Spoilerriffic! Seafall, final entry

It's been nearly a year since we last played this game, and our injured player hasn't recovered to the point where getting to the gaming table large enough to hold Seafall is practical, and life has other challenges for getting players together regularly... so, I made the command decision, and decided it was time to dissect the set, and see where our further adventures would have taken us.  The short answer is, nowhere... because three different players didn't clue in to what the game intended with one of the milestones, The Masks Have Fallen.

Basically, you need to find a chart to the end of the world to collect that milestone, and move on to the endgame from there.  Turns out, there are four advisors in the deck that have a hidden graphic on the back of their cards, consisting of the words "chart +5" and a picture that's like the one on the last sealed box.  None of us put that together with the "find the chart to the end of the world" description on the milestone... I know, in my case, that I kind of assumed it would act as a bonus to whatever chart we eventually did find.  But no, it's just supposed to be "first one found, gets the milestone", which then lets you all know that there are four advisors with that, and you can use them when you try for the final island and "win" the game.

But then, what's all the symbols on the tablets about?  Well, I was right on that score, it's a simple substitution cypher at play there.  As for what you get... well, mostly they come out to something like an extra glory point for whoever finds them first.  However, there are the secrets of the statues to be found as well, which is useful for the real end game.

What's that?  Real end game?  Yeah, as you might suspect, the presence of another sealed box means that finding the island at the end of the world isn't quite the end of things.  Sure, somebody gets crowned Emperor/Empress, and there's much rejoicing, but only briefly... turns out, the final island is of the "gateway to Hell" variety, it gets unsealed, and things go sideways quite quickly.  It sets up for a final game session of "try to get the gate closed again, while the world burns, and undead ships and crews roam the seas to try and take out ships".  The actual act of closing the gate is either a Raid or Explore (player's choice) at a 20 difficulty rating, which you can use Society advisors, relics, and seals obtained from the statues to offset.  If you've found the secret of a statue, the cost to get that seal goes down.  Oh, right, the event deck is totally replaced as well, and those "world burning" events basically starts picking off colonies from farthest out first, and, left to its own devices, will eventually destroy the provinces as well, in which case everybody loses.  By the way, this mode is also the "if you want to come back and play more Seafall after the story's done" mode.

So, that's the game.  I definitely enjoyed the time I played it, but... yeah, I definitely wish that one milestone had been clearer.  Not a huge fan of the ending either... I expected something horrific and world-threatening, but I'm more in the school of tentacular monsters and ancient, extra-dimensional evil turning a player against everyone else than "Hell happens, everybody make it stop".  And honestly, if I had played through that ending once, I don't see where we would have ever come back to play after that... it's a nice gesture, having replayability, but it doesn't seem to match the flavor of the base game up to that point very well at all.  Oh well, it was a positive experience overall, can't hold a late-game stumble against it too harshly.