[quote=Purvis]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.[/quote]
Exceptional stories are meant to be enjoyed by players of all stages of advancement, not just POSI. (Though I do commiserate, as someone whose main has enough Bringer of Death to give the Boatman fears for job security, about not being able to shiv my way out of a tight spot in some of the stories.)
So one thing I’m wondering about - is the Ambiguous Eolith any relation to the Bloodstained Eolith we can get during the Fruits of the Zee festival? And if so, how?
This is one of the greatest stories ever. I’ve been saying that a lot recently, and I love it.
I especially liked that the game never sprung any unfair surprises on you: consequences that were the result of game mechanics were flagged in advance, so I didn’t have to panic about misinterpretation.
Meanwhile, the story was spectacular. I never thought about how astrology in the Fallen London universe (we need a better name for this) has some truth to it, what with the Judgements. And I love exploring esoteric corners of the lore, like the Starved Men. It also showed the variety of interwoven factions, politics, and motives I adore from these games, like Mr. Fire’s regulations, the Observatory (which was obviously already looking at the moon-misers, since there isn’t exactly much else they could be observing at Mr. Stone’s behest), the random opportunistic merchant-captain (or so I presume), and of course the Starved Men themselves.
This is possibly the first Exceptional Story where I deliberately broke with the plan and antagonized someone, too. My character is a technical pacifist, resorting to violence only when necessary and as little as possible. I initially planned to get led to the moon-misers, then escape. Possibly by sneaking or running away, convincing a sympathetic Starved Man, or by going through the moon-misers (it isn’t a particularly big moral dilemma to hurt eusocial non-sentient drones in my book, and even if they were intelligent like sorrow-spiders, this would be easily justified as self-defense). All that went out the window once I realized that would mean letting another person die first, so I made took my opportunity to save them.
I absolutely love that I had the option to either go back for the others or just go, as well. It’s a shame I couldn’t save everyone, but that’s just how it is sometimes.
And to top it all off, I even got to report the Entomological Astrologist to the Constables like a sane person, rather than having to choose between either killing them in cold blood or allowing them to continue sending magnanimous adventurers to their death. Her defense for her actions was rather unconvincing: the ends never justify the means, for the distinction between the two is both subjective and arbitrary.
Finally, I told the Observatory about the research. I’ve never seen any indication they are doing anything particularly evil, after all, and there is no sense letting the work go to waste.
I like how the stories so far have all been centered on revolutionaries that are not aligned with the Calendar Council. I especially liked the Waterhouse Society, right up until my only option to help them consisted of giving the map to the Calendar Council. They’d probably use it to blow up lacre pipes or something. Maybe the next story will have noble-minded revolutionaries who I can help without hurting innocents. Actually, I suppose you could argue that the 1896 Election qualified…
I’ve noticed the latest stories seem to get better and better in terms of giving (a good illusion of) varied and impactful choices, with natural and fitting consequences, all while avoiding the feeling of being railroady or contrived - and this story is no exception.
Now, before I make my final choice, is there any personal gain to not telling anyone about the research? I’m planning to tell the Observatory about it because I like the chaps, but if not doing so means I get to keep it as an item then heck no I’m not giving it to anyone.
Great atmosphere, characters, and locations. A story which really takes you on an adventure, and also reveals hidden things about the Neath.
Every single choice in this story made me pause for a long while to consider what’s the most fitting option for my character.
My only regret in this story is that I failed to save all the prisoners (and apparently that was indeed possible to do).
This is the first story since "Steeped in Honey" (back in December) that I’ve put in my personal "excellent" list.
Well done!
Personal ranking of all Exceptional Stories:
[spoiler]
Excellent:
[ul][li]Lost in Reflections[/li][li]Cut with Moonlight[/li][li]Hojotoho![/li][li]The Frequently Deceased[/li][li]The Waltz that Moved the World[/li][li]Steeped in Honey[/li][li]Flint[/li][li]All Things Must End[/li][li]Written In The Glim[/li][li]The Century Exhibition[/li][li]The Twelve-Fifteen From Moloch Street[/li][li]The Persona Engine[/li][li]Where You and I Must Go[/li][li]The Sinking Synod[/li][li]The Attendants[/li][/ul]Good:
[ul][li]The Murgatroyd Formula[/li][li]Lamentation Lock[/li][li]The Web of the Motherlings[/li][li]The Pentecost Predicament[/li][li]The Calendar Code[/li][li]The Rat-Catcher[/li][li]The Art of Murder[/li][li]The Chimney Pot Wars[/li][li]The Final Curtain[/li][li]The Bones of London[/li][li]The Heart, the Devil and the Zee[/li][li]Our Lady of Pyres[/li][li]The Clay Man’s Arm[/li][li]Five Minutes to Midday[/li][li]Discernment[/li][li]The Haunting at the Marsh House[/li][li]The Pursuit of Moths[/li][li]Factory of Favours[/li][/ul]Meh:
[ul][li]Trial and Error[/li][li]The Last Dog Society[/li][li]The Seven-Day Reign[/li][li]The Court of Cats[/li][/ul]Terrible
This was indeed a good story. It was also structurally a good interactive story–I really feel like I had agency, and that I wasn’t just deciding what order to do things, but deciding what actually happened.
I am a completionist. I normally really really want to See All The Things. I completely missed one piece of content (the moon-miser) because I thought it was a strict exclusionary choice, and I made several other choices that definitely resulted in getting different response text. This normally grates me because it means there is some Thing that I’m not Seeing All Of, but in this case instead of missing out, I felt like I was getting an experience that was tailored towards my choices. I had a priority of seeing The Arts, and I did, and I’m fine with what I had to give up to do that.
However there is a plot hole, pending the conclusion of Light Fingers:
There is an option unlocked with the quality Knowledge of the Arts, which is obtained from the Castles in the Skies portion of Light Fingers. It’s uh… well, gives about 30 cp of Nightmares.
For those unaware, Light Fingers at this point literally says “after this point, you do not return and everything you do in London from now on is actually a flashback.” Returning to London is actually sitting down in your captain’s deck and reminiscing about London. Everything your character does in London is in The Past, and canonically occurs before everything you do in the Castles.
If that’s true… then HOW DID I BRING BACK my Knowledge of the Arts? I did not witness that until after I left London. Which is after I talked to the Astrologer, in London.
So has no-one managed to compile a list of the reward endings yet? Damn, but do I hate choosing blind, so to speak, yet on the other hand I’m feeling impatient and might just go for it if no-one has any info yet.
With regards to the sentiments expressed earlier that particularly accomplished players should have been able to become the Astrologer’s patron, that would be dubious to accomplish mechanically. Patronage is an long-term process which continually reduces the saps the resources of the patron, something which would be incredibly difficult to make happen with the mechanics as they exist in-game. Such things are best left to head-canons, if done at all.
edited by Lazaroth on 7/18/2018 edited by Lazaroth on 7/18/2018
Neither path lets you permanently harm yourself - there’s a point where all options are to escape, the only choice is how (and whether you attempt to save a fellow prisoner in the process). You can also go down both paths (you tell the hungry guys that you changed your mind instead of escaping, IIRC, so you experience everything except the actual escape in one, and everything in the other). edited by Dudebro Pyro on 7/20/2018
Another excellent story, which I enjoyed a lot. I was thrilled to find out more about the Starved Men and visit one of their fortresses, since this is a topic that I’ve been interested in for quite some time. Here are my thoughts, with spoilers:
PROS:
The Entomologist was a fantastic character (and her portrait is great, too). She was sympathetic, but there are early hints that something about her is a little…off.[/li][li]Learning about and gaining a false-star sign was fun. Did it actually have any bearing on the story once you reach the Citadel?[/li][li]The frantic escape from the citadel was superb and actually had my heart racing! I liked being able to rescue the prisoners, too.[/li][li]The choices offered at the end of the story were more nuanced than some other stories, which was a nice touch.
CONS:
The instant KO after arriving at the Citadel felt cheap, especially with a high-Dangerous character. To preserve a sense of player agency without branching the story, an alternative way of doing this sort of thing, I suggest, could be with a single difficult Dangerous challenge. On a failure, the character is KO’d and dragged off, just like in the story. On success, there could be a description of the fight, about how you take down a group of attackers until they call for reinforcements and eventually drag you down through sheer numbers, etc. Perhaps you get a minor reward for succeeding (a Tale of Terror, or a Hard-Earned Lesson, etc). Pass or fail, the ultimate result is the same: you’re knocked out and dragged off to a cell, but it feels less "cheap" than your Shattering Force, etc., character feeling useless in a fight. This is similar to the complaints players raised about the luck-based challenges in the chase sequence near the end of The Seven-Day Reign.
All in all a great story. Props to the writer, editor, and artist. Hopefully we’ll see more of the creepy Starved Men in the future!
[quote=PSGarak]
However there is a plot hole, pending the conclusion of Light Fingers: <snip> [/quote]
Yeah at the beginning I was kinda amused that they didn’t make any reference to the fact that I’d been up to the roof before during my ascent, before remembering that this was technically a flashback, and therefore Light Fingers would’ve actually been my second dealing with the starved men. But then I found that option to start talking about light fingers! Though technically, the framing for this seasons stories is ALSO a flashback, so the continuity’s pretty thoroughly muddied
I enjoyed this story! The Astrologer was an interesting and well-written character, and I liked that there was a variety of potential ways for the reader to interpret her motivations and intentions, and the language, describing her was very elegant. The choices toward the end felt impactful and worthwhile. I was, like a few others, more than a little disappointed that I didn’t get to follow through with either of the options in the citadel, but in the end that’s not such a big deal. There’s always other stories that allow that sort of thing.
[li]
[spoiler] D__n it Entomological Astrologer, if you had just asked me if I wanted to transform myself into a monstrosity or be fed alive to giant insects for science, I would have gladly agreed. But you had to go and betray me.
Eventually, I did decide to let her go because, as a Seeker, my character is very much in the camp of "knowledge at any cost", and anyone who proposes taking on the Masters is a friend in my books. However, if I could be certain that cutting the tether would mean that she ended up being caught by the Stared Men, I would have picked that, as I just love the poetic justice of her becoming the subject of her own experiments. Who knows, maybe I could have observed the results and continued her research. But, given the possibility of Mr Fires catching her, I decided against it. (Does it tell you what happens to her if you cut her loose, or is it left ambiguous?)
Also, for the love of Salt, don’t dangle the possibility of undergoing unholy rituals to permanently mutate myself into a monster, if it isn’t actually a possibility! And especially don’t taunt me by letting me watch someone else undergo the exquisite transformation if I can’t do the same. [/spoiler] edited by Nudraxon on 8/13/2018
@Nudraxon the story text doesn’t confirm either way but I remember the quality text being more indicative of her death by moon miser. Unfortunately, either it got wiped in the epilogue or it’s buried under all my other qualities because I couldn’t find it