Thank you! I hope you get to play it and enjoy. Re: linearity, I heard the same critique of Into the Fog on the Between Two Cairns podcast, but having played it I’ve actually found Fatherfog does a clever slight of hand here; the decision making falls to the characters and how they interact with each other and the world. In Into the Fog, we all ate the stew, all but one. When we encountered the glistening armour, I went off the string to examine it, unafraid, holding my lantern. And when the hair tried to capture me, I shattered my lantern to defeat it with fire, but leaving me without light. It definitely inverts some expectations about classic role-playing games, and arguably b2c are right, this is a story game with torches and rations.
Re: Mansrot, its a good call, and I think the thing we came to after play test was that a description of the three sisters with cloaks and brooches would actually really support clocking what was going on. That said, it was fun to play it and have the PCs NOT recognize mansrot, only realizing later that the old woman Rinkrank had devoured was someone they cared for per the questions in the intro.