Hey, welcome to the thread!
Whoa! Congratiulations. So burning the trees really is a meningful choice… I thought it was much more personal preference.
Nope, it seems to wipe out a quarter of their forces and demoralize the rest. May be based on RNG though, so I may have just gotten lucky. In my case it was trading all those pretty trees 
for keeping Bjel and Elery alive. Though with half the forest burned down it may be more difficult for our surviving band to hide, so that decision may yet come to bite my mc in the backside during the next game.
No choice in this series seems to be without some consequence or at least that’s how it feels, which is part of why this is my favourite choice game to date. @Havenstone really outdid himself.
I don’t think you need to burn the trees if you can get the band to commit to battle wholeheartedly, which only seems to be possible if you can get rid of Breden and their damned charisma before making your chapter 4 choice. So damned Breden again! 
I wish my mc could get some charismatic skeptic followers who aren’t Kryptasts (or Laconniers). 
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It is possible to do this, though I had the easiest time of it when playing as an Int 2/Cha 1 MC who is a secret Theurge. Of course, in those games I tend to put as many people as I can building traps, recruiting other people, getting the Phalangites, have Suzanne de Firiac and having the rest take up weapons practice (become rangers). Literacy wasn’t even on the board then.
And even then, I usually only have 1/3 of the adults left in the group. Of course, considering I usually end up slaughtering 400-500 people (including the auxiliary forces) I consider it a fair trade-off. And if nothing else, if my MC ever meets Zvad/Sybla again, they will be able to say “I told you so”.
Heh, it does make me wonder if @Havenstone has a group which believes in some kind of reincarnation. That could be an interesting belief system to encounter in game.
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Well that goes for my mc now too.
Hmm…giving up literacy may be an even greater sacrifice for my mc then sacrificing all those pretty trees, particularly since he’ll desperately need educated cadres to replace the nobles and the priests in the future and he’d rather not draw every last one of them from the merchants.
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Well, that was a nice ride
Summary
This is the state of your leadership and the rebellion:
Kurios Ouren de Serin
Born a noble of the Shayard Rim
Traits
Charisma: You are inspiring, eloquent, and naturally charming.
Combat: You’re unlikely to win a fight or lead others to victory.
Intellect: You have decent reasoning skills and basic knowledge on a range of topics.
You are popularly seen to be:
Ruthless: 36% Compassionate: 64%
Skeptical: 50% Devout: 50%
Homelander: 32% Cosmopolitan: 68%
Followers
Your rebellion has 322 surviving followers, including 267 adults and 55 children.
Of these, 35 are literate. 308 are currently infiltrating the Rim; the rest remain in the Whendward Hills.
Since the rebellion began, 51 of your followers have died, including 5 children.
Morale is exceptionally strong.
Resources
Wealth: 0
Arms: 20
Mules: 5
Anarchy: 7
And, as is said before
Well crafted setting and engaging story. Great job, Havenstone. Truly 
Okay, gotta go to do couple of alternative playthroughs. Being good guy and avoiding all bloodsheds aside from noble hunt retaliation and plektoi encounter was great experience, but now I should satisfy my lust for a good epic battle.
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I’ve just finished playing this game. It’s the best Choice of Games I’ve played.
I particularly loved the gritty, realistic world and the dark atmosphere. It always brings out human nature(if well-written) to light. I tried best to save myself (and let everyone else die if I can live) and I had many shivers in tense moments in the game. Many decisions made me to stop and think for many minutes which makes this a very well written game.
I was a bit disappointed by the end though because with 650,000 words I thought the game would go on a while longer. I’ve played through the game twice more after the initial finish.
I’m really curious about one thing in the sequel outline. Would this series end with toppling the old regime and overcoming whatever imminent danger that follows, or will we get a proper chance to rule, make decisions, and see consequences without being in the middle of war or adventure, instead solely focused on politics and ruling aspect as a ruler?
I like the idea of leading the revolt enough but I would love even more the idea of your ideals coming to fruition or disaster.
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My Simon left for no particular reason. Maybe he’s the one who poisoned the soup?
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Simon/Suzane most likely isn’t the traitor. It’s most likely the noble left because you executed Horian and Linos (which I assume you did.) Remember, the talk of having a traitor in the rebellion started way before the noble or the firebrand helot joined. The reason why the noble joined you was because you kept your anarchy level at 20 or below and they believe you’re keeping the door open to your rebellion to all that opposes the Hegemony, regardless of whoever is a noble, yeoman, helot, or anyone that is not a Shayderne.
Some people, like myself, believes that Breden is the traitor to the rebellion due to his/her actions throughout the game. Especially when Breden tries to find out what you were planning on doing when you choose to raid the Alastors, opposing your fight back or retreat deeper into the woods in favor to sending your rebellion back to the helot camps where your people are potentially facing a Harrowing, he/she was one of the three people that cooked food that ended up poisoning your people in Chapter 4, and the fact that if you chose Zvad as your deputy, Breden still gathers enough support to make Zvad look like he really is 3rd in command to Breden to you. Also, Radmar accuses Breden of being a traitor at least twice, once in private at the beginning of the rebellion after you stop the Harrowing and once out of anger after his husband Poric was poisoned and Breden tried to put the blame on Joana because she passed out the food to everyone.
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I think it is Breden because if you kill him with Zvad you don’t get
poisoned
I think this isn’t set in stone. Atleast, game have variables for situations where Breden isn’t second most influental after you.
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That’s only if you don’t allow Breden to lead raids on the temples, reassure the people, get mules and food from merchants and yeomen. You have to try to limit her actions for the band to make sure Breden doesn’t gain too much support. It worked out well for me in the end after I got frustrated and realized what I did wrong. Once I realized it, I started having Zvad, Elery and Radmar lead on certain things while putting limits on Breden, I was able to gain enough support to turn the band against her helot camp idea. Pretty tempted to start a new game where I do the same but I execute them after the poisoning.
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Heh, I realy not sure that Breden is a traitor. Precisely because there is too much evidence toward them. Someone so smart should be able to cover their tracks more skillfully.
Also, here we have poisoning incindent. I doubt that all three are traitors, and if we believe them, that they were watching each other, and only time someone could poison food is when they left it together for some time, then there should be additional traitor besides Breden to poison it. Yup, knowing how charismatic Breden is, they could recruit someone inside group for help, but that would be overthinking… following that logic, I could condemn all of the group as potentional traitors.
Of course, I still highly suspicious toward Breden, but at the same time I can’t help but feel that something is off.
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True, but who really knows what will happen in the sequel? I made Breden come with me and Yed to the Xaos-Lands and left Zvad to lead my rebellion in Shayard in my absence. I did that to test Breden to see if he was really a traitor or not without having him know that I’m giving him the test. If he is a traitor then I’ll leave him behind there, if not, well I’d have to take a hard look at Radmar because he’s one of the three that did not show up at the meeting when the group was caught and sent to a Harrowing. I’d honestly be shocked if it was Radmar the entire time due to his actions and the fact that he is married to a former helot man which is forbidden by the Theurgy. I’d also consider Joana and the father too. As a helot (I think) your father will admit to betraying someone to the Alastors but he gets killed by the Plektoi raid so problem solved on that end, I suppose.
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What about the fact that if you kill Breaden early on your food doesn’t
get poisoned?
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That’s good to know. That’s strong giveaway that Breden is indeed traitor… or maybe real traitor decided not to act, since he didn’t have suitable target to be the scapegoat.
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On current plans, at the end of Game IV, the Thaumatarch will fall–though many of the key decisions in that game will already be governance decisions, over the bits of the former Hegemony where your rebellion holds sway.
Game V will be all about consequences post-Hegemony. The war between major factions and outside powers will be a big part of it, but the governance theme will be an even bigger part, with you grappling with the responsibilities of being a rebel who won.
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Yeah that’s one of the reasons why I’m very suspicious towards Breden.
Will we be crowned King/Queen once the Thaumatarch falls? Or will we have the option to create a new government system that doesn’t depend on nobility?
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I do not believe Breden is a traitor.
Too many deliberate circumstantial evidences are given in the game to make us suspect she is the traitor. There is not one hard evidence that points fingers at her. (For ex. she really could have had left her sot unattended as she defended herself) On the other hand I do not think a spy or traitor would have done what she can do in the game as the band’s 2nd-in-command, including going past the ward, coming up with an escape strategy without which the rebels would have been wiped out, and also the Rimsqaure harrowing in which you were not exposed until Breden calls you out if you decide to stand by till the end.
If Breden was a traitor the authority should have known about you before that.
I think the traitor is one of less memorable characters who did’t do much in the first episode. It’s entirely possible that the exposure of the meeting was simply coincidence and a traitor started leaking information after the first chapter. There are so many possibilities but my gut feeling tells me Breden is innocent in this.
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Feel the paranoia, feel the paranoia. That said I do think Breden is highly dodgy and my mc is still a bit concerned Simon might either be a Laconnier plant or at least harbour sympathies for their cause.
I think Breden might be manipulated by the real kryptast in the rebellion, but she certainly is a power-hungry snake with too much charisma. I really think they were just a helot recruited, or perhaps more accurately impressed by the Kryptasts to do their dirty work for them.
I don’t think we know the whole story, but innocent goes a bit too far I think, their own hunger for power plus trying to possibly play double agent for both the Hegemony and the rebellion, until they can decisively determine which way the wind is going to be blowing to conveniently side with the victor cannot be ruled out.
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