Shifting Loyalties Story Discussion (Spoilers)

[SpectreEliteGaming]

This thread is so full of win right now I don't even want to talk about what really happens.

[Absolution Black]

Maybe that is Lucius' face..a constantly twisting distorting visage....?

[Carcosa]

He thinks he is Dorian Grey, AND his portrait at the same time!!!

[Kofibrake]

okay, so risking a shower of silliness:

 

does Lucius gets promoted to the Ministry of Silly Walks, as was his initial intention, as well as being the Governor's secretary?

 

is Zoraida getting her rhinoplasty and breast implants at last?

 

Who marries Lilith?

[SpectreEliteGaming]

Woh now... my mean spirited funny post seems to have magically evaporated from the forums... if we aren't going to have fun anymore...

 

 

 

 

.... Govenor-General blows up Thunder style (from BTiLC) trying to super saiyan - so who cares - Justice gets her ass kicked, and we find out that Lucius is actually a butterface and dances like a little girl. The End.

 

/shrug - it was okay.

 

 

I'm confused about the Leveticus situation though - him going in and out of rider form is taking a physical avatar form - I thought it was "spiritual awakening" only - Alyce even makes mention to her hating when Levy becomes the rider, or whatever.

 

I'm guessing Levy can do it no prob because he's king shit - but I was kind of hoping he'd nuke himself into a sort of new-age spiritual Tyrant - Master of Machines, as it were. Oh well.

[Kaptain_Konrad]

What do you mean butterflies and dances like a girl? And who beats lady j?

[Kaptain_Konrad]

My friends favorite master is lady j. And I play pandora, love causing that misery.

[StormLordXIII]

The jokes on this thread have been awesome, but for people interested in purchasing the book or waiting for theirs to arrive in the mail, here are a few cool things that might catch your interest - these are the stories I've skimmed so far; I can add more info later when I've taken a closer look at things.

 

Each faction gets a pretty long story that moves the plot forward for that faction forward indirectly by illuminating more about key characters that I don't think got attention in Crossroads (so basically Wave 1 Masters).

 

At the very end is an epic piece (called Shifting Loyalties; it's about 40-50pages) that directly moves the plot forward as the Governor general attempts to tighten greater control over his subjects, manifests, and... you'll have to read the rest, but it's a cool multi-perspective story. There's a fantastic dialogue between Perdita and the Governor that reveals just how much Malifaux has changed since he first arrived there.

 

The Outcasts have an awesome story that shifts between the first and third person as told by Taelor about her experiences coming to Malifaux; she's at a bar and as she gets progressively drunker, the stories change. It's really cool!

 

The Ten Thunders also a neat story, half of which takes place earthside, so people interested in reading about a steam-punk, Guild occupied China will enjoy it. Lots of juicy details about Thunders. It features Mei Feng and Kang, although the central POV character is a doctor tricked into coming to Malifaux as a refugee from the brutal Guild occupation.

 

Ressers have a sweet piece called Dead Man's Ball - title says it all!

 

Haven't read skimmed through Guild, Arcanists, or Gremlins yet, but I am looking forward to it!

 

The

[some_scrub]

Warning: There might be some actual spoilers about what really happens.

 

I just finished the last few pages of Shifting Loyalties which I've been reading steadily since I picked up a copy at GenCon. I have some individual thoughts on each story, but first I wanted to say that overall I really enjoyed reading it and, after having read some fluff for certain other games recently, I think Malifaux rulebooks still have the best fluff sections of any game currently on the market or otherwise. And it's not close.

 

That said, I think this book didn't live up to the phenomenal standard set by Crossroads last year and was merely 'great' or 'very good' or something. Last year, I thought the anthology format suited Crossroads really well. Having stories in many different styles reflects Malifaux and its combination of visual and aesthetic styles. That worked especially well for crossroads since the stories were set at different points chronologically and didn't have any obligation to push the main narrative forward. This year, the mix of mostly unconnected stories for each faction, and then a major narrative-driving story at the end was just awkward. Having the faction-specific stories touch on the same loose theme (ie 'Shifting Loyalties') is a great idea, but for some reason it didn't play that well. Perhaps it was executed too subtly, or wasn't a strong enough theme. I felt like any of these stories could have been in any other Malifaux publication.

 

Also, I was surprised that there were no hints in the fiction about the Campaign (which seems amazing from a gameplay perspective). Basically it seemed like there was a 65 page campaign rulebook glued to the front of my 200 Shifting Loyalties book, but there wasn't much of a connection other than the idea of Avatars, which didn't really come up until the last 50 pages of the Shifting Loyalties portion.

 

Role Reversals (Guild)

 

This was my least favorite story in the book. Sonnia is one of my favorite characters, so I'm always glad when she shows up, but other than that this story didn't do much for me. The overall setup didn't make for exciting storytelling (all the characters in the story know it's a trap but don't care...so why would the reader?) and the final reveal didn't mean much to me. Was this a character I was supposed to recognize? The gimmick of each character fighting the wrong kind of enemy also didn't seem that interesting. In the end, this one just reminded me of single-issue a superhero team up comic;  most of the appeal is that it's cool to see the different superheroes fighting together.

 

The Dead Man's Ball (Ressers)

 

In contrast, this one was one of my favorites (probably #3). I find that Malifaux stories work best when told from the perspective of a character who is mostly unfamiliar with the weirdness of the world they live in, since it's easier for a reader to identify with that perspective. Also it allows the author to highlight those weird and terrifying bits of the Malifaux world that make it so interesting; one thing that will always stick out to me from some piece of Malifaux fluff that I read years ago was the 2 line description of aethervoxes and the way people would sometimes go crazy and listen to the static with rapt attention. Gwen was an interesting character, and a young girl being instructed in the arts of necromancy by a mysterious voice in her head is exactly the kind of creepy element that makes Malifaux fluff tick. Plus, having a Tara cameo was fun.

 

High Noone (Arcanists)

 

I've been playing Marcus almost exclusively for 18 months, so I'm glad he finally got some loving in the fiction. This one was sort of middling for me. The general outline of the story was mostly fine, but suffered from the fact that Marcus' plan was totally transparent and there was no risk of him getting killed by some random guild officer. In general, having characters that are so important to the story that they cannot be harmed is a major obstacle for creating interest in the fiction and it sort of showed here. Probably the most interesting part of the story was the position of the local M&SU boss who tried to avoid getting tangled up in the Guild vs Arcanist conflict, but got tangled up in it anyway.  

 

Master of Fate (Neverborn)

 

This was my favorite of the faction stories. First of all, I think it was the best-written, and part of that was the fact that it was very funny. I'm not really sure if that fit the subject matter or not, but I loved it anyway. I'm smiling right now thinking about the description of a random guild official being as magisterial in her proportions as the hallway she was walking down, and the ways Lilith and Pandora each ended up being perfect for their desk jobs in the Guild HQ. This story also benefitted from having the best 'twist' at the end, and the tantalizing glimpse at Zoraida's past worked very well for me. I think we're probably all suckers for origin stories, especially ones told in interesting ways. Also I don't remember Pandora getting much screen time in the fiction before, but I really enjoyed her personality in this story. So much so, in fact, that it almost cost me $40. Almost.  

 

Welcome to Malifaux (Outcast)

 

From a technical point of view, this was the most ambitious piece of storytelling in the book by a clear margin, and I'm happy to say it mostly hit the mark. Other than Master of Fate, I thought this was the best of the faction stories. First of all, this story did a wonderful job of tantalizing us with hints about the way Malifaux works; I don't think I realized how special Relic Hammers are in the fluff before this story. Certainly I didn't realize that there was one per tyrant, nor did I realize they each had their own personality. Given what Taelor had to go through to get hers, I'm especially interested in the stories behind the ones belonging to Johan and the Captain. And where are the rest of them anyway? Also, where can I read more about the Nameless? Also Tara and especially Karina are really fun characters. 

 

The way the story was structured as a series of 3 individual scenes, each narrated by a progressively drunker Taelor and each of dubious veracity, was a wonderful idea and really compelling in practice. There were some sections where the style of the narration changed sort of abruptly as we started or came to the end of one of the self contained stories and more of Taelor's particular speech patterns came out, but it's hard to have a story stay readable when the whole thing is written in vernacular. The one thing that annoys me about this story is the way the connecting thread between episodes 1 and 2 (trading the arm for the hammer and the Tara team-up) was mostly lost. Maybe I missed it, but it seems like it is suggested that Taelor wins in the gambling scene through the intervention of some tyrant (Obliteration?), a fact which is supposed to be explained by the next story (about Tara), but then never is mentioned again. Perhaps that's Taelor fault for being too many drinks in when she started the story.

 

Bullet (Gremlins)

 

I don't have much to say about this one. The gremlins are always pretty interesting characters and this was no exception. I'm curious to see what Zoraida has planned for the gremlins and it was pretty funny to see Somer get used by the rest of the faction. It was an interesting story, but its tie-ins to some broader narrative felt sort of out of place. Also, this gremlin story needed more pigs. 

 

From the Ashes (10T)

 

The first thing about this story, which isn't really about this story specifically is the fact that there's an annoying printing error that seemed replace all the transliterations of 3rd tone Mandarin vowels with boxes. That was pretty annoying and seemed inconsistent with the high editorial standard throughout the rest of the book. Other than that, I think this story was pretty solidly in the middle of the pack, along with the Gremlin and Arcanist ones. Seeing the world Earthside is always interesting, and the alternate history bits about the Boxer's Rebellion was pretty cool. In general, though, this story made 10T seem so thoroughly unlikeable that it was hard to get behind the story as a whole. Mei's cruelty and the 10T's deception in this story paints them pretty solidly in black in a universe where most characters are varying shades of gray. Maybe people who are drawn to the faction will disagree, but I found it hard to stomach.

 

Shifting Loyalties / A Man Burns

 

I seem to remember that Matthew Farrer was responsible for many of my favorite stories in the past, so I'm glad he got to do the main stories in this book. Predictably, these 2 were awesome as well. I think story hint that 'someone dies' actually sort of spoiled this story arc since it was pretty easy to identify the G-G as the only major story character who was eligible for dying (because he's not in the game), but on its own merits this pair of stories was very cool. 

 

One nice touch I really appreciated was the way the little documents like invitations and telegraph transmissions created transitions between different scenes. The conversation between Perdita and the G-G was especially interesting and made me a little sad. The fight between Avatar Mei Feng and Avatar G-G was really cool, even though I was rooting against Mei after the 10T story. Another thing I really appreciated was the way the 'What happened to the rest of the masters?' epilogue was executed without touching all 39 masters which would have obviously caused it to overstay its welcome. The emissaries are all super cool, especially the man (Sorry, I meant 'thing') on the donkey.

 

Thanks for another great year of awesome Malifaux fluff. Can it be 2016 already?

[Justin]

Remember how Karina disposed of her chicken bone, and remember that one of Tara's themes is playing with time to a subtle extent.

Glad you mostly liked it.

[Psientologist]

I knew I should probably not have spoiled it for myself reading this but it's like lifting that loose bit of wrapping at Christmas.

I'm extra stoked. Especially because of that final paragraph in Some_Scrub's description.

 

Reading the Mei story on the preview I did think "aw, she's a bit mean" but I kind of get it.

All the treachery and intrigue etc. surrounding the Thunders make them so much more interesting to me.

[some_scrub]

Remember how Karina disposed of her chicken bone, and remember that one of Tara's themes is playing with time to a subtle extent.

Glad you mostly liked it.

 

Oh yeah! Of course! I was pretty tired when I was reading it, and for some reason when I was thinking back on it, I thought the chicken bone scene was from the party in the Resser story not from the train robbery, so that didn't seem like the right explanation. Actually in retrospect that means I liked the Outcast story even better than I realized because that was the one with the funny Tara / Karina scene. Rereading it right now, it seems neither Tara nor I really understood what was really happening in that scene. I still think the Neverborn one was my favorite, but it's probably worth hiring whoever wrote the Taelor story again next time.

 

There was something else interesting that was hinted at in the Taelor story that I'm curious about. Was each Relic Hammer created to destroy a specific tyrant? And if so, does that mean we're supposed to infer The Good Lady reaction's to Blight mean that it's the one that opposes Plague or is it some different tyrant? If so, it's interesting that Taelor and Hamelin are in the same faction, and it might be an interesting opportunity to have specific upgrades for the individual Relic Hammers which represent their individual personality when they get woken up. Just saying...

[Justin]

its probably worth hiring whoever wrote the Taelor story again next time

Well, that's good.

[Fetid Strumpet]

As an aside for those that missed it, Justin wrote it.

[CaladanCid]

Just like the last book, the fluff so far has been outstanding.

 

The last (main) story is fairly awesome, although Lucius came off weirdly when he was dancing around. It was the only misstep I thought. He seems like the big bad dude and he will be in charge now....and he dances? Although the bit about his fingers gouging the walls where he danced was super creepy and I did like that.

 

The "birth" of the new Emissaries was awesome. My favorite was the Arcanist version, it seemed very much a representative of wild magic.

 

I did not understand why Zoraida thought she was going to die....she didn't.

 

The 10T story was a good example of how cruel that (my favorite) faction can be. However I don't agree that they are any more evil that any other faction. Especially in a world where Witchling Stalkers, Resurrectionists, and Ramos feeding people to Rasputina's pets are things.

 

I haven't read all of the faction stories yet...I need more time! I almost want to go slower reading them because they have been so good.

[Sholto]

I wrote Master of Fate, and I'm glad you liked it :-)

[Parker Barrows]

!!!!SPOILERS!!!!

 

I got through the first two stories so far:

 

Role Reversals: It was just hard to get excited. Masters against Enforcer level or below is not exactly hard to call. That said, it was interesting to see the Guild Masters' reactions to the events and the lady at the end.

 

Dead Man's Ball: I loved this story. Is it wrong I was horrified when I thought Gwen killed the dog, relieved when it was revealed she didn't, but was totally cool with her murdering the twin girls?

 

Now to read the rest.....

 

EDIT: I almost forgot, I love that Tara was in it. It's nice seeing her fit into the Rezzers and seeing her as "one of them" (sorta) rather than it seeming like she's an Outcast who can be played as a Rezzer for mechanical reasons.

[Norken]

I liked some and disliked others.  I'm going to lay my opinions out.  I figure honest reactions that someone can look at and understand are better for them as someone wanting feedback to make themselves better, than simply telling someone what they want to hear.  Doesn't mean I'm right either.  Just means these are my reactions to what I read.

 

The Guild story was really bad.  I felt like I wasted my money buying it, and wasted my time reading it.  The basic problem with the story was that it was simply run of the mill low quality boiler plate fantasy writing.  Over powered characters having fun fighting with their super powers until the foregone conclusion is reached. The story was supposed to be from the point of view of three human champion fighters, but it was told from the point of view of three ass kickers.  I saw an interview with Dana White where he talked about running a boxing school and dealing with people.  Everyone comes in and wants to spar until they actually spar.  Once they spar and find out that, win or lose, fighting is about getting hurt they get upset and wash out because it is a rare person that can be a fighter instead of just a bully that wants to dish out ass kickings.  The story would have been far far better if the person bent on revenge didn't understand the mindset of a fighter, and all three of the fighters showed that they were willing and able to be legitimately hurt (physically or psychologically) and shock the hell out of the revenge seeker and ultimately defeat them when it doesn't phase the fighters in the slightest as they keep on fighting like getting truly hurt was just another day.  The twist should have been that all three of them each had experienced a hundred fold the amount of hurt that sent the revenge seeker on their path.  The actual twist at the end was also very weak, and somehow we are to expect a super macho character like Perdita to put up with that sort of naked disrespect because of a ham fisted twist of some wording?

 

The Resurrectionist story was good.  The author did an excellent job of setting up the character as appearing to be a vapid and unrelatable twit.  The final twist of her being a relatable character in over her head and doing things she likely shouldn't for childishly pure/innocent and understandable reasons was an excellent twist.  I've always generally despised the Ressurectionist faction because of the initial set of masters (Seamus, Nicoderm, and McMorning) being in my opinion were fairly lame mustache twirlers, but stuff like this really makes me stop and take a second look at the faction.  Which tells me the story HAD to be really good.  I'd actually really like to see a henchman Gwen that comes with a mini-totem 0ss Terror.  Or her as a Nightmare Molly crew or something.

 

The Arcanist story was just lame.  I started out hoping for some Tsavo Man Eater inspired story that would ultimately shed light on some aspect of Marcus' psychology.  Instead all I got was a long slog to setup Marcus to just say something boring about his land to imply he was the ultimate bad ass just because.  Apparently it was his land or something, as he was really insistent about that point but didn't explain why, how it was interesting, or how it reflected on Marcus as a personality.  At the end I was really hoping that the story was going to salvage itself by the relief column inside the dust cloud actually being disguised human and mechanical Arcanists and Mercenaries who entered the fort and destroyed it because Marcus drew the colonel into chasing him with their strength, only for Marcus to laugh at him, tell him that humans are pack animals and that Marcus' pack has defeated the colonel's pack because of the colonel, turn into a bird and watch the colonel and his men slowly die in the wilderness now that they were deep in the wild with no pack/safe haven to return to.  Alas, nobody actually made a decision that mattered or could have changed anything or damned themselves.

 

The Neverborn story was great.  It was humorous and fun context switch episode of a TV show.  Like with a TV show, it should be a rare thing, and like with a TV show it has to be earned because those episodes are only funny IF the personalities of the characters are well enough established that it becomes funny when you play with some of the variables to make everything wrong but somehow right.  Pandora as HR was hilarious.  The twist at the end was a little weak on the twist side, but that was fine since it provided some nice background information on Zorida.

 

The Outcast story was great.  It provided nice background info on the relic hammers, and some nice snapshots of Malifaux as a place.  The unreliable narrator and bar setting of the story really felt like it strongly fit the Outcast faction.  The only thing I wish had been touched on a bit more would have been a bit stronger picking out of what each story told us about Taelor.  Especially if we were to sit there and decide that regardless of if the story was fact or fiction we could extract a few pieces of truth out of it either way.  The chicken bone part was so absurd that it made you completely unsure if it was 100% true or not.  Especially since the Neverborn story already broached the idea of time travel, and the Resurrectionist story already broached the subject of Karina's fascination with chicken, so it was very clever and meta for playing on that.

 

I saw the author on the Gremlin story and I didn't read it.  I suppose that is harsh calling someone out like that, but the hard truth of the matter is that I felt like I wasted my time and money on the two previous stories, so why waste my time on this one too.

 

I really liked the Ten Thunders story.  It really drove home that they are a faction that are in many respects human traffickers, and that those are often ruthless arrangements.  I liked the twist at the end where Mei Feng deals with the fact that in some respects the expectations of what the victims of human traffickers put on them were never realistic in the first place, and suggests that even if they dialed back their ruthlessness that he was never going to have gotten what he wanted because what he wanted was something that very likely never existed or ever would.  The story felt very faction defining.  Although someone REALLY should have caught that the printer didn't have the proper character sets loaded.  Although you would think that would be the printers.  Also, the text for the Jorogumo was just great.  Really set a tone. 

 

As for the big story, ugh.  I feel like the author of this one was the victim of bad writing direction.  The sections with Jakob Lynch and Perdita and the GG were really good.  The rest of it was just boring fluffing up of a long list of boooooooring bullet points for events in a timeline.  There was way too much just sitting there and telling us what happened, and very little showing us what is happening.  The Jakob Lynch and Perdita sections were showing us what was going on through watching the characters.  Fact is, I just don't care WHAT happens if I can't be shown what is happening through watching the reflection off of characters that are interesting and see how it is affecting them.  Instead of reading 40 pages of bullet points in a timeline, just put in some 1-2 page executive summary of a guild report with the bullet points of the whole timeline and give me 40 pages of interesting characters reacting to some subset of those events.  It feels like the author was setup for failure.

[Rathnard]

I think the biggest problem with these stories is that it made me want to play some of the characters featured in them even more. 

 

The interaction between Tara and Karina (in both the Resser and Outcast Stories) was great. It's been clear from the start that Tara's somewhat protective of Karina, but I loved how Karina's eccentricities were highlighted this time around. Not to mention that she turns out to be hands down the most talented Resser in Malifaux. I mean, who else can resurrect Death Marshalls and more importantly fried chicken? 

 

I loved the contrasting styles between LJ/Sonnia and Perdita in their story. As the first two sneak quietly into the warehouse, Perdita just strolls in like she owns the place and shouts "COME AT ME BRO!!!"

 

Zoraida's been one of my favorite characters in the game, so it was great to see a bit of an origin story for her. That, and Lilith/Pandora trying to fit in as Guild employees was hilarious. 

 

The final story was great, if only for the massive changes it makse to the overall plotline. There's certainly alot of questions to come from it, foremost being who's going to take the Governors place as the head of the Guild in Malifaux? 

It was also nice to see a bit of an origin story for the GG himself, but at the same time it felt a bit forced. Kinda like trying to get the reader to understand more of this character we barely knew until now, right before we kill him off? In retrospect I kind of wish we'd heard more about him before Shifting Loyalties came out. After all, he was a central character in the Malifaux world, so why did we only just come to learn some of his backstory/motives literally a few dozen pages before he was killed? 

Still, like I said I enjoyed it overall, and am definitely looking forward to what happens next! 

[Parker Barrows]

OK. I finally finished.

Rezzer: I just want to say that I want to see Gwen and Terror as a Master/Totem and Zombie Fried Chicken as a minion box.

Arcanist: If this was Chronicles, I would have loved it. But I was a little disappointed that Marcus was basically the antagonist while we got to know random Guild jerk #245155 more instead of Marcus. I was hoping to get to know Marcus more.

Neverborn: I love it. I want to see Pandora more as a Guild HR employee.There's even an opening.

Outcast: Great story. I like that we got hint at the thirteenth Tyrant. Tara and Karina were great just like the Rezzer story. I never really cared about Taelor before, but now I like her. Also, I believe that the majority of it was honest. The hints at the thirteenth Tyrant (which we didn't have before other than "12 names for 13 Tyrants" and most people including me thought the Dragons were 12 & 13), the pocket watch, intimate of Tara and Karina, and other things that make sense to us as readers but the average resident of Malifaux wouldn't know.

Gremlins: I loved most of the story. I would have liked Som'ner to win. Having the Brewmaster pop out an unknown truth liquor seemed a bit weak.

Ten Thunders: I loved it. I actually like Mei Feng now. It was good to see the dark side of the Ten Thunders. I also liked Mei realizing how disposable she is. Also nice to see her not constantly angry like she usually is.

Finale: Pretty good. It was nice to see Peridita as something other than over-the-top-action-hero. I liked the avatar battle and the history of the first days of retaking Malifaux. I do agree with Rathnard that the GG could have used a little more development before his death. The thing I don't get is how is Haydren not a Master? Unless I missed something, he had a pretty large army of undead at his beck and call. Not saying I want him get upgraded to Master, but he seems a lot more powerful in the story than his card.

[Inquisitor Wall]

Finally finished reading the fluff.  I really enjoyed most of it.  The Taelor story was great for fleshing out her character, and going a bit more in depth with relic hammers, the action story of the three guild masters was a great action sequence, and the Ten Thunders story was really great for fleshing them out as an organization and their place in Malifaux.  The final snippets at the end with each master were a bit too short, and could have benefitted from a little extra for each, but in the grand scheme of things look like they will be good points to move the story forward.  Also, I loved the showdown with Mei at Sunbeam and Perdita on Majestic.

[wizuriel]

So finally got the book and read through it once

In order from favorite to least favorite

 

Resurectionist: This story was fantastic. I loved the insight it gave into the resser society and nice to see characters like Tara interacting with the resurectionists and not seem like just a merc with ties to that society.

Neverborn: This was my second favourite story. I loved the insights into Zoraida and seeing Lilith and Pandora working together. I felt Pandora though seemed very for colour/cartoony though compared to normal. 

Outcasts: Also a good story. Like the Resurectionists one I liked how it showcased some underutilized characters. Also provided some interesting insights into the Tyrants and Relix Hammers. 

Guild: I enjoyed the story, but didn't think it had any substance to it. Was just a fun read like a super hero team up comic that showcases how cool it is when various super heroes team up.

Ten Thunders: I liked seeing earthside. As for the story itself didn't have strong opinions on it one way or the other. 

Gremlins: It was amusing, but didn't feel like offered anything new. Was disappointed in it as just wanted to see more character from The Brewmasters's first time showing up as a major character. 

Shifting loyalties: I'm kind of torn on this story. On the one hand I'm really excited to see the direction that the stories are going in. on the other hand I really feel like this cheated the Governor General as a character and really undermines the strength of the Guild. One thing that I've noticed in nearly all the Malifaux stories is whenever they need a badguy that is easy to blow away it seems to be the Guild. You don't really see many stories where Neverborn lost a big battle or the Arcanists (granted they might lose a middle manager or two). heck in this book Marcus destorys a pretty big Guild army single handed (see below) and Zoraida and pals kind of magic their way deep into the Guild headquarters (especially around the people who should be more prepared to prevent that from happening). Guild just always seems to be the butt of the joke. In the first edition stories though that was okay. We had Lucius who was super scary. Characters who we knew were strong were scared of Lucius. Even if it was debated if Lucius back than was Neverborn, no one really questioned that the Governor General was human. As scary as Lucius was, the Governor General was who he reported it and seemed to respect. It kind of made us really scared of the head of the Guild. Since second edition I feel he has gone from being this super scary guy at the top of the Guild. to more of a bumbling fool that Lucius is slowly stealing power from. Him going out in such a cheap way I feel the Guild has lost their secret red joker up the sleeve and now are more like storm troopers than a scary player in the world. 

Arcanist:  Really didn't like this story. It provided no insight into Marcus who I felt was already a very 1 dimensional character, nor anythin new about the world. I also think the Guild being the antagonist was the wrong choice. It would be interesting to see how Lilith likes Marcus declaring the land his. I really think finale battle was too over blown. Most of the Guild fluff makes constructs seem pretty rare (heck most of the stories were Guild is the good guys we rarly have more than a handful of them and they usually complain about lack of resources. Marcus single handedly taking out what seemed like an army for the Guild was just too much.

Edited August 31, 2015 by wizuriel

[Parker Barrows]

About the Guild: I think it's easy to use them as standard antagonists because they are the strongest faction in Malifaux (fluffwise). So, in general, they are going to be the big target for those factions that want to put themselves on top. I'm just curious how the Earthside Guild will react. Hopefully, the next Governor-General will be just as badass.

Marcus's plan: I don't think it's a big problem. It's not like he simply curb-stomped everyone. It was a ritual he worked on for weeks or months. I think any Master-level magic user could do similar powerful magic.

[tomjoad]

 

Marcus's plan: I don't think it's a big problem. It's not like he simply curb-stomped everyone. It was a ritual he worked on for weeks or months. I think any Master-level magic user could do similar powerful magic.

For me, that's part of the problem with the whole Arcanist story. Marcus has had very little fluff written about him tot his point, so choosing him as the main character would have been great here, but that's not what happened at all. Marcus was just out there in the woods somewhere, and some animals were attacking on his behalf, but the main character was Random Guild Goon #78. Marcus did some powerful stuff, but like you said, any Master-level character can do that. I didn't feel like Marcus was really integral to this story, which makes this a fine piece of writing about Malifaux, when it could have been a great chance to explore one of the more underserved characters in the setting.

[BigHammer]

Some heavy spoilers in this one, so be warned.

 

After reading the Shifting Loyalties story, I've come away from it wondering if the Ten Thunders, who were shown to be ruthless, people-trafficking liars in their own story, weren't mainly responsible for the downfall of the GG, and the failure of his ascendancy (and, indirectly, saving Malifaux).

Evidence: At the start of the story, it's the Thunders (namely Lynch and Misaki) who find out the extent of the GG's plan. Considering that their previous stories have had them actively interested in combating (or entrapping) the Tyrants, gaining this knowledge would lead to them being naturally arrayed against the GG (moreso than they were already, of course).

Further, when Mei Feng turns up at Sunrise to lead an uprising against the Governor, English Ivan is surprised that she is there (although we learn that perhaps Ramos was not soon after). This seems to indicate that the Thunders sent Mei Feng (seeing as she's been hinted as being the "expendable" one) deliberately in order to have the GG reveal his power and antagonise his plans with regards to the symbols he is spreading around Malifaux. The plan succeeds, with the GG going missing for some time afterward, and Mei Feng surviving thanks to her manifestation. There is a chance that Ramos sent her, but the fact that it's the one Arcanist that is also a Thunder that makes this reek of Misaki being behind the order (though if it was, I daresay whatever suspicions Ramos had about Mei Feng will now be rather more solidified).

On top of all that, when the GG finally attempts to ascend to Tyranthood, his final ritual is directly influenced twice by the hand of the Thunders. Lucas McCabe actually hands him one of the ritual ingredients (which it might be safe to assume is either false or has been tampered with), something Ms. Katanaka would certainly have knowledge of. The second one is more subtle, though; Lucius presents him with the clockwork innards of Plague's ascendancy box that the Thunders had secured from him previously. Considering the Thunders would have known exactly what this was (we presume they found out about it from the Hungering Darkness, which is why they were messing around with it in Crossroads, where they also found out how important it was to Plague personally), it seems exceedingly unlikely that Lucius would have come away from the Katanaka Trading House with the actual contents of that box. The GG himself makes the observation that, if either the Thunders or Lucius knew what it was, they would have held on to it for themselves; the Thunders did know what it was. This leads me to believe that this ritual ingredient is also either false or tampered with.

 

Then again, the Effigies (who seem to be agents of Fate) seem to have predicted all of this in order to secure their own empowering, so who really knows who was doing what behind the scenes?

 

Thoroughly enjoyed the stories in this book, especially Bullet and Welcome to Malifaux.