Greetings, Fellow Citizens of Iskendrun, Chapter 1 is a wrap! Here are the final results:
A last-minute push over the weekend has placed Omar ahead of Zem. Azura’s merchants are now the most dominant in the city, followed by the rebellion, and then the Syndicate. Navid is trailing his arch-rival Zem by a significant margin, and poor Sohrab can’t seem to catch a break. What happens now? To start, Moira will be looking at not only how each of the factions stands in relation to the others but also at how their alliances and beliefs have shifted over the course of the chapter. As you played, you were not only changing your chosen leader’s influence, but also what they think of the other leaders. So far, you have undermined several alliances, but not always mutually - in many cases, you have one leader who still trusts their ally, while their ally no longer trusts them back. I wonder how that will play out? It’s not all seeds of distrust, though - you’ve also strengthened some bonds, and even managed to push hard for one we would never have predicted. And remember, these characters’ allies and enemies are all tangled together (for example, in Chapter 1, Navid is allies with Omar and Sohrab, but Omar and Sohrab hate each other), so these effects will ripple across the entire fabric of the story. I don’t want to go into too much detail to avoid spoilers, but you’ve given us some incredible material to work with. What does it mean for the city to have the Merchants rise to power as everyone begins to turn on each other, the old balance becomes untenable, and the City Guard, ostensibly keepers of the peace, watching the city descend into chaos while they are powerless to stop it? We’ll have to wait for Chapter 2 to find out!