Yes, there is some kind of overarching story that's starting to crystallize, which largely has to do with your father and other family members:
Your father had access to a gigantic amount of knowledge at one point, which is the explanation for how you know how many things you have yet to explore. This was however memory wiped, along with where any of this happened or why. Same deal with your mother.
Whatever bits of knowledge he/his wife had remaining were traded over to The Long Spear of Wisdom in exchange for asylum and a stake in the guild for them and their four children, of which you're the youngest.
Your father had this idea of an exhibit, but the guild is unwilling to fund it, though if it gets funding they will host it ("and take credit for it without any risk", your father says bitterly). Most of the guild members are derisive about the idea, and this continues in various ways until you actually get some standing with it (and go into tertiary country).
A lot of the problem with your father's exhibition idea has to do with your mother. She's dying, or more accurately has some (so far) uncurable disease that puts her close to death and slowly brings her closer and closer to it.
Your father, being a skilled mage, has kept her from dying altogether, although it's at a point now where her mind is "beyond the shroud" and it takes death magic to communicate with her, while her body continues to linger. He's too busy with that (as well as keeping himself alive, as he's quite old and death magic also incurs a cost) to go out exploring / building the exhibit. I think he has several motivations for it, all of which should be explored in the text in ambiguous ways:
A kind of payback against the group that wiped his memories and made him need asylum. Bringing everyone's secrets into the open goes directly against that.
A chance to clear his reputation and redeem himself since he's not exactly looked highly on within the guild, despite how considerable his remaining knowledge and skill is.
maybe (and a fool's hope) that the interest and attention would attract people able to help with his wife's condition.
Needless to say, when he's not tending to himself or his wife he's absolutely obsessed about the exhibit and has been since you were a child.
In your case this has instilled a strong desire to explore and learn to bring the exhibit to life, as well as other powerful emotions. However in his other (and older) children this has completely alienated them, or in one case (the oldest brother and the one you're named after) killed them.
Your Siblings
Your brother was still devoted to the pursuit of knowledge but couldn't stand your father's obsession so he instead went to Schoolshore and became involved in the Guilds there. He's definitely estranged.
Your sister, meanwhile, rejected the call of knowledge altogether and joined the religious extremists in Covenant. Not only is she estranged, but even finding her again would be problematic.
The oldest brother actually built part of an exhibit and really went deep into the secrets of other Guilds. This ended up going too far and he was executed and the exhibit burned down -- this happened while the family was in Schoolshore though; they're much safer here. For all their faults, the Long Spear of Wisdom is powerfully backed and has a heck of a lot of pull.
You're "of age", whatever that means in this pseudo-fantasy world. Your father's been the one kinda behind the wheel, which you're okay with because growing up around him and the Guild you have a natural desire for exploration and curation anyway.
Your father figured you getting your Courier license was probably the best way for you to gain passage around the world easily (and live off its money as well) so he put all of his resources into that.
Outside of a long journey from Schoolshore (which you barely remember), you've lived your entire life on Mons Minima, generally on the research cochlea with some occasional trips to the commercial one or (very rarely when your parents had guests they couldn't lodge), to the mining one. So while you'll definitely unlock some memories as you go, a lot of it will instead be based around what your parents/siblings have told you with only faint glimmers of things you yourself have experienced.
Obviously, to explore and build the exhibit and make enough Courier money to fund it and stuff.
Your father wants you to reach out to your siblings if you can find them -- this is essential for main story progression. They're estranged and also haven't answered any communication.
Ideally find out exactly what happened to your brother too, ideally without also dying in the process (that would actually be hard with LSOW guild backing -- their claws are deep). As dangerous as this request is despite those safeguards, there's not exactly a moderating influence on your father's obsessions -- your siblings are gone, your mother is practically gone and the other guild members your father has contempt for anyway. So while he urges you to be careful (and definitely don't tell the rest of the guild), he wants you to do that too.
Find out who wiped his/your mother's memories and why. Another one of those very dangerous requests. But he wants that to be one of the biggest features of the exhibit -- whatever secrets they're guarding need to be public.
I'm not sure how any of this plays out yet. It'll be a long time before I get to the actual locations where the story is relevant again, however. When you reach those locations you will definitely remember your father's commands in case this ends up being an excessively long game or something. However actually pursuing the leads or not is up to you.
First of all, your parents both worked at Mons Axis. I'm not sure how much they knew about the surveillance project, but it was enough to break ties and seek asylum. The memory stuff may have been some secondary effect of a secrecy spell and is probably what caused your mother's illness as well. Or all of the above was more deliberate by that group.
One of them knew the secret of The Maw as well -- this is conspicuously absent in the journal so that area will show 0/0 like a bug despite stuff existing there. However there's some other way of getting that information. Maybe it's scribbled out or something. In any case the maw stuff scared them and definitely a late Endgame thing.
So first of all, your other brother isn't actually dead, he was just captured. This probably ties into the Mons Axis storyline; that's the most logical place for him to have been captured and his death faked, and also learning the reasons your parents memories were wiped was a good reason for him to be there. If you go there and learn the secret you probably get captured as well, but your guild is powerful enough to spring you and him as well.
Your mother definitely dies at some point. It's inevitable really. Worse though, the death magic at the end enacts a toll high enough to make your father pass on as well. I think this kind of thing wouldn't happen until the exhibit is fairly successful and/or your brother comes home. Idk what the long term ramifications are.
The Maw is *definitely* a big plot point as it's heavily implicated in the lore. You can go down there at any time but it's gigantic and labyrinthine and drains your supplies way too easily. Nonetheless you can find *some* stuff down there. In any case, you're supposed to do it after your exhibit gets a certain amount of success and/or maybe with your brother back and the other siblings helping. There's a lot of magic involved that makes the supplies/provisioning concerns less important.
