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Let them proceed, they're having fun.
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Sep 1, 2023 18:54
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Stop Frost Club is a non-lethal facility
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Sep 1, 2023 20:43
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"Put up your dukes" just got super literal.
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Sep 1, 2023 21:10
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Friends in Christ, if we cannot hold fast to our Principles, even Now, at the Hour of our Direst Temptation, then our Principles are only empty Words and wasted Breath furthermore, on a more Earthly and Practical level, I should like to Remind us that as the State, we must Maintain the Monopoly on Violence; to Give it over to any Other group, or even simply to Allow it to be Usurped for a Time while Feigning Ignorance of the Affair, serves only to Delegitimize our Administration and allow Total Anarchy a toe in the Doorway to our Ever-threatened Home
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Sep 1, 2023 21:39
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Stop
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Sep 2, 2023 03:33
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Let's weigh the pros and cons of the motion set forth by the bloodthirsty mob: + Craven deserves it. + It'll be a great team-building exercise. + A good time would be had by all. (Except Craven, but refer to point 1) + Just think of the merchandising opportunities - We'd be no better than Craven. Dammit, I vote we let him live.
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Sep 2, 2023 16:15
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What's this "no better than Craven" line, this is significantly better even if it's not, like, "good."
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Sep 2, 2023 17:15
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SatansOnion posted:furthermore, on a more Earthly and Practical level, I should like to Remind us that as the State, we must Maintain the Monopoly on Violence.
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Sep 3, 2023 03:48
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Stop them The Lord will judge him in time, not us, and all men deserve a chance of repentence I say. He did save the children thus we give him a chance to save his soul.
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Sep 3, 2023 12:10
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I guess the lords are being surprisingly compliant and grateful to make any decision to gently caress them over unambiguously cruel.
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Sep 4, 2023 03:40
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Excerpts from the Journal of the Deacon of Sanctuary - Settlement "So when they continued asking Him, He lifted up Himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." These are the Words I challenged the Mob with. I am no Messiah but a mere Deacon, and so only a little more than Half of the Crowd was shamed into Departure, but that was enough for the Faith Keepers to safely disperse.  Discontent will be an Issue, but it is a small Price to pay for a clear Conscience.  You promised people warmth. You broke your promise. The "Tomorrow's Problem" of Yesterday has become Today's Problem. I am sorry, to Every-one.   A strange vehicle stands in the middle of the deserted village. This village was supposed to supply our city with food. The vehicle carried a broken ice drill used for making air holes big enough for us to fish under the ice. We can fit it and build an Outpost here or dismantle it and retrieve one Steam Core. We have no Need of an Outpost here - the Drill is dismantled for its precious Steam Core, which may One Day be of more Use.  Captain, a lord is arguing with some of our people who say he was trying to cut in line. He claims his noble birth entitles him to be served first. This Man has clearly not yet learned how we do Things here, but there is no Use escalating the Situation. The Keepers are sent in yet again.  Captain, Lord Craven has left our city! He asked us to pass this note to you. "I owe my life to you and for that I am grateful. Thing have clearly changed: you are in charge now and I am not. That means you will become like me. Mark my words: power corrupts. Great men are almost always bad men. I would know, I was both." Unable to stand living in Debt to a Commoner, Craven has left to take his Chances with the Cold. He has left some... disturbing final Words, directed at me. Is this Projection, or Portent? No, it must be Projection alone. I will not become a Tyrant.  A massive rusted door set into a sheer rock face. It looks like the door to a bank vault. From some unremarkable Cracked Ice, the Scouts spotted this Edifice.  A Public House has been erected in accordance with the new law. People are anxious to let off steam in the new house of respite. Despite my Misgivings, a new Law allowing a Public House has been signed. The People voted for this, and I will not Veto their will. I cannot become a Tyrant.   There's a crack between the vault door and the frame that's wide enough to squeeze through. It's completely dark inside. This is indeed the vault in which the lords planned to preserve as much of their wealth as they could. Yet there isn't much in the way of gold, apart from some ancient jewellery and other works of art - there are wonders of science and knowledge here. Instruments, books, newspapers and letters. It's doing No-one any Good freezing in some forgotten Vault. Two Steam Cores and some useful Metallic Objects are pilfered.  A huge rockslide on the mountain's face has revealed a man-made structure. Not far away, another such Vault is visible, having been revealed by a Rockslide.  Spirits are beginning to raise among Lamb and Lord alike. Only Two more Days.  With this Bounty, we are able to make long-needed Up-grades to our Steel and Coal Mines.  A forest of frozen trees stands on a gentle slope. Why isn't it buried in snow like everything else? They are sent back out to investigate this Frozen (though unburied) Forest.   The rockslide has revealed a sheer concrete wall with a huge, heavy steel door. We opened the door in the concrete wall with difficulty. Inside we found a veritable industrial treasure trove - an underground complex that probably housed a factory of some kind. The other Team adds to their Collection of Steel and Cores, then sets a Course back Home.  One of our people is facing death, but he's still refusing amputation. He keeps screaming that he doesn't want anyone to touch his leg and he won't change his mind, even though gangrene will kill him in a matter of hours. I'm sorry, but it is for your own Good, Friend. It is better for you to lose a Limb now than to die. I sat up with the Man for a While after, reading Scripture together, before leaving to attend to the Remainder of my Duties for the Night.  Captain, people have gathered to protest against the cold in their homes. They're angry that despite the health risks posed by the cold, you seem to be neglecting the problem. They want you to act. My Friends, you saw what happened the last Time I tried to make such Promises. There is Nothing I can do. Please, leave me be.  Captain, someone has set one of the lord's houses on fire. Fortunately no one was hurt, but the family living there is terrified. This does not solve our Crisis of Cold Homes! Faith Keepers are sent to find the Arsonist...  Captain, we've caught the man who set fire to the lord's house. He is one of our people, and he's unrepentant. "I did what had to be done. We have to get rid of the lords. They don't belong here." ...who is given a Stern Talking-to and sent on his Way. Exile is a Death Sentence and we will not cross that Line. Some of the Looks I received from the Keepers who tracked him were nigh-mutinous.   The forest is remarkably snow-free. We could send an outpost team here and start processing the trees for Wood. The frozen trees sway in the driving wind. Our lumberjacks will have to work hard to keep warm! It seems that the wind is responsible for keeping the ground here bare - the terrain channels the wind in such a way that it constantly blows the snow away. Interesting. Another Site that would be usable as an Outpost, if we were interested in establishing One.  Sir, one of our men failed to turn up for work today. We found him in his home. Someone had locked him in and written "BUGGER" in chalk on his door. "It was the Faith Keepers. They locked the door and said they wouldn't let me out unless I changed my ways," he says. "I don't know why they did it, I'm not a threat to anyone." I am... certain they had their Reasons, which were Just and True. May they continue to keep us all Safe...   A vehicle wrecked by an explosion. There are parts scattered around it. A research outpost of some sort looms in the distance. The Scouting Parties continue to discover Points of Interest.  Captain, some of our people are here to talk about the lack of food. They've been hungry for days now and they fear that soon they'll begin to starve. They want you to do something. Here at last is Something that I can do Aught about. Keeping People fed - that is what I did before the Great Winter, and it seems that is all I am Good for now.  Captain, a crowd of our people has gathered around the Generator. They are talking against the presence of the highborn in our city. The tempers are running high. If we don't resolve the conflict the city can descend into lawlessness... which will ultimately end in violence. It seems I have less and less Control over the Faith Keepers with every Incident that arises. Around a Dozen People wound up injured from the Tactics employed to disperse the Crowd.   This used to be a large snowcat. Its steam turbine must have exploded, turning it into a heap of junk. We found some supplies inside the wreck. We'll surely find a good use for them. Oh to be an Explorer, to be blissfully un-aware of the Descent of Civilization!  Captain, some of our people have robbed one of the lords' houses and brutally beaten its residents, amongst them women and children. Yet Here I am, a seemingly powerless Witness to our Moral Destruction, from the Seat with the best View in the House.  The man whose leg you ordered amputated has committed suicide. He left a note: "I can't live like this, unable to work and without purpose. I don't want to be a burden, just another mouth to feed." Another Soul lost under my Watch. Rest in Peace, Mister Ferrer - there is None to be found Here.  We're getting short on resources. Our needs are great and growing by the hour. To address this we can enact a law that will allow us to extend working hours. Would that I could force my Will into Law without going through the proper system of Election first - but that would make me no better than Lord Craven. The Generator is shutting down. Where are the Complaints about Cold Homes now?   This research outpost was deserted a long time ago. It's quite old, but there might still be some useful equipment inside. The people who worked here were explorers. They paved the way north for the rest of us. They must have left in a hurry - perhaps to reunite with their families before the Great Winter took hold. The Scouts have found a good Amount of Coal, too far a-field to be of Use to us now. Those first Explorers had the right Idea.  Captain, some of our people have stormed into one of the lords' houses and dragged four women who live there out in front of a crowd of onlookers. If we don't stop this, the women will be hurt. Violence in the Streets is all that is keeping Anybody warm. I have lost Control of the Shepherds and the Flock alike. My Congregation has turned out to be Naught but Goats and Wolves in the End.  You did it! The social unrest has been eased. We're on the right path to ending the enmity between our people and the lords. An Aide interrupted my packing to inform me that an eerie Calm has descended upon the City. It seems that the Faith Keepers were finally able to invent a Solution on their own, for the Unrest plaguing the City for so long.  We tried to reconcile our differences with the lords, but it proved impossible in the end. A new order had to be established. We are the masters now, and the lords are our servants. Perhaps mutual mistrust doomed the idea of equality from the start. Either way, we are not united and we may never be. I will not be around to see the Fruits of the new System. I go to follow Lord Craven now; let another Tyrant reign in my Stead. My Conscience will remain clear. 
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Sep 5, 2023 00:26
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 A long Trail of Refugees Pilgrims to a Stolen Home  We fought hard To start anew  Then the Lords arrived We hoped it could work  Problems escalated  Vigilant Faith Keepers Abysmal Conditions Families without Homes  We had to choose Lords were enslaved  Justice For Wrongs of the Past  Justice ...or Revenge? Thus ends the record of the Deacon of Sanctuary's efforts. That... did not end very well, did it? As you could probably guess, there is a golden ending for this scenario that we didn't get, but I don't know how far back I'd have to go to try and salvage one out. Before we take a look at the next scenario, though, I'm going to show the "don't let the lords in and also go hardcore faith" path off as a bonus update. Haven't decided if I'm gonna keep up the Capitalization for that one yet. See you then!
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Sep 5, 2023 00:27
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Sep 5, 2023 04:07
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Amazed you made it. Especially after not outposting that raw food. But I guess there just wasn't enough time for return on investment.
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Sep 5, 2023 04:12
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I think you have to solve things before Craven leaves, if you can do that you get the good ending? That's what happened on my run.
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Sep 5, 2023 11:27
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On Day 17, an alternate version of the Deacon might have chosen to deny the Lords in Rags entry. From that point on, he began to make more tyrannical decisions, before ultimately seizing complete control of the city through Faith.  Although nobody was complaining too loudly, some felt ill at ease with the idea of leaving their fellow humans out in the cold.   Captain, the lords who you ordered to leave have set up camp outside the city. We don't know what they're up to. This camp is quite big. It was built by the first group of lords we turned away. As the temperature had dropped too far to allow for a return journey to their ships, the spurned lords decided to make shelters out of what little they had, a little ways away from the city.   In order to solidify his control over the city, the Deacon ratified Righteous Denunciation without first calling an election. This caused some discontent, but many saw it as a necessary evil.   Captain, a man has told us that his neighbours are planning to organize a protest. Our men are following the lead. Some of the discontented were denounced and persuaded. Ironically, those most inclined to speak out against the new law were prevented from doing so by the very same law.  Captain, some of the lords we didn't let in have returned with a request. "You seized our Generator, you didn't let us in and you left us with nothing. Have some decency and give us enough food and wood to survive the next few days." Delegates from the Lords' Camp came requesting - or demanding - food and wood that the city could not spare, and were sent home empty-handed.  Captain, one of our men, a known troublemaker, is loudly supporting your decision not to help the lords. "It was the right thing to do. Give a man an inch and he'll take a mile. But this isn't over. They'll be back, but this time they won't be asking nicely, mark my words." While most of the people supported the decision not to acquiesce to the lords, some of the most vocally supportive were those who had previously been most critical of the Deacon's leadership.   Inspired by this turnaround, the Deacon instituted a Public Penance initiative, declaring that any lord or supporter of the lords who had undergone the proper discipline could become a citizen in good standing once more.  Sir, a girl is asking to speak to you. She's crying and repeating that her mother is innocent. "I lied! I lied to the priest. I'm so sorry... I told him that my mum said you're a damned fool and will burn in hell, but I was just mad at her. I made it all up. Please don't punish her!" Not all of those who were denounced and punished were guilty.   When the Sick Lords arrived, they too were turned away.   Captain, the lords who were sent away have set up camp outside our city. We don't know what they're up to. The second group of lords has gathered here. It seems that they made their tents from scraps of their own clothing. Perhaps out of fear of contagion, they set up a separate camp a distance away from the first group's tents.  Captain, our men have caught the man who tried to steal food from the Cookhouse. He came from the lords' camp. He says that they're starving there. The second emissary from the lords' camp was less diplomatic about trying to secure food.    He was duly punished for his crimes, but allowed to stay in the city once it was determined that his sins had been sufficiently scourged away.  Captain, a troublemaker is talking to a crowd. He's arguing that the lords will only get more brazen if we don't do something. "Once a thief, always a thief. Mark my words: the lords won't let us live in peace until we deal with them. We have to protect our city!" Though the thief was legally absolved of his crimes after undergoing public penance, many saw his attempt as a prefigurement of a larger problem down the road.    To help allay those fears, the Deacon granted himself a new title - Protector of the Truth. From then on, there would be no more debate, no more votes, though there had not been a vote held in some time. His word was law.  Sir, a woman is here to see you. She claims she has evidence against one of our priests. Our man in turn accuses him of heresy. "You're my only hope, sir!" cries the woman. "When I went to denounce this wretch, his colleagues kicked me out. He's forging denunciations to get back at those who cross him." "She's lying!" the priest shouts. "She's a heretic, and all heretics lie!" Denunciation had become the de facto method of personal and political conflict management in the city. The truth was seldom a concern in the face of what most saw to be an impending revolution.   Lord Craven and the childrens' arrival and abrupt departure went hardly remarked upon, nor the fact that no new camp was ever established after they were turned away.  The lords are waiting outside our city. They are now a constant danger to the peace and order here. We need to have men on lookout for them. We also need to build Guarded Outpost Depots to protect our city. Alongside the paranoia the citizens were experiencing regarding their close neighbours, an even greater fear was building of the neighbouring lords' camps.   It was felt that the only way to keep the city safe from threats internal and external would be to fortify it...    Sir, people are rioting in the streets and demanding that you stop what you're doing. They say this isn't what our Faith stands for, that you're destroying everything beautiful and pure about it to gain absolute control over our lives. They shout that this is madness, and that you're a usurper, not our true shepherd. Roughly a quarter of our people are determined to fight. The others are silent... ...and for the Protector of the Truth to exert absolute control of the Faith, and all of its adherents.    Dawn breaks and the streets are silent. You've declared your laws God's will, branding all who oppose you as heretics. Everyone who was a threat to the unity of our city and the New Faith has been dealt with. 14 citizens died. The others have renounced their views. Hope will never be a problem again. No one will think in these terms anymore. Nobody remaining in the city was anything less than fully devoted to the New Faith.   Sir, an execution platform has been set up by the Generator. Whenever you order it to be put to use, an enemy of the Faith will be executed. This will lower discontent greatly. To ensure it remained that way, an execution platform was assembled, directly underneath the symbol of the Faith.  Sir, our people are fighting! A crowd of believers gathered in the street to discuss the new law, and they soon came to blows. "Our Captain is the voice of truth! How can you doubt that for a second?" cries an outraged woman. A burly worker answers her solemnly, "He's our leader, but a man all the same, and he can err like anyone else. Our faith needs no prophets." How should we resolve this? Unfortunately, even with the New Faith to ensure unity among the believers, disagreements in doctrine and dogma continued to seed discontent.    Captain, the lords have raided our stockpiles! They're heading towards their camp with the stolen supplies. Captain, our guards caught the lords who raided our stockpiles and retrieved the stolen supplies. What should we do with the thieves? A small band of lords were caught stealing supplies and underwent public penance as a result. Though they were housed and put to work afterward, public sentiment towards the lords as a whole continued to plummet.     This camp was built with very limited resources. The tents are small and ragged. They won't last long. From a safe distance, we can see there are crowds of people here. Most of them are hungry and exhausted. We shouldn't get too close. There's no telling what these people could do. We did turn our backs on them after all. The "tents" in this camp are more holes than cloth, and offer almost no protection. The first snowstorm that arrives is sure to make light work of them. The people in this group are obviously unwell. Some of them are hostile. We dare not enter the camp after we banished them from our city. The scouts were sent in to observe the lords' activities at their two camps, though they did not dare approach too closely.  Captain, a woman has told us that she overhead some neighbours talking about hoarding food and other supplies. We'll follow the lead. The denunciations continued, but...  Captain, a troublemaker is inciting our people against you. They want to take revenge on the lords for the recent theft. "I warned you these vermin would be back for more. It's time we taught them a lesson. If our leader won't do anything, we'll take matters into our own hands and show them who's in charge here!" People's anger was more focused outwardly than in, now. The most zealous even spoke of acting directly against the lords, with or without the approval of the Head of Faith.  Sir, there's a rumour about a preacher who has the gall to openly question your vision. According to our informant, he's already attracted several followers, and together they've been heard repeatedly saying, "We are children of God. Our Captain is wrong to put himself above all others." Views like these threaten our unity. Other zealots wanted a return to the old ways, rejecting the New Faith as a heresy.   Captain, our people say that they feel threatened by the lords. They ask for resources to manufacture some makeshift weapons. "Maybe a show of force will be enough to keep them away," says a grizzled engineer. "If they don't get the message, we might have to repeat it more forcefully." Open calls for violence gradually replaced simple denunciations as the most commonly heard words in the city.  The calls for armament were rejected, not for theological reasons, but simply because those resources were already earmarked for the massive contructions that were the Guarded Outpost Depots.   Captain, the situation is getting out of control. An angry mob is forming, armed with makeshift weapons. In a few hours our people will set out to threaten the lords' camps. It will end in a massacre unless we convince them by securing our city. Undeterred, the most zealous grabbed torches, cooking implements, even tore pieces of wood off the sides of their houses, as they prepared to march.  Sir, a group of young men has gathered around a house. They claim that the family living there is harbouring symbols of the old religion. They want to get rid of them in order to purify the city. The family explains that these are priceless relics from the times before the catastrophe. They want to preserve them. Some stopped by the house of known adherents to the old ways, and relieved them of their false idols.   One of the Guarded Outpost Depots was completed, but there was not enough steel for a second to be built.   We haven't built enough defences in time. Our people are frightened and angry. They're beginning to get out of control. It was too little, too late, for the zealots to be persuaded away from violence - if that's what the Protector of the Truth ever wanted in the first place.   All this talk about us slaughtering the lords is a load of rubbish. Such insinuations will be punished immediately. The lords' fate is not our concern. What matters for us is that we survive thanks to our determination and hard work - the true source of our pride. We have nothing to apologise for. The lambs were at last united in purpose.  A long trail of refugees Pilgrims to a stolen home  We fought hard To start anew  Then the lords arrived We didn't let them in  Problems escalated  Executions of heretics Public penance Denouncing infidels  We founded our city On the blood of those in need  But we survived Isn't that enough? 
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Sep 13, 2023 04:18
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Now that we’ve seen both timelines, I just wanna say I love the quiet tragedy you wrote in for the first one. The deacon leaving in guilt, a good man in an impossible position, really stuck with me.
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Sep 13, 2023 07:03
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I bought this game years ago, but it never quite grabbed me until I found this thread. I've done the first three scenarios and am currently getting my rear end kicked by The Fall of Winterhome, so I'm looking forward to when you get there.
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Sep 13, 2023 15:23
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BassMug posted:Now that we’ve seen both timelines, I just wanna say I love the quiet tragedy you wrote in for the first one. The deacon leaving in guilt, a good man in an impossible position, really stuck with me. revtoiletduck posted:I bought this game years ago, but it never quite grabbed me until I found this thread. I've done the first three scenarios and am currently getting my rear end kicked by The Fall of Winterhome, so I'm looking forward to when you get there.
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Sep 13, 2023 17:57
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I’ll give this game credit, it’s not afraid to let things really spiral badly.
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Sep 13, 2023 18:03
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Let's step back in time a little bit. In the New Home scenario, we saw the final fate of Winterhome - Generator exploded, corpses piled high in the streets, the few who stayed behind forced to resort to cannibalism before they succumbed to the inevitable. Before its end, though, Winterhome was a relatively advanced city large enough to rival New London. Let's have a look at its final days:  We've built our city to survive the long winter. Now we have to fight against time to save it - and our lives - from impending doom. Impending doom? Where have I heard that before?  To whoever is out there. If anyone...  Know that we were here. And we did our best.   We, the survivors, doomed by our own mistakes  Aware of the risks and the price to pay...  We took our last chance.  And we have failed.  Our Generator is malfunctioning. After our leader ignored the problem for weeks, unbearable cold and brutal repression drove us to rise up against him. He didn't go down without a fight, and half the city was burned to the ground in the fighting. With the Generator hastily patched up, your first task as a new leader is to restore Winterhome and convince people it has a future. Then you'll be able to investigate the cause of the Generator malfunctions. So for once, our task is not to build a city up from the ground, but to rebuild after the original leader left it a wreck. That was him we saw leaving the city in the introductory movie, by the way.     Our people are suffering in this badly planned, starving, half-ruined city. You have to restore their hope and quell their discontent. For a start, remove the charred ruins to show that the city is recovering. Our engineers will inspect the Generator once you deal with the present crisis. We get a nice aerial shot of Winterhome. They're not kidding about it being a badly-planned, half-ruined city - more on that in a moment - but at least we're not starving yet.  That's a lot of people!  Oh.  What were you thinking? At least tearing up roads is instant, so that'll be a lot of free wood.  We've really got our work cut out for us. Hey, what's that in the middle there?  We've always gone Cemetery rather than Snow Pit. Which means...  Yeah, we've already got a bunch of Laws signed into place. Those can't be changed or removed, so we're stuck with a few laws we've never gone for before - corpse disposal and child labour. Speaking of laws, I'm gonna need y'all to vote for some before we can get started with this scenario. There's nowhere to go from here but up! Oh wait. What will our first three laws be, to stave off the Fall of Winterhome?
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Sep 14, 2023 02:46
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Oh man, it’s all gone to pot before we even start. Here’s hoping we can give this story, uh, an ending where some folk survive like in canon at least.
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Sep 14, 2023 04:14
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Oof, this was a hard one I never was able to do.
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Sep 14, 2023 04:26
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Discontent is already high. Could we get away with Emergency Shift?
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Sep 14, 2023 04:38
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This is a mean one.
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Sep 14, 2023 08:26
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Emergency Shift We need to clear debris and get stuff gathered ASAP just so we have room to work, also a lot of production area is currently covered in ruins and not usable.
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Sep 14, 2023 11:22
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Clearly our predecessor wanted to make Winterhome like a real city, bonkers street layout and all.
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Sep 14, 2023 12:04
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This is definitely going to end well. Going to be hard to feed that many people, so I'll vote for Soup.
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Sep 14, 2023 14:49
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I am such a sucker for "fix this dysfunctional city/amusement park" scenarios. We've got 11 critically ill people and no hospital, so let's institute Radical Treatment to keep them from clogging the medical tents. Followed by Care Houses for the amputees (plus they eat less food in Care Houses!). Too many dead citizens will put us in a hope tailspin. Corpse Disposal is awful but let's make the most of it by passing Organ Transplants, which is really the only point of that branch. Let's keep in mind that we have a functioning Beacon which means we can start scouting parties right away, although hunting parties should probably come first.
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Sep 14, 2023 18:41
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Emergency Shift
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Sep 14, 2023 20:13
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Don't forget to vote in the strawpoll to make sure your votes count!
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Sep 14, 2023 20:16
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Captain's Log, Day Two Hundred and Seventeen Outpost Eight finally reestablished communication last night, and have promised that a shipment will be incoming soon. They were informed in no uncertain terms that if New London does not receive their shipment within three days a punitive expedition will be assembled to revoke their commission. The Infirmary has confirmed that Engineer Wymer is with child, and recommended she be taken off of duty rotation. She has been reassigned to the cookhouse while Worker Percy has picked up her shift in the coal mines for now. A Guard patrol brought in a drunk after curfew. While I was in the process of overseeing his discipline, one phrase in particular caught my ear - "No better than Winterhome's first Captain." Intrigued, I ordered the criminal be taken to my office to sober up for a personal debriefing. Captain's Log, Day Two Hundred and Eighteen Development of the new transport vehicle appears to have stalled. I have assigned a doubled team of foremen to the laboratory to ensure research continues on track. The drunk from last night was reluctant to speak more on the subject of Winterhome today, but a bit of the gin that the 4th Reconnaissance Squad recovered from the Destroyed Convoy last month got him talking. I've attached the phonographer's record below. The Survivor's Tale: First Session You have to understand, Captain, I don't like to think about what it was like under Winterhome's first captain. I relive those days often enough in my dreams, don't want to have to dwell upon them in my waking hours too, if you understand my meaning, sir. I don't even remember his name, any more, but his eyes... he was a military man, had led men in India and Africa, and so the PM thought he was a perfect fit to lead us civilians at Generator 157. I swear, sir, half the time the man must have thought he was still in the jungle. It was a lucky day when not a single person was flogged for next to no reason, and not a week went by without someone being shot for "desertion" or "espionage."    I'm not ashamed to say I was one of those who finally banded together to run him out. I'm not. We should have been more thorough, though. The bastard managed to burn down half the city before we sent him on his way, so we were too busy putting out fires to finish the job properly, with my apologies for the turn of phrase, sir.  A band of grim men escorts you under the Generator. The waiting crowd is silent. People observe you as you pass, their faces blank, as though they were watching snow fall. You are summarily judged and spared the death sentence in recognition of your efforts. You are banished from the city instead. Once we captured him, we knew that we were done with dictators. We had to take charge of our own future. For all that we hated him, though, the captain had been at least a little bit responsible for feeding and housing over six hundred people, and so by a slim majority we voted to send him out into the wastes instead of killing him outright. You, ah, you have any more of that gin, sir? It's just that, talking's thirsty work. Remalle fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Sep 21, 2023 |
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Sep 21, 2023 07:19
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So uh, I've been having a lot of trouble getting this one off the ground. Hope is a massive bottleneck at the beginning of this scenario and with the election results as they are I'm not entirely sure that it's even possible to do. So I'm going to run the poll one more time, and this time request that everybody choose either Neighbourhood Watch or House of Prayer as one of their three so that we have a purpose to get us going right away. Once again, what will our first three laws be, to stave off the Fall of Winterhome?
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Sep 21, 2023 07:22
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For what it’s worth, while I appreciate the collaborative nature of letting us help shape the LP, if certain scenarios bottleneck or fail hard without particular strategies (especially early game) I don’t think anyone’s going to be upset at you leaning on the scales a bit.
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Sep 21, 2023 16:37
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If you're struggling with low hope, that's usually because people are dying, which causes hope to fall. Considering you start the scenario with a bunch of sick people, that's not surprising. Your first priority should be staffing all your medical posts, and clearing space to build more. Of course, you also start with some gravely ill people, and no infirmaries to treat them. You need to get those people medical care immediately or they'll die. Therefore, your first law should be Radical Treatment. Some will be left as amputees, but they'll be alive.
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Sep 21, 2023 17:33
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Tortolia posted:For what it’s worth, while I appreciate the collaborative nature of letting us help shape the LP, if certain scenarios bottleneck or fail hard without particular strategies (especially early game) I don’t think anyone’s going to be upset at you leaning on the scales a bit. What they said. It’s frankly amazing to me that you’ve been able to clear two runs of this game while listening to our votes as it is.
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Sep 21, 2023 18:24
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Make sure you are moving the corpse pit away from the heat zone
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Sep 21, 2023 18:42
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Phelddagrif posted:If you're struggling with low hope, that's usually because people are dying, which causes hope to fall. Considering you start the scenario with a bunch of sick people, that's not surprising. Your first priority should be staffing all your medical posts, and clearing space to build more.  Those sick people are a hopelessness time bomb just waiting to go off. Get those peeps off the streets and into the sheets (of medical cots)!As for which philosophy to take, I voted Faith because I think it's a bit better at hope and that's our big hurdle.
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Sep 22, 2023 19:20
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The Survivor's Tale: Second Session Well, sir, once the old captain was out we knew there was no time to be sitting around celebrating. We set up about getting a new captain in charge - an ensign really, more of a figurehead - and then took another vote on how to move forward.  We decided it was the time to implement emergency shifts, and to put one to use right away in our workshop. There were still a lot of wounded to take care of, and the basic medical posts we had back then weren't enough to treat the most badly injured.   A heat zone has reached the Snow Pit and the bodies are beginning to rot! Dangerous diseases could begin to spread in our city. We should either move the Snow Pit or scale back the heat zone. We didn't know it at the time, but the Generator was in worse shape than we thought. Fortunately we had a lot of coal stockpiled and got the thing running again right away, but then we quickly discovered an unexpected problem - the snow we were tossing the dead in had melted, and a horrible smell began to spread. We were able to fix it by minimizing the Generator's range, but it was also decided we'd designate another burial area further away to stop it happening again.  Speaking of the Generator, we'd had two coal mines supplying it, but both of them burned down. Until the wreckage was cleared, we had to rely on our thumpers and a new mine we were able to build.  One of the big problems we'd been dealing with before the fire was cold homes. Everyone in the city had at least a tent to sleep in, but many of those tents weren't in range of a steam hub. We quickly got to work getting some set up with the steel we were collecting, and replacing some of the tents with better housing where a hub would be impractical.  Thanks to the emergency shift the researchers pulled, we were able to get an infirmary built to treat the most badly burnt victims.   Just like here in New London, we realized over in Winterhome that the best way to give people a sense of hope would be by maintaining Order. We got some watchtowers up, so that people would know anyone wanting to start another great fire would be caught.      Weather forecasts crucial to planning the defence of our city against the frost are prepared here. This place is the only thing standing out in the endless white desert. A tall snow cliff looms in the distance. One of the dreadnoughts that brought us here. Through some miracle, our Beacon survived while everything around it burned, including our maps of our surroundings. We were still receiving regular shipments from the coal mine outpost, but we had to send out a couple of scouting parties to map out the frostland again.  Though our medics did their best, not everyone made it. Little Eddie, a distant cousin of mine, he fought hard, but... well, the medics saved as many as they could.  Meanwhile, the engineers had devised a method of getting the rubble cleared as efficiently as possible. For the next few days, the routine was that we'd set up gathering posts around the perimeter of the burnt areas, working outside in, so as each ruin was cleared away a new gathering post would be set up in its place and the original dismantled for parts. Then we'd repeat the process until the whole city was cleaned up.  Sir, people have heard a child's voice coming from the wreckage! A child has survived the terrible night of destruction when half of Winterhome burned. So many lives were lost in the blaze and fighting - we can't let this child die too! No sooner had we started on that plan as we had to derail it, sir. By some miracle, a small kid had managed to survive for two days trapped in his burnt-out house before anybody heard his calls for help. So of course that house was moved all the way to the top of the priority list right away!  People have noticed the ongoing effort to clear the city of ruins, and they appreciate it. A lot remains to be done, of course, but Winterhome already seems to be breathing a little easier. That's not to say we weren't also hard at work elsewhere in the city. The more ruins were cleared, the less there was to remember the fire by, you see?  Here, this is sort of what it looked like, from what I remember, see, as some of the inner ruins were cleared we were able to get gathering posts set up in the middle...   The only dreadnought we didn't disassemble. It's stripped of supplies and in need of an overhaul, but otherwise it's intact. As we climb over the edge of the snow-covered plateau, we feel like ants crawling over an alien landscape towards some giant beast. We stop at last a stone's throw from the Dreadnought to marvel at its scale. One of the huge machines that brought us here towers above us, cold and silent. It would take an enormous amount of labour and resources to make it usable again. Yet it is still a reminder of everything that we left behind and of our journey north. We decided to leave it intact. While we scrapped almost all of our dreadnoughts for parts, we'd left one intact, as a sort of monument. In hindsight, thank Frigg that we did.  Sir, we've noticed that the dead in the Snow Pit have been divided into two heaps. In one lie the victims of the fires and the brutal attempts to pacify the riots, many with gunshot wounds. On the other, the charred corpses of the perpetrators, the previous leader and his men. Some people talk about throwing them out of the city, far away from "decent folk." When the bodies were moved from the old snow pit to the new one, some wanted to get rid of the bootlickers' corpses - begging your pardon - but the new captain insisted that everyone's equal in death. Probably the right call, now I'm thinking about it fresh, but it was hard to see in the moment.   Near the base of the cliff, some dark forms are visible buried deep under the ice and snow. Several huge crates are buried here, exactly like the ones we used to protect steam cores during transport. We'll dig them out. I remember the scouts found a viable steam core under the ice, but what they found next was more exciting for everyone:  We can see distant glimmers of sun playing on the surface of water. Unfrozen water here points to the presence of freshwater springs. Something you don't see any more these days, liquid water! Some of us, myself included, thought it was a sign that things were getting warmer again. Naive idiots.   The engineers responsible for preparing the weather forecasts welcome us as we enter the building. The Weather Station is manned by several engineers who use an array of instruments to monitor the air temperature, wind force and direction, and atmospheric pressure changes. On the basis of this data, they prepare weather forecasts. We could use these engineers in the city to help with the Generator, but if we close the Weather Station, we'll lose the weather forecasts. "Well, it's going to keep getting colder, I can tell you that much," says the chief meteorologist. While having the engineers back on site would probably have been smarter, at the time we were still hoping for good news from the weather forecast every day. We did end up bringing them back to the city later on once we realized how bad things were getting, though.  Most of the charred skeletons of houses that marred Winterhome are gone. The countless hours of toil put into their removal paid off: people are no longer constantly reminded of the night of terror and chaos. Work on the cleanup was steady.  That meant we were finally free to think about other issues - namely, food. While the work the hunters did was amazing, it was really the hothouse and the adoption of soup that kept everyone fed.  Sir, we pulled the child out of the ruins! He's the sole survivor of his family. He's badly burned and will die without proper medical attention... and we can't provide it yet. I don't remember why we thought the little tyke was beyond treatment when we pulled him free of the rubble. He went straight to the infirmary and went on to make a full recovery.    A child got distracted at work and has been injured. The accident was not serious and happened entirely due to the child's carelessness. A mother has refused to let her daughter go to work, afraid she'll get injured. We could look the other way this time, but others might see it as unfair. In the wake of recent child worker's accident the parents argue that we could give working children double rations to make them stronger and help prevent injuries. After a series of incidents we took a look at our labour force and realized we didn't need the kids helping out any more. They did good work helping clear the wreckage, but we had enough adults around to handle most everything else at that point. We decided that if they were put back to work, they'd be given extra food to make up for it.  We'd built that old bridge a while back, but lost track of its exact location. Our scouts were able to nail down its exact location.   Several pools are kept from freezing by springs gushing from the fissures in the rocky bottom. There are plenty of fish in the water. Flashes of silver shimmer from the fish as they dart between submerged boulders, nibbling algae from them - a reminder of the greener past of this place. We don't know what species they are, but fresh fish would be a welcome addition to our menu. You know, sir, I miss the taste of fish. The hot springs must have frozen over during the Great Storm, but maybe we could see about finding that spot again?  Captain, some of our people are here to talk about the lack of food. They've been hungry for days now and they fear that soon they'll begin to starve. They want you to do something. Anyways, the fish the scouts picked up went a long way towards solving our hunger issue for that moment.   The bridge is maintained by an automaton. Its task is to keep it free of snow in case we needed to transport resources across the ravine. The automaton works tirelessly to keep the bridge free of snow and passable for resource transports. It we sent it to the city, we would cut off any Outposts further down this route. Scouts will still be able to cross the bridge. Before it all burned, Winterhome was meant to be a military research outpost, you know. We even managed to get an automaton up and running ourselves, though I never understood why we wasted it on that bridge. Well, you know what happened to it.  A peculiar formation of ice and rock. From there, the scouts were able to rediscover a planned outpost site for steel!  That's as much as I can say for now, sir. Throat's starting to get raw. Maybe tomorrow I'll remember some more, if you've got some more of that gin? What were the next three laws selected to stave off the Fall of Winterhome? Remalle fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Sep 26, 2023 |
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Sep 26, 2023 04:27
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The Survivor's Tale: Third Session Good morning, sir; you wanted to see me? Oh, the Winterhome thing, right. Well, let's see if I remember where we left off last time.  Well, the next thing that happened was we started having morning meetings before work, just like we do here. That went a long way towards getting peoples' hopes up in the long run.   A vein of iron ore was exposed by a narrow crack in the ice. The iron ore deposit is rich and easily accessible. We could set up an Outpost here to process the iron ore and send Steel to the city. This mine turned out to be critical in the end. Why? Well, I'm getting there, aren't I?  Heat was really no issue for us at that point. We had coal in abundance.  Sir, we saved the burned child's life. Although he'll bear the scars for the rest of his life, his survival is, simply put, miraculous. People are rejoicing at the news. It seemed like everything was good news after good news, and our spirits had nowhere to go but up.  With our in-house coal production (as it were) being so reliable, we decided to send the outpost team to start fishing those springs I mentioned last time. They didn't set up at the iron mine 'til later.   The rusting remains of one of our dreadnoughts. This frontier facility is a shelter for our scientists who explore the farther reaches of Frostland. Our scout teams, two then but soon to be three, continued to re-map the locations we'd lost...   The rusting remains of one of our dreadnoughts. We have stripped this machine of almost all usable materials. In our hurry to get the Steel for the construction, we left some less accessible parts. Now we can get to them and retrieve some materials. ...like the dreadnoughts, for example. Other than the one we'd left alone, we had two others that still held some valuable parts, like steam cores.   As we enter the shelter, a group of scientists and explorers greets us warmly. "We have some promising leads, but I'll understand if the exploration of Frostland is given secondary priority in our circumstances," says the team leader. Shall we tell these people to leave their work and move to the city? We found it redundant to have two kinds of exploratory expeditions at once, so we had the scouts bring the scientists back to the city to do more useful research.  We were sitting on so many raw construction materials from the salvaging that we had to put it to use immediately to make room to keep salvaging. At this point about two thirds of the tents in the city had been upgraded to bunkhouses.  Sir, one of our people has just heard voices coming from the ruins! It's a miracle that there are any survivors after all this time. We must hurry or we'll lose them. Five days after the fires, I found four men buried alive under the rubble I was digging up. Scared me half to death, sir! Fortunately I was already almost done with that site, so when I called over some more workers to help we were able to get the job done in just a few minutes.   Sir, we pulled several thugs from the ruins who served the previous leader! When these cowards realised that we were winning, they hid in the guardhouse pantry and were buried under the debris after it caught fire. What shall we do with them? Then we saw who it was that we were helping. More bootlickers, if you'll excuse the turn of phrase, sir. If I'd had my way we'd've put the debris right back on top of them, but the captain said they'd served hard time already and we could use their help.  Sir, a doctor wants to talk to you about improving Radical Treatment. "I was a field surgeon in the Boer War and worked with the Royal Society to reduce the rate of limb loss in army hospitals. I believe I can devise a method that will cut the number of amputations during Radical Treatment." Most of the people who'd been hurt during the fires had been treated by this point, and so the medics were dealing more with everyday colds and cuts. In case anything ever happened to cause such widespread injuries again we passed the radical treatment law, and one of the doctors immediately went to work improving our methods.  The scouts brought twenty more scientists to the city, and they went to work in our workshops, but we still had the pleasant problem of too many idle working hands.  The solution was to set up some more coal thumpers and gathering posts!     A small camp. We can't see any signs of life. Numerous tents, empty crates, sledges... and countless frozen bodies. We're afraid we know where these poor people came from. We expected these people to make their way to Winterhome in the third dreadnought. Not it seems that some calamity must've befallen them. We should try to find the rest of them, and not just because this part of the expedition was carrying several steam cores. The mighty shape of a dreadnought looms in the distance. There's a huge, gaping hole in it. We'd been awaiting our final group to join us from the third dreadnought for a long time. We eventually discovered that they'd frozen to death en route, never having made it very far from their ship, which was a lot farther from our site than we expected.  We struck on the same idea in Winterhome as you did here in New London, giving our trappers airships for a better view of their hunting grounds. This, and the fishing outpost, finally eased our food worries.  Sir, the doctor who was trying to improve Radical Treatment is here. He is reporting a breakthrough! "It's certainly an unorthodox method and my learned colleagues would be appalled at the experiments I had to perform... but it works. I expect the number of amputations during Radical Treatment to be halved." He seems eager to get back to his everyday work and try his new method. You know, we made some medical advancements there that you lot here never even dreamed of yet. I wonder what became of those doctors...   The third of our dreadnoughts, wrecked by a powerful explosion. It's damaged beyond repair. It seems that after one of the boilers exploded, the pressure in the others was raised to maintain the power of the engines, causing them to fail one by one. Perhaps the people building this dreadnought were rushed or used substandard materials. One group of scouts discovered the reason the third dreadnought stopped so far away from the city - a chain reaction in the engines crippled it and forced the poor bastards to try to make it the rest of the way on foot.    A patch of deep shadow at the base of a hill hides an entrance to a cave. The entrance to the cave is hidden from view and shielded from the prevailing wind. The cave is deep and surprisingly warm. There's even a fresh water source here - a perfect place for a hideout. The others spotted a cave that turned out to be another pool full of fish. At the time, it was seen as more evidence that a thaw was coming. Can you believe that Later on, it was that very cave that kept me and the kids alive long enough for your scouts to find us.  Any thoughts of a thaw were dashed the next morning, when it hit fifty below for the first time. Ha, none of us had ever imagined such cold. What were the next three laws selected to stave off the Fall of Winterhome?
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Sep 29, 2023 05:29
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