(Welcome to Sunless Sea.)
We do, however, have a bonus... a bonus whispered by some cat named Mikka who still hasn't figured out how to zail beyond the two isle's closest to London, but, hush. (All shall be well.) She has provided us with three secrets to start our journey. Secrets are how Captain Sera will raise her stats, and they're quite useful.
(We will speak of stats more soon, but there are five, named for five of the Masters of the Bazaar. You can see them in the top right area of the screen.)
(These three bonuses: the secrets, the long box, and the other box, are all gifts of sort from the Fallen London browser game. While the secrets are easy to transfer over, you may no longer have the option to transfer over the other two items. Isn't it sad? (Yet all shall be well.))
(Some people, more lucky/better with their money then me, may also have gotten a cat of sort. But there are no cats here, only ferrets! (Please send me a kitten.))
We also start with a bit of money- 120 Echoes- a badge marking us as Indomitable (and thus playing for keeps with no saves), a rather horrid gun and engine for our little steamer... oh, yes, and those three secrets, that are currently hidden by the text box.
One can also retire, although only if one has suitable accommodations (one doesn't retire in to an inn room!). If one has successfully completed all they wished for in life, this may be the path to walk. Captain Sera is a long way away from that, though: she will require 1000 Echoes to buy a townhouse, even more Echoes to buy a Mansion, and even mooooooore echoes to retire comfortably. Needless to say, that's not happening.
In London proper, we can put the ship in Drydock to repair it, hire more crew, visit the Admiralty, 'carouse', and as we luckily started with three secrets, visit the university. This costs a secret, but gives us access to the Alarming Scholar, who will buy our stranger items for decent coin.
Our once poet, now Captain then buys more fuel and supplies. She also buys two flares: they can be used to light up an enemy if you need to shoot them quick. Then, she sets off north.
The top left of the screen has your speed: 2 being forward and the fastest, 0 being just idling, -2 being trying to go backwards at a rather awkward speed. In certain weather, you cannot go at either of the second speeds; likewise, if you have less then half the maximum crew for your ship, you also cannot go at your fastest speed forwards or back. Beneath the speed is the Hull. The Steamer has 75 hull; most ships have more. If the Hull reaches 0, the ship sinks. It's very sad. One can repair the hull with one point of supplies per 5 points of hull... if one has over half their Hull left. There are many ways to repair the ship at the Drydock in London. Some zailor's say that there are other methods, usually involving rats, but that's silly. Right? Right.
Also on the top left are three bars: fuel, supplies, and terror. If you run out of fuel, you can't move. If you run out of supply, you starve. If you maximize your terror, you go mad. One should watch these bars very closely.
On the top right of the screen is our lovely Captain, the amount of crew on her ship (8 out of the 10 maximum), her officers (right now, only the Sly Navigator who seems to be adding +1 to the mirrors stat and the Ferret who is adding +1 to the Hearts stat), and the stats: Hearts, Veils, Pages, Mirrors, and Iron.
On the bottom right of the screen is the Log Book, which will report what's going on. Above it, though hard to see, is the experience meter. Although it is now grey, as the world is discovered, 'fragments' are collected. They slowly fill the bar with gold. When the bar is full, a Secret is uncovered.
In the bottom middle is the generic hotbar with KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS!
- First is the Zee-Bat, who may be able to figure out if there is an uncharted island or port nearby and direct you towards it. He's usually sort of stupid, and once your map is completely uncovered he's useless, but when first exploring the darkness he's helpful.
- Second is the illumination; in general, you want your lights on. If you travel with lights, your terror rises slower. However, you also use more fuel. One should turn off lights when around other light sources (buoys give off small amounts of lights, as do many ports, lighthouses and light ships, and some coastlines) to save fuel. One should also turn off lights when near a zee-beast or pirate that they don't wish to fight or alert. Finally, one should turn off lights when one is really low on fuel and desperate to get somewhere where they can refuel. Otherwise, lights should stay on. Terror is harder to reduce (in cost) then buying fuel is.
- Third is repair: as said, as long as you have over half your Hull left (rounded down to five with the 75Hull, it seems), one can trade one supply for five points of Hull. This, however, causes your ship to fall to speed 0 and drift aimlessly: it isn't to be done in combat. (If one wants to not repair to full, due to low supply or the like, one should hit R or reclick the little wrench to stop repairs.)
- Fourth is overheating your engines, which causes you to speed up tremendously at the cost of using fuel quicker and risking a fire that will damage hull and may result in crew loss. In general, the prime use of this is running away from zee-beasts and pirates that have spotted you and want to kill you that you don't want to be killed by.
- Fifth is the pause button. It pauses things. Genius!
- Sixth is your Gazette, which is useful for looking at what's in your hold, what your current tasks are in your journal, and speaking to your officer.
- Finally, seventh is the options button, which allows you to exit the game, and if you wish, switch to normal saving and loading. But what's the fun of that?
(The Sly Navigator is one of the 'starting' crew members- each background option gets one- and thus can only raise a stat to 50, and has a very simple quest: drop him off somewhere in exchange for a small bonus. Oddly, an affair can be started with him... but that's a complication of it's own. Later )
(Now for the stats. All are used in many different checks all over the Unterzee. Which means all are important. Iron and Veils are usually the easiest to raise, while Pages is by far the hardest. Each 'background' starts with +25 points to a certain statistic: because of the Pages thing, Poet and Natural Philosopher (the first who starts with the advantage to Pages, the second who starts with a companion that will trade secrets to 50 Pages) are often the two most used backgrounds.
On that note, Pages represents knowledge (and is also often used for straightforward diplomacy). When your character has to remember something or convince someone or something, Pages will be used. It's most loved use, though, is that it makes the amount of fragments you need to make a secret less. Using the math of the wiki, you half your Pages score, round down, and the subtract that from 300 (though this doesn't work if your pages score is below... 25, perhaps?). This means a Poet requires 13 less fragments to make a secret then any other start. Maybe. If the math is right.
Hearts uses are a bit vague. It is checked for anything relating to healing or terror; calming your crew down when they're terrified of everything under the sunless sky is almost always a hearts challenge. It may help reduce the amount of terror you lose in certain options. It's sometimes used for bravery. It doesn't seem to be used besides checks, though there are a good amount of Hearts checks. Doctors usually increase Hearts.
Iron is the most straightforward stat: combat. The higher your iron, the harder your guns hit (though the quality of your guns is a big part of that). It's also used for any other combat check: dueling with someone, fighting with someone, brawling with someone.... Gunnery Officers usually increase Iron.
Mirrors is your detection skill, and thus governs how soon you can fire your guns in combat (to me, making it even more useful then iron with my fighting style). It doubles with Veils as your deception skill: in general, seeing through deceptions and spying is mirrors, while other actions fall under Veils. First Officers usually increase your mirrors.
Veils, as said, is deception: it's how well you can lie, how well you can hide your illegal cargo (probably what you'll be using it for the most), and how well you can escape the sight of Everything That Wants To Kill you on the zee. If you have a small ship and small guns, Veils is quite useful.
You may get random events that increase skills. Some only increase them to certain points (usually 50, occasionally 100, rarely infinity). They're usually rare. The surefire way of increasing skills is Secret to Officer, though, and that's how one will get the majority of their skills.)
An exchange of news from London (gotten from reading the paper) is enough to get them to come out and spend some time with the Captain. One can have lunch with any of them. The two younger sisters are generally better at getting rid of terror, while Cynthia, it seems, may increase iron.
She also, however, has put Captain Sera under the intention of one of the Gods of the Zee. That is unlikely to be good. The Gods of Zee are very rarely merciful.
For the pirates, she mostly chases them in circles; surprisingly, it works, and she doesn't get hit once. From their fall, she gets one fuel, which... is probably what she spent chasing them. Hm.
(The bat swarms, 30Hull point pirates, and yellow small crabs the Captain will meet soon enough are fairly easily fought even with the starter ship and starter gun: don't be afraid to take them on. With a bit of practice, the jillyfish are easily enough killed, as well:you'll take 8 dmg from one charge if you're unlucky, then stick to it and not take anymore. In general, ships are harder then zee-beasts. Unless they're special zee-beasts...)
(The patch in testing as of 2/14, however, seems like it may change the way zee-beasts work so they learn to ram you repeatedly rather then trying to run away from you as you shoot them aimlessly. Be careful!)
(Look up at the top right. See the little terror bar? Around the skull is little dots, filled with orange. That means she's traveling in scary waters with lights on. They'll slowly increase until the circle around the skull is full, and then one's terror will go up. If she has her lights off in scary waters, they'll be red, and fill twice as fast. If one is in well lit waters with lights on, the dots will go green, and actually decrease: if you have fuel to spare, loitering near lights with a near full terror skull can be worth it.)
Instead, she takes a report to bring back to the Admiralty, ignores a very old man (if it was a man- the bandages make things difficult), and finds a good restaurant. There's a cook there, looking to sign on, but at 300 Echoes she cannot afford him. Too bad; she could use one. Zee-bats are not very tasty.
That's certainly not worth making the run over and over, but if she's ever heading this way for other reasons from London, some mushroom wine would be worth it.
Of course, that partying Tomb-Colonist wants 10 cases of it, first...
(See the lamp in the top right of the logbook? This means an event is waiting at your next port. Some ports have no events: Codex, for instance, does not. Most do, though; Wither, Hunters Keep, and London all do. In Hunters Keep, it means the sisters are out and ready for dining without requiring a Recent News to drag them away. In Wither, it meant the event below. In general, one should always go to London when there's a light on; it means terror reduction, a new recruit, and more options to reduce terror.)
Captain Sera takes port reports on both locations dutifully, though neither impresses. She also gets in a riddling contest in Wither.
A quick check of the markets doesn't produce much of interest. Codex sells the expected fuel and supplies, for marked up prices. Wither sells more interesting products, but at strange costs: they do not ask for Echoes, but rather for Zee-stories. Zee-stories are not things Sera has.
From the most northeast part of the map, she continues heading east. The only thing of note is a jillyfleur: a baby jellyfleur, perhaps. One can not blame a reader if one finds it hard to spot: it's the tiny green dot that's mostly covered by smoke.
Like many zee-monsters, a jillyfleur likes to charge in to boats. By keeping close to it, Captain Sera does not let it charge in to her boat. She thinks this is very clever of her, and after killing the damn thing, manages to pick out the edible parts so her zailors can eat it.
(The west coast and the south coast of the map are always the same, and you'll always find the same things in the north and east, though in different locations. The middle of the map is generally random, though with some pull: two locations are generally 'close to home waters' (this mysterious Gaius's Mourn the Captain is looking for being one of them), some locations are generally in the second from the bottom 'tile', others are more north...
As an aside, this is a really bad map. Ugh! There are four tiles in this game with no port in them, and it seems three of them are in the row right next to the starting area. Uncool. Randomization was not kind, this time.)
After three reports, she is invited to go see the Dark Spectacled Admiral. He doesn't have much to say right now: when she gains Strategic Intelligence from Gaius's Mourn, he would like to see it. He's also interested in Moves in the Great Game (played between Fallen London and the other nations of the Unterzee as well as those rare few who move between the surface), as well as Vital Intelligence. Captain Sera has none of that.
The man himself is terse, honorable, and seemingly slightly bitter. "We'll pay you well, don't worry. We understand you can't be expected to act entirely for love of the Empire. What's left of it."
Just as terse is the woman Captain Sera can only afford to hire on because of the money paid for port reports: the Brisk Campaigner, who rather then a Gunnery Officer is a doctor. It is customary for a Captain to dine with their crew to get to know them better, but the Brisk Campaigner's tastes are indeed expensive: and require Mutersalt.
Mutersalt was one of the odd items sold in Wither... for 7 Zee-stories. It may be some time before the Captain can collect that.
She takes a moment to climb the hilltop above the town, and observe the wind. Although wind is rare in the Uterzee, it isn't here: she decides it must be the caves around the island. It's not all that comforting.
The wind is southernly. Not NORTH. This may be an omen.
Still, she takes a port report- unlikely to be profitable, considering how close the Canal is to London and how many ships go this way, and listens to the surfacers talk. She learns of Moves of the Great Game; the Admiralty will be interested.
All that is sold is here is supplies and fuel, both marked up. And Sera is down to 3 echoes after paying a islander at Mutton Island for a port report.
Still, she continues south.
Romantic Literature is banned in London (at least, until Master Page's men have taken out anything they consider against morality); the House of Pleasures would be a good place to sell it, if Captain Sera had it. Likewise, the strange stones that come from the far east would sell better here then they do in London. But only if the House of Pleasures still rules: often, all one can find in the Iron Republic is fuel.
Cheap fuel.
Not knowing what else to do, the Captain continues southerly.
The Dawn Machine. What is it? What has it become?
What is this behind it? The Barnsmore Gap...
Southerly, Captain Sera sails on.
She has 6 fuel, 42 Hull, 10 Supplies, and 94 terror. There is nothing to do but head home.
NORTH.
(On the right, a very rare merchant ship. There are only around six of them in game, and they don't do much: you can attack and kill them, sure, but they have no other interaction. They also tend to sail on top of islands. Their engines must be awesome.)
Things happen. Bad things.Same things. Twice. Thankfully, that leaves her with six crew. If she went down to four, she would go half speed. She would never make it home.
Her crew are giving her strange/terrified looks, but it was a monster. She's certain.
Salt would require a secret, though, and the Captain has no more secrets; she spoke to the Brisk Campaigner to increase her Hearts, instead. And what would the result of such a sacrifice be?
However, more practically, one can convert two supplies in to one unit of fuel. That is practical, although Captain Sera doesn't need it to make it to London, thankfully.
'Irem', the Merchant Venturer mentions. That's where her box belongs, if she ever can find such a place. Still, it like this Mount Palmerston is north, so perhaps there's a chance.
She stops and trades some recent news to the sisters, this time choosing to dine with Lucy. Lucy feeds her and offers supplies, and tells silly stories that reduce her lasting fear. However, there is a strange note to such tales: the wounded god Storm looks down.
Illegal items (though not romantic literature) can be sold at Gaius's Mourn- of course. The prices are not impressive, though: hopefully the Blind Bruiser will pay more then 150 Echoes after she's done this little delivery.Incredibly marked up fuel and supplies are also sold, of course. Pirates need that sort of thing.
Thankfully, a poet in London is used to being broke.
Mount Palmerston supposedly has a complicated little story, the natives whisper: they live at the port, but on the mountain are the devils who rebelled against Hell. There is irony in that, but Sera is more concerned about getting some echoes.
Like the Iron Republic, fuel is quite cheap here; it must be the devils work. Only 9 echoes. Supplies only cost 22 echoes, which isn't much of a markup. This would be a very good place to resupply. Mount Palmerston is also known for it's 'Zzoop'. It's a strange substance that sailors usually don't wish to eat, though they apparently will if they're starving.
Rich enough to buy a townhouse.
Sadly, after stealing ALL HIS MONEY, the Cheery Man sends the Blind Bruiser and a handful of thugs to teach her a lesson. Death is hard to come by in Fallen London, but there is a fate even worse then exile to the Tomb-Colonies: exile with the drownies. As in, those who have drowned, but still walk. They're quite unpleasant.
(This is actually a mistake of sorts; it would have been better to let our good lady Sera to drown (or otherwise die) at the zee. But this was sort of a 'tutorial' run (see all the helpful information, SEE?!), and the map was just annoying me.)
Sera's journey complete, it's time to choose the life of the one who travels after her!
(Which is better done OOCly.
New characters start with all their stats at 25 (choosing a background adds 25 more to a stat). Sera's highest stat was 51 Pages- rounded down, that comes to exactly 25. This means she unfortunately has no stats to pass down (and even if she did have Pages to pass down, that would also involve passing down her Chart- meaning the Zee would be the same, and someone else would be stuck with that horrible map!). So that 'retains 50% of stats' is useless to us.
As we've discussed, we don't want to pass down that map, so Correspondent is not a good idea. Sera never bought any weapons, so Rival would just pass down... the crappy starting gun that sells for 10 echoes that the next character will already have. No good.
So we'll either want to pass down money, or an officer. Half of Sera's money is around 156 Echoes; that's not a bad starting present for a new lad or lass. However more useful is probably passing down our friendly doctor. She may have only cost 50 Echoes to recruit, but it's completely random whether she would show up or not, and there are only two doctor's in game (besides the creepy starting officer one of the backgrounds starts off with, who is Creepy).
As for those most interesting looking items on the right that raise one's starting stats... all there are are vague hints. 'Raise a child, and bring it gifts of the Zee.' 'Raise the Anarchists to Power'. 'Go North'. 'Rise High and Go East'. (And two not in the game yet, but supposedly that's a lie.) Interesting...)
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