it ‘ruthless’? It is a paperweight for god’s sake, I thought I was missing something crucial in the adventure.
[spoiler]Cut her loose then gave her research to the observatory, what happens if you decide to keep it?
Found it quite funny when she said she had no other choice because she had no money/connections. She obv wasn’t the type to realize you can put some hard work into -earning- those two things on the up-and-up instead of taking the easy way out and committing murder-for-profit.
In my head I was RPing the moment as “You were so lazy that you sent innocent people to certain doom because it helped you skip out on putting in actual effort to earn some expedition funds? Funny, -I’m- too lazy to go get the Constables!”
Hey, now, to be fair, it’s been made abundantly clear that social mobility in Fallen London is quite restrictive, much of the citizenry is trapped in inescapable poverty, and, y’know, circumstances are generally difficult for someone seeking a capital investment in a new system of… fortune-telling. Plus, she tried to get work in astronomy but was excluded on religious grounds.
[spoiler] I haven’t angered the Starving Man, would it have been better to’ve made a break? Also, would saving have been more rewarding than just leaving the others?
I’ve left the other prisoners, didn’t anger any of the Starving Man, stole the paperweight, killed the Astrologer and gave her research to the observatorium.
Could anyone tell me what would’ve happened if I called in the Constables and what would’ve happened if I kept the research? Thanks! [/spoiler]
Edit:
I also wanted to note how I loved this episode was absolutely amazing, hard choices and morality choices you had to make! I felt like I was playing HOJOTOHO! again in a way (which is easily one of my favourites)
edited by Honeyaddict on 6/30/2018
Could someone answer a question for me…
[spoiler]I want to save the prisoners. I’ve just angered the starving men by saving the prisoner they were about to feed to a moon miser, and can attempt to escape, or ask to submit to shaping instead. Will submitting to shaping give me an opportunity to help prisoners too, or should I stick with my current course?
Edit: ah, someone already answered in the affirmative.[/spoiler]
edited by DeserterKalak on 6/30/2018
I enjoyed this one quite a bit for reasons others have already mentioned–atmosphere, choices, investment, moral ambiguity. Just wanted to give props to Failbetter and the writer and say 'keep ‘em coming.’
Two particular things I liked:
[spoiler][ul][li]That the Astrologer actually had plausible motivations that made sense underlying her villainy (she reminded me of Ozymandias from Watchmen), instead of doing things ‘for the evils’ (although since the player is on the receiving end of being an unwitting ‘sacrifice’ for her vision of a ‘greater good’ that diminishes one’s ability to sympathize and agree with her from a subjective point of view).
[/li][li]That choosing what to do with the Astrologer and what to do with her research were two separate and distinct options. I had to hold her accountable for her actions, but I was hoping not to waste her research, which was valuable and people had died for. I was delighted when I saw the choice in the epilogue; it’s one of the many times I developed a ‘headcanon’ for what I would do that the writers ended up actually foreseeing as well and offering, which is always fantastic.[/li][/ul][/spoiler]
edited by CogDiss on 6/30/2018
The moral ambiguity of the story was amazing. I absolutely sympathized with the Astrologer and her research definitely deserves time and attention, but I believe Nietzsche is relevant in describing her character: He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster, and when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
Great care was clearly taken in making the story rhyme, and that places it a level above similar stories like The Clay Arm. Both stories have the same fundamental moral choice (though I’d argue the Astrologer’s actions are far more monstrous than anything in The Clay Arm), but Written in the Glim offers a far more interesting exploration of monstrosity through the Starved Men. They have chosen to become outwardly monstrous in the name of (Red) Science, transcending their former boundaries in defiance of the laws of man and nature. They are the reflection of the Astrologer’s inner demons, and they give us a standard to view monstrosity against so that when we confront the Astrologer, we don’t see a monster or a man but rather someone who is straddling that line, remorseful of their actions but still fighting for the greater good. The choice your character makes is rooted in which they see more, and if they see a monster, how they destroy it. It’s a very powerful way to end a story that begins with a question of self-exploration: Neathy astrology. In the end, our characters are forced to look beyond those initial categorizations and understand some aspect of themselves.
The key limitation of the story, in my opinion, is that it is an Exceptional Story. It has a fixed release date with time and size limitations, and it has to be playable for anyone first stepping foot in the Neath. It is a story of adventure, horror, and moral ambiguity, built around an intriguing character and hints of a deeper mystery of the Neath. It’s ambitious, but that came at a cost. We see hints of the Astrologer’s nature early on, but she isn’t given much time to shine as a character. Our fellow prisoners are given next to no characterization and aren’t even given names of their own. I’m willing to accept these sacrifices for the amazing story we got. We can even justify both of these from a thematic perspective. The first decision to save or not save your fellow prisoner or to watch their demise for the sake of knowledge is the very same decision that the Astrologer makes: condemning a stranger to death or (arguably) a fate worse than death for the sake of your own knowledge. This gives us the proper tools to evaluate the morality of the Astrologer’s actions in the final confrontation. If the prisoners were anything but faceless, nameless strangers, bias is introduced.
There are a few places that I wish we could make different decisions, though. It would’ve been extremely fun to volunteer to be transformed into a Starved Man, only to have your fellow prisoner save you before the process is complete. Imagine huge gains in Wounds and Nightmares, along with horrific stat scrambling (huge destruction to Watchful and Persuasive with increases to Dangerous and Shadowy would make sense). It would’ve been a heartwarming moment too, as your fellow prisoner mistakes the player’s self-destructive tendencies for heroism and becomes a hero themselves. Finally, there is a problem where sufficiently advanced player characters absolutely have the connections and wealth to let the Astrologer pursue research without the human sacrifices, but this choice can’t be available because of this story’s nature as an Exceptional Story.
Altogether, despite these limitations, it was an amazing story and one of the strongest thematically that I’ve seen - as thematically strong as The Stone Guest or HOJOTOHO!
Did anyone manage to keep the piece of uniquely-carved amber? Did anyone succeed at the ‘ask them for star charts’ thing with the abysmal success rate?
If you succeed the luck check, they take the amber anyway.
I am pretty danged happy with this story. I’ve been wanting to go to the rooftop for ages now!
I do kind of have one gripe, though.
See, I’m playing a 200 Dangerous, Shattering Force, Licentiate-turned-Monster Hunter whose whole deal is violencing as much of the Neath flora and fauna as possible. And I was absolutely looking forward to gleefully murdering my way through as many Starved Men as humanly possible. Instead, I spend nearly all my time getting bodied by them again and again, not even able to hurt them a little when my whole thing is making grievous bloodshed. Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand that carving a bloody-swath type path would have been a lot more work, however beautiful it would have been for me personally, and that’s not my beef. But I do kind of wish I could have at least taken a few of them down when I tried, rather than just totally jobbing it and getting thrown in jail.
That’s just a small thing, though. I’m still very pleased with this story, and it ranks among my favorites.
Does anyone have the echo for succeeding this check?
The Seasonal Hub where you unlock this story seems to be implying that you’re actually re-telling this adventure to a reporter, rather than playing it out live. So I take it to mean that this story happened much earlier in the player-character’s time in Fallen London, perhaps before they have the resources to be able to do that.
edited by Rhode Wardwado on 7/3/2018
I am not thrilled that the well deserved revenge gives Heartless. Ruthless, sure, but not Heartless. I don’t even mind the Magnanimous hit (not that I am thrilled about it).
Still, good story overall. Enjoyed it beginning to end.