Didn’t romance anyone since I got no time for that, so for me he happiest ending is definitely do your job as a doctor and go travel on your own again.
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alviva is the lesser evil among 3 mayor. The couvet is even more evil than blake
I just finished my first playthrough, quite a refreshing experience. Lot’s of grey decisions as opposed to black and white and you really get immersed into the grim atmosphere.
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One of the best games I played this year so far! The plot keeps you on your toes all the time, lives ride on your decisions after all, but the lighter moments with your fellow doctors helped a lot with breaking that tension (boar and fox best quarantine buds!). I started playing leaning more towards the science side (I am a nursing student), but as it went… I got completely swept off by the Dweller of Thorns path — just holy shit! All the whispers send real chills down my spine, the imagery related to this deity/entity was so clear in my mind, so chilling and I felt so compelled to follow it to the end — and what an end!
Just waiting for the shock to wear off, so I can tackle the second playthrough!
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Well, I doubt there could be a more perfect time to release this story, both in terms of themes and in free time. Doubly so, since I’m working in the artillery for this pandemic, so I feel pretty close to our protagonist here.
First off… I am quite impressed with the world building. This time period is usually a decent challenge to tackle and yet I was engrossed at the start( the page describing how the period is and the changes done for the story helps a lot in this regard).
The characters are also amazingly well done…with a nice surprise in that this sentiment applies to the minor characters as well.
Sure, Alice, Ioco and Lucia are wonderful partners-went with Alice, since her drive for knowledge and optimism ensnared me easily, though all three romantic options are all amazing-but the minor characters also felt more than just NPCs. The abbot, who tries his best to give comfort to the sick while staying close to his fate; the Baron, who cares for his subjects, but still has Crown politics to worry on… even Sibyl, who I found fit the decadent court stereotype almost to a t was kept from being a one-dimensional villain with that love for her son. Even the one-offs get their due-the thief who you can save, the old woman that you give a letter to and who has family, etc.; even if their names are lost in the maelstrom of the plot, their impact is felt much. Few things makes one’s choices in CYOAs as impactful as a world that feels lived in and this definitely passes the test with full marks.
As for the plot itself…who knew you could make a compelling medical drama out of peasants and knights?
Of course, this being my first playthrough, there are still branches to take (In the end, got the cure and the vaccine, but apparently my crowning of Cogent and one smarmy remark too many kept me from the top spot…though it did lead me to not piss off both Alice and Ioco, which I am happy for), but even within the path I took, I was engrossed. Felt the camaraderie with my fellow plague doctors in their small moments of togetherness, the desperation of the sanctuary and the villagers, the decadence of Sibyl’s court, the tension at Alice’s self-experimentation…and the relief(not joy, but relief) that the worst is finally over and having done some good in that world. And, having one toe in science as a Chemistry major, and the other as a Catholic, it was nice that both religion and science are treat with good respect here, letting those that want to lean to either side do so( though I did take the science route in this run.)
All in all…with a premise as unique as this one and with an execution that knocks it out of the park, I would say that this is one of the best CYOAs I have seen on here yet and would recommend this as a very good treatment for boredom in this pandemic.
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We should talk about your favorite archivment my favorites are the horsing Around archivment
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Thanks your your service in the fight! I glad this provided a much needed diversion.
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It’s been really gratifying to read the comments from actual medical workers on this thread - and I echo Mary’s thanks! My sister-in-law is a nurse (in a hospital with enough PPE, thankfully). It’s a fraught time right now. I wish you were all getting significant hazard pay.
And thank you for everybody’s comments, I’ve read them all! If anybody spots typos or code errors or continuity issues, please do post them in here. I want to make sure as many things as possible are tidied up 
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Patch notes for the latest update (hidden, because most are Chapter Ten or later)! Let me know if I inadvertently broke anything…
Summary
- Chapter Four: Achievement for keeping your mask on at dinner will now trigger correctly.
- Chapter Ten: Ioco now notes he has no green pigment for a sketch because the monks use it to dye their hoods.
- Chapter Eleven: Fixed a few continuity errors referencing Aylwin’s presence at the Sanctuary (even if he’s not there).
- Chapter Eleven: Fixed a line that would reference Sibyl’s death, even if she had been spared.
- Chapter Eleven/Twelve: Fixed a continuity error that referred to multiple Dweller volunteers, even if Sanctuary was shared.
- Chapter Eleven/Twelve: When visiting Aylwin in the Sanctuary, player will now mention that Sibyl wishes to speak with him.
- Chapter Twelve: Fixed a repeating line about touching your disfigured face in the Dweller path.
- Chapter Twelve: Fixed an instance of player pronouns being incorrect.
- Chapter Twelve: Reworded the Baron’s response to evidence of Sibyl’s crimes.
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No, for you to be invited to the Fellowship, you must help Sibyl remain in power.
This game is absolutely fantastic, and has given me one of my favorite moments in any Choice of Game. Beware end game spoilers.
I had discovered the source of the infection, made a vaccine, made an effective cure, and overthrown the incompetent mayor with proof. I could do no wrong.
So when I walked up to the big bad baron’s tent after fixing everything and told him “No I don’t wanna tell you anything. I’ve fixed it all you can leave,” he killed me. And I deserved it.
I have not had an ending crash and burn so fast, so believably, and so deservedly in any other game. Well done!
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@WinterHawk I love that you responded so well to getting that ending in those circumstances! Very much taken in the spirit it was intended.
In case you were curious, you can just about get away with refusing to share any information, but your Crown Favor has to be very high (70+, I believe - and you need to have found a cure and/or inoculation). Since you mention overthrowing Sibyl, I imagine you may have put Alviva in charge, which is a pretty big hit to the Favor stat.
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How do you get the cure? I have played the game a couple times and the endings i got was the ending where my RO (alice) and my character died and the cure was not found
It is not just one choice, it is a combination of several.
The stats “Plague Cure” needs to be at least 60 for the mandrake’s cure and 62 for the blood and friendship cure (for the best version of the cure, you can get a partial cure with less). You can get the good friendship cure if you have >= 60 relationship with both Alice and Ioco even with low “Plague Cure”.
What @Urban said is correct, but I get the sense you might be getting the “early” (mostly bad) ending in Chapter 10. If that’s the case, the problem is the town “Infection Level” being too high, so try to take actions to keep it down!
If it’s that “Plague Cure” is too low, here are some spots where you get the chance to raise it:
Chapter Two: Saving Eustace from falling.
Chapter Three: Passing the check to try to induce sleep in the Sanctuary patients, also some of the ‘Physician’ checks during the dream/vision sequence at the end.
Chapter Four: Successfully burning the bodies, OR stopping Alexander and his dodgy cures. Visiting the mayor’s garden and grabbing the purple plant.
Chapter Five: If you get the ‘Silent Cellar Monks’ dilemma, keeping them around for observation.
Chapter Six: Just having a chat with Alice early in the chapter raises it a small amount here.
Chapter Eight: Successful or semi-successful investigation of the lichen boosts plague cure a bit.
Chapter Nine: Saving the rabbit warrens, doing any sort of testing (allowing Alice to do it, or other volunteers).
Chapter Ten: If you don’t go to the ball, passing the checks with the foreign prisoner will raise the stat. If you do go to the ball, successfully raiding the library works too.
Chapter Eleven: Passing the check to discover the Dweller cult resistance tends to raise it.
Chapter Twelve: Having knowledge of the mandrake root properties will raise it in this chapter, if you’re going that cure route.
You don’t need to hit ALL of those, by any means. Probably even half will do just fine. Good luck!
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I’m trying to get all the achievements and I’ve only got 5 left -
Duelist - I’ve had someone teach me dueling, I assume I need to beat them, but I have no idea what stats I need.
Out of Ashes - Is this an ending? Do I have to let the town get burned or something else?
Medical Error - no idea how to get this one. Who dies? I guessed it might be Alice, but I haven’t managed to kill her in any of my play throughs
Near Miss - This seems like a cure I missed? No idea what options to pick
Final Bargain - I already got a different achievement for betraying a friend. When do I get this one instead?
This was a lovely game and you can probably tell I’ve played it multiple times. My first ending was the dweller one and I think my favourite.
I even tried just choosing the first option for everything to see what would happen. I can’t remember now, but I know it lead to me being in a romance and having to turn down another person. And I think it lead to at least a half cure too.
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Now that’s some completionist dedication! Let me consult the inner workings of my code and see if I can help with these…
The game’s been out a while, but I’ll spoiler blur some of this.
Duelist - This one is difficult to get (by design, Lucia’s good at swordplay!) You’ve got the gist of it. In Chapter 6, go see Lucia (rather than Alice or Ioco) when the chance arises. You’ll need a Resilience stat of 58+, OR Panache of 58+. If you’ve got the former, choose “I’ll stay on the defensive.” If you’ve got the Panache, choose “Friendly practice? Never!” The achievement should pop on the next page.
Out of Ashes - To get this one, you first need to screw up a bit! So, by Chapter 10 you need the Infection Level to be 62+ (you’ve replayed a lot, so you can probably intentionally mess things up enough to achieve this - let Eustace fall off the Sanctuary roof in Chapter 2, leave the Sanctuary open for visitors in Chapter 3, stuff like that). You’ll then be shunted into the “oh dear, the Baron is going to burn the town down” ending. Choose any of the “we’re going to try to escape” options, and you should wind up guiding at least a few people to safety. The achievement should pop up in the epilogue.
Medical Error - This is a super, super rare one. It’s a very specific and narrow path (that’s my fault, looking at this now I’m amazed anybody has got it at all). I’ll try to reverse engineer this as best I can…
In Chapter 8, make you sure you mess up gathering the lichen in the caves. You need lower than 52 in whichever stat you try with (so just make sure you’re crap at Mysticism or something, then use that).
However, you will still need to know enough about the plague to identify the source correctly. The Sourcing the Contagion stat needs to be 58 by the end of Chapter 9.
In Chapter 11, when dealing with the food dilemma for the population, try to mess it up. The easiest way (if Sibyl is still mayor) is to be too ruthless for the compassionate “come on, share some food” choice, or too populist for “they can owe you with future earnings” option. If you relationship with Sibyl is lower than 55 these will fail too. If someone else is mayor, either be too feudalist for “requisition the food!” or not opportunistic enough for “give people food in return for joining the militia”. Again, having a relationship of lower than 55 with whoever is in charge will also fail these. If your compassion stat is 46%, you can also do the “triage approach” - that should fail as well. It’ll become clear why you want to do this in a bit …
Then, later in Chapter 11, when you’re researching with Alice, or examining bodies with Ioco, or doing Mystic Dweller Things, or relying on your recruits, you need to have high enough stats to figure out “oh, we could make an inoculation”. That’s either 60 Physician or 60 relationship with Alice (Alice route), 60 Surgeon or 60 with Ioco (Ioco), 60 Mysticism or the Dweller’s Mark (Mystic route), or at least 6 medical recruits (recruits route).
I told you it was involved … okay, so, you should then be able to choose to try to develop an inoculation. Since you only retrieved small amounts of the lichen (Chapter 8), you’ll be able to choose to use what little you have left on yourselves or “Prepare what few does we can”.
Then! (whew), in Chapter 12 you should get a scene where you’re in the Sanctuary basement doling out the vaccine. This is the penultimate hurdle, and where things get a bit tricky. For the inoculation to be semi-fatal, you need Sourcing the Contagion to be 57 or lower. But what’s that, you say? It needed to be 58 or more earlier on to even begin this sequence? … yes, it did. I think that’s a bit of a design flaw on my part. But! You can make this work. Remember when you screwed up with food distribution in Chapter 11? That’ll give you a 15% penalty to the Contagion Source stat (because people are starving), which HOPEFULLY puts you back under 58.
If the above sequence works out correctly (you might have to try this several times, I’m so sorry), then you will be inoculating people in the basement, the inoculation will go wrong, and you will have the chance to cover up the error. A stat of 60+ in anything except Mysticism (there isn’t an option for that) will be enough to succeed, as long as you pick the right corresponding choice (so, lying is Panache, blocking the door is Resilience, the medical one is Physician OR Surgeon, and the threats one is Presence).
Then the achievement should trigger. Easy, right? 
Near Miss - This one is a BIT more straightforward. You need to create a cure with unfortunate side effects. Two ways to go about that - in Chapter 12, when settling on a cure method; if you have the creepy, silent monks hanging around in your cellar, you can try to make a cure from their blood, or (easier, since it will always be an option), go with “Our knowledge is slim, but if we combine what we know…”
For the achievement, you need to fail but not TOO badly. On the blood cure route, that means having a Plague Cure stat of at least 53, but LOWER than 60. For the power of friendship (and luck) route, you’ll be wanting Alice and Ioco at 52+ OR Plague Cure at 55+, but lower than Alice and Ioco at 55+ or the Plague Cure at 60+.
Again though, this one is a narrow path.
Final Bargain - Appropriately, this is the final one! For this, you need to reach the end of Chapter 12 where you’re presenting everything to the Baron, and have him condemn you to death. You will also need a Panache of 60+, no other stat will work. Having a low Crown Favor (below 65) should do the trick. Do NOT try to bluff him, because having high Panache can actually help you succeed there.
Then, when condemned, do the “Plead for clemency” option. Your Panache will talk the Baron around, and the achievement should pop.
I hope that’s enough of a guide for you! The ‘Medical Error’ one is honestly kind of absurd, and I really shouldn’t have tied an achievement to such a fringe result. I’ll know better for my next game…
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Rather odd that nobody comments on my name 
.
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Haha, very nice.
In my head, the citizens are assuming you’re somebody who shows up to Halloween in a costume of questionable taste
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I made an account just to let you know how much I adored this story! I took the Alice romance route, cured the plague, put out an inoculation, but wasn’t able to secure my fellowship through that pompous oaf. It definitely has replay value, but I’m so attached to my original MC and to her adorable relationship with Alice… I’ll definitely give it another whorl, though, to see if I can snag that fellowship and Alice and I can live happily ever after. 
Thank you so very much for such a spectacular story! I devoured it all in one sitting.
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