Basically, Ashdown was going to end in one of three ways, and it was functionally determined by the meta.

Ezra/the Burning Man surviving his trial was pretty much a win condition: if he lived, he would be able to contribute his knowledge of binding magic and runes to the final fight. If he died, then players would still be able to beat the final "boss" (the true Enemy) but it would be a lot harder, since they'd have to research the binding magic and runes themselves (which Jamie and Ollie were working at from different angles).

The return of the Spinel Lady was, hopefully, adequately foreshadowed. The new Charter tried to split them, but Melany/Spinel Lady were too deeply intertwined for one to survive without the other. She was going to turn (unless Temperance succeeded in extracting Melany from the Spinel Lady) and basically give a What The Hell, Hero speech leading to this revelation:

By creating the new charter, player characters functionally killed Sunny/Ascencion as they knew her. Sonny and Sunny are two different people: Sonny is the Charter embodied (as Sunny was the cage embodied). When Sonny was created by the Charter, Sunny was free to ******** s**t up: she was the source of all the ********. Vivien's reappearance (and associated questline) and the gaps between other ashdown and Ashdown were based entirely around Sunny trying to get back at the player characters for their crimes. The original Sunny basically became a malevolent magical force, desiring to force everyone into the framework they'd built around her... so, she was The Enemy, and the Spinel Lady was going to reveal that the world was pretty much going to end in three in-game-time days. (Each of these IC days would've taken a month OOCly so people could run through quests.)

If Ezra lived (or someone completed the binding runes questline) and Melany was freed of the Spinel Lady, then fighting the Enemy Sunny would've been a straightforward narrative battle. I had a bunch of ideas for how the player characters could get spotlighted in their attacks on the Enemy (I was toying with Shiloh getting to use his Plant Craft to tie her down, Temperance being able to call on her healing gifts to basically tank through the Enemy's attacks, Jeremiah and Algie's grimoire temporarily forcing the Enemy to attack using spells they knew, Jamie successfully pulling off some massive magic using what he'd learned from Renard and the original magic that created the Cage).

If Ezra didn't live and Melany turned into the Spinel Lady again, it would've been a dice battle against an enemy with an obscene amount of HP. Characters still would've gotten spotlight moments, but the effectiveness of those moments would've been greatly reduced, because the Enemy was unbound and didn't have to play by the rules. There would be a few win conditions, but they all would've depended upon player characters making narrative choices, rather than combat-based ones, such as accepting responsibility for what they'd done when they made the Charter. They would've had twenty turns (which would've translated to about three weeks in-game) to reduce the Enemy Sunny's HP to zero or to contain her or convince her to cease her casting. If they failed, then Sunny would successfully reinstate the Cycles.

So the final three state-options of the universe were dependent upon the success of the players.

If Sunny was killed or died, the day after the battle the characters would've woken up without any trace of the magic they'd earned, save for one or two minor powers. Magical familiars would remain, the different specializations would have one or two traits attached, but the world would be essentially parallel to our modern worldstate. Renard and Liam would be dead, Vivien would be dead, characters whose magic was intrinsically tied to their life force would be horribly mutilated, etc. This was because Sunny was, basically, the source of all magic from the moment of her creation, and therefore with Sunny gone there would be little to no magic left.

If Sunny was convinced to cease her casting, the day after the battle would've begun with the characters breaking open the Charter and basically removing all constraints on the growth of magic in the world. Vivien would've returned to life, Melany and Ezra would've had their happily ever after, Sunny and Sonny would essentially function as twins to their parents, etc. other ashdown would've merged with Ashdown, and the world would've been an intensely magical place. The systems set into place in other ashdown would've remained in place in this new world, leaving player characters in positions of great power if they chose to keep them.

If Sunny succeeded in her casting and could not be convinced to stop, then the game would essentially return to the cycle of the Charter's creation, with all player characters in Liam and Renard's position in the original cycles beneath the Cage: unable to change the outcome of the story, and forced to find their own champions to grant power in order to break it again.

And that would've been the end of Ashdown!

I'm really sorry I didn't get to play this out with you all. Things got so busy in real life, and then I got carried away by other stories, and by the time I could pick Ashdown back up, a lot of the player characters that I needed had dropped from the game. This will never be a replacement for the story we would've told together, but I hope it at least answers your questions--and if it doesn't, please feel free to reach out and chat with me. Silv and I will be around if players want to talk post-game stories and art for always.

Thanks so much for coming along on my storytelling journey. I learned a lot from all of you, and really hope that someday we'll get to tell stories together again. heart
-Shibe