For Irduin, it is hard to judge how satisfying or not an ending it’ll be because it hasn’t been written. The impression I have is that Irduin is history in the making: history will remember Irduin’s name because of what happens here, and if it doesn’t it’s because we made choices to prevent the impending tragedy (between Auche and Earith’s elopement, Heud’s gunpowder plot, the darkness Tamran felt, Brasque’s Harrowing, and Baldy discovering the de Irde’s secrets, the natural course of things in Irduin seemingly bends towards nobody ending up happy). It’s just none of this has happened yet.
It’s like how reuniting with Alless (peak) can be done in a wholesome, calm way where we stroll to an inn, chat, and then each go our own way on the road. Or it can be a dramatic sequence filled with bravado, self-sacrifice, and the unique reading experience of being smuggled down a river in a barrel of fermented fish sauce.
Avoidable, self-inflicted problems still make for fun reading, and I think that makes the anti-order Irduin routes feel more complete: the “enemy” is right there, and we make gradual progress towards defeating them, and it can feel like we’re laying a foundation for our own rebellion. There are no idle hands there, at least.
I felt that the emotional cores of Irduin were Brasque, Tamran, Auche, and Ulmey: stories featuring them tended to be more engaging to me. Others are elevated by how they relate to these characters; but there is one conspicuous exception for me (not Eyon, even though he’s just a side character for Bernete’s story, and Bernete’s story already feels like an incredibly funny side quest; but that’s just his role).
Korren feels bland. He comes across as not very proactive, and mainly a tool to serve Irduin’s order. Which is probably the point: he’s special because of his forbearance. But he’s at his most interesting in those flashes where he becomes more like an Alastor, which is almost always because of Cynneve (the one attachment he seems to have outside of Irduin’s ideology): attacking Baldy, holding back his urge to hurt [innocent, relatively] Narran and Snip, almost punching us after the comedically timed
“I see Ecclesiast Ulmey’s taught them to write,”
It’s because he holds power but holds back that those moments are memorable. But he holds back so much that he doesn’t feel active or threatening, even when directly investigating us.
There’s a line we can say to him under questioning if we’re on the Ulmey+Korren route, which is
"I hope we’ve made some friends in our time here, yes. In all honesty, Captain, I’d hoped you would deem yourself one of them."
I think “hoped” is the key word there. I don’t know if we’re ever friends with Korren. Or what he thinks of us, really, besides being a diegetic ird_sus meter. And maybe I’m uncharitable to him, but it seems like without someone else pushing him to action, he’d just walk the man he’d call father-in-law (given the choice) to his death. Because that’s what the order of Irduin demands of him.
It’d be neat to hear Korren’s perspective on walking helots to their Harrowing. He’s been in Irduin for… 8 years or so? That’d still be around 20 helots he’s seen grapple with their imminent death. We hear about one (Cynneve’s mother) secondhand, but was every Irduine helot like her? No matter how much dignity they left with, Korren (and Ulmey) would be the only one who knows what they were like in the end. Were they scared? Resigned to their fate? Did anyone regret not fighting harder to live?
And what’s it like for him, being with helots, playing games with them – when it’s been his job to escort their parents, aunts, nuncles, into a woodchipper?
Speaking of which, it is convenient narratively that we came too late for the last Harrowing in Irduin and things are likely to explode (literally) by the time the next one comes around. Changes our impression of the town.
A player spending time with the helots could have reason to look into who was last Harrowed: to make sure they’re taken care of (see Olynna’s charity from the prologue), or to see if they’re a weak point that can turn into rebellion. Of course, knowing Irduin, this is likely to be a dead end, but it would be revealing.
Yare Chastin, meanwhile, is the most underrated side character. Also the singularly best-positioned character to be a spy, though she probably isn’t (too young, no reason to believe there are Hegemonic spies in Irduin anyway). She makes Heud’s quest personal and tragic: Heud risking his life again and again to destroy the place that Yare wanted to make their home, if it wasn’t for the literal scars of injustice keeping Heud out, because Heud sees through the sham of it all. Even if it’s a comfortable sham. And Heud knows that Yare would oppose him. And I think Yare is sharp enough to catch on to what Heud’s thinking. It’s great; without her, Heud’s story would be too straightforward. She also adds a layer of intrigue to the Auche and Earith plot. What a coincidence that Auchearith and the Gunpowder Plot are two of Irduin’s highlights.
Speaking of Auchearith, there’s a routing error in Murian’s plot. Only one I found though, which is impressive given how much text there is.
If you go along with Murian’s plan, Narran and Snip won’t approach you to destroy Baldy’s papers (line ~1976 of irduin2, murscandal < 4). But they can later be mad that you refused to help them (~line 10650 of irduin2).
Another mechanical suggestion: since Irduin being split in two means global variables for a lot of its mysteries, those can be included in the stat screen as a kind of clue notebook that the reader can reference. Could be good for people who read across multiple sittings, or who like collecting in games.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone in this. I also had this misconception, all the way up until March of this last year, during my conversation with @apple about floating mountains. It might come from this old comment:
Something that comes to mind is that every chapter of the first game ended with a Father check-in: in his case, it was usually variations of “You will kill us all”, “You are a horrible leader”, and “I wish you weren’t my child” (and then he was dead, leaving a conspicuous absence at the very end of the game).
Our Gamgee could play a similar but less abusive role. I think every chapter has space in its ending to include a brief conversation about what the future holds.
- On the road to Sojourn: as is, the chapter break is a bit abrupt anyway since it wasn’t designed as one.
- Before crossing the Ward: there’s already some of this passing unspoken between us and our Gamgee: What if our time here changed us without our knowing? What if we can’t pass back? It represents a much broader question: how have we changed, and how has the world changed in our absence, because of our actions? What we can’t return home [to the rebellion]?
- During the week that Theurge Seichaeris is here, with all the accompanying tension. That passes by very quickly in the current text anyway.
Players without Gamgees can be alone in their own thoughts, as desired. Maybe a hallucination or two if there’s enough trauma.