As backers will know, we've been feverishly preparing the Sunless Sea beta for release this coming Tuesday. But that hasn't stopped us from making various tweaks and improvements, and just today releasing a substantial piece of content:

Dabbling in the Great Game

This is a new storylet in Veilgarden that allows characters to play their opening moves in the Game. It's intended as a replacement for some of the existing Veilgarden content: Fallen London's lore and the underlying engine have come a long way since it was written, so we wanted to revise and extend it to take advantage of that. Seasoned players may notice a shift in emphasis away from the intrigues of the surface powers and towards the machinations of the Neath's other powers; we've also taken the opportunity to drop some more clues about the cult of St Joshua and the order of Midnighters.

It's mostly balanced for characters with Persuasive in the 21 - 30 range; but some branches will be of interest even to stat-capped characters.

And here's a partial list of smaller changes.

The very Shadowy may now Plot against the Masters, so long as they have strong revolutionary connections. It's become much easier to raise highway stats since this story was written, and a few would-be revolutionaries missed their opportunity. We've moved away from stat caps generally, so it made sense to change that to a Connected: Revolutionaries requirement.

Prices for lodgings at the Brass Embassy have been rationalised. Penstock was undercutting the Embassy's own prices; we've put that right. Infernal lodgings, by the way, are deliberately more economical than their competitors. And the branches on the Western Tower card are now in the same order as on other lodgings cards.

Übergoats may now be sold at the Bazaar. Why would you want to? We don't know, but now you can.

The Bazaar will now purchase Eyeless Skulls. This provides a much requested alternative to selling them to Revolutionaries or palming them off on someone else, for those who (unaccountably!) oppose the Liberation. The sums in question are, of course, derisory; principles are expensive.

A Restorative now has a minimum Wounds requirement. A small tweak to so that you're only eligible for the card when you can actually benefit from it.

Mr Pages now accepts smaller donations of obstacudent literature; the Libraryette card is also less frequent. Another, more substantial adjustment to a card that was, hithertofore, rarely used.

Even persons of slight importance may now find themselves Adrift on a Sea of Misery. We've added Adrift on a Sea of Misery to a few thematically appropriate branches; this should help players who would like to become Campaigners through the Church.

The silent river has become much easier to escape for new visitors. The Boatman will be less merciful to regular passengers. We noticed death was particularly punishing for fledgling characters, and that very few players had seen some of the more challenging branches on the chess card. There was even one no player had ever seen, which struck us as unfortunate. We've fixed both problems by amplifying the effects of the Boatman's Opponent quality and adjusting some of the opportunity cards.

Various social acts have been updated to take advantage of recent tech upgrades. We can now add inviter requirements to social acts, which get checked at the moment of acceptance. This means that we can allow the inviter to keep things the act consumes until acceptance without enabling any exploits. For example, many invitations will now only expend Free Evenings once they're accepted.

Salons and Orphanages can now be disposed of by using the Key to one's Handsome Townhouse, at a small cost to your Notability. This will allow you to change your Scheme, should you regret your choice.