"A Crown of Sorcery and Steel"—Overthrow the queen's clockwork iron army!

My first time was studious and charming elf girl who immediately swooned over Queen and decided that Peace through Overwhelming Firepower was exactly what is needed for the world. It made for bittersweet times alongside her party, but I have to say, all the sneaky betrayal and sabotage options are absolutely amazing. It really felt like I’m in a deep cover.

Ending was interesting. I looked at failing war effort, knowing I was the one who did that, and snickered, until I finally got to the Queen. And epilogue showed pretty much what I expected. Caged Singing Bird, angry mage warrior that escaped me, farmer who lost all hope and prince that we turned to our side. Wonderful.

Time to replay as combat-oriented hero. And do a nice poly route lmao.

3 Likes

@Gapaot
How were you able to get the Prince to turn to your side, I had high charm and only got him saying he missed his trusted adviser and was looking at me sadly, I did turn his brother to the Queens side aka dark side lol

Also were you able to get the dwarves to successfully revolt ?

@JoshMLabelle
If you side with the Queen with the plan to backstab her later is it possible to keep all companions not pissed off at you and keep them alive and be the sole ruler

I mean, I have no idea what exactly helped. It went like that:

We got to the capitol, I’ve tried to put him in the throne but in actual confrontation I got the option to tell his brother to just side with Queen. So they came to stalemate and shared the rule for a moment. After he came to me near the end of the game, I couldn’t go because I went to help Scribes. Then in the last chapter (or epilogue?) I said I’ll help him on a throne but he gives up Ice Pass or whatever it called to Queen, because she wants it.

I also didn’t go to dwarves to help them revolt but I made a deal with magistrate and Queen (he didn’t wait up and started to kill dwarves anyway) and infighting paralyzed war effort and didn’t get us a single ingot for the army.

Honestly I got like 90% of sabotage options and they didn’t suspect a damn thing because I was always good at charm and learned and faked my ass out when I needed to try my weak skill to deliberately fail.

Note: I’ve noticed that when I romanced Queen her portrait was at the TOP of the party list but when I decided to not work for her in second playthrough, it’s on the BOTTOM of the list. Most curious.

I was enjoying myself, but then got a glitch: it was about when the assassins turned up

CoG error message

2 Likes

Can I just say well done with the queen hands down one of the best characters in the game. Heavily enjoyed how the villain romance was handed you don’t see much of those in choice of games and it’s always fun to see.

6 Likes

MC at the start: “I wish I’d been born in a human city, I hate all this elfy nonsense, I can’t wait to leave all this stupid elf history crap behind me.”

MC, approximately 30 seconds after meeting a cute lady elf with an eyepatch: “I hate it when people steal elven artifacts! Our people’s history is important and it needs to be protected!”

20 Likes

This is a fun one, a heart racing journey from start to finish

My first playthrough I was a human con artist who honestly did not want to get roped into any of this, but helped only to end the bloodshed. The party honestly grew on me; despite them basically drafting me, I definitely wanted to see them all happy and alive by the end of the story. Too bad I was working for the queen the whole time. Call me evil, but peace through absolute power isn’t a bad alternative to countless endless racial conflicts.

Definitely a story worth playing through again.

11 Likes

All I can say is…wow. Great game. I truly enjoyed this story.:sob:But man o man, With the route I took my first play- I feel HORRIBLE!! My MC was so loved and trusted by everyone around him, yet, I just chose to idek….My heart is literally in my stomach.

I went for The dark Empress route. Being her Eye. Romanced her. Did EVERYTHING she asked. Just to get to the end, happy we’re finally together. Everything I wanted right?? Well Hell!! I guess that wasn’t enough for me because after killing my friends, I went and made love to the Empress!! And Even as the player I wasn’t expecting to do the unthinkable….but she should’ve never trusted a mercenary because I ended her, the moment her back was turned, I decided I loved her enough to set her free. She JUST told me she never felt love and I gave that to her. I’m so hurt. **But I’m also king(emperor?) now lmao. I actually wasn’t expecting that to be a choice at the end but it worked out in my favor all the same. **

I wish we got to see the reaction and turnout of our MC ruling over empress’s army.

6 Likes

You really did great with this, like really! Do you plan to do more work in the future? Man o man I hope so. I’ll read anything your drop if THATS what I get to look forward to each time lol.

5 Likes

I’m only at the very beginning of the game but I would like to know if there is a map to better locate the different places in the game, please?

1 Like

Are you playing on browser? Unfortunately it seems to be an error having to do with the browser’s local storage being full. Clearing some of your history might help.

3 Likes

I really appreciate your kind words, and I love the experience you had with the book!

As for whether I’ll be able to do more like this, I would love to at least do one shorter “sequel” story that allows for some more time with the party members of your choice and lets you see more of the state of the world (including all possible endings!) before sending you off on one last grand adventure. And there are lots of possibilities for smaller stories set in this world - from tales of the Scribes of old to the thieves guilds of Kanda to the Vayyan orc pirates off the coasts. I’d also love to do a story of a similar scale to this set in a more modern world.

Dropping a positive rate and review on the platform of your choice (Steam, Play Store, etc) or mentioning you liked the book on social media greatly increases the chances of the book’s success to allow that to happen.

16 Likes

I’m so thrilled to hear it! Whatever you do, I’ll be looking forward to it! (I especially love the idea of a story focused on the Scribes.)

2 Likes

Yeah, nothing like more whiny scribes, going barefoot, talking about hoarding relics…

Read it in Sera voice

Hey @JoshMLabelle I vote for something lighthearted with everyone, like as a sequel? You know, something fun. Nothing ‘End of the world’. Where everyone get to shine a little, and have fun, and get group hugs (We didn’t get any, and Zid need to be squeashed in a group hug…cause his reaction would be worth it and then some!).

Then some romances of course :wink:

3 Likes

Queen Nidana: a
we:

4 Likes

I’m not going to give a full review of this one, but I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Highly recommend checking out at least the demo to pretty much anyone. The demo gives an excellent taste of what you are going to get, and you if you enjoy the characters and the demo, you are not going to be disappointed with what you get post purchase.

I think the thing I like most about this game is the variety of origins and feeling like I can truly roleplay a character. I had an idea of what type of character I wanted to play at the beginning and I never felt that the auto dialogue/thoughts was jarring to that experience. The author did a good job of incorporating the stats your character had into how the scene would react to you. Also I legit LOL like at least 5 times through the game so that is always cool. Worldbuilding was also unique and interesting. I’m a DM, and several times I thought about how I wanted to steal a parts of the worldbuilding for future settings I could create.

5 Likes

Congratulations. I can’t remember the last time I actually sat through a story. The fact that it’s all done in one book makes it even more appealing in my opinion, as it can often be frustrating to wait for sequels. Also, when all was done, I really felt like I actually achieved something. A 10 for you. I’m not one for many words, but just know that it was dam good. Thanks and good luck with any future projects.

3 Likes

Are you still able to romance someone even if you don’t press the option the minute it comes up?

Edit: Nevermind you can it seems like. Which is nice makes me really happy you aren’t forced into the choice straight away.

5 Likes

Hey, all. I’ve completed my review of A Crown of Sorcery and Steel. Thanks for reading!

6 Likes

So does anyone actually know which are the poly romances in this story?