This book has a lot of things to nitpick, obviously. I think the whole return to Irsmuncast arc at the end was pretty weak, for example. The escape from the Rift segment that makes up the majority of the book was tense and epic, and I didn't need
another sequence where the city is fucking doomed without your constant attention.
Foxglove's treatment was still very problematic, but at least those problems are only narrative and not horribly sexist. Faced with a relatively large number of possible (and highly distinct) states for her to be in, the solution was clumsy and (as it involved magically undoing death) kind of toxic to the setting as a whole. We missed a fair amount of Foxglove content where you get more context for her situation, but it doesn't get much better and her story gets no closure in any case.
Actually, a lot of people get no closure. Did you notice that Glaivas, whose rescue the
whole debacle was about, just kind of ceased to exist after Fate sent you home-ish? There are segments we missed where he shows up in Irsmuncast, but in the playthrough we actually got he's MIA, and the adventuring party is MIA in all playthroughs.
I also felt that while Warbringer! had a very nice level of call-backs to the earlier series, this one wallowed in its self-referentiality to the point where it was distracting rather than enjoyable. Where the forces gathering to defeat a common enemy was nicely organic, the spirit-trap full of dead former enemies just felt like a self-indulgent contrivance.
On the other hand, I thought the mechanical end of the book was
very solid, probably the most solid of the series. Wrong choices were mostly punished with damage instead of insta-kills, decent heals were handed out at decent intervals, and that led to a game of managed attrition instead of critical existence failure. Also, there was a lot more playing with the combat mechanics, like Amin's low-accuracy but unblockable attacks, the Nykur's multiple swings, and Lackland's AD&D-style combat casting.
Overall, I would say that the book's strengths are greater than its weaknesses, but it still suffers from the dreadful setup it got in Inferno!
You said there were callbacks to Ninja! Were there any we missed?
Yes, in the Fate-passage-trap thing where you fight all the ghosts of boss enemies past, it's possible to run into the spirit of Manse, and if you do and have played Book 0, the spirit of Aiko shows up and garrotes him. It's very satisfying.
What does the Onyx Spider Token do?
You get the OST in the opening if you managed to keep Foxglove with you until the end of Book 6. You can use it to melt the Black Widow's web in the later showdown with Foxglove, without having to take a chance on Eris' unreliable spellslinging. It is, however, easy to lose the OST early by trying to use it on other random things.
What happens if you pray to Kwon or use the Blood of Nil on the Black Widow at the beginning of the book?
Prayer gets you a mangled arm instead of a mangled leg: 4 damage, no punches, no whirlpool throw, no Climbing skill. In the same vein, using the Blood of Nil gets you a mangled face: 6 damage, no Arrow Cutting.
What happens at the beginning if we were pursued by the golem or allied with the Spires of Foreshadowing?
Both of those events establish that the golem Everyman is on some kind of a rampage, which you may or may not have discovered is the result of a dark god hijacking the guy onto a murder mission to target you. With that set up, he shows up to murder you. But since the Black Widow is kind of in the way, he attempts to murder his way through her to get to you, which doesn't go well for him, but does a pretty good job of distracting her.
What do you come across if you follow one of the GMPC Trio instead of Eris?
Following Tyutchev and Thaum is an insta-death. Following Cassandra leads to a tense quasi-alliance that's an alternate path through that chunk of the book.
What happens if you refuse the man in gold robes' offer?
You die. There's no other way out of that trap. The only upside is that the dying mage gives you some cryptic info on what the gods are up to in that moment, which is a little interesting.
What happens if you challenge or garrote Honoric? What does he say if you ask why he's where he is?
He's there because it's the site of his greatest defeat and he can't get over it. If you either garrote or challenge him, he lets you kill him - it seems to be what he wants.
How do you get Antiocidas' support?
You have to offer him money (obvs) and then prove your identity with
ninja honesty.
What happens if you visit the Temple to Nemesis?
It's a pretty cool mini-adventure with a number of possible routes and outcomes; it's even possible to kill Lackland there so he can't show up at the end.
What does Flash Powdering Imposter do (and was Poison Needles a trap option like we expected)?
Poison Needles isn't exactly a trap because there's no real downside to it, but he is immune. Flash powder is the super effective option, it makes his acid spray auto-miss and also gives you a bonus on your first attack.
What happens if we tried to hide the body?
That's the best option, it let's you close with Lackland and sucker-punch him before the fight begins.
What happens if we passed the Fate test with Lackland?
The same sucker-punch.
Darths questions covered a lot of the missed material I wanted to, but there are a few left over.
• If you're less smooth in the Temple to Time, you leave with an omega mark, and the result is that after you defeat the Nykur you get sent back in time to fight it a second time. You do get a combat bonus against the critter because you know what to expect the second time around, but it's still a rude surprise.
• You can actually face Mandrake's insta-kill swordstick
twice in this book, as his unquiet spirit is in the ghost-trap and has a spirit-copy of it.
• And for the bad ending afficionados, here's what happens if Yaemon gets his revenge on you from beyond the grave:
You feel yourself start to disassemble as though your mind and body were collapsing into pieces. Yaemon grabs hold of you in an iron grip despite this, a feeling of dread certainty amid the chaos. Then all you know is a sensation of falling, then another of searing pain. You have been dragged down with Yaemon to spend an eternity boiling in a lake of blood in Inferno.