i hear you! i did have a lot of stuff to wrap up in the colony plot so just for closure sake i’ll talk about what was planned. keep in mind i didn’t have this COMPLETELY finalized but this is a rough rundown:
1. if it wasn’t already obvious, haven was the biological dam of the cinderbone/briarfeather litter. the next part was going to be jasmineflutter returning to the clan with the info she learned from ember, when haven interrupts the meeting and reveals her identity. the clan is confused because they thought she was colony and that the colony wasn’t allowed in clan land, and haven says she wants the clan’s help in stopping zephyr as she doesn’t agree with his ways. haven would have told them to meet her at night by the ironmaw and promised to provide insider info on the colony’s sewer system
2. the “ironmaw” is an industrial trash compactor behind a grocery store. it’s attached to a building, one side opens up indoors which is where the trash is placed and the machine is operated, and the other end is the outdoor side that the cats see and where the compacted trash is loaded into a garbage truck. it is loud and is only ever “awake” during the day because that’s when the people are operating it. brackenshine is the cat that goes to meet haven by the ironmaw at night, but they are caught by colony cats. haven attempts to distract them while brackenshine hides through an air duct into the building where the ironmaw is operated. there she sees the glowing red button that turns the machine on, which is interpreted as an “eye” and if you poke it, the ironmaw wakes up. she does this and the ironmaw turning outside of its normal hours is enough to scare the colony cats away. now that they know how to control the ironmaw, brackenshine and haven return to the clan with the info.
3. zephyr’s father/the previous leader of the colony is the cat that was killed by the ironmaw, and yes it was orchestrated by zephyr to take over the colony. aka he pushed his father in from the outside end while it was operating during the day, so he doesn’t know how exactly it operates. the fact that zephyr himself murdered his father was not known to the colony and zephyr forbade anyone from going near it in case they somehow figured this out or used the ironmaw against zephyr himself. zephyr’s father was the son of the same cat that was blossom’s father, a member of the old clans, and yes that means zephyr and blossom are related.
4. when zephyr barged into glitterclan and killed sootface and falconshine, it angered the dormant spirits of the old clans, who are bound to the clan territory. from then on, they start violently harassing him, though they cannot leave clan territory, which zephyr learns quickly. zephyr is a coward and refuses to go on clan territory after this to avoid being harmed by the spirits, though the spirits can still speak to him while he hides away in the nearby twolegplace, and he is terrified of them. the spirits also make themselves known to cats in the clans who can see them (like hollowfoot) though they obviously aren’t hostile.
now all of this information ties together for the ending of the colony plotline, which i hadn’t finalized but had a rough idea set in place:
basically now that they know how to control the colony’s only weakness, glitterclan would lead an ambush into the colony territory with assistance from haven, who amassed a small rebellion army inside the colony. it would begin with haven asking to meet zephyr somewhere in the twolegplace, where he would be ambushed by oleandersky and hawkplume and become blinded by his injuries. zephyr’s call for the colony to attack is what initiates the fight, and he chases hawkplume through the streets as she leads him to the ironmaw, though he obviously can’t see. all the while the glitterclan cats and haven’s group are fighting the colony cats.
the details of who dies and who lives in the fight weren’t fleshed out yet because i wanted this to be determined by the game. however brackenshine had plot armor because she was stationed inside at the ironmaw’s button. when hawkplume leads zephyr into the ironmaw, they duke it out until hawkplume renders zephyr unable to walk, after which she signals for brackenshine to turn the ironmaw on. zephyr, realizing what’s happening, restrains hawkplume and insists she will die with him. now i hadn’t decided if she actually would die or not. she either 1. dies with zephyr in a badass super dramatic sacrifice or 2. escapes after zephyr is startled by the vengeful spirit of his dead father. either way zephyr dies terrified because his dead dad’s spirit is harassing him in his final moments.
i like hawkplume too much to have her just die like that without the game telling me to do it, so i hadn’t solidified that aspect of the ending yet. either way, zephyr would die and the colony would mostly dissipate, with haven taking over what was left and remaining an ally to glitterclan.
i think(?) that’s everything. as you can see i had a LOT to cover before returning to normal clangen updates and it just wasn’t feasible. but i hope this provides closure for you all :3
jacobvanloon
vaporwave
ellievsbear
tangentwithtanner
romaincrisis
