The Color of Defiance

So, what's been up lately? How have I been spending your hard-won Patreon dollars this month?

Uh... mostly playing various live service games and not writing. My health sitch is, like, not terrific right now and I'm reaching for easy comforts.

But the project is still going, in other ways -- artists are working on art, I've reached out to voice actors, things are moving. And I'm pondering a revamp to what I've already released, and would love your feedback.

Spoilers for the beta...

I think the final scene with Nyarlathotep needs reworking. The issue is that she realizes a bit too easily and without any prompting that her revolution is aimless and destructive, and that she's lost her tether to humanity. It'll make my life harder, but I think I wanna rework this to allow for two paths...

1. She decides she can't forge tomorrow in blood and fire, and decides she needs to think about how to BUILD tomorrow as well as burn down today. The player will need to steer her this direction, and it won't be possible if they're chaotic -- they're already corrupted by her world view.

2. She decides to double down on the blood and fire, deciding that this recent tragedy proves the system is working as intended and must be destroyed. You can always pick this option regardless of your corruption.

This will affect the ending if you recruit her. Either her utopia is a dystopia, or it's a messy utopia -- it's up to the player to help her sort out the complications of her ambition.

The other Old Ones would follow similar paths. They hit a moment where they could challenge their preconceptions and the player either has to be defiant and push them to rethink things, or goes along for the ride. All four of them have a terrible idea for what to do with humanity, but can be swayed to temper their plans a bit.

This gets further complicated by the idea of doing a multi-god alliance, which tempers them by virtue of having others to plan with... but I think I can navigate the tangle.

My goal is to provide a satisfying story conclusion, whether the player wants to put the pedal down and run the car off the cliff or try to aim for something more ambiguously hopeful. We'll see if I can pull it off.

What do you think?