Based on the code, it looks like it shouldn’t…I’ll run through very quickly in the game to double-check.
edit: Nope. Getting the information from Ismene, the final page before returning to raiding options is just
No mention of any punishment.
@Havenstone When Breden asks you what you hate about the Hegemony, if you choose how the rights of free folks were trampled, and than persecution of helots, you get to choose a third injustice.
EDIT: Nvm.
@Dominic first sentence, page right after that.
That’s because one of them doesn’t ‘count’ - if you’re a noble, complaining about the rights of free folks gets shrugged off as too obvious. Same thing if you’re a helot complaining about the persecution of helots.
It’s not there.
Really? I’ll play through again and see if Havenstone changed it.
The entire thing with Bleys being punished (or not being punished) is set to happen only *if bleys > 1, with the Bleys variable adjusted based on what you do with him. If you never interact, it stays at zero, and that scene doesn’t happen.
Nvm, last time I played through Bleys was punished and @Havenstone mentioned earlier in the thread that he would add in that the local Telone was punished for the merchant and noble routes. However, I do think it should happen. The hegemony have no more proof that Bleys did it regardless of which route you played through(telling the Architelone and framing others notwithstanding).
The mysterious absence of his family is a fairly important difference between the routes. Plus his knowledge of his own guilt when questioned.
We’ll need @Havenstone to confirm, but given how brutal and vicious the Hegemony is, I think someone, somewhere is going to be scapegoated for our raid and punished almost immediately, likely someone towards the bottom, such as Bleys and his family, if they do not get a more obvious “suspect” from one our potential frame-jobs.
Also without recruiting the Telone the rebellion does get badly conned when offloading the loot, so it’s still the best route, if you care about providing the maximum amount of usable resources for your rebellion.
That still does not give the hegemony more or less proof that he did it, as he is killed pretty much every route except for framing others.
…didn’t we just discuss how the game only says he’s held responsible if he actually is responsible, and you didn’t frame anyone?
The differences might not constitute proof, but they’re certainly enough for a suspicious Alastor to seize upon. Whereas, if you ask someone else, there’s no evidence at all, because he’s not responsible.
Eh. On the other hand, the clearest point of failure if you give them no other evidence would be the Architelone herself.
There is no benefit for the Architelone, and she is not an easy target. Bleys, on the other hand, is an easy target, and the hegemony could either fabricate evidence or just say he was going to rebel-who’s going to stop them?
Hah. There’s no benefit for Bleys, either. And the Architelone is an incredibly easy target given that she just utterly failed to protect the tax caravan, and quite possibly didn’t have the good grace to be killed in the process. It’s one of those situations of “either complicit, or incompetent.”
Bleys…could have been threatened, I guess? And the Architelone is not an easy target because a) she was a senior officer in the hegemony, and killing/blaming her would make the hegemony look incompetent/weak, and therefore attract more people to our rebellion and b) she is a senior officer in Shayardene, and must have made connections with other senior officers and her family must have had some good political connections that allowed them to be chosen as architelones.
If the Architelone is robbed, someone is getting Harrowed or worse for it - this is the kind of thing that gets people scapegoated. But there’s no reason for us to care about him if we haven’t met him - he’d be just another of the many victims of the Hegemony’s evil needing to be avenged.
Instead, what we should be caring about is the fact that we stopped being the good little rebels who support the Hegemony’s system through our rebellion, and caused an actual (if minor) blow to the Thaumatarch’s pocketbook. Accordingly, we should worry less about Bleys and more about the survival of our own people when the hammer falls.
This is true, however Bleys and family are potentially valuable recruits and Alaine is a good contact, more crucially both belong to the relatively educated middle class of people a helot rebellion absolutely needs to get on board if it’s to be successful. By contrast Ismene, as a noble, is one of the people who profits most from the Hegemony and part of the class my character is rebelling against.
Even if we haven’t personally met him there are good reasons for the more calculating and discriminating helot leaders to care about the class of people Bleys belongs to and thus it’s better to pin the blame on the provincial nobility.
If we repeat that trick enough and the Hegemony swallows it often enough it might even drive a wedge between the provincial nobility and the Hegemonic, Karagond institutions.
@idonotlikeusernames Don’t forget-Ismene has not been harsh to her helots, and was probably too scared to launch a rebellion-she’s the last of a minor house, and punishment for rebellion is brutal. She had been raised all her life to believe treating helots like dirt is not only okay, but good. Still treating them fairly is a couple of points in her favour, not to mention she is going to have a benefit equaling Alaine’s in game 2.
@Havenstone
1Could you add these options:
a) When Linos proposes to declare the MC Eclect, tell him that I want multiple ecclesiasts to do it, to make clear it’s not the option of one deacon who might seem a heretic to the people
b) when discussing the future of Theurgy with Horion, if the MC knows it, tell him that we will train as many people as possible as theurges/wizards so they could use own blood.
- Will the MC meet Ganelon Tarakatou again?
For (a), just to be clear, are you asking for a “not yet thanks” option? Linos doesn’t have any other priests in his back pocket.
(b) I’ll consider it.
And as for Ganelon, depending on your choices in Ch 3 you can meet him again.
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It would be impossible there too. 
When the challenge becomes serious… yes.
Well, if you don’t do anything to help at the Harrowing, you’re only in charge of a demoralized bandit gang who are more impressed than they should be at your escape from the Keriatou dungeon.
Damn! OK, got me. I’ll fix that (and the other errors you’ve caught) in the next update.
Alas, ChoiceScript can’t parse specific negative numbers. It can handle “if stat < 0” and display negative stats just fine, but there’s no way to use e.g. “if stat = -5.”
I could reserve 1-10 for imprisonment/exile and negatives for death (for Breden and Kala as well as Simon)… or I could give in and give them each a Boolean for whether they’re still in the band, with the details of why they’re not with the band available via other stats as needed.
Which almost certainly makes it an instance of terrible, terrible game design. 
Speaking of which, part of the plan for the Ch 2 revision for a long time has been to increase the difference in reward between getting the Telone on board and any other way of raiding the Architelone, so the getting of info from merchants and nobles is less of an obvious optimum.
I’ll also add a victim to the other branches. Dominic is right that if you let the Architelone live, she’s the natural victim. Otherwise, perhaps I’ll add a random stat that leads to them blaming and killing Bleys, an Alastor captain, a local merchant or noble. There must be blood, and if there’s no obviously guilty-looking candidate, the Thaumatarchy will flip a coin.
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