This is definitely not true, seeing as Thalia disengaging Sister’s collar is what enables killing Thaubal in the first place.
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Destroying or dispelling something is not equal to knowing how to create/cast it. I presume that goes for magic too.
Then again it’s been ages since I played D&D, but knowing dispel magic didn’t mean I knew fireball also and the old Arcadians have been pretty poor about transmitting their knowledge and spells down the generations.
And magic in this setting seems more formalised, like in D&D than in some other settings where it is just strength of will and intent given form or something like that.
Fortunately my mc is more interested in learning how to destroy the collars than how to create them.
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Except Thalia doesn’t dispel the collar. She DISENGAGES it. She knows EXACTLY how the collar works. That wasn’t her using an extraneous method to get rid of the collar, it was her using the collar itself. It’s not a case of dispel magic v fireball, it’s a case of “I have studied geas extensively and therefore know how to make it work AND not work”.
Reasonably sure that stuff like Banecircle and Magebane aren’t “parlor tricks” by any definition of the term. Unless you want to define all non-Arcadian magic as “parlor tricks”, at which point I don’t know what to tell you.
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Fair enough, who knows she may be using one on Eli as well then, for all we know.
In any case doesn’t change the fact that the mc never knows any of the really useful stuff, just a few basic parlor tricks and some limit breaks that require inflicting excruciating torture on themselves.
I was of the impression that it was either a collar or another specific torture spell that Thalia used to make the mc feel pain akin to being burned alive all over again, as it was established she can’t just casually cast resurrection as she needed a year to prepare that ritual last time.
But if the resurrection ritual makes anyone affected a thrall of Thalia’s by default…
In any case by now the mc is rather used to even excruciating torture, as it is not much different from how Eli’s “healing” arcana feels when used to rapidly regenerate the mc’s mana ducts under orders of Thalia or indeed the torture the parasites, including the earthworm thing, require the mc to inflict on themselves to use their curse.
Really, while my mc doesn’t like pain, it is a sad fact of his miserable life, so the effects of Thalia using it as punishment are probably not what she hoped for, particularly since Eli’s “healing” is said to be almost as painful.
My mc sure doesn’t.
Anyway, I suppose the best way to test if Thalia slapped another collar on the mc is to try and escape again during the next festival update, if that is going to be one of the choices.
Compared to what the mc always seems to be up against, with Thaubal, then sister and now Thalia, they may as well be, for all the good they do the mc…which is rather close to nothing.
The only time the mc’s magic skills came even close to being sufficient was during their White Fang days, when backed by a traditional adventuring party, and even then the mc’s weakened magical “stamina” still got them their disability.
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I regards to the escape attempt it was not a magical collar but in fact Thalia letting the MC feel the full effects of the spell used to bring the MC back to life or the aspect or what have you. At least if we trust what was said in that moment for there was no indication whatsoever that a collar was used but in fact Thalia using her power to open up all the pain and suffering the MC went through. At least that’s my take from the scene when it comes to that and she stops when Eli says he will keep us in line. Then she goes and says the line about arcadia always being there home and leaving.
Just wanted to point it out but back to bed I go hope everyone is doing well 
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Sorry for interrupting your discussion, but i was curious if we will be able to return to Param at some point in the game/series.
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I think that’s pretty much a given. The New Arcadia-Param conflict has to come to a head at SOME point.
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That was my confusion in the first place. I’m not talking about talking. I was asking what prevents you from placing the collar on someone else to show as an example of what is happening.
But this is what I was getting at so thank you for answering. I don’t remember anything like this when the collar is placed on you so I didn’t know what stops you from putting the collar on someone else so they could understand a crumb of what’s happening without you needing to delve into some secrets.
There were simply some lines about you not being able to speak/write. It gives the sense of there being an “obvious” way out in trying to speak and being visibly restricted in doing so or trying to write and being forced into intense pain from the act. Both of those actions should be able to show visible distress which would alert close friends into knowing something is wrong though not necessarily what.
But with your “preprogrammed” explanation let’s say that it couldn’t be done with others knowingly watching the MC, making that route impossible; I don’t think that’s ever clearly explained. Just a bit about you trying to speak or write but ending up in pain from the act, not about what’s stopping you from doing it in front of someone else and showing them the effects of your collar. If it is clearly explained, please show me cuz I obviously missed it.
And I must agree with this. I can’t imagine something so debilitating wouldn’t be part of someones top priority in studying on how to remove it after it’s been activated on then at least two or three times.
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Because almost no one knows that spell
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We’re definitely not sure about the intrincacies of the collar. We do know that the collar is a curse devised in ancient times; I don’t THINK there are unassigned collars (i.e., you can’t create a collar and then put it on someone; I think collars only exist on people), though that’s speculation on my part. I think it’s safe to assume that wearing a collar prevents you from deactivating the collar, otherwise it’s not really all that useful.
We DO know that the MC doesn’t know how collars work (they have to test out if it works on writing, which of course it does because otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a secret keeper), though the extent of the ignorance is up for the debate - like, does the MC know how to activate/deactivate a collar on another person? We don’t know.
Note that the writing pain happens when nobody’s around to see the MC do it - I hypothesise that the collar works on the basis of not-reveal. As in, since there’s nobody around to see you write and therefore you writing doesn’t reveal anything about the collar or the secret the collar is meant to keep, it lets you start to write and then it shocks you when you’re about to write something revealing. If you tried to do a reveal when somebody’s watching, the mere fact that that distress would hint at the existence of the collar makes the collar not let you do it without causing any external signs.
An interesting question therefore arises: if you don’t know that someone’s watching, does the collar hit you hard enough for the distress or does it just freeze you without any displays? I.e., can you UNWITTINGLY reveal?
This. Right now, the only person we know knows the spell is Thalia (a rather larger number knows OF the spell). I’d bet an exceedingly large amount of money that the Jovian Church’s higher ups do as well.
And even then, Thalia might just know how to turn collars on and off instead of actually being able to create one wholecloth.
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As always the problem is that the mc has zero resources or agency to even start to research anything.
The only source other than Thaubal’s actually useful notes , which sister seems to have hidden or destroyed and maybe Thalia would be the mysterious backer of the twins, but I doubt the mc will get the chance to torture it out of them either.
My guess is…no…since out of Thaubal’s victims the mc was the youngest and they seem to have been able to absorb less knowledge than sister and Eli and nobody in Salantira seems to have taught the mc anything really useful about magic.
As in knowing of it, I doubt they know how to cast or create them.
Well that really would leave the mysterious backer of the creepy twins as the only possible source…and odds are the mc won’t be able to get anything remotely useful out of them either.
And trying to communicate with the parasites is absolutely out of the question too…as the mc can only access them for like five seconds at the time at the cost of self-inflicted torture that is now followed by Eli inflicted torture for rapid “healing”.
I’ve been away for so long that I don’t really know where to start, but as ever I’m glad to see that disagreements are well and alive! Every character in the game (bar Saine) is designed to have some degree of bastard in them whilst being drenched in my favorite character traits and tropes, so to say that the reception has been everything I’d hoped for would be an understatement indeed.
I’ll try going through this thread since I was last here and address any questions/concerns directed directly to me. I might miss some (which would be unintentional), and I’ll likely avoid commenting on hypotheticals/thought essays (which would be intentional, as I don’t at all intend to inject my two cents into the morality discussion when I have information that readers do not).
No way I’m going to go through this in one go, though. nervous chuckle
Is this a good time to mention that Saine is in the next update? ehe.
I believe a more accurate descriptor would be ‘route-locked’. Some routes do not fit nicely in the boxes of ‘Arcadian’ or ‘Parami’, and some will lock out certain ROs from both sides while some other may lock out none. But please keep in mind that this is Book III material and changes are still very much possible!
The other stat is Charisma instead of Charming, though I can see how that could be a bit confusing. x) Unfortunately, I don’t think ‘Bold’ quite encompasses the personality set I try to write around the Charming stat, and at this point I’m a bit too partial to the label to part with it. :’) Sorry!
Thanks for the report (and the compliment :’)). Fixed now!
Definitely not in Leon’s case, unfortunately. The order of White Fang reappearance will be Saine → Ilya → Leon–and that’s about as much as I’ll be willing to divulge on the matter! x)
Thank you kindly! And for your extensive feedback as well. I’m awed by how much thought you put into this post, and honored that you would put it together for AMR. Thanks once again!
I’m assuming that you’re referring to the inaugural phantasma spell in the invasion chapter–in which case, I’m inclined to agree! Your initial phantasma can make a return in the future based on your choices, and perhaps a successful cast then might make for a nice full circle moment.
Actually, Yurui and the rest of the Arcadian gang appears in Book 2 :’) Book 1 ends with the exoneration scene, as that’s the bookend I felt was most conclusive despite it cutting the first book a bit short length-wise. Which is to say–it is intended that Yu, F, Eli, and Tahlia become the foreground characters in Book II, while the Parami gang is relegated to very background roles, and so I hope it all feels evened out in the end. In particular, Yu gets a lot of screentime in the current update cycle, and I’m currently writing their romance route as we speak!
Point taken! There’s a(n arguably) good reason why the spells have remained static thus far, and that’s because the plan is for your spellset to change completely after having spent some time in Arcadia, wherein knowledge of advanced ercei magic lost even to the ercei themselves reside. This is actually the backbone of the biggest combat mechanic in Book 2 onwards: the Arcane-Ercei slider, which tracks your tendency to rely on Arcana vs ercei spells, and will have profound impacts on the routes you are able to take in the endgame.
That being said, I’ll look into the possibility of injecting some variety into the pre-timeskip segments. That workload is a little terrifying to me, though…
x) I’ll bring it up with my beta testers!
You’re not alone on that one–I knew he would be a polarizing character! F’s personality is honestly the type I usually go for in choice games, where they are available. Some of us are just gluttons for punishment…though when they begin to come around, I generally find the sheer catharsis to be worth the struggle. x) Happy you’ve found your fit with Yu instead!
Thank you kindly for these words! I am the very worst at knowing how to respond to compliments, but know that you’ve got me blushing out here with how profuse they are!
Food for thought! Likelier than not that I’ll skim a bit of inspiration from your list for upcoming updates.
Thank you once again for the extensive feedback!
Makes sense! Again, I’ll bring it up to my beta testers and see how they feel about the current balance.
I’ll continue this again soon! Thank you everyone for your interest in AMR. <3 Update coming on the 15th!
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I think one of the few things everyone agrees on is that there’s no bad time for more Saine.
I’m going to be honest, I’m not sure more spells are needed, barring this thing you just mentioned about resorting to completely different practices. Maybe @vexius_krexius uses Fist of the Dark Lord a lot, because they’re super-high specialised on Spirit and dumped Thaum (heavens know Thaum is my unhesitant drop, because “hitting people in the face” is the least interesting thing I can think of to do with magic, including pulling rabbits out of a hat), so whenever they want to hit people in the face the only answer they have is, well, Fist of the Dark Lord. It also saves time on you having to explain what this new spells does (and it can’t be hitting people in the face, because that’s basically Thaum’s monopoly) and it saves people brainspace in having to go “wait, what does THIS ONE do again”? As someone who mains Enchantment and Spirit, Fist of the Dark Lord is also the spell I use for punching people in the face (Banecircle is more “screw people who try to punch me in the face”), if you don’t count me Magesonging Thaumers to punch people in the face on my behalf all day long.
I’m not sure F would be my go-to personality (I like more snark in my jerk), except unlike other CoGs that I’ve played that feature F-likes, F actually has a very good reason to be an asshole to the MC (and they seem to de-jerk considerably right after I help spiritgate the strike team), so that’s fresh.
And some of us are going to poly and don’t have to choooooose!
\o/
Any idea when Book 1 might get published? Have you submitted it yet, or are you waiting to get more books done first?
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That’s a very good point, and frankly all the excuse I need to not edit our past repertoire, aha! I find editing past content exponentially more difficult than writing new ones (injecting Chapter 3 smackdab in the middle of Book I is an experience I’d rather have wiped from my memory). Speaking of which…
I plan to submit it this month! I’ve made very little progress is doing final edits in the past few months, chiefly because I’m always much more excited to write new content than get older ones spick and span. That being said, my 2022 resolution is to write much less in January and finish editing Book I, so we’ll see how that goes!
They have something further against you than what’s been revealed thus far, and if I’m not mistaken it’ll be brushed against in the next update (and fully unpacked in the next next update). I probably like them an inordinate amount vs the average reader given the benefit of information, though regardless I do think they’re still being unfair with the mage. Ah well, such are the pains of character growth arcs!
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And here I was hoping maybe there was a possibility of most of the rebellion being fleshed out more than just a few scenes going over what we did off screen, oh well.
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That’s Book 2 stuff, though. Book 1 ends before you’re rezzed, so all the rebellion stuff is B2 stuff.
Ah, my bad.
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Hold on, I think I should have clarified. I meant the “rebellion” against the sister’s suprise invasion, since it was also called the “rebellion”. We get a few tidbits here and there about what we did, most notably how going through those paladins to shank the saintess should be “easy” because we went through worse odds during the war burning enemy trebutchets, but that’s it.
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You just made me go feral with a single sentence. Thank you.
I do feel it even, tbh.
No opinion in the spells but the spellset change is interesting
I’m neutral about it 
MC wouldn’t really react unless the character is openly hostile, and I mean hostile as a potential threat instead of just someone who doesn’t like/it’s rude to you.
Love me a RO with morals struggling when said morals clash with their duty/course of action.
Can’t wait! I think we can all agree that we are really invested in the characters/story. Hope you don’t overwork and take care of yourself, stay safe! <3
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I finished reading the current demo yesterday, and I’m still thinking about it a lot. I really, really like it! The story telling and writing is very smooth, the angst is delicious (chef’s kiss 3;), and the characters make me feel very attached in a short amount of time. Some compliments that are more about quality of life–I’ve become a fan of “personality” checks being just for flavor text; it makes my character feel a lot more immersive. I also like how you don’t have to pick a sexuality and you can just assess how you feel about a character as you read, which I really like as someone who finds attractiveness in the personality and memories with a character.
Also, I’ve seen people talking about how certain events would be viewed in the eyes of their characters, and I thought I’d share a bit!
Character rambling
In my headcanon, my character would claw and grab at her throat the entire three months and try to get words out even when in unbearable pain. When the collar is eventually broken, I imagine that there’d be some sort of imprint on her neck, scars, or at least a lot of mental trauma that would make her much, much more reserved than before, because even with what words she could get out, nobody would listen anyway.
As for how she would feel about Leon and Ante: She’d still love Leon, but would be almost robotically cold until the two had a heart to heart. And although she wouldn’t hate/want to hurt Ante, the fact that one of the last things she heard her beloved say was another woman’s name; one so closely related to the circumstances of her death and how he now looked back on what Ante said and regretted not believing it, would likely shatter the remainder of her sanity and leave her feeling irritated and bitter every time the spymaster’s name was brought up.
As for if a statue was erected: if she came back and found it standing in the spot she died, with her face on it, she’d probably shatter it to pieces. Mostly out of self-hatred and the trauma of having stood there while people called her a monster and that she deserved to die
tl;dr: I’m in love with Leon and finding this story was a wonderful early birthday present ;-;
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Well…since my mc does not like inflicting excruciating torture on himself, I think I know which way he leans.
Hmm…the mc went on the run very young and Thaubal was never really interested in teaching, just experimenting. The only real education the mc got was after their rescue as a prisoner ward of the Salantiran court, and even then, compared to sister and Eli mc seems to have missed out on the advanced/interesting subjects due to their young age.
And the next educational opportunity is reading books in Leaf’s end.
Interesting, yes, but how useful it will be to the mc remains to be seen as everything the mc is allowed to do in Arcadia is carefully controlled (the only thing the mc’s attitude has an impact on is how obvious that control and their prisoner status is), so it makes sense that what bits of forgotten magic the mc actually gets to see are going to be very carefully curated by Thalia, which vastly reduces its usefulness to the mc.
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