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“ | Our Generator is malfunctioning. After our leader ignored the problem for weeks, unbearable cold and brutal repression drove us to rise up against him. He didn't go down without a fight, and half the city was burned to the ground in the fighting. | „ |
~ Introductory quote for The Fall of Winterhome. |
The former Captain of Winterhome is the overarching antagonist of The Fall of Winterhome and A New Home scenarios in the 2019 survival strategy game Frostpunk.
Once a military veteran, the previous leader of the city of Winterhome used his experience to rule over its populace with an iron fist. His continuous neglect of his people and misuse of the city's life-giving Generator eventually led to a violent revolt that left dozens dead, most of the city destroyed and the generator broken beyond fixing.
Personality[]
Due to the fact that the Captain of Winterhome is already dead by the time The Fall of Winterhome starts, little is known about his personality. However, the sheer disdain the surviving citizens have for him and his goons, as well as the scale of the destruction in the city and the laws already set in place paint the picture of a ruthless tyrant. The controversial "child labour" law is in full effect, meaning that he had no qualms with using the 190 children living in Winterhome as workforce.
When the people decided enough is enough, the Captain tried to suppress the riots with gunfire, more concerned with keeping his power than fixing the damage he has caused and destroying the city in the process.
Appearance[]
For the same reason as above, the appearance of the Captain of Winterhome is completely left up to the player's imagination. The male corpse prominently displayed in the "Divided in death" event is likely to be him, as it is explicitly mentioned that the bodies of the previous leader and his men are also in the body pit, but it is not made apparent.
Biography[]
Background[]

The city of Winterhome, ablaze from the riots.
Little is known about the Captain of Winterhome's past, only that he was once part of the British military. When the Great Frost enveloped the world in a new ice age, the Captain took charge or was assigned command of the colonists arriving at the Winterhome Generator to build a city that could endure the freezing cold. He was somewhat successful in establishing an infrastructure that could support over 600 people, one of the things that it was lacking was a stable food supply. While the citizens were starving in the streets, the Captain used the ensuing chaos as an excuse to appoint himself absolute ruler of Winterhome, using armed guards to bring order back to the city. Despite having a large population to work the jobs needed for the upkeep of the community, the Captain put the children to work as well, which didn't help the growing unrest in the city.
The situation eventually came to melting point when the people of Winterhome started an open revolt against him. Meanwhile, some of the engineers working in Winterhome realized that the Captain's continuous abuse of the Generator's overdrive function, intended to boost its heat output in emergency situations, was putting the heart of the city at risk. They attempted to repair it before any permanent damage could be done, but the Captain had them arrested before they could complete their work.
Where previously threats by his armed thugs were enough to suppress dissenters, desperation pushed the people past the point of caring. Many citizens were shot dead and the city was nearly burned to the ground, but the struggle ended when the Captain of Winterhome was finally killed and what remained of his guards fled.
The Fall of Winterhome[]

Winterhome's failing Generator in its broken streets.
A new captain was quickly appointed to lead the people in repairing what remained of their home. The freezing cold had the benefit of putting out most of the fires, so most of the effort was in restoring Winterhome's infrastructure. New medical facilities had to be built to mend the many wounded and sick, ruined buildings were torn apart and their components reused for new structures, trapped survivors had to be rescued and scouting parties were sent out to scour the surrounding area for resources.
Unfortunately, the Captain's death did not mean the end of Winterhome's problems, as while his successor was eventually able to bring some stability back to the city, the damage he had done to the Generator proved to be irreversible. The engineers tried to repair it, but discovered that not only would it continue to break down, it was inevitably going to explode outright and take the entire city with it, as there was no way of surviving the deadly frost without the warmth it provides. The city was doomed to fall.

The repaired Land Dreadnaught leaving Winterhome after the Generator's explosion.
The only hope the people of Winterhome had to survive was the Land Dreadnaught, the last of the colossal transport vehicles that had brought them to the Generator in the first place. It was badly damaged and had to be repaired, but could potentially save up to 500 people from certain death, sadly less than were still living in Winterhome. Many resources were needed: engineers to construct it, steel and steam cores to build it, coal to power it and food to feed its passengers, putting a strain on what was already a difficult and stressful situation. The Generator repeatedly broke down and lost more and more of its power each time, still requiring constant maintenance to buy as much time as possible.
In the end, how many people were evacuated safely depended entirely on how well the player handled the situation, but their odds of survival were grim at best either way.
A New Home[]
The Winterhome Generator was far from the only one built in the arctic region, however, as one of the last convoys from London arrived to try and build a new city not too far away from Winterhome. For the first two weeks of construction, the cold was harsh but still managable and the people of what would become "New London" were still under the belief that another city with surviviors must be nearby somewhere, unaware of the chaos that had consumed Winterhome. Hope started off strong, but worry began to spread through New London as the scout teams discovered early signs of the catastrophe, such as an abandoned weather station and an Automaton that was left to take care of what appeared to be a vital bridge by itself.

New London's scouts discovering Winterhome.
Regardless of what the player does, these hopes died within roughly two weeks, as a scout team could discover the remains of Winterhome, otherwise a single survivor arrived at the city on the 15th day to deliver the news with his dying breath. Winterhome's fate caused the people of New London to panic and splinter, with some expressing their desire to escape what they saw as a similarly doomed city and flee back to London. This new group called themselves the "Londoners", fearmongering among the populace to get more people to support them, fighting against the player's attempts to keep New London functional and potentially forcing the player to take more radical steps to stay in control of the city.
During this crisis, New London's scout teams continued to search the frozen wasteland for more resources and potential survivors to bring back to the city. Among the locations they could visit were a large convoy that got lost on the way to Winterhome, a small group of refugees that sought shelter near a freshwater spring that were forced to eat their own dead to survive and finally, 34 children in a cave. They were evacuated from Winterhome by their teachers and a few hunters under the guise of a "secret adventure", oblivious to how bad things became back home. When food became scarce, the adults ventured out to find more supplies and never returned, likely dying due to the worsening conditions outside.
Should the player choose to, the children and the other survivors were escorted back to New London and integrated into their growing society, finally receiving some proper hope for survival. Meanwhile the Londoners continued to cause trouble and tried to divide the city further until 15 days after the fall of Winterhome became known. Then, the Londoners left the city for an unknown fate, just as they had announced, were forced to stay against their will with some casualties or convinced that hope was not lost. Only now could New London move past the Captain of Winterhome's lingering influence and face the coming storm.
On the Edge[]

The last remains of Winterhome.
The repercussions of the Captain's actions could still be felt even months after the fall of Winterhome, but time had finally started to fade his legacy away. The few survivors of Winterhome had integrated with the people of New London, while what remained of the city was still in the process of being buried by masses of snow and ice. The remains of the Captain, his minions and his victims still laid deep beneath the snow, with only the steel carcass of the Generator still visible on the surface. It would not be long until nature would complete what the Captain had started and Winterhome would be nothing but a distant memory.
Gallery[]
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Londoners | Nikola Tesla | Lord Craven | Captain of Winterhome |