It’s true he’s rather clingy toward his ex but that’s hardly something worth disgust. Throughout Heart’s Desire I felt nothing but pity for the guy.
He sold an entire city full of people to evil space monsters. He was their king, and he had a duty to protect them, and he sold them like animals. And the only thing he regrets about his actions is that his snookums doesn’t love him anymore.
He committed both a crime against humanity and a betrayal of his own people on a massive scale, and he doesn’t care. He’s just sad the space bats got the better of him.
He’s evil.
And annoying :P
So, ah, how is this different from dear old Queen Vic again?
It’s not. She’s evil too. But the Manager seems to be painted as a purely tragic figure by the narration and pitied by a lot of the players, while the other three city-sellers aren’t treated nearly so sympathetically.
I’d honestly like him a lot more if it was acknowledged that, while his motive might have been sympathetic, what he did was still horrific. I like tragic villains. I don’t like it when people seem to forget they’re villains ;)
Far as I can tell, everyone except the third city seems to be painted rather well.
First-sympathetic manager (in his defense, his was the first city stolen. I don’t think "we’re going to kidnap all of your citizens using godlike powers" was quite what he imagined)
Second-a false city, minimizing casualties, and someone who outsmarted the bazaar and the masters
Third-all round terrible people
Fourth-sold the city to save it from the army outside its walls, and prevent all of their citizens from being killed.
Fifth-well, I think you know. Not exactly the best, but I think there’s some things we don’t know.
They’re just not quite as active in their content, or more obscure/fate locked, or even in another game, so sadly we see less discussion on them.
edited by suinicide on 5/18/2017
@Kuka: Fair 'nough.
I guess I’ve never been too judgemental toward the various city leaders since selling out their populace is what most leaders do anyway. This time it was just a bit more literal.
Maybe we should start referring to that brass-buttoned fellow as Traitor Manager.
[quote=suinicide]Second-a false city, minimizing casualties, and someone who outsmarted the bazaar and the masters[/quote]How so? Was Amarna offered after Akenhaten’s death and the city’s subsequent abandonment?
[quote=suinicide]Third-all round terrible people[/quote]Hungry people, at least. Where can more about them be learned in-game? Is it all SMEN material, or is there some Third City background info present elsewhere?
edited by Anchovies on 5/18/2017
One of the ES mentions how the entire second city was a trap for the masters and the bazaar, a false city, a false love. It’s possible there were many people, but there’s really no indication of that (side note: second city relixs seem to be the rarest relics)
Third city: they literally sold their city for power/immortality. That was their deal.
I don’t think I’ve played that ES, but Second City lore is pretty well-developed in various corners of free content. In real history, a heretic pharaoh built Akhetaten (modern name Amarna), made it the capital of Egypt, and settled it for less than a generation before his death. The city was then abandoned and the old pharoah’s brief new religion expunged.
In the Neath version of events, this was all an intentional ploy. The Bazaar needs powerful cities at the center of events to generate its love and whatever else it feeds on. By selling a capital city which almost immediately lost these attributes, the pharoah’s daughters and their traitorous accomplice Master Candles trapped the Bazaar in the Second City for many centuries. The Masters were angry and dreaming in hieroglyphs by the time they made contact with the mysterious God Eaters of the Third City, and finally achieved vengeance and a new city.
Hungry, yes. Some people think that Mesoamerican cultures developed more anthropophagic traditions because corn was an inadequate protein source and they had few domesticated animals. But some think that the amount of cannibalism in America was vastly overstated by Europeans as part of the process of othering non-European societies.
Anyway, there is some Third City content around, in obscure places like the Nadir and the Fidgeting Writer story.
I think that the leaders of the Third City did gain a lot of power and some degree of immortality by eating Mr. Candles. Many of them rebelled and remain trapped in the Nadir to this day. Others wound up in an obscure Tomb-Colony, which the Paronomastic Newshound once visited, and from which they occasionally trouble sensitive writers: the Cat, the Serpent, the Red Bird.
I am always surprised by how much lore slips between the cracks. I searched pretty extensively for that as I used Fallen London in an RPG session, and still I find new things.
I don’t think this part is accurate, or at least is never confirmed in canon. Iirc the most that’s ever stated is that Mr Candles was more sympathetic than the other Masters, who were all pissed off at the trick.
[quote=Aberrant Eremite]
I think that the leaders of the Third City did gain a lot of power and some degree of immortality by eating Mr. Candles. Many of them rebelled and remain trapped in the Nadir to this day. Others wound up in an obscure Tomb-Colony, which the Paronomastic Newshound once visited, and from which they occasionally trouble sensitive writers: the Cat, the Serpent, the Red Bird. [/quote]
I’m pretty sure that only the three with fancy names actually got to eat, since they’re the only ones we hear about with that mediocre immortality. The 55 Third City revolutionaries in the Nadir are all dead after all.
There were five others who visited Xibalba along with the Paranomastic Newshound: the Northbound Parliamentarian, Reclusive Turophile, Cat-Beset Perfectionist, Bawdy Cardsharp, and Libertarian Esotericist. All of them have cards based on The Silver Tree KS backers, but sadly only the Newshound and Parliamentarian can still be drawn.
Well, okay, all I know for certain is that Mr Candles is the only master who didn’t mind the Second City and who likes the pharoah’s daughters, and that he got sacrificed by the other Masters. But it’s not hard to see the implication that this was an act of punishment or vengeance, not just necessity:
"No restitution for the Drowned Man. Do not forget, do not forgive. Do not forget, do not forgive. Do not forget."
Clearly Candles did something to **** off the others, and there’s only one obvious candidate as far as I know. (Which is not much, as I’m still a newbie in New Seeking.)
As much as I don’t want to contribute too much more to this tangential derailment:
I’m pretty sure Candles, while less of an angry sore loser about the whole thing, was not complicit in the Daughters’ deception. I got a little obsessed with this a while ago and trawled my records to find everything I could - not much of it I can post, a lot of it being fate locked or hidden in the depths of seeking and whatnot - but I found nothing to suggest that Candles wasn’t just as betrayed and trapped as any of the other Masters.
As for why he was sacrificed to the God-Eaters, well… they’re ruthless fighty spacebats and he’s the weakest, runtiest, most aberrant of them. He was just the logical choice.
edited by Barse on 5/18/2017
The new content like SMEN’s Revenge, Election, Sinning Jenny’s School and the newer Exceptional Stories all have very nice and different structure and mechanics and so on, when compared to the older stories.
It’s sort of a silver lining (your mileage may vary), but when they come they would probably be done much better than what we might have got if it was on schedule.
They are definitely better. And it is very understandable that a game that has the quality of Fallen London takes time to make.
My Ambition is Heart’s desire, so I do not feel in a hurry to complete it - the card game will be set when the time comes. Storywise, it remains satisfying to me. What I would like is a story or a grind where I can use my elevated stats. The hardest Flash lay is an example, and the expeditions are another. Having maxed stats makes a difference there.
Not that I do not appreciate the game in its entirety, and the montly ES keeps adding to the lore, but variety helps. When Jenny’s school was added, the game became much more enjoyable because even when I had two full candles I could play, replenish the cards and expend my actions in a fun and profitable way. Extra challenges would keep more people glued to the screen.