The End of FIN

Scott Hardie | December 24, 2006
All good things must come to an end. Anyone paying attention to FIN's schedule has noticed the months-long gaps between what were supposed to be weekly posts. The game deserves and needs a great deal more attention than that. For the longest time, I thought the game's comeback was right around the corner if only I could make the right adjustment to its schedule or mine, but finally I have tried everything I can think of and still the game can't get updates less than four weeks apart. My schedule in 2007 will only get busier, so I'd rather end the game now while I can still give it a respectable finish. (It's telling that I devised the ending two weeks ago and wrote it one week ago, and only now can I manage to publish it.) No matter the circumstances, I end the game with a heavy heart.

Now in its fourth year, FIN has been dear to me from the beginning. It combined my favorite literary setting with a fresh take on an RPG's group dynamic, and gave me a huge canvas to let my imagination sprawl. Every player in the game managed to surprise and impress me with their innovation; I am forever grateful to their contributions to my happiness. Scott and Kris ran with the concept from the beginning, but John and Michael kept the game well on track, and Matthew, Anna, Erik, Amir, and Miah provided colorful moments and characters along the way. Like the collector in the final post, I may have my souvenirs of the adventure, but it's the people who took the trip that are my treasure.

The floor is open to FIN players who wish to comment on the game's ending or ask me to reveal particular secrets now that it's over. It has been a high privilege playing with you.

Scott Baumann | December 24, 2006
First off, let me say that I really enjoyed being a part of the experience. I enjoyed my character and the people I interacted with and was surprised at how well things went. At first I suspected the game would resolve into something not nearly so good as it turned out. Bravo to everyone.

As for questions, I'll bite . . . what was up with the wooden duck?

5cott

p.s. - good resolution to the game, well done wrapping things up in an interesting way.

Scott Baumann | December 24, 2006
One last comment. Despite the long gaps, I can't believe that the game has been goin for four years. A true testament to the quality of the game and the writing that so much time could pass, but the game stayed fresh and fun.

5cott

Kris Weberg | December 25, 2006
I must echo Scott's comments: your ending, as with the posts, neatly captured both the overarching spirit and story architecture of the game you created, and incorporated the idiosyncratic and sometimes innovative player contributions that made the game so darned fun. I can understand why, like all good things, it must come to an end; I look forward to whatever you invent next. It's quite heartening to see that you worked in Robert E. Howard's swashbuckling Puritan, Poe's Red Death, Fu Manchu, and Dr. Moreau, for that matter, and probably a few other sneaky bits I missed.

As to unresolved plots...we know of Bronwyn, Solomon Kane, and the Hellfire Club, but who or what were the other six cabals?

Scott Hardie | December 27, 2006
Thanks for the kind words, fellas. I think the game went out as well as it could have.

The wooden duck was both another bizarre, unexplained element of the Poetic Fiend character, such as why he was reptilian in appearance (beats me), and a slight bit of self-parody of the game itself. In a game like FIN, every little object introduced in the plot can possibly grow into something important. For instance, Nigel's parcel acquired in New York began as just a parcel, then began to smell, then contained a head, then became haunted, then was to be delivered to vampires, then was revealed to contain the head of a famous vampire hunter, and eventually it would have gone on to become a potent weapon against San Francisco's vampire clan if the game had ever gotten there, as roughly outlined at in the final post. But the duck? I wanted to put an object in the game that was exactly what it appeared to be and nothing more; I promised myself that I would never reveal any hidden secrets about the duck. You could have applied it to greater purpose, such as shoving it in the gears of a machine gone haywire to rescue someone, but to me it would always just be a duck. The irony, of course, is that its very ordinariness made it one of the weirdest items in a game full of weird items.

The qabals in FIN were adapted from the original boxed game with some minor changes. I still regret admitting "minor qabals" into the canon; the intentionally misspelled term "qabal" was supposed to indicate the nine supergroups that influenced world affairs and held the nine pieces of the grail, while all others (like Theresa's group The Circle) were mere social clubs by comparison.

The Brotherhood of Alchemae - Never met, but could have been interesting for Charles. They were purely science-based and rejected everything illogical.

Die Wächtern - "The Watchmen," a German-based vigilante group dedicated to destroying evil all over the world, particularly supernatural evil. Liesel Schreiner was a member pretending to be a civilian, hence the "vision" or "eye" symbolism throughout her first appearance. Clarimonde in Boston was another agent. They soon would have recruited Anya for membership given her beliefs. Originally I intended Solomon Kane to be a wandering deadly nemesis of the group who kept showing up trying to kill them and take their gems, but he never made it into the game in this capacity, so in the epilogue I name-dropped him as the leader of this qabal.

The Fellowship of the Crimson Dawn - Not evil people so much as idiots: They're a group of rich layabouts who dabble in magic to alleviate their boredom and wind up awakening great evil in the world, as Roger Sims did in Birmingham. Dana Cistor in Philly was also a member. Cistor's ring with the pentagram was like the parcel: I introduced it just as what it was, and only gradually did it grow into something of much greater significance.

The Lost Kingdom - A secretive African group in control of powerful ancient relics. The group already dealt with their rogue member Svengali. Eventually I intended for the group to explore Africa with Quatermain and deal with them in person, in roughly the adventures that Kerry had in the epilogue.

La Lumière - A group that observes all world affairs in minute detail, gathering a huge volume of information about everyone everywhere, but dedicated to non-interference. The Poetic Fiend was a member, which explains all of the "light" symbolism in his introduction. Finder was either a rogue member or someone who had bought or stolen information from them; I hadn't decided which.

The Nation of Nine - Never met. A Native American group that the group would have met if they had gone with Liesel to the Western US for a dig after Chicago.

The Six-Fingered Hand - Never met, although the Poetic Fiend mentioned that the most dangerous of all qabals was known by their symbol, six fingers on one hand. They're dedicated to destroying all life on Earth, believing it will make the place a suitable home to other-dimensional beings including Cthulhu.

The Vistani - A race of anti-gypsies originally from Ravenloft that had come to Earth a long time ago. Bronwyn Cutitari was a 200-year-old member who had stolen some of their secret magic and fled to America. What worked out well was that I had introduced Bronwyn (nameless at the time) in Chicago and established that Uta's people were enemies of the Vistani before I found out in the books that the Vistani were one of the qabals. The New Orleans adventure would have gone a lot better with Uta present, but I didn't plan it with her in mind; it came partly from an adventure in a gaming magazine and partly from elements of established FIN canon. The Vistani have close ties to vampires; anyone who researched the qabal in a library (I waited but no one did) would have found notes by vampire hunter Johnathan Harker establishing their connection to Dracula.

The White Legion - Never met. A white supremacy group dedicated to wiping out all other peoples through magical means.

Amy Austin | December 28, 2006
I don't mean to make light of what is obviously a goo.tc milestone event with bittersweet on top (after all, I thought it was a pretty neat premise and have more than once contemplated asking Scott's permission -- and/or accepting his invitation -- to join in the play, but am too devoted to the goo, which takes up quite enough of my time already, thank you!), but shouldn't this conversation be called "Fin du FIN"?

In all seriousness, though, I can understand the mix of sentiments -- I'm sure it brought much pleasure and entertainment during its 4-year run. And my upside take on it is that perhaps I will be enticed to participate in whatever Scott's next incarnation might be??? I'm sure it will be good, even if I just stick to my goo (haha).

Erik Bates | December 30, 2006
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | December 30, 2006
Amy: Well, I intended "The End of FIN" to be a pun, but maybe I chose the wrong approach. You will always be welcome to participate in any web endeavor of mine. :-)

Erik: It was a pleasure playing with you. I'm a there-are-no-stupid-questions kind of guy, and in a live game with the wrong people you can be made to feel foolish for naivety; believe me I know it firsthand. I think the nature of this game allowed me to push my agenda onto it so that you were always welcome to say or try whatever came to mind, or at least that was my intention.

Michael Paul Cote | January 4, 2007
Scott, it was great. A tremendous endeavor reaching a triumphant, tho in my opinion, premature ending. I do understand schedule conflicts however. Thank you for allowing me to try to throw as many twists into your plots as I could, always with anxiously awaited outcomes. I really enjoyed your narratives and wish I could have been more involved for a longer time. Reading the posts from the other players was always intriguing, it was a good mixed group and I looked forward to each new installment. Well done on the ending. I'm sure Kerry appreciated every adventure you sent him on. Keep me in mind for any other such project you may come up with.

Scott Hardie | January 22, 2007
And thank you for saying so, Mike. You gave FIN a shot in the arm that helped a lot. You're welcome in any game I run, any time. (PS3/Wii party invites coming as soon as I can arrange for a Saturday.)