First of all, I don’t think there was too much actual, permanent slaughtering going on. This is not a real world war with real world implications. Some people had an unplanned visit to the Boatman. It happens. And some people had their bones liquified which certainly takes some adjusting to. But there’s probably a Red Scientist or Shapeling Artist down your street that will offer to help you with that!
As to your other point: the two most common human reactions to wartime trauma are (1) an unquenchable thirst for revenge and (2) the need to forgive and forget as the only way to move on. I think the final scenes at the Peace Garden, with the appearance of the Starved Man, showed quite clearly that both sentiments are present among Londoners. It’s absolutely not ruled out that at the same time, a mob is gathering somewhere to hunt down Starved Men. But, like I wrote above, a significant part of the populace is apparently more in need of healing than revenge right now.
I really liked the war setting. So much more visceral and exciting than the non-war in Parabola. But I’m a bit of a warmonger in games… “Wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
Guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.” - Arlo Guthrie.
My only disappointment is that my beloved airship is no longer air-worthy.
Wait. I finally understand your deepest, darkest motivations, Failbetter. The entire purpose of the event was to make people spend 10 Fate on Rename your Affilation to change the Final Resting Place to include the name of your airship! I’m onto you and your dastardly plans! That being said I’ll probably do it anyway.
One more addition to my very long post above: I did find it pretty frustrating how once again, the same Ambition ending that always gets interesting and meaningful references got interesting and meaningful references, and Nemesis got nothing (and likely that’s true for other ambitions, don’t mean to ignore any that were also shafted, just don’t know about them).
I haven’t taken as much issue with their handling and balance of Ambitions as many players have, but at this point it’s getting a touch hard to not feel rather like a pointedly unfavourite child. I get that some Ambitions might be harder to work in than others (though I still think they need to come up with a way) but surely having killed one of them is something that wouldn’t be too hard to imagine a reaction for when the Masters come up?
I mean, in Fallen London I get slaughtered a few times a year pretty regularly, and at this point my home also gets destroyed on a pretty decent cadence, there’s usually at least 1-2 exceptional stories per year that destroy or render uninhabitable my lodgings. (I didn’t count, but it comes up occasionally, I think?)
This is the Neath. Death is a temporary inconvenience at most.
I’m mostly curious whether this is the start of more Starved Men stories. We never did learn their motivations, but clearly SOMETHING was going on, whatever the Masters were conferring about, too. So they knew something. Are the starved men going to be a new faction now, is the roof a new place to explore? Maybe we’ll one day have roof-faring like we now have zeefaring, with locations?
The Starved Men did not come to London cognisant of the nature of their destruction. Their experience of the world to that point was fundamentally different, and London paid for those mismatched perceptions.
Is it right to feel angry at what happened? Yes. Is it right that others have moved past it so quickly, despite everything? Yes to that, too.
Existence in the Neath is a complicated negotiation between beings that barely understand one another – that may not occupy the same conceptual reality. So far, it’s worked out for the better more often than it hasn’t. This intervention by the Starved Men has been among the worst – two forms of life each acting in their own idiom, to the detriment of both.
Nemesis among Ambitions is like Silverer among T3 professions: something early(?) and easily forgotten. I chose these two willingly and unfortunately, and have become accustomed to such oblivion, expecting little.
In Godfall there is an option for the Violant-Winged Bat, though.
So, the group of starved men that came down and started making alterations… What were they trying to do? They weren’t sun-proofing anything. What was supposed to have happened if Londoners had stepped aside and let them turn all the buildings into meat or whatever?
Maybe we’ll learn a few morsels during the Fruits of the Zee Festival. In previous years, there was always some storylet on Mutton Island harking back to the foregone Election/Estival. I know FotZ will be reworked this year (finally!), but maybe they’ll keep that tradition alive.
I suspect it may have something to do with whatever the Masters’ “more important business” was. Perhaps the Starved Men were trying to stop the Masters taking the Sixth City?
I think that we will get permanent activity from cultural exchange, rather than some unique reward. We got nothing on this front yet from this Estival, while in previous years we had a lot of them.
I interpreted it as ‘One group of starved men is lining up a giant eye and another group is trying to move London out the way’. I picked up on the Starved man transforming the sea and was sort of imagining it ants lifting a picnic style. That said, that’s kind of a deliberately silly option.
Hey, thanks for putting into words something that’s been troubling me about recent FL content. I haven’t been able to articulate it well myself, and while personally I had a lot of fun with this event specifically I-and others, I’ve noticed-have had felt those issues much more strongly with the Irem destinies. To paraphrase somebody else, it’s like they start from the premise of “wouldn’t this be cool?” and then presented you with a particular outcome like somehow managing to commune with the Sapphir’d King to and treat that as a happy ending.
I feel a big part of why I enjoyed this event was being able to take out the Vake and flex after so many other missed opportunities to use it, and that without it yeah I would have felt like I had less agency. But well. I really liked this part.
The situation with the royals peacing out makes me wonder if FB’s planning to do something with the optional House of Chimes “you might actually be long-lost royalty” thing.
And we can’t forget the HD ending that literally makes you royalty, and quite possibly the heir to the throne if I’ve read it correctly. (Which in my opinion should have gotten at least a little text when appealing to the Empress but that’s neither here nor there)
I intially thought that would have some kind of interaction with your Captivating Princess acquaintance level. Not necessarily positive or even meaningful but like…you’d expect London’s premier socialite to have something to say about someone who for all we know she last saw as some bum fresh out of Newgate suddenly all but confirmed the Empress’ heir.
