By the way, any notable changes if you are Glassman in this story?
There’s a few text changes (like knowing the Glassman is a fellow Glassman) but nothing major.
I think Red-Handed Queen is going to be important for upcoming stories in the game (looks at various Ambitions…), so FBG are slowly putting her in more content so that she’s not a total surprise to people when she finally turns up in the non-ES content.
Not necessarily, given how we once had three consecutive stories indirectly about the Thief-of-Faces and we never really got more than fragmentary lore about him (her? It?).
That said, I would certainly hope for more lore in this direction. The last several fate stories have been really fruitful about digging into the more mysterious parts of the lore - the Stone Pigs, the Boatman, and now the Red-Handed Queen.
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edited by Akernis on 9/1/2019
[color=rgb(194, 194, 194)][spoiler]In Ambition: Nemesis, Carrywell is explicitly referred to as the Red-Handed Queen by a chess playing tomb colonist. Unless Failbetter was dropping a red herring, we know the actual identity of the Red Handed Queen. [/color]https://fallenlondon.fandom.com/wiki/Go_over_when_he_beckons%3F[color=rgb(194, 194, 194)] Furthermore, that image of a woman with bloody hands is used throughout the confrontation with Carrywell.[/spoiler][/color]
Any special items or qualities required in this ES? :)
I never got to discover what it was they got in exchange for the sacrifice. Is it possible to find out?
I chose to interrupt the expedition the first time, and now that I have seen what happens if you don’t I can’t recommend interrupting it to anyone. The text/lore for doing the expedition is totally worth it even if it’s probably the evil choice. Interrupting leads to a very abrupt ending and you miss out on the parabola/red handed queen stuff.
I enjoyed this story up until the end, where I misclicked at a major choice and ruined my experience. Thought I was asking the Glassman for advice, but no, I had the story choice open by mistake. Ah well, I can only blame myself.
Pretty sure last month’s story wasn’t about her at all.
Remember, the theory that last month’s story was about the Red-Handed Queen started because someone misinterpreted the hints referencing October. While the October = Queen theory is interesting, there was very little to support it, and I think this month’s story torpedoes the idea. Not only does October recruit in person, while the Queen seemingly recruits via her dream avatar, the reference to the Queen’s agents being surgeons doesn’t match up with October at all.
[spoiler]Having two powerful female figures who use dreams to fulfill their goals and to be in conflvit with the Masters over them seems like too much a coincidence, but I’ll suppose we’ll have to see down the line.
I’m further emphasizing that I believe Carrywell to be the Red Handed Queen as this story mentions her affiliations with surgeons and Carrywell was shown to run a sanatorium by Venderbight in Ambition: Nemesis.[/spoiler]
Does anyone else agree with that?
Ah, so that’s the dreaded Sanatorium in Venderbight! Finally it all clicked together.
I’m a bit confused about what exactly happened in this ES. I think I may have selected the options that give the least amount of information possible
The first expedition to the Forgotten Quarter involved a sacrifice and the loss of the Barber’s fingers, but I’m not sure what was gained. I got nothing from the Surgeon and I made the Chemist forget there ever was an expedition to begin with. I agreed to stop the Barber’s plan, but I don’t think I did and nothing came of that anyway. I smashed the Barber’s tools but I’m not sure what the effect of that was, I feel like I probably shouldn’t’ve.
You didn’t do anything wrong, or lose any bits of knowledge. Some ES are like that: you stumble upon a tragedy, you witness something beyond your ken. I believe that players of Ambition:Nemesis got a bit more out of that than the rest of us, given that they had met the Queen before.
Wish that were true, but no. I am playing Nemesis, and I got nothing significantly different than what is described in this thread. I got the (probably mistaken) impression that the Queen in question was the Queen of the Rosers.
I found I enjoyed the story, though my character’s morals prevented too much indulgence of aspects of the story. She missed much of the end. It happens sometimes, tho seems to happen more than I would prefer. Still a good story.
Caroline prevented the Expedition. She has no regrets.
edited by Lady Karnstein on 9/3/2019
I’m interested in the motives of everyone involved in this story. As far as I can tell, everyone here has some ulterior motive and a connection to the factions of Parabola as a whole. As such, here are my guesses:
- The Cloying Surgeon, the Sweepers, and the Barber: servants of the Queen; it seems her goal is to shepherd the Razor from the real world to that of dreams and as her agents they fulfilled this. As far as I can tell, this is the only gain she gets from the ‘expedition’- tools she couldn’t access herself. The Rat seems to be mesmerized by the Queen, or truly one of her servants.
*The Glassman: The Glass, trying to stop the Queen. He attempts to stop the Expedition before it even begins.
*The Locksmith: clearly possessed by a Fingerking, as shown when you cut his hair. My guess is, that while the Glass is trying to stop the Queen directly, the Fingerkings are playing the long game, trying to find out how the Queen benefited from the first Expedition. This shows a disconnect between the Glass and Fingerkings, where it seems that knowledgeable Londoners are aware of the Queen’s dangers, but the Fingerkings are not (matching the Barber’s description of the Queen as both their prisoner and Queen). The Locksmith, when freed, is clearly hostile to the Fingerkings (and the Glass), described as hiding from the Glassman due to knowing who he is. He also describes people’s actions as not their own, but a result of greater forces (akin to a Game of Chess, or possession by the Fingerkings)
*The Tiger: the Shroud, or the dream tigers. The final and most enigmatic entry in this lot. They appear once, describing their role in telling the Bazaar of the ruin that started this whole plot, where the Barber was saved from the Fingerkings by the Queen. On its face, the Tiger couldn’t have known about the Queen saving the Barber from the Fingerkngs, which meant it would have been driving the Barber to the Fingerkings and granting them a victory. As such, I believe the Tiger was fully aware of the Queen’s prescence. As such, it would seem this tiger, on the order of the rest of the Shroud or the rest of the tigers, is attempting to play the Queen against the Fingerkings. It adds an element of realpolitik to the Shroud (or should I say Ispolitik), showing they (or their allies) aren’t fully in it to protect the world (from the potential dangers of an entity like the Queen) but to defeat the Fingerkings by playing with the fire of the Red-Handed Queen.
Finally, as shown if favoring the Glassman, the Glassman gets his chest (a vital area) riddled with bullets by the Rodent, while the Chemist is shot in the jaw. And yet, the Glassman debriefed you in the end no worse for the wear, while the Chemist is noted to be explicitly healing from the wound he received. This may mean that the Fingerkings have some method of healing or immortality we don’t know about.
edited by Ixc on 9/3/2019
Wow, I got absolutely nothing out of that story. Not sure how I threaded the needle on guesswork choices to manage that…
Sometimes, the stories seem to be aimed solely at people who have a deep knowledge of the most arcane lore. Occasionally, this works: it gets you involved at a personal story, while hinting at greater mysteries. This time though, the NPCs were unlikable, and making an ethical decision cut you out of huge parts of the story - the ones that offered some kind of explanation, or at least lore.
I loved the idea behind the story, the rat and the sleepy cleaning ladies; all great, very FL concepts. But the expedition left you hanging, you never learn what was won, you do not get a glimpse of the Queen, nothing. Plus, I understand choices leading you down different paths but once more, kind choices cut you off the story itself - even the little bits you get if you forego reason or magnanimity. I get eschewing rewards, but eschewing the story you have been waiting for a month? Not fun.
Monara, the top two entries here that deal with the Chemist and the tiger’s small talk are the closest I came to uncovering what the sacrifice was about.
[quote=Jolanda Swan]Lovely story so far, not enjoying it one bit though. Essentially, I have to do something I (and Jolanda) believe to be bad just to be able to play the story.
I don’t know, I fell that the actual choice for me is
a) don’t play this month’s ES
b) play it in a completely detached manner, so you can at least get the lore, writing etc (which, so far, is good).[/quote]
I relate to this. Rambling below.
As soon as the zailor started freaking out about why she’d even wanted the memory removed after I’d been on the fence about cutting it in the first place (Kat initially decided the generic horrors were more fine to dispose of than people’s choices), I decided these idiots can all live with their baggage like the rest of us. Without the ability to research the objects that were the most interesting part of the story nor investigate the barber, I almost instantly wanted to destroy them and throw them in his face. The barber wouldn’t even tell me what he’s about, this clandestine meeting guy is similarly obtuse with who he is and what he wants beyond "don’t", I can’t investigate any of it, and I’m supposed to just cut these people’s memories out for… who, exactly? And why? In this economy? So: no, thank you. They can all sit and stew in it. And luckily, that was an option.
Unluckily, all my antagonism was met with little to no reaction. I didn’t ultimately rat him out to the guy who, turns out, is a member of the Glass (though I wanted to), simply out of spite because my character is Shroud. That felt like the most interesting choice I made in the whole story because I half-understood the lore of it and how that might influence my character. I thought snitching to the glass before the expedition would also swing a guillotine down on the story before I’d even tried to learn something, and why would this glass guy tell me more about the situation once I’ve already given him everything he wants? He never offered anything in exchange for the information nor was he clear about his plans - if I’m meant to have a "conscience" to help him then he needs to actually offer proof that he’s got one, too, otherwise I’m just pinballing around from one fresh faced deviant’s schemes into the arms of another. It feels like a trap - the kind of choice you make just to get lectured about how gullible you were for making an uniformed choice (because the story won’t let you be informed) and ~every side is really just the same~. But I haven’t read journals, so I can’t say if that’s how it truly shook out here or if that’s just my deep FL paranoia kicking in.
So I ultimately ended up being the only one besides the barber and the rat-become-spiders to enter the mirror. I’m not sure why the player character was allowed to accompany him with these choices under their belt for nine passive click-throughs that led to one choice, to do the thing I wanted to do from the beginning and snap his tools in his face, which ultimately led to… … …what, we don’t know besides "she’ll be angry with me". Besides that, he says about four sentences of dialogue and then I had to turn heel and leave him there.
I do appreciate at the beginning having a "why are you doing this" type of storylet, because I constantly asked myself that when there was little to no adventure and the barber was tight lipped. The amount of scandal reduction was nowhere near worth it to Kat to stick around but the alternative is her leaving and me not finishing the ES which is an irl punishment. I thought the choice of motivation might be used against me later by the barber as blackmail, especially considering my actions toward his schemes, but no. Even telling the barber’s friend about his plans in ear shot and snapping his tools cause no reaction when I’d at least hoped for some explosive-rage-expressed lore before being dis-invited and shown the end.
I did everything like Tom Davidson above did. It’s impressive. Are you a FingerKing preparing to impersonate me? 
I got in with the now serene Chemist and the shady, maybe-possessed, not-suspicious-anymore Locksmith.
I sent the Chemist back. He didn’t do anything to deserve a grisly end.
I continued with the Locksmith. I don’t know if he had been taken by the Sneks already when he rigged the game of straws to make the Barber into a human sacrifice. In one case or the other, scum or snek, I won’t be too regretful.
And I broke the Exquisite Scissors and the Nepenthean Razor, too.
Reasoning of my character with Steadfast 15 and Austere 9: no one should have that kind of power, much less an unknown dangerous entity on the other side of the mirror.
I guess that if we destroy the instruments and bring no sacrifice, then our character would be eaten by the Red-Handed Queen, but for gameplay reasons we can escape all the same? I don’t know, maybe at that point we are just unwelcome.
P.s.: Practical Question:
How to access the end-of-season content when you have all 3 objects? I missed the last one, I don’t know how.
edited by Netos Korlan on 9/7/2019
[quote=Netos Korlan]P.s.: Practical Question:
How to access the end-of-season content when you have all 3 objects? I missed the last one, I don’t know how.[/quote]
It takes some time for the seasonal conclusion to be released; I think the most recent one was for the Season of Hobbies. Once it’s out you’ll have a storylet everywhere in London to play it.
edited by Optimatum on 9/7/2019
[quote=Tom Davidson]So my choices:
<snip>
edited by Tom Davidson on 8/30/2019[/quote]
Funny, that. I made exactly the same choices …
ETA: and I see I wasn’t the only one. Spooky.
Last time that happened in an RPG I ended up married to the other player IRL :)
edited by Josiah Thimblerig on 9/8/2019
edited by Josiah Thimblerig on 9/8/2019