[/color]
[color=#cc0066]The Decorated Ambassador arrives in London, determined to put on an unforgettable evening. For one night only, the Garden Embassy is hosting a ball. It is essential London makes the right impression. Will you rise to the occasion?
[font=facitweb-1, facitweb-2, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif]The Garden Embassy is the first story in the Season of Bargains, and was written by Ash McAllan. In this season you will experience three stories of desperate deals, precarious alliances and prices that must be paid.
Begin with the Season of Bargains card, available throughout London.
In addition to a new, substantial, stand-alone story every month, Exceptional Friends enjoy:
[/font][/color][ul][li][color=#cc0066]Access to the House of Chimes: an exclusive private members’ club on the Stolen River, packed with content[/color][/li][li][color=#cc0066]An expanded opportunity deck: of ten cards instead of six![/color][/li][li][color=#cc0066]A second candle: Twice the actions! 40 at once![/color][/li][/ul][font=facitweb-1, facitweb-2, "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif][color=#cc0066]
Finishing all three stories in the Season of Bargains will make you eligible for an additional opportunity, to follow.
If you want to keep an Exceptional Story beyond its release month, you must complete the related storylet in the current Season’s card. This will save it for you to return to another time.[/color][/font]
[quote=James StAnthony][color=#cc0066]snip
[/color]
[color=#cc0066]and prices that must be paid.[/color][/quote]This sounds interesting; many thanks, delicious!
For those that will play the story, please note if this ES has any item and quality requirements to update this sheet (careful spoilers!!!).
I can’t help but feel a little insulted that I, beloved former governor of London’s only real colony and foreign office insider, was not considered for this position. Yes, I know, I’m already an ambassador to London, but still I find myself in possession of some small resentment.
I wish the Exceptional Story had signaled more clearly that by concluding your conversation with the Ambassador in the garden, you leave the ball permanently. I (perhaps unreasonably) thought otherwise and wound up locked out of what appeared to be a lot of content.
On a related subject, does anyone know if you can reset an ES during the month it’s active, or do you have to wait until the end of the month?
Alas, despite my best efforts, I could not retain my sunlight. It appears the vial of sunlight is removed from your inventory at the end of the story even if you refuse to sell it or give it away.
My disappointment is immeasurable and my mantelpiece weeps.
I enjoyed this story quite a bit. It was fun to run around enjoying the party and deciding who to help and who not to, and all the various hi jinx. Caroline did as well. This was certainly a recommended story.
Even if she did turn Caroline down. No accounting for taste.
I’ll be completely honest, I had no idea what I was doing here. So if the author’s intent was to try and emulate the confusion, chaos, and juggling the attentions and eccentricities of so many targets at an event, well done. It was fairly faithful to real world examples that I’ve been in.
I much preferred this to last month’s story. Where I knew what to do but disliked the outcome, whereas here I was lost but ended up doing what I would have approved of.
Loved the premise, the idea of finding out about what happened to the Commonwealth, the Surface ties. It was sorely needed for me!
The story… I completed half of it - I think? Never came across any Sunlight, or had the chance to gain Jenny’s appoval. I only managed the Admiral’s quest. I understood it was either him or the Engineer, but have no idea what went wrong with Jenny or the poet.
I ended up keeping the colony tied to London, but at that point I was playing mechanically. Which was a pity, since I love interacting with Jenny. Since I completed the story while travelling I will not complain TOO much, in case the things I missed were my fault, but I would love it if someone PMed me or posted here what I had to do to get the Sunlight. Doubt I would play it again (unlike last month’s ES) but just in case I managed not to see something obvious. Thanks!
[quote=Blaine Davidson]I’ll be completely honest, I had no idea what I was doing here. So if the author’s intent was to try and emulate the confusion, chaos, and juggling the attentions and eccentricities of so many targets at an event, well done. It was fairly faithful to real world examples that I’ve been in.
I much preferred this to last month’s story. Where I knew what to do but disliked the outcome, whereas here I was lost but ended up doing what I would have approved of.[/quote]
THIS
Last month’s story was my first - this one was confusing and frustrating, and made me feel like FB owed me a redo. There were too many short threads and nothing was meaningful, then suddenly it was over.
I have been watching this one over my husband’s shoulder as he plays, since he’s the only one of us with EF status right now.
I’m finding the story to be very atmospheric and realistic, but not terribly interesting, so far. But then, neither me nor my character (or he and his) are very interested in purely social goals. I may feel differently when we get to the end of the story.
I quite enjoyed this story, though it was a bit confusing at times. The start was underwhelming, since the story never actually explained what the Embassy was for or who the Ambassador was—while everything was explained after arriving, it felt as though my character was expected to be familiar with something I myself was not. The party itself was a good time though. There wasn’t a ton of depth to the interactions with the characters, but puzzling out the mechanics necessary to do anything was fun. (I was surprised though that there was little reward for helping all the characters, as I think progressing the story only required one.) The highlight for me was the time spent with the Ambassador, although the ending felt like a bit of a letdown. The final decision I got felt very binary, especially as I was apparently deciding not just her policy toward London, but her overall opinion. Presumably the locations I showed her influenced the available options, but given I tried to give her a balanced view, I’m surprised there wasn’t a neutral ending available.
I’m also curious if the seduction angle was actually possible, somehow…
I’ve given away items acquired in the Ball to raise the approval of both the Poet and the Engineer as high as possible, but I’m unsure to what end. For example the Engineer seemed to have indicated that he would meet me somewhere more private but he’s no where to be found in the cloakroom. Can anyone shed a little light on how I should proceed, please?
If memory serves me correctly, once you got a servants uniform, you could go to the servants in the coat closet to find out where the sunlight was hidden in the garden. Then get it and give it to the poet. For Jenny, get the uniform, serve canapes to get trust, and find out about the Ambassadors real behavior, tell Jenny
Pigmeat: I think that is done at the dance. edited by Lady Karnstein on 5/31/2019
I say; I was not expecting this story to refer to events that took place in my very own neighbourhood. And I was super impressed with the indigenous history at the heart of this story! edited by Diptych on 6/1/2019
