I’ll hold my recommendation until the second chapter comes out and I get a chance to play it a few times. From a purely customer standpoint I think it would feel disappointing if the second game is not a similar length to the first and cost the same.
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You don’t have to worry about the second game being shorter than the first. The only question at this point is whether it’s going to be similar in length or longer.
Also, even if the second game were substantially shorter, you wouldn’t have to worry about it costing the same, since the price for (almost all) games released by CoG and its subsidiaries is based on word count. If the second game were somehow shorter (which I don’t think is even possible at this point), it would cost less.
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Huh, you know, knowing that Grand Shayard is off the table for Stormwright, I can now talk about a detail that stood out to me on a first read from the Charivert de Shayard excerpt last month, that I didn’t want to be too hasty in discussing. But I do want to give it a last hurrah before refocusing my attention…
The desert wastes: that’s fascinating, seeing as we know Grand Shayard to be the second-largest city in the Hegemony, the ancient capital of Shayard, and a place where “twenty-two hundred Rim Squares would fit comfortably”: that place, in the myths set more than seven centuries ago, is in the “desert wastes.”
I’ve discussed potential aesthetic parallels between Vigil and Grand Shayard before, and this idea of desert wastes is another connecting factor — the deserts around Vigil are the most desert to ever desert in this setting — but it likewise meant my intuition immediately leaped to the story of Cunning-Quick:
Cunning-Quick became not only the wittiest but the most beautiful, strong, and long-lived of all folk who walk on earth. She poured out rivers into the desert, fountains of liquid gold and trees of jewels.
And the River Serdre, stretching from Grand Shayard all the way to the Outer Rim — I suddenly wonder if it existed in the age of Charivert de Shayard and the Knights of the Gryphon.
What would be most fascinating of all is figuring out whether Grand Shayard is itself still a desert, like the legends say. Blood magic isn’t necessary to explain how to build a grand city there — our own history offers plenty of examples for that — but it does raise interesting questions of what struggles happened in the creation of the City: and, of course, what fault lines might be exploited by an enemy to bring it down.
But that’s enough of Grand Shayard: that’s in the future. Here in the present, the Irduin excerpts we’ve read so far have been delightful (Maurs, in particular: great guy, breakout star for me), and I’m excited to see what happens there.
I suspect that the people of Irduin may be somewhat less enthused by this, of course… If they’d hoped to live a quiet, peaceful life, I can’t imagine becoming the climax of a grand novel will be good for their peace of mind.
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With this split could gender content and exploration happen in Irduin, or is it still planned for Grand Shayard?
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Honestly I really only have two questions:
With the whole of Grand Shayard moving to its own game, do you intend to restructure from the “pick two factions to hang out with” structure you’ve had?
and
What’ll the new game get named 
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I’m so excited for my self but disappointed you won’t be winning your bet.
Any good recommendations you’d share? I’m not to familiar with whiskey but always looking for recommendations on drink.
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Looks like his plans just got scotched.
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Well, it won’t really be a prologue any more – it’ll be half the game, two chapters instead of one. It’ll now have the start of the Erjan, Jev, and M’kyar romances, expanding on Sojourn. It’ll now also (I think) have the introduction of Erjan’s sister Dilek, who can accompany you to Irduin, tying the book together a bit more.
And Irduin may get a little bit of Xaos in its ending.
Oh, I’m sorry. 
As @WinterHawk noted while I was writing this post, going this route may well lose me a bet with a friend by pushing the overall series length to six books. And I recognize the risk that this is the first step* in XoR bloating Jordan-style to a twelve-book series that CoG has to ask Paul Wang to finish because I die first. But I’m going to keep fighting that outcome.
*well, second or third – my original proposal to CoG was for two games
I did ask myself that. But since we first talked about it on the forum, I’ve come to think that attacking the Wardgate would be a major strategic mistake, and Herne knows it. And I don’t want to move up the purging of Sojourn, because of my plans for a Grand Shayard plot where you intercept a military dispatch and have the option to affect the number of Phalangites and Theurges sent against (a) Sojourn, (b) the Rim Commotion, and (c) the Cabelites, with clear implications for how many remain in (d) about-to-be-highly-vulnerable-to-your-attack Grand Shayard. (Spoiler protection for responses to this, pls.)
So while there will be some expansion of Ch 1 into a new Ch 1-2, I don’t think it will involve dusting off those ideas from earlier.
I think so, too. It’s the MC’s immersion in the detail of how the Hegemony works in rural areas, with lots of implications for what kind of order you’ll be able to put in its place. Witnessing the Telone’s efforts to impose uniform implementation of Karagon’s policies over a vast area, at the same time as you’re trying to guide your rebellion from a distance and get them to follow your policies, should bring up some nice resonances and foreshadow future dilemmas.
I’ll hold my decision and Ch 1 revisions until then, too. 
If it doesn’t look like it’ll work, I’ll go back to Plan A.
It was on track to be double the length of the first, and frankly, I was worrying about the higher price point scaring people away. I’m virtually at 600k words already, and by the time we’re done, I’m sure it’ll be longer than G1. Just not silly-longer.
It’s got extensive irrigation for a massive green area around it…but yes, when you get to the last irrigated field, you’ll be looking out on a treeless waste that (on any side but the northeast) turns before long to a grassless waste.
Being the climax of a big chapter was already taking its toll. I started writing knowing there would be a lynch mob ending, and suspecting that there would be a gunpowder plot ending. I’ve since discovered a “duel the Theurge” ending, a “slaughter the Alastors” ending, and an “Alastor Captain slaughtered in a duel (but not with you)” ending. The Storm follows you.
I’m planning to write more of it, yes.
Let’s see what the feedback is on the Irduin chapter, which has a “pick primary and secondary factions to hang out with” structure.
Choice of Rebels: Urban Planning
I wrote to my friend earlier this month still insisting I was on track to win it even if it meant one of the games had to be 2m words.
But since my friend’s the sharing type, I’ll console myself with a nice Balvenie, Oban, Lagavulin, or Ardbeg. That’s probably the order in which I’d recommend you try them, too – they get peatier and smokier as you go down the list, and that’s an acquired taste. (I’ve not been masochistic enough to properly develop a tolerance for Laphroaig, which sells itself as tasting of sailcloth and iodine).
While we’re on liquor recommendations, if you ever find yourself in Nepal (as one does), go to Bandipur and visit Samay Baji, a Newari restaurant there. Their homemade spiced aila is one of the nicest things I’ve ever tasted.
It’s an Oban question whether I’ll need to Bowmore to reality.
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Do you still intend to use a four chapter chapter structure for the game? Xaos-Wastes>Sojourn>Year in Irduin>Irduin climax (Battle of Irduin? ) seems to work well as a way to break out four chapters from what we have, but that’d mean four chapters in GS alone if you intend to stick with both the current chapter planning and a full game in Grand Shayard. I don’t think I’d complain about that, but it’s certainly ambitious as hell.
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Yes, I like the four-chapter structure, and as @AletheiaKnights said elswhere, the readability of the Xaos-lands chapter will probably be helped rather than harmed by being split in two.
I’m still chewing over what the best structure for G3 will be. A full game in Grand Shayard would be doable, but might be a bit much. I think it’s more likely that I’d bring in the material I’ve planned for your return to the Rim (i.e. from the previously planned G3 Ch1), and possibly work in a Westriding interlude as well (drawing in material from the old G3 Ch2, and giving the Cabelites more to do earlier).
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Return to the Rim by way of Westriding? Might be a bit circuitous, but if the direct route is hot in the wake of chaos in Irduin and Grand Shayard, heading up through Cabelite land might be the safer route.
Oh actually important question: how does this mess with your planned stat scaling? Do you think you’ll be willing to just say “no stat boost in (new) G3” or will we be getting more stronger more faster? (TBD is a totally valid answer here).
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Ooh ooh. That is important and I’d totally not thought of it.
TBD!
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Dunno what else I expected lmfao. For my two cents I think giving the player an extra point to play around with is a good thing, you can still leave the ultimate skill caps in the same place while letting players that’d otherwise hyperspecialize have an extra point to play with and experience things outside their direct path (I think prospective Theurges would see a lot of benefit from this especially). Would encourage diversification imo.
EDIT: Adding to this post instead of making a new one, just realized this puts Olynna back on the menu for Grand Shayard. Would love a return to that original idea.
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Maybe our Game 6 boost will allow us to plektize our brains like the Thaumatarch did.
From what we’ve seen, “human limit” in a stat, as we know it, is around 3 or 4 (Simon, for example) - a Second Kyklos Theurge has the equivalent of multiple Ph.Ds to be able to understand telos deeply enough to manipulate it on that level, so a Third Kyklos theurge is smarter than any human on Earth. And then the Thaumatarch is beyond “human limit” even in this world.
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Yeah, that’s a bit of a puzzle. I like how sparsely points have been allocated in XOR so far, both from an atmosphere and gameplay standpoint. Having finite capabilities adds to the precariousness of your position as a rebel, and it feels realistic being limited to either a breadth of skills or a greater depth in one. I also think it’s added to replayability, not being able to do everything I want in a single playthrough has made me create so many different characters, and their stories are completely different because each has unique things only they can accomplish.
On the otherhand not having a boost in skill each “game” might seem inconsistent, and I’d like to feel in each book that the rebellion is getting stronger and I’m becoming more skilled. Cataphrak made a comment along these lines about The CryptKeepers of Hallowford.
(Personally, I really enjoyed Cryptkeepers and didn’t miss the lack of advancement)
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I’m leaning toward having a different timing for a G3 stat boost – that it’ll come even later in the game than it does in Stormwright, and thus contribute to the climactic battle, whatever that might be, but not to the rest of the game, which will be played with the G2 strength set. I’ll roll it around in my brain a little more.
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While we’re on the subject of stats can I just say that I love how they’re handled in this game. They create real complexity in the gameplay. Some games have dozens of stats creating an artificial sense of complexity but they’re not fun to play with the same way these core 3 are. I like that they’re also easy to understand and can’t conflict or be confused with the personality traits.
And I’m not sure quite how to articulate this point so if it’s confusing, sorry, but I also like that you can play to your strengths without feeling like that’s what you’re doing. It seems like the choices that require a stat check are more macro than micro?
For example, in some games I flip back and forth between the stat screen and the game for every single little choice: “oh, this option is clearly an agility check, this one is a cunning check. Which of my stats are higher?” instead of just playing the game and making the choices that feel right in the moment. This game doesn’t contribute to that type of player behavior while still making strengths/weaknesses very impactful to the game.
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OK, before I vanish for a couple weeks of trekking and conference speaking, here are some responses to the thread:
If your compassionate MC has enough influence over the flank movement for your restraint to be credible, then the genocide threat would have low credibility. If you don’t control the flank movement, then you’re just a well-meaning moderate trying to get the tyrant to recognize that continued efforts at repression will lead to disaster. That’s a dynamic that will likely appear in the late games, but I’m not sure it’ll look like the threat of genocide against Karagonds by the MC that was originally asked about.
I suspect you’ll face the problem across the board that if one of the NPCs is ruthless and independent enough for the threat to be credible, you’ll have to struggle pretty hard with them to keep it a bluff rather than a reality.
I’m not going to be able to answer questions for years yet about whether certain MC designs are going to be able to maintain control over certain border configurations. I’m pretty sure that this is a question that will really only be answered over years of actual play once the series is complete, since the factors that feed into your control over various possible G5 (or 6, now?) realms is going to be at least as complex and emergent as the G1 winter survival game.
Some of them would be happy enough in theory to see Shayard replace Karagon as the imperial hegemon. But if the collapse of the Thaumatarchy reduces the neighboring provinces to basket cases full of starving refugees, most Laconniers will prefer to keep Shayard strong and impervious, rather than take on the burden of restoring order across the continent.
Yes, but as you can imagine, it’s pretty limited. I haven’t written all that history yet, so won’t say more for now.
Yes, there’ll be some of that–though the fact that they never found a body will be keeping people from assuming it too confidently or consistently. You’ll have the chance to fake your death again in what I’ve already written of the current chapter.
Irduin (like its district HQ Mesniel) is in the Southriding rather than the Rim – and the reason is basically because Mesniel is the northernmost outpost of “Frenchish” Shayarin in the Serdre River valley, before we hit the “Anglo-ish” Shayarin of Rim and Westriding. The MC reacts to the local dialect with disorientation because of how different from the Rim version it is; there are enough points of similarity that with some weeks of dedicated effort they can come to understand most of what’s being said, but it’s still hard going.
So your interpretation is right, in terms of the similarity between this village Shayarin and the prestige dialect of Grand Shayard…but have another excerpt for the contrast with the Rim:
When the Penny Drops
It’s not just a matter of a few oddly accented words, but whole sentences of exuberant nonsense, abandoning the Hegemony’s common Koine for some other language. Do folk speak ${whend}ish in this part of Shayard? But no, this doesn’t sound anything like Zvad talking to his fellow ${whend}s in the woods…and that word sounds almost familiar…
It’s an unsettling shock when you realize they’re speaking @{(natlreal > 50) what you’ve always thought of as your native tongue|Shayarin}. Their dialect @{(natlreal > 50) of Shayarin|} is wildly different from the language of hearth and child-songs in Rim Square. But it can’t be anything else.
You catch Tamran’s shoulder. @{(natlreal > 50) "What…what|“Forgive me, but…what} are you all speaking?”
She hears the @{(natlreal > 50) shaken horror|astonished curiosity} in your voice and responds @{(natlreal > 50) sympathetically|rather quizzically herself}. “You truly have never left the Rim before, have you, ${kuria} ${alias}? The tongue you speak up there, and in the Westriding…it’s Upland Shayarin. The version of the conquered.”
*fake_choice
#“Wha…conquered by whom?”
“By the monarchs of Shayard, long before the Thaumatarchy.”
#“Us and the Westriding? But not here? Why?”
“You up-country folk had your own languages before the Shayardenes of the coast took over.”
#I drop into what I know as Shayarin. “So to you, this sounds…?”
She responds in somewhat clusmy kind: “Odd, but I can hear and speak it. It is a cousin-tongue, not outland.” Switching back to Koine,
Tamran nods hesitantly toward Ecclesiast Ulmey. “That’s our scholar, ${alias}—he could explain better than I.”
@{cerl_here You imagine Cerlota could, too, but not when she’s feigning muteness.|} “I thought…I mean, I knew the names of Southriding folk were a bit different, but the whole language?” @{helot Other helots sold to the Rim|Your cousins and the young Pelematou} had mentioned the oddness of the local dialects down here, now that you think about it; but you’d thought they were describing accents.
“As best I understand it…” The innkeeper’s daughter sets down your @{alone bowl|bowls} in front of you. “Centuries back, Grand Shayard overran as many lands as it could reach, spreading a simple version of its language as it went. That’s the Shayarin you learned, @{aristo ${kuria}, up in the Rim|and that Shayardene helots use to talk to each other wherever they’re sold}. But the Serdre valley and Coast? Old Shayarin grew here, and grew a little differently every hundred miles or so. The Hegemony’s trades and roads have smoothed out most of those differences, but it used to be you could tell what district a yeoman is from, if not which village, as soon as you heard them talk.”
*label shayarins
*fake_choice
#“So…Shayarin is just another Koine common tongue, but a few hundred years older?” @{(natlreal > 55) I feel sick|I reply slowly}.
“You could say so, ${kuria} ${alias}.” Tamran nods, @{(natlreal > 50) still sympathetic|a bit hesitant}. “Shayard’s too big a place to end up with just one language, unless some ruler or other enforces it.”
*gosub tammoveon
The clear implication that Shayard was another Hegemony…that’s @{(natlreal > 55) something you’re not ready to face directly, not yet|going to merit a lot more thought than you’re ready for now}.
#“But…which is the truest Shayarin? I mean…closest to the oldest books written in it?”
*if me_lit > 1
Almost everything you’ve personally read has been in Koine. You try to remember the few Shayarin texts you’ve come across, and how much resemblance the older ones bear to what you’re hearing around you. In the @{(natlreal > 50) appalling|} upheaval of the moment, you find it impossible to recall with confidence.
“I don’t know enough of books in Shayarin to say. Or what would make a language ‘true’ in the first place.” Tamran shakes her @{(natlreal > 50) head, still looking sympathetic|head}. “Ecclesiast Ulmey’s the one who might be able to help you with that. Or the nobles.”
*gosub tammoveon
*if (prchat = 2)
*hide_reuse #“Ulmey told me Irduin had been part of the old realm of Erlstow. Wouldn’t all its ‘Ridings’ have had one tongue?”
“Another historian!” Tamran laughs. “If I’m recalling Ulmey’s lectures aright, ${alias}, and he wasn’t too tipsy to keep his facts straight…the Old Erlstow dialect was native to the Westriding. But in the Southriding and Coast, even the bits Erlstow ruled, the yeomanry always kept speaking some version of their native Shayarin.” She pauses, then adds, “Of course, they wouldn’t have called it Shayarin then, not before they were conquered by Shayard. Folk here probably called what they spoke Mesnielic, or Languedirde, if they called it anything.”
Alastor Korren’s comment about the untidiness of history comes back to you with new force. You shake your head dizzily.
*goto shayarins
#I’d assumed I was traveling among folk who shared my mother tongue. With that snatched away, I feel a sick sort of vertigo.
Strangers. How is it possible that this whole time, I’ve been surrounded by strangers? Travelers on the main roads and in the cities almost always speak Koine; the snatches of Shayarin you’ve recognized must have been from Westriding or Rimmer travelers. There have been times before, now that you think about it, when you’d assumed a small group you overheard was speaking the language of another province. Only here in the back-country has it been impossible to ignore the fact that you’re hearing local yeomen.
There’s a consoling note to Tamran’s voice. “I’m sorry for the shock, ${kuria} ${alias}.
*label tamoffer
If you want practice in speaking the Old Mesnielic Shayarin, my father and I would be happy to serve—as I’m sure would folk among the yeomanry.”
*gosub tammoveon
#I exhale slowly, shaking my head. Just one more way the Southriding feels less like home than expected.
One more @{(srfeel < 4) reason you long for the day you can be back in the Rim at last|thing to adapt to as best you can}. After a pause, Tamran says, "No small shock to find your compatriots speaking a different language, ${kuria}.
*goto tamoffer
You start dipping your bread into the stew, trying @{intronat distractedly|} to make sense of the cheery banter you’re hearing from across the room.
I am indeed not a linguist and happy to receive tips from anyone more expert in that area.
Absolutely – Ecclesiast Linos mentions “High Karagond” in G1, and that’s the literary version of the language, as well as the one used by the power elite of Aekos among themselves.
That’s a hard question to answer. The Seracca warrior Yega’a can muster only about one-tenth the numbers of the Hegemony’s Phalangite army. However, all of the Seracca warriors can use Theurgy; that gives them about ten times the size of the Hegemony’s military Theurge force (and more than three times the size of the total number of Theurges in the Hegemony). That’s before we get into the millions of other Seracca adults who have no military training or practice, but can use Theurgy in a way that makes them very different to the cannon fodder Karagon can bring to the front.
The refusal to use Harrowed blood does mean that any given Seracca warrior would probably lose in a toe-to-toe duel with a Hegemonic Theurge…but that’s not how they practice fighting. All in all, there’s ample reason that the Hegemony hasn’t ever picked a fight with the monsters on its southern border.
He was talking about Talismans. “Theurgy without blood” doesn’t mean Theurgy without aether. I’m afraid you’ll never find an option for the latter in the gameworld. Cleverness and goodwill aren’t always enough to get us out of our dilemmas in the real world, either; we have to navigate genuinely tragic tradeoffs, or temptations where the morally preferable road is much more impractical.
Part of my core vision in writing Kalt/Kala and Simon/Suzane is that they’re the opposite sex to the MC’s primary orientation, and yet attracted to the MC. That, rather than being “ROs,” is why they’re romanceable in the story. In a game that’s all about the extent to which we accept or challenge what’s “natural,” I wanted to have the theme outworked in the romance side of the story as well. But I wasn’t going to write the book to exclude bi MCs…so people playing a bi MC don’t have to/get to explore that dynamic. If you want to play as non-bi, whether gay or straight, then you’ll be experiencing what I think of as the real heart of the K or S storyline. For those who want to romance them, they’ll be full game characters.
Sacrificing sentient beings because you decide they’re in a category where their sentience doesn’t matter…would kind of be becoming what you’re fighting, no?
Foolishly, in the original release of G1 I’d not included a stat that tracks whether you inspected the Harrower – just an achievement. I fixed that in an update a year or two ago, so there can now be some callbacks to the Harrower inspection, but old saves may not see them.
Mmmmmaybe the end of one of the Irduin threads?
One of the bits of feedback (articulated most thoroughly by friend and advisor @Laguz) that I’ve tried to take most to heart in writing G2 is that we need more options for interactions that are about the characters and what they like/care about as humans, so they don’t just feel like exposition machines or chess pieces for Rebellion Dude™ to move around the board. Glad to have managed it in at least a few cases.
For MCs who decide that Halassur’s is the way to go, and has any intention of having kids of their own, there will be the ghastly “what about my firstborn?” question. But I don’t think any MC will decide that dismembering a baby in public is the way to win public support (Halassur certainly doesn’t do it that way). Remember that the extraction process is substantially more gruesome than even Aztec sacrificial ritual–and those sacrifices (if my understanding is up to date) were terror tactics that had pretty thoroughly alienated most people in the Aztec cultural sphere even before the conquistadors arrived with their own butchery. You could certainly make public the fact of your child sacrifice, but I don’t see a ritualistic approach being feasible.
Something like this should be possible, yep.
@apple’s right that the Hegemony doesn’t have a “true” court system, and that a mercantile contract dispute would generally be handled in-house, as a grievance taken to the higher-ups in the guild. There’s significant room for jurisdiction-shopping. If you’d had your contract witnessed in the temple, for example, you could bring it first to the Ecclesiast to handle it as the breach of a sacred vow. For non-guildsfolk, it could be taken to the priest, Alastor, or local preeminent noble for judgment–and they might well fight among themselves over who’s the right person to decide the dispute, especially if there’s a payoff involved.
There definitely are specific sins, as I tried to suggest with the litanies that go through long lists of specific types of Xaotic lawbreaking. (“To the x, punishment, but to the [opposite of x], reward,” etc. etc.) But you’re right that there is also definitely a sense that there’s a potential for Xaos in every action – especially among people who’ve thought through it carefully.
Xthonism in its current form is much more a religion of social order than one of individual salvation (whether or not that was the original thrust of its sacred messages–that’s really at the heart of the Shayardene Heresy) and is thus more aware that even individually justifiable actions may have an undermining effect on order. The Archimandrite cautioning his top priests against compassion is maybe the clearest example of this so far.
Anti-aging Theurgy is mostly about reversing the tendency of various body tissues to lose moisture and decay, using large quantities of regular aetheric blood. Rituals with young helots are not involved; I don’t want this to resonate too much with QAnon nonsense.
You can’t use someone else’s blood while it’s in them – that aether is theirs – nor can you use it when it leaves their body without some sort of alchemy to fix the escaping aether into a non-volatile form.
I’m so glad – thank you for the encouraging word!
…
Finally: I’m not going to respond to all the big-picture speculation, but of course I love it to bits. Not all of the theories are going to hold true, of course, but all of them are awesome…and I hope that when’s all said and done, some of you take your ideas that turned out not to be true of my gameworld and use them to write some amazing stories of your own.
And I am going to respond to the question about God, but in a separate post. This one’s long enough.
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I’m now having flashbacks to Revolution Diabolique’s constitutional convention system and the bug chaos that came with it.
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My MC is really going to just keep have more and more examples of the utility of Koine language and culture pop up. Game 2 for my character might be about just realizing she’s much more culturally “Hegemonic” than she realized before.
It’s not unheard of for a revolutionary to start as a nationalist and then move more cosmo with time and perhaps my character will go that way. I’m curious to see.
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