Player Comments, or at least first wave

Vito's Player: What is unique about this game, instead of Eternal Lies, is that Vito came face to face with being absolutely powerless - all he could do was try to get himself and his friends out of Carcosa alive and sane (which they did, barely), with the dread of what awaited Martin and Jerry for the deal Martin made all those years ago.

Remember, never give em an inch!

Martin's Player: (But what if we could have given something to save Alan Leroy?)

Vito's Player: Yes, what if?

GM: I'd have listened to offers, I think, but -- so, the one that occurred to me was a really nasty one. Sure, let Alar have his life. New Orleans gets absorbed, but he can still run to a different city. And another. And another and another -- he's sort of like the KIY's herald, and as long as he can keep escaping, he's fine with it.

Vito's Player: That's pretty much the conclusion Vito came to. There's no escaping Hastur, really.

That's part of what broke him, and what fate he knows awaits Martin and Jerry.

GM: I'm not sure Martin believes there's no escape... am I right? And am I right that Vito's the reason? I noticed that once Vito started telling Martin that he knew more than Etienne-Laurent, Martin kept repeating that he was a wizard who could bend space and time.

Vito's Player: It's [my] feeling as a Martin fan that Martin engages in a huge amount of cognitive dissonance and self destructive behavior and that somehow if he _just wants it hard enough_ it can somehow come true (something very common in folks with addictions, who refuse to acknowledge that their addictions are killing them because they adore their addictions so much....)

Vito's feeling is that he has no fucking idea because, fuck, they're still here, but every indication has been that Hastur has been playing them and that every inch of slack they have been given has been so that they will be made to suffer later. Amelia was let go because she wants to go back, and because it would cause pain to Vito to make Vito know that she *wanted* to go back and was not the entirely self matyr he thought she was. And that Hastur could take Jerry and Martin *right now*, but won't, because he can torture Vito *for the rest of his entire life* knowing that this will be their fate. And Hastur can destroy the love that Jeremiah and Martin have by making Martin and Jeremiah go to inhuman lengths to preserve it, and perhaps make even more deals. They were fucked no matter what. They were all fucked no matter what. Or, this could just all be stress from fighting the Mythos and saving the world 3 times for over a decade, and Hastur isn't even paying Vito, Martin and crew any attention at all.

The King In Yellow sits laughing on his throne.

Martin's Player: [re the cognitive dissonance and addiction] Yes. Yes, this. Yes, very this.

And quite possibly what he's doing now is nastier than what he was doing on Nectar, because functionally, one of his addictions is -- well, "love," in the broader sense, but in the narrow, more concrete sense, "Jeremiah." And well, being addicted to love and addicted to another man is lovely, maybe, especially if that man loves you back but -- that doesn't mean he won't engage in a suite of self-destructive, addictive behavior if that's what he thinks it'll take to keep himself and Jeremiah safe and happy.

The "I am a wizard who can bend space and time" bit started as a joke for Martin, funnily enough -- he doesn't really have that high of an opinion of his magical skills, and he thinks "wizard" is a ridiculous word and a ridiculous title for anyone to take, so he uses it to self-deprecate. Or at least, he was using it to self-deprecate. That was the intent.

By the end of game, though (and notably, once he found out it was Jeremiah's fate to eventually become a slavering Hastur-zombie) he was repeating the phrase semi-seriously: if he says it enough, he'll believe it (if he wants it enough, it'll come true). Martin has an odd and terrible relationship with agency: he flips back and forth between believing he has none of it (which, oddly, is where he's most comfortable) and believing he has any of it (at which point he has to wonder how much he has, and how much more he could have if he did this or that -- agency implies responsibility and responsibility is terrifying).

But yeah. Martin's no Vito. He'll make bargains with dark gods, if it means getting what he wants, or what he thinks he wants. As long as there are inches to give, inches he can bear to part with, for things he thinks he can't live without -- well -- he'll keep giving inches.

GM: And this is where I sit back and sigh with contentment.

Jeremiah's Player: Man, maybe we really should've gone with the robot body.

It did cross my mind to wonder whether Hastur would have been satisfied as long as someone was there to play the role of Alar. And there was a handy understudy available.

GM: Tough sell, but if Jeremiah stayed and Martin did not, Hastur might have considered it. So long as there's a net increase in misery...

Martin's Player: NOT GONNA HAPPEN

(okay, there are plenty of ways it could happen. Like, if sufficiently scary stuff. Or if Jeremiah really wanted it. But it would be miserable and he'd spend a lot of time and effort trying to not make it happen.)

(Though there still is the immortality-by-way-of-Carcosa route...)

(...but Martin doesn't like that route.)

Jeremiah's Player: Yeah, no, Jeremiah did not want to stay in Carcosa. Heck, one of his pillars is domesticity -- no way is he going for immortality-by-way-of-Carcosa.

So he wouldn't have volunteered for Alar duty. But maybe if Alan Leroy had been a bit more cunning...

Martin's Player: NOT GONNA HAPPEN