Right, and his short story Ghostweight (which I think was the year before Winterstrike) is “what if we got spaceships from sentient origami?”
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I hadn’t read that one, but I definitely see the commonalities there too! That the sentient ship-creatures feed on human life in some way seems to be another common aspect.
Meanwhile, it didn’t strike me until reading the story that it’s a little unusual for Lee that Winterstrike doesn’t really touch on colonialism—I guess his earlier IF mostly didn’t either, but it tended to be more impressionistic and less worldbuildy from what little of it I’ve played. I guess you can see Winterstrike as sort of transitional between his IF work and his pro career in static fiction, although of course the latter was already underway when he wrote it.
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Okay, my last session to show off an alternate Architects ending option is “recorded”, as it were, I just need to clean the transcript up and add commentary and then post it—but this might not happen tomorrow as I’m busy in the evening.
Even if I don’t get to it until Wednesday, though, that still leaves enough time before the 27th that I can maybe do another quick run-through to show off some other faction stuff. This one took me about 45 minutes, mostly because I don’t have to read a lot of the cards anymore.
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The faction I’m most curious about is the Circle of Bullets, mostly because I don’t really understand what their deal is. But we also did a decent amount of duelling stuff in this runthrough, so maybe it’s just never made as clear as the others?
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Bonus Update: Ironbird Prophet
EJ: Due to technical difficulties, this took even longer to get up than expected, but here it is, our first bonus update, in which I show off an alternate ending and some of the storylets you can do to accumulate Ice!
I forgot to take a screenshot of the sidebar for our new protagonist, but his name is Seymour, and he’s about to make some unwise decisions about an alien creature that has landed in his care.
A chilly arrival
The city of Iria shivered apart in a single silver-black moment. You regain your senses amid snow, and corpses shocked white, and glass-colored shrapnel.
One of the city’s denizens
Iria is your home. You could tell stories of the whirling festivals, the winsome dancers, the mock wars. Bleak flowers and robots with occluded eyes. All of it winterstruck.
A taste for survival
The fact that the world has frozen around you isn’t going to slow you down. To the contrary. You have known Iria in all her faces, and she smiles on you in all of them, even this one.
You started with a quality called “A Stranger”, which has just changed to level 2. This will unlock more stories.
You now have 1 x Emberstone.
You’ve gained a new quality: Finesse at 1.
You’ve gained a new quality: Force at 1.
You’ve gained a new quality: Resolve at 2.
EJ: I figured I would give him a different background (he’s from Iria’s Skid Row, naturally), although his faction affiliation is the same.
A curious sighting
You’re passing through the sullen streets when you see something around the corner, where the ice hangs in great sheets: an intimation of iron feathers, gears, talons. It might be dangerous, but it might also be a clue. You can’t afford to ignore it.
Actually, you’re intrigued. And why wouldn’t you be? You’ve never spied anything quite like this in Iria.
Fruitful, you think
You and the creature approach each other like dance partners. Light glitters off a plumage of sharp metal feathers and cogs and coiled wires: a fledgling ironbird. Apparently it’s as curious about you as you are about it. Indeed, it sounds as though it’s singing to you, quietly, in a key defined by chromatic aberrations.
Resolve has increased to 3!
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge!
You now have 1 x Fledgling Ironbird.
Your “A Stranger” quality has gone. Welcome to the world!
You now have 1 x Winterlocked.
EJ: Now let’s look at some of the storylets that involve giving your trust to the ironbird:
A moment’s birdsong
The ironbird has been flitting in and out of your company, but now, as you pass beneath an arch curtained with sheets of blue-pale ice, you hear it singing a tinsel melody that scratches at your memory.
If the creature wants your attention, you are all too happy to give it. You lead it to a quiet side street, obscured by a snow of crazed pixels from some malfunctioning video display and masses of twisted metal, and speak lowly and reassuringly to it.
You are under the impression that the ironbird seeks nourishment of some sort, but your attempts to elicit the information are met by quizzical clicks and clacks. A puzzle for a later time, then, and in the meanwhile, the ironbird’s trill suggests its pleasure at your attempts to communicate.
You now have 1 x Ironbird’s Regard.
EJ: Just like his namesake[1], Seymour knows his alien charge needs sustenance but can’t figure out what to give it; in this case, however, the answer turns out not to be blood:
A moment’s birdsong
The ironbird might be looking for a very direct form of sustenance. And it’s not like a little blood loss will hurt you.
Playing this option will cost 5 Nex and earn you 10x Ironbird’s Regard. An Ironbird’s Regard of 10 or more will open an additional option towards the end of the game.
It isn’t difficult to find an icicle with which to cut yourself open. The ironbird’s eyes are bronze-bright, and it watches you intently. It doesn’t make any move toward the blood, which freezes as it drips downward, but you are under the impression that you have its respect.
You’ve gained 10 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 11).
Resolve has increased to 5!
A question of comfort
It’s time to seek some lodgings, however temporary. But there’s the troublesome matter of your ferrous companion.
The ironbird seems to know where it’s going. Why not let it choose the night’s shelter?
The ironbird chirrups, if you can call it that, a sound like bells being hammered flat. It leads the way to the edge of town, where the stars and the glow-flowers of nebulae are visible through a wide pane of sky.
Despite the ice all around you, you settle into the lee of a blasted wall and sleep with the ironbird standing watch. In the morning your hands and feet are cold, but the ironbird’s happy crooning eases something in your heart.
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 13).
EJ: Skipping through all the other early-game stuff, we reach the point of being able to move to the midgame, but there’s something for us to check out first:
The ironbird’s inexplicable hobbies
Lately you catch the ironbird dragging around gears, chipped crystals, fraying gloves, and trying to fit them together.
Playing a faction branch will advance you to midgame content.
Perhaps, having developed a rapport with the ironbird, you can query it directly.
At first it doesn’t seem to understand that you are, in fact, attempting to communicate. Then, after a brassy squawk, it stares directly into your eyes for a count of ten seconds. It scratches a diagram into the floor: constellations as seen from Iria’s winter sky. Contemplating the familiar figures—the Boatman, the Pierced Archer, the Flower-of-Days—fills you with shivery contentment. Soon enough you will be able to travel among the stars again, if you only keep faith.
You’ve gained 1 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 3).
EJ: Anyway, now let’s join the Architects again!
You sometimes see a Ferocious Librarian for help researching the curiosities you discover around Iria, like the half-dolls that people leave at certain empty doorways. One day, however, when the fledgling is occupied unspiraling a wire, the Librarian takes you aside.
“I think I see what it’s doing,” he says. “That looks like an amateur’s attempt to represent a starship’s navigation circuit. Clever trick—I wonder where your pet picked it up?”
You’re not convinced it’s a trick at all.
You’ve gained 1 x Winterlocked (new total 2)
EJ: In the midgame, we get some opportunities to try out the special item that Seymour’s local backstory gives him.
A dusty parlor
Some people prefer to ignore the evidence of winter’s crescendo and while away their hours in parlors like this one, exchanging banter and showing each other the oddling treasures they’ve scavenged.
It’s not an indulgence you often permit yourself, but you take out your emberstone and cup it in your hands.
Warmth grows ever rarer in Iria. People huddle closer to you. Even their eyes are starved of heat; their pupils are blue-black, their eyelashes touched by frost. Wordlessly, you pass the emberstone around. You worry at first that someone will run off with it, but everyone is politely orderly, and when at last the emberstone returns to you, you feel an entirely different sort of warmth at the base of your heart.
You’ve gained 1 x Spark of Camaraderie (new total 4).
A roving market
Frozen spheres containing storm-eels with pleading eyes. Winsome thieves. Human-headed snakes in lambent cages. The market moves from street to street, square to square, but some of the sights never change.
One of the market’s corners is darker than the others, and projects a watchful silence. You wonder what lies there.
People look at you askance as you shoulder past them, but no matter. Your emberstone brightens as you approach a crevice in what used to be a wall. In its resolute light is revealed a stray flask of smokewater, brimming with turbulent warmth.
You now have 1 x Smokewater.
EJ: Shortly afterward, we get our first opportunity to earn some Ice.
Music in an old concert hall
A concert hall has survived slantwise. All the walls lean against each other in a crazed fashion, and they are additionally supported by pillars of ice with shining facets.
Dancers step nimbly amid the cracked wineglasses and petrified blossoms while musicians play a suite of velvet harmonies.
It’s a sure bet that this party was sponsored by the Scarf and Feather Society, or its friends. But you have a few things to show these people about the artistry of destruction.
Playing this option will reduce Flirtation with the Scarf and Feather Society by 3, and increase Ice by 3.
You have grand plans of crashing ruin and percussive destruction, but they come to nothing because you are distracted by a winsome personage wearing a flamboyant striped scarf and a feather in their hair. They offer you sweetmeats and iced drinks, most of which taste delightful. You only remember your original purpose long after the party has wound down.
Force is increasing…
Force 6 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: Of course, I fail miserably, but luckily an easier opportunity presents itself soon after.
A wounded duelist
A duelist lies fallen in the shadows of a garden. After a moment you realize that she is still breathing, even if the blood has frozen like a rose over her heart.
It’s clear what happened here, even if you don’t know the specifics. She dueled poorly. She lost. There’s no need for you to get involved.
You walk away, leaving her to bleed out. Is it your imagination, or is the wind colder, the garden paler, on the way out?
You’ve gained 1 x Ice (new total 4).
EJ: OK, OK, that was actually my fourth time getting that card, I just kept forgetting to capture it.
A riot over smokewater
Smokewater used to be a pedestrian sort of treat. Now, in a city shadowed over by cold winds and intermittent snows, it’s one of the most sought-after beverages.
At the moment, a small but hostile crowd has gathered outside a smokewater brewery. The Ocular Guard has just arrived in an attempt to protect the place.
The crowd is very close to becoming a mob. All it would take is a little push.
Playing this option will get you 7x Ice, 7x Brittle Rumor, and 7x Smokewater.
You’re not sure when the crowd’s murmurs become a full-throated roar, but your voice joins those of the people around you. The Guards knew this might be a possibility, but they are overwhelmed, retreating until their backs are to the brewery’s wall.
Things get out of hand rapidly. A number of people in the mob are armed, and the brewery’s walls don’t take long to succumb to blaster fire. During the looting of the brewery you overhear scraps and intimations, other places where this has happened, other places where this is about to happen. There’s no warmth to the words at all.
You’ve gained 7 x Brittle Rumor (new total 18).
You’ve gained 7 x Smokewater (new total 9).
You’ve gained 7 x Ice (new total 13).
Finesse is increasing…
EJ: Accumulating all this Ice opens up some new options for us:
Shadows in the ice
A single column stands in what used to be a gathering square of some sort; its fellows lie fallen, with rubble in the shapes of withered flowers. A pane of ice descends at an angle from the side of the column.
What a curious view. You may have seen something like it before.
This will earn 10x Dubious Omens.
You have to peer at the pane of ice for a while, shivering inside your coat, before it strikes you where you’ve seen that pattern before. The shadows resemble a mangled overhead view of Iria. You’re guessing the shredded darkness that clogs the ice-map reflect Iria’s current ruined state.
It’s not any surprise that the darkness is spreading.
You’ve gained 10 x Dubious Omen (new total 19).
A dusty parlor
Some people prefer to ignore the evidence of winter’s crescendo and while away their hours in parlors like this one, exchanging banter and showing each other the oddling treasures they’ve scavenged.
The shipshard mirror has an honest streak at times. What will it show you today?
Playing this option will get you 10x Fleeting Merriment.
The mirror shows you your face limned in lines of silver and crystal, as though you were becoming a creature of winter. The effect isn’t altogether unpleasing. You catch yourself smiling.
You’ve gained 10 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 43).
Shadows in the ice
You don’t need your companion’s interest to see that there are shapes within the ice. Ill-defined shadows, growing better-defined even as you watch.
There’s a sense of structure to the shapes in the ice. Like a circuit board wrought of mazy silhouettes, but you don’t think that’s quite it. Although you wait a little longer, you can’t figure out what it is.
You’ve gained 1 x Dubious Omen (new total 40).
EJ: As Seymour’s fascination with the ironbird distances him more and more from his fellow living beings, he commits some truly awful acts.
Pest control
A squad of Ocular Guards appears to be dealing with what looks like a temple of delicate gold-black rafters and chitinous tiles: an insectine colony, already damaged by curving spikes of ice.
Insectines are regarded as a curiosity in some parts of Iria, as they are relative newcomers. You know of people who like to collect the exotic, and who would pay well.
Playing this option will get you 10x Ice and 10x Labyrinth Crystal.
You head around back and get the attention of one of the insectine workers, explaining a stratagem for escaping the Guards and setting up house somewhere else. The insectines are desperate, especially since their queen is crying out in frustration. They agree to follow you.
Distracting the Ocular Guards isn’t difficult: with the insectines’ aid, you manufacture a greater emergency several streets away. The Guards are entirely predictable in their desire to maintain order.
Afterward, you take them to “sanctuary”: a merchant of exotics. She pays you well for the captives that she and her henchmen are able to take. A number of insectines die so that the queen may escape. “I would have paid ten times that for the queen,” the merchant says offhandedly, “but no matter. We’ll get her another time.”
Later, when you return to the insectine colony, you discover that the whole thing has been eaten away by ice, as though winter were a corrosion.
You’ve gained 10 x Ice (new total 23).
You’ve gained 10 x Labyrinth Crystal (new total 22).
Resolve is increasing…
EJ: He also does some things that are just kind of a dick move.
An Unsmiling Thief
Her very lack of expression is itself expressive. There’s a certain degree of understated charm to be found here.
You’ve heard what happened to the missing sister. The Thief won’t like the story, but if anyone can tell her, it’s you.
Playing this option will get you 5x Ice and 1x Teller of Unpleasant Truths which removes Connection: An Unsmiling Thief forever, locking off this card entirely.
You make a point of telling the Thief in person, at a Pleasant Harpsichordist’s recital, when she’ll least expect it. During the intermission, you take her aside and tell you what you’ve heard. The final ship, during the pale, cutting moments of the winterstrike, to try to land in Iria. The Thief’s sister had come a long way bearing a name-day gift and didn’t want to be late. From the Thief’s sudden pallor, you know it must be true after all.
The Architects excavated the ship some time back. None of the survivors was recognizable.
The Thief draws herself up, thanks you, and favors you with a beautiful smile, but there’s no hope in it, or warmth, and she has no desire to see you again.
You’ve gained 5 x Ice (new total 28).
You now have 1 x Teller of Unpleasant Truths.
Force has increased to 11!
EJ: Now we come to that endgame option again.
Wintry suspicions (Architects of Ink)
The Architects are increasingly nervous about your friendship with the ironbird—something to do with writings recovered from sites uncovered by the winterstrike.
Note: Choosing a branch will advance you toward the endgame.
The ironbird may or may not be an artifact itself—its true nature isn’t entirely clear to you even now—but it’s worthy of preservation in its own right. When the Architects approach you about it, you will have to put off the Emaciated Lecturer they send with a plausible story.
The Lecturer comes armed with an entire holo presentation that synthesizes children’s folk-rhymes, symbolism in a pre-spaceflight swanfolk culture, and a curious treatise on quadratic residues. You watch attentively and make polite noises: scholarship is scholarship, however misguided.
The Lecturer is unprepared for your rebuttal, which is more wide-ranging and hinges only upon a few strategically chosen lies about your first encounter with the ironbird. He looks especially dazzled by your account of how hyperbolic geometries, the ironbird’s inner mechanisms, and that underground shrine with its alabaster prayer-wheels relate to each other.
Still: you may have put off one Architect, but you’re aware that you’ll need a longer-term solution.
You’ve gained 1 x Winterlocked (new total 3).
You now have 1 x Voice of the Ironbird.
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Ironbird prophet I (Voice of the Ironbird)
Day and night, night and day, the ironbird sings a wheeling song of worlds to come. Vast worlds, past worlds, shattered worlds. Iria is only the latest in the sequence. It is time to move on.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
The ironbird has been busy while you sleep. It wishes you to know that its launch site is near completion, but it will need your help ensuring its security.
(A high-risk challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 30% chance of success.)
[You need Resolve 10 (you have 12)]
Whenever you look into the ironbird’s quizzical eyes, you are assailed by intoxicating visions.
The ironbird’s starship, constructed half of ice itself, is near completion. However, the ironbird wakes you in the night with a plaint of gears: scavengers are attempting to make off with key components.
(A high-risk challenge – Your Force quality gives you a 20% chance of success.)
[You need Ice 20 (you have 29); You need Force 10 (you have 11)]
EJ: Let’s see some intoxicating visions, then:
The ironbird remembers many cities before Iria. It’s not clear whether some of them, built from quantum foam, or balanced between inspiraling neutron stars, or hidden in the hearts of red giants, are cities past or cities future. But one thing is constant, no matter what manner of people live there, or what kinds of starships needle between them and the other far-homes in the void’s dark. All of them are feasts for the winterborn.
You’ve gained 1 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 38).
The ironbird has been busy while you sleep. It wishes you to know that its launch site is near completion, but it will need your help ensuring its security.
–
The launch site isn’t difficult to find, not with the ironbird leading the way. It is hung about with the icicle-bells of the unfortunates who got in the way. There’s a madcap festive aesthetic to the way the corpses have been arranged: tasteful clusters of figures in blue or silver-violet, the occasional cascade of autumn-colored jewels.
You are unable to overcome your distaste, even for the ironbird’s sake. The ironbird croons its sympathy and leads you out of the corpse-maze.
Resolve is increasing…
Resolve 12 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: And again:
Success!
The ironbird—or, disturbing thought, other confederates besides yourself—has been busy. A maze of ice and dark corners guards the launch site, and the maze is additionally festooned with the dead. The placement of the corpses recalls star-maps you have seen in times past, and you wonder what the ironbird’s first destination will be.
The ironbird lets you know that it requires another constellation of corpses before its preparations may be regarded as complete. At least corpses are plentiful in Iria, and one more person carrying them off isn’t an unusual sight. There’s a certain wicked amusement to be had in the endeavor. Besides, it’s not as if the dead have any more use for their bodies.
Resolve is increasing…
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Ice (new total 30).
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird’s Regard (new total 26).
You’ve gained 1 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 39).
You’ve gained 1 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 44).
EJ: Before we get too far into the endgame, let’s take a quick break to see some other things that we couldn’t see last playthrough:
A dusty parlor
The shipshard mirror has an honest streak at times. What will it show you today?
Playing this option will get you 10x Dubious Omen.
All the mirror shows you is a catastrophe’s worth of snow, ice winds and winter eyes, everywhere, everywhere snow.
Just before you look away from the unreflection, you glimpse a figure in a black-and-gold coat. But when you look again, it is gone.
You’ve gained 10 x Dubious Omen (new total 60).
Mysterious corpses
People frozen dead in a dreary alley don’t even catch your notice anymore. Except these are different.
You sense that the frozen-marionette corpses, however macabre, aren’t the full story. Their ghastly pallor suggests that they’ve been exsanguinated.
A cursory examination confirms your suspicion. But blood doesn’t simply vanish, and there are no predator-marks on the corpses. You follow the hound-call of the snow and wind to what used to be a mural celebrating the fortunes of health and harvest.
Splashed across the mural are words of frozen blood: words of cavernous despair and crumpled death and cries unanswered in the dark. It takes you a moment to recognize the work of an oracular cannon. Someone has recovered it—and someone is making use of it. Possibly even right now.
You’ve gained 1 x Dubious Omen (new total 56).
Fossils in reverse
A wall in what used to be the archivists’ district contains fossils. More accurately, what used to be a wall. The structure has been eaten away by whorls and ripples of ice, not unlike the process by which petrified wood is formed. The fossils are clearly visible, if distorted.
The ironbird’s mien is, of all things, famished. You wonder if one of those fossils would sate it.
Playing this option will get you 20x Fleeting Merriment.
The results are comical. Oh, the ironbird helps you chip free one of the fossils readily enough. The thing looks like what you’d get if you crossed a gene scanner with a trilobite suffering indigestion. Your attempts to encourage the ironbird to accept this snack only seem to confuse it, however.
You’ve gained 20 x Fleeting Merriment (new total 65).
Resolve has increased to 13!
EJ: Okay, back to plot progression:
Ironbird prophet I (Voice of the Ironbird)
The ironbird’s starship, constructed half of ice itself, is near completion. However, the ironbird wakes you in the night with a plaint of gears: scavengers are attempting to make off with key components.
You’re confounded by how much larger the starship has grown. You can’t help but think this is what a fungal vessel would look like if you swapped out all the fungus for moistly glistening ice.
The problem isn’t the ice. It’s that there are too many scavengers. You ambush some of them on the way in, and the smashed corpses satisfy you on a fundamental level, but a particularly well-organized group of them makes off with a vital engine component before you can stop them.
Rather than chiding you, the ironbird calls sweet reassurances to you. If not this night, another. And in the meantime, at least there are more corpses.
Force is increasing…
Force 11 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: Well, I was TRYING for plot progression, anyway. Let’s try again.
Success!
The ironbird leads you through non-Euclidean passages to the starship’s control center. Your heartbeat does not quicken at the persistent unctuous dripping, the crackle-sizzle-hiss of gunfights taking place not far away, the occasional arrhythmic thump.
The control center is half-encased in ice, like a tomb of starward aspirations, but one of the control panels is accessible by a depression in the ice. The depression is precisely the size and shape of your hand. It’s obvious what you’re meant to do.
A concussion of death-words and dread-words and doom-words bells outward from the control center, with the ironbird’s high, triumphant shriek as counterpoint. You stagger to your knees. It takes a long time for the commotion to dim to a bearable murmur.
When you venture out, you discover that all the intruders have been hammered dead, with blood-verses frozen to the walls behind them. So this is the power of the oracular cannon. You can only guess as to how the ironbird obtained it.
Force is increasing…
You succeeded in a Force challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You now have 1 x Ironbird Prophet.
You’ve gained 3 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 41).
Ironbird prophet II
Only a few preparations remain before the ironbird can embark on its longed-for journey. Lately it looks at you with darkly affectionate eyes.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
It’s a quiet night when the ironbird calls to you. You’re watching the sky with its scarves of cirrus from a tower-garden, and the wind is pushing along eddies and fingerprint-whorls of snow in the footpaths below. The ironbird is looking neither up nor down, but into a window scarred over with cracks. If it weren’t for the tenacious grip of the frost, the whole thing would have fallen out by now.
As you suspected, you were able to put off inquiries about the ironbird for only so long. You don’t know which faction this Coiled Inquisitor represents, but you had better do something about her.
(A very chancy challenge – Your Finesse quality gives you a 50% chance of success.)
[You need Ice 20 (you have 32); You need Finesse 10 (you have 14); You need Voice of the Ironbird 1 (you have 1)]
EJ: That second storylet is optional and I assume you only get it if you put off the Lecturer instead of murdering him, so let’s check it out:
The ironbird makes sure you [sic] to keep out of sight when the Inquisitor corners you, but it’s a little late to hide your association with the creature. The Inquisitor wears a necklace of snakes that hiss and sway, fixing you with their glares. They don’t even seem fazed by the chill.
Despite your attempts to pass off the ironbird as a harmless pet, the Inquisitor’s questions become increasingly pointed, her snakes increasingly agitated. The result is an impasse. “You’re being watched,” she promises you before she departs. You’ll have to be more careful in the future.
Finesse is increasing…
Finesse 14 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.) Onward
EJ: Whoops, let’s try that again:
Success!
The Inquisitor is determined to harrow the truth from you, but it doesn’t take you long to figure out that she is constantly being distracted by the whispered suggestions of the snakes she wears as a necklace. Picturesque as the spectacle is, you can’t fathom why anyone thinks interrogation by committee is a good idea.
With a little wit, you insinuate that the ironbird is nothing more than an elaborate toy and that the Inquisitor’s masters are wasting her time with this. Moreover, she accidentally lets slip a few morsels about the Circle’s plans for capturing the oracular cannon. All in all, not a bad hour’s work.
Finesse has increased to 15!
You succeeded in a Finesse challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Brittle Rumor (new total 61).
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird Prophet (new total 2).
*EJ: So this offers a somewhat less violent way to progress from II to III, but we already had to do some murders to get from I to II, so I’m not sure how much that helps.*I
Ironbird prophet III
It’s time to fly.
Note: Choosing the final branch will end the game, after which your character will be destroyed and you may, if you wish, create another.
Your preparations are not entirely complete. The ironbird informs you that certain rituals must cleanse the starways so that winter may travel freely from Iria to the next nesting ground.
(A tough challenge – Your Resolve quality gives you a 40% chance of success.)
[You need Ice 20 (you have 32); You need Resolve 11 (you have 14)]
The ironbird’s temperament is painstaking. You see a faster way to achieve the bloody ritual it envisions.
Playing this will give you 7x Ice, 7x Dubious Omen and 7x Memory of Far-Flung Stars.
[This branch is now free to play]
The ironbird has derived all the sustenance it cares to from the final antics of this city. It’s time to move on—and it wishes you to accompany it.
Note: Playing this card will end the game. This deletes your character and gives you the opportunity to create a new one, if you like.
[You need Ice 25 (you have 32); You need 10 x Dubious Omen (you have 56); You need 10 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (you have 41)]
EJ: Our stats are high enough that we could just see the grand finale now, but this LP is about showing off as much content as possible, so let’s see that ritual:
The ritual is complex in the way of fractal operas and clockwork wars. For all your determination to keep its shape in your head as you anoint the necessary vertices with acts of canny violence, the pattern proves too much. The ironbird is singing in your head now, and while you appreciate the company, it’s disrupting your concentration.
Resolve is increasing…
Resolve 14 failed in a challenge! (When you try a challenge that’s difficult for you, you learn more even when you fail.)
EJ: … and now let’s see the ritual again, successfully this time:
The architecture of atrocities
You see the architecture of atrocities the ironbird requires before it is ready to leave its hatching ground behind. Carrying them out is merely a matter of persistence. As you work, you are struck by visions of supernovae attenuated to faded dust, black holes evaporating into silence, the universe cooling by slow fractions until nothing is left but a winter supreme.
Resolve has increased to 15!
You succeeded in a Resolve challenge! (Risky challenges mean you learn more.)
You’ve gained 1 x Ice (new total 33).
You’ve gained 1 x Dubious Omen (new total 57).
You’ve gained 1 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 42).
EJ: And we can also see that former Nex-locked option:
The ironbird’s temperament is painstaking. You see a faster way to achieve the bloody ritual it envisions.
Playing this will give you 7x Ice, 7x Dubious Omen and 7x Memory of Far-Flung Stars.
Iria has a well-deserved reputation for gaiety. All you have to do is come up with a pretext for a celebration. A thin one, at that. You drop a few words into the ears of well-connected people, then wait.
The celebration is remarkable for the streamers of black silk, and the flowers of black chiffon and lunar crystal, and the shadow-puppets gyrating against the smoky light of the lanterns. But you have been busy with your own preparations, and when they flower, they flower red.
Red isn’t one of winter’s colors, you muse afterwards, but there’s something to be said for the aesthetic statement made by polarities.
The ironbird, needless to say, finds your solution satisfactory.
You’ve gained 7 x Ice (new total 40).
You’ve gained 7 x Dubious Omen (new total 64).
You’ve gained 7 x Memory of Far-Flung Stars (new total 49).
Resolve is increasing…
EJ: All right, now let’s see the ending:
Iria is a patchwork of fire and ice and brimming shadow by the time you make it to the ironbird’s starship. It is cold inside, cold like the black spaces between stars, cold like the silent mass where your heart used to be.
The ironbird awaits you. It has sunk into the deck of the control center. Icicle-studded wires connect it to every conceivable surface, and blue-violet lights run along the wires like steady insects. Careful not to upset any of the wires, you make your way to your seat beside it. It lifts its head and whistles, with a timbre between iron and glass, at your approach.
The starship’s sensors apprise you of a clamor outside: blood, fire, the usual percussion. But it’s too late for them to stop you.
With a crystalline cry, the starship lofts. The wind of its passage is cold and keen, and leaves of Iria nothing but a husk, with figures splintered into ice-mirror visions. Wires cut into your skin as you, too, are joined to the starship. The next city is far away, but not far enough, and in the meantime the ironbird is already brooding its single egg to restart the cycle with another winterstrike.
You’ve gained 1 x Winterstrike: The Prophet (new total 2).
You’ve gained 4 x Endings: Gloom (new total 8).
EJ: So as you can see (and I’ll admit I suspected this would be the case), the ending you get from the “moderate” option is really not different from what you get from the “ride-or-die for the ironbird” option other than not making you commit violence against named(?) characters, and you’re wreaking so much destruction anyway that I’m not sure that really helps. It’s the squeamish option for those who like to be at a remove from the consequences of their actions, I suppose. (I can also confirm that the Ironbird Prophet ending seems to be more or less the same no matter what faction you pick, it’s just Ironbird Destroyer that changes.)
With the nature of the ironbird being what it is, it makes sense that there are really only two possible outcomes here, with attempts at reaching some sort of middle ground being fruitless, but it is a little frustrating that it gives the appearance of offering three options when there are really only two. But working with the structure of StoryNexus seems not to have come easily to Lee, and it’s easy to critique but I’m not sure how much better I would do. It’s different in a lot of ways from other IF authoring systems.
Anyway, reading back over this transcript I realized we actually had two new story qualities that I should have captured descriptions for, the other being Teller of Unpleasant Truths, but here’s the one I did get:
Voice of the Ironbird: The creature’s influence over your thoughts is only natural.
We do still have about five days before SN shuts down, so, a poll:
Which faction would you like to see more of?
- Circle of Bullets
- Ocular Guard
- Scarf and Feather Society
0
voters
It’s fun reading the multiple different playthroughs!
I think the thing that throws me is how casually the narrator brings up “an ironbird” at the start. It made me think ironbirds were as common as, say, insectines or ocicats—a fantastical thing to us that is normal to the people of Iria. But the ending sounds like nobody on Iria has ever seen an ironbird before this, and in fact it’s the only one of its kind any of them ever will see.
You and the creature approach each other like dance partners. Light glitters off a plumage of sharp metal feathers and cogs and coiled wires: a fledgling ironbird. Apparently it’s as curious about you as you are about it. Indeed, it sounds as though it’s singing to you, quietly, in a key defined by chromatic aberrations.
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Yeah, I agree that the framing is weird—you look at it and go “yep, that’s an ironbird” instead of “huh, it’s some weird kind of semi-mechanical bird thing?” (or “it looks sort of like a birdplane but, like, sentient?”) even though it seems that there’s only one ironbird at a time and they leave entire worlds destroyed in their wake so in most circumstances no living person will ever have seen one. It doesn’t quite make sense that there’s any concept of what an ironbird is—clearly there’s folklore, but it’s also clear that the PC isn’t drawing connections between that and the living ironbird until near the end, so yeah, it’s an odd bit of writing.
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I hadn’t seen some of the failure messages before. “Hung about with the icicle-bells of the unfortunates who got in the way” is a chillingly cool turn of phrase.
I have text from the one Scarf & Feather society ending (I think you can either destroy it, or choose to redesign it away from winter? I did the latter) and Ironbird Destroyer I and II for the Oracular Guard (where you use rosesteel ammunition in the oracular cannon; I had sort of forgotten that the ironbird uses the cannon in its ending), so I’d be most curious to see the Circle of Bullets, but whichever.
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Oh, that’s really cool that Scarf & Feather Society actually does have a middle-of-the-road ending option! I assumed it was Ironbird Destroyer vs. Ironbird Prophet across the board.
Yeah! Definitely my favorite ending that I’ve seen:
Ironbird destroyer I
The odd calls, the aperiodic corpses, the persistent cold: it’s clear that the ironbird is involved, and that its existence can no longer be tolerated, no matter how affectionate it is toward you.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
- ✓ The Suave Gadgeteer invites herself over at an atrocious hour of the morning, although she brings fragrant green tea cookies by way of apology. She is accompanied by a birdplane with the watchful eyes of a hawk. The ironbird looks at them warily from its windowsill perch. “Quick,” the Gadgeteer cries, unfolding a net from within her voluminous coat. “The best countermeasure will come from an understanding of the organism itself.” A chancy challenge Your Finesse quality gives you a 60% chance of success. Intimation of Wings 2 Finesse 10
- What catches your attention isn’t the ironbird so much as its shadow and the short-lived fractal imprints it leaves behind. Perhaps you can leverage its self-similar properties to more rapidly map its weaknesses. Playing this option will get you 3x Ironbird Schematic. [This branch is now free to play] Intimation of Wings 2
- You and the Suave Gadgeteer believe you have enough information to undertake a successful dissection of the ironbird. Intimation of Wings 2 Ironbird Schematic 3 Locked
Success!
The confined space of your quarters—not helped by the previous occupant’s astonishing cache of snake skeletons bound together by rose-gold wire and oversized music boxes—makes it difficult for the ironbird to escape your combined efforts. The Gadgeteer pins the ironbird just long enough for you to pry open a chamber in its chest and make some key observations about its inner workings.
The ironbird scissors itself free with an indignant noise, but the Gadgeteer only shrugs. “Soon we’ll have all the information we need,” she says.
try the formerly-paid option
While the Gadgeteer occupies the ironbird’s attention—this could almost pass as a parody of gladiatorial sport—you record your observations. The ironbird eventually smashes free through a wall, leaving ice crystals hanging in the air only to drop and shatter. But you show the Gadgeteer your notes, and she nods in appreciation. “Well-handled,” she says. “It’s time for the next phase.”
You’ve gained 3 x Ironbird Schematic (new total 4).
and now we can move on
The two of you don’t have to go far to locate the ironbird, although you know it must be aware of the danger it’s in. Nearby is a fight over rations recovered from a starship carcass, poor fare except to the starving—except more and more people starve in Iria every day. The ironbird croons to itself as it watches a huddled figure fall down, then fail to rise.
Working together, you and the Gadgeteer net the ironbird and carry it off toward her workshop. Nobody takes any notice of the creature’s clamorous cries. In Iria it’s just one more rag of noise.
You’ve lost 3 x Ironbird Schematic (new total 1).
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird’s Scourge (new total 2).
Ironbird destroyer II
A few obstacles remain to be cleared before you can strike against the ironbird. Soon, you promise yourself, thinking of the iceweight of the dead. Soon.
Note: This sequence takes you toward the game’s end.
- The Gadgeteer’s workshop is the color of aged porcelain and surgical steel, yet there are very few reflective surfaces in it, as though mirrors are themselves hostile observers. With expert and unflinching hands, the Gadgeteer binds the ironbird with electromagnetic trusses. “Disassembly is always the easiest part,” she says, eyes gleaming, “but based on your notes, I think we’ll do fine. Still, one thing at a time. Pick up that fermion drill, will you?” A very chancy challenge Intimation of Wings 2 Finesse 11
Success!
The Gadgeteer is clinical in her approach to the dissection, unsurprising given her vast experience with such endeavors. At various points you intervene, suggesting different approaches to reduce the trauma to the ironbird’s flickering consciousness. The Gadgeteer takes these comments in good humor, but it is her birdplane that regards you with fierce approval.
At last the ironbird is dismembered before you, its parts neatly laid out and labeled. The Gadgeteer frowns over possible approaches to take. You begin sketching out an alternate idea as she speaks: “Such a small thing to cause such a terrible winter. But it’s often true that small causes have disproportionate effects.”
As she is about to take up the fermion drill herself, you show her an entirely new schematic, graven in lines of light, gold and red and green, and even, occasionally, winter-white. You suggest that it may be possible to reform the ironbird in a less destructive form.
You expected the Gadgeteer to push for a thorough and irrevocable dissection, but she shrugs. “It’s a risk, but if you judge that it can be done, I’m willing to try.”
You’ve lost 1 x Ice (new total 17).
You’ve gained 1 x Ironbird’s Scourge (new total 3).
Ironbird destroyer III
Your preparations are complete. You know what comes next.
Note: This will end the game, after which your character will be destroyed and you may, if you wish, create another.
-
Because you’ll only have one chance at this, you review your schematic carefully. To her credit, the Suave Gadgeteer doesn’t rush you, although she must feel the same ticking urgency that you do. Outside the workshop, the wind taps at the walls like a penned beast, and the ironbird’s component pieces, in spite of the electromagnetic restraints, rattle in sympathy.
Neither of you points out that each metal piece has a tiny, growing scratch-mark of frost upon it, sometimes in the shape of bitter words, sometimes in the shape of blemished wings.
The Gadgeteer lifts an eyebrow at you, and you nod. Unsmiling, she passes you the first of the tools you will need to rewire the ironbird. Intimation of Wings 2
Afterwards you remember the work, painstaking and orderly as it is, in jigsaw pieces. You and the Gadgeteer restructure the ironbird’s internal logic so it need no longer draw nourishment from murder and thievery and cold acts in colder places. You almost have to rebuild the creature from scratch, because so much of its nature works in step with the winterlock.
Peripherally, you become aware that the seasons are wheeling uncertainly around you as the work progresses. A summer slant of light through a window you had thought closed. A rustling of migrating butterflies, or anyway their shadows, crossing the floor without intersecting your foot. The faint but unmistakable perfume of plum blossoms coming in from some unseen aperture.
It’s tempting to glance outside to see how Iria proper is affected, but you daren’t break your concentration. Not now.
The trickiest part is where, after all the seasonal adjustments have been made, the two of you reassemble the creature. There’s always the chance of error; there’s always the chance that it will recognize what has been done to it and fly at you in search of red vengeance.
The bird stirs feebly when you are done. “Only one way to find out,” the Gadgeteer says, and you agree. The two of you glance at each other, then release the restraints. The bird’s song is no longer a thing of corrosion and cold nights—or more accurately, no longer solely about those things. Instead, it spreads its wings and trills of crescent moons and falling leaves and summertime fruit. You kneel down to greet it anew. The Gadgeteer flings open her windows to admit the warm breezes and the sound of trickling water and the fragrance of budding blossoms. The ironbird rules winter no more, and Iria is free at last.
You now have 1 x Winterstrike: The Crescent Moon.
You’ve gained 3 x Endings: Gleam (new total 5).
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It’s very interesting to read this while being familiar with his later work - there’s a lot of familiar themes here but he got much better at communicating worldbuilding to the audience in the Machineries of Empire series. Ninefox Gambit was still a bit rough on that front but it’s cool seeing his evolution as an author!
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Oh, I also didn’t expect there to actually be a third option! That’s very cool.
I also didn’t expect it to come from the Scarf and Feather Society.
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Is it clear that “ironbird” is a term in general use, as opposed to one that just popped into our head? The ironbird seems to be able to communicate its thoughts to us later, so maybe at this early stage it’s able to influence us to accept its existence, and not remark on having coined a name for it.
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Bad news: I thought I had captured a Circle of Bullets playthrough, but it looks like I didn’t download it, and since the URL doesn’t exist anymore it’s not possible for me to access localStorage to get the transcript, so the Let’s Play will have to end here. I’m very sorry for messing this up and ending on this stupidly anticlimactic note, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, so… thanks for reading.
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Thanks for doing this! SN isn’t a corner of IF I’d ever engaged with, so I really appreciated the peek into how it all operated, and of course at the story itself.
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On the plus side, if you’re using Firefox, it is possible to extract the localStorage for a URL that no longer exists! This shows how to find the file, and this program will open it. (The StackExchange answer is old, but this suggests it’s still accurate.)
(It will be more annoying than just going to the site, but I imagine better than losing all the data outright!)
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Unfortunately I am using Opera (I’m a “but sir, these are my emotional support 20 tabs that I have to have open at all times” kind of person and I find Firefox handles that less well, at least on my machine), but thank you for that link, because it did give me some search terms that got me more helpful results than I’d been getting previously!
It does look like the same sort of thing is possible with Opera, but you need a different tool to extract the data, and I don’t quite have the wherewithal to track it down and figure out how to use it tonight, but I will look into this further later!
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Seconded! No chance I would have played through this on my own, but it was interesting following along.
Very interesting how much this story shares tonally with Fallen London… it feels like at least a good chunk of that comes from the affordances of the shared engine? Fun to think about.
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All the wording about success chances and stat/quality changes are from the engine, but I think partly too that this was an invited or commissioned work and Fallen London was the only prior art in this engine so I suspect it was a big influence on an author who didn’t have strong opinions about how to write for it. In that interview I linked earlier he says
This resulted in having to write encounters such that they could be interpreted as being somewhat generic. (Fallen London itself does this very well, and I looked to it a lot for examples.) The other way I dealt with this was by creating a world/society at the edge of breakdown, in which these sorts of freewheeling encounters would not seem too unnatural as the norm.
I have some bits from the beginning of Annwn Simulation 1985 that I might share at some point: it’s much more life-sim/slice-of-life at least at the start of the game, so somewhat different tonally.
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