Hello everyone!
This is Carmel Rechnitzer, the Creative Director for Pine Box Entertainment’s’ 7th Sea: City of Five Sails. I suspect that most of you that follow the community-driven story have seen me at conventions or on the Discord. I’m here to give you a rundown of our next story arc, which revolves around last month’s World Championship at Gen Con ‘24. On the way there, my dear reader, I’ll have to bring up several of the steps we took to get to this point. This post has been a great way to reflect on some of the boldest and most exciting decisions the player-base has given me. My fellow scallywags and ne’er-do-wells… Thank you for a wonderful couple of years.
The Mercy of Hounds (as dictated during our Forward March event) and Trouble Always Comes in Pairs (as dictated by the UK Games Expo tournament) have brought us to a bit of a cliffhanger. Forgiveness and amnesty will be given to every anti-hero, scoundrel and villain in town… So long as everyone can set aside their differences, kiss and make up. Oh… and one more itsy-bitsy little requirement: Catch that damned cat-burglar, El Gato! So long as the Cat is stuffed back into a bag and brought to the gallows, Mayor De la Roche (elected during byt top of faction players at Gen Con ‘23) will commit to peace in our time.
The parameters of the chase were defined at GenCon ‘24, through the following series of story decisions. During the swiss rounds, side objectives were introduced in rounds three, four, and five. Below are the objectives and their results.
Roll the Dice!
This year, Castille made a strong showing, and snagged this powerful artifact. With the whole City on their (not quite literal) tail, the Cat’s Paw Gang will now be experimenting with pirate magics and cursed weather to stay alive another day. Through a special story decision, Luke Gregory chose Maya de la Rioja to be the recipient of The Devil Jonah’s Bones. I’m excited to see what desperate circumstances force her to roll the dice.
A Twist of Fate
The Vodacce players (not just their characters) love acting like a mafioso gang. Every time I’ve met them at conventions, I’ll see them gathered in a huddle and giggling maliciously. They’ve gone as far as refusing to fight one another in the top cut, and scheming among themselves who is the best player to move forward. I knew to expect the joyfully, cartoonishly worst of them this last Gen Con.
At GenCon ‘23, I offered those involved in the “For the Family” Multiplayer Salon the opportunity to select a Vodacce character to gain redemption. After some influence and scheming from attending Vodacce players, the event’s participants (from many factions) chose the low-level brute, Angelo. To me, it was both a funny joke and a great challenge. How do we take a stupid, brash and selfish young man and turn him into a hero? Oh, my poor, sweet, Angelo… It was a pleasure to feature him reconfiguring his moral compass in last year’s Epilogue, and making his first attempt at goody-two-shoe-ness in Deeds, not Words (which was dictated by our PAXU 2023 winner, Dan “the Don” Dineen, a Vodacce player).
The Voddace gang deliberately and aggressively pursued the goal of ensuring Angelo’s death…and succeeded, because no one crosses the Don. I look forward to slaying him as heroically and tragically as possible.
Money Talks
Castille rallied yet again for the third round and completed the objective in Money Talks. As of … And one For All, (dictated by the first and second place champions of GenCon 2023), the death of the Musketeer François Dufort has been pinned on El Gato by Vodacce. The Musketeers have been pursuing the masked merry-maker ever since. In retaliation, El Gato has decided to dive headfirst into the most brazen and ill-advised heist of their career.
Furious over Dufort’s dire fate, Odette Dubious D’Arrent denounced and doomed El Gato with a flick of her fan. Now, the whole of Five Sails is hot on their tail and El Gato will be stealing every last one of Odette’s jewels, and her damn Eventail, too. And they’ll be doing it in Theus’ own broad daylight. With Castille taking this objective, we know for a fact that El Gato will make a successful getaway. The question remains… who will be hurt, and what will be broken, in the midst of this daring caper?
Our following stories will address each of these events (though maybe not in that exact sequence). As we go… I’ll also be giving room for each of our new leaders to shine and take center stage.
You know. The new leaders. The ones we’ve been hyping on discord. The ones we – oh, damn. That’s right. Those also got selected at Gen Con! Didja hear who won, yet? The final selections were made on Saturday morning, right before the championship started in earnest.
Cesca del Rosso will be stepping forward and taking the reigns of the Red Hand Gang. There will be no improvements, mind you. She’s going to feed them worse. Villainously, sorcerous worse.
Daniella Dietrich knows the inside and out of Streghe magic. When push comes to shove (and Fate strings start to pull), she will lead the zealots of her husband’s army on their witch hunt.
There’s only one thing Sanjay loves more than gold: a good story. And every story needs a villain. Every self-righteous hero in town is convinced that Cat’s Paw Gang are villains of the lowest order, and Sanjay is glad to play the role. He’s not just going to be bad… He’s going to be bad with style.
Dufort is dead. Leontine is disgraced. Maxime has been blown to smithereens by their own mercenary help! Without a doubt, it has been the absolute worst week of Odette and Jean Urbain’s lives. What else is there to do, but deal with the devil out of desperation? With no one else to turn to, they must break bread with an old rival from Urbain’s past. Angeline de Bouchere will teach the Musketeers how the City of Five Sails really works.
Meanwhile, the Ussurans have kept their hands clean of all this nonsense. Why engage in scheming and violence when you can socket magical artifacts into your own skull, instead? The power of ancient sorcery is about to bring Solomonia Suburovya and Yevgeni the Boar to the peak of their power and influence. As an expert esotericist, Ekatarina Ilyanava will need to help them master these magics while remaining tethered to the needs of the common good.
Wanna know a secret? The development team and I guessed wrong on three out of five of these decisions. It turns out none of us really had our fingers on the pulse of what our players wanted. That makes writing for (and with) y’all the more exciting. I get to mastermind this narrative and be surprised by it on the regular. These are phenomenal decisions. Thank you, one and all.
Psst…. Psst…. Want to know another secret? This isn’t even a comprehensive list of the decisions made at GenCon! This is just a preview of about…. Half? Of them. But it’s the most spoilers I’m going to spill today. For the rest of these? You’ll have to suffer, wait, and find out:
- Why is Julius Caligari back in town? What’s up with the Crimson Roger?
- Each top-of-faction player was provided their own, private story decision. What did I ask them? What did they chose?
- I haven’t even mentioned what choice GenCon’s ultimate winner got to make!
You’ll have to read to find out, the way I have to write to find out.
See you next time,
Carmel Rechnitzer