pain/torture/terror - these are either strong emotions or things that cause strong emotions. Perhaps the necessary ingredient is that the blood “donor” must be feeling strong emotion at the time the blood is taken. Maybe all the hegemony really needed to do was keep a caged plektoi in the room as it took blood from donors. That would gin up the fear to a high level without anyone needing to be dismembered. A helot orgy might work too, ginning up a very different strong emotion, no plektoi required…lol 
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Don’t know if this has been mentioned yet, but I found a bug/continuity error:
[spoiler]
When my band and I are in the caves and I wake up one night to find everyone throwing up, likely poisoned, I confront Breden. Ultimately, I decided I trust him (I also married him earlier), and then he’s killed by someone who threw a knife at his back.
But then, after fleeing since most of my soldiers were puking their guts out, and deciding to lead the enemy away on my own outside the Ward, Breden then comes to kiss me/say goodbye and I tell him that I’ll see him again. Which didn’t make sense to me, since I did witness his murder the night before.[/spoiler]
You’re going mad from all that stress. There’s your answer.
I’m not ruling anything out, honestly. Could be sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations, considering I ended up staying up all night playing through the entire demo…
I mean, there is magic here right? Don’t know what else I expected.
Hm… haven’t yet encountered this nipple-tingling prince. I’ve only played the demo twice: once a long time ago as a helot and earlier tonight as an aristocrat (who’s never been very good at being an aristocrat). The closest I got to any mention of nipples was a mother feeding her newborn baby in a series of caves we were holed up in, then later whilst hooking up with Breden in the woods. (Or I might be forgetting which scene came before the other.)
The game has certain tendency to save Breden and Elery. Like She sometimes could vote being death or be sending in missions.
Funnier is the fact if you like me have elery and Breden out of band. Elery ghost came To shouting me about WHY YOU DON’T MAKE BREDEN YOUR SECOND I WON’T GO OVER HER HIM… But nowadays, is more or less stable… Beware with mules though.
@Havenstone: Must those who give blood for the magic die? Would it not be possible to have a literal blood tax in which people must give a non-fatal portion of their blood?
Many moons ago I played the demo with my previous character. Now after much time has passed and a new year has dawned. A new man steps to the plate. A self proclaimed God. Introducing the one who will lead the war against the hegemony.
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While I don’t despise Breden as much as some here, I don’t find the character particularly believable either, at least not as a legitimate helot, and that was long before the “accounting” stuff was added in. The character makes more sense if you consider them a kryptast plant. Some of that however may have less to do with the author’s original intent than a not completely successful attempt to make the character a compelling romance for everyone.
For example, people are supposed to find confidence attractive, but Breden’s extreme level of boldness at that first meeting came across to me as suspicious, not attractive. It didn’t make sense given the setting and her purported backgound, especially given her striking good looks, which would have made her a magnet for unwanted attention and worse from every lecherous noble and helot in Rim Square. I thus found it implausible that her bold confidence would have survived extended contact with reality in this world were she simply an ordinary helot whose abuse would not have arched any eyebrows. Now a kryptast plant would be an entirely different matter…
Elery’s personality doesn’t bother me like Breden’s does, but Elery wasn’t created to be a one size fits all love interest.
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My MCs do admire Elery’s intelligence but unlike her brother, she appears bound by the Hegemony’s superstitions and is unfortunately a Breden supporter even though she owes her life to the MC. As far as female characters go, Alira seems quite impressive having personally killed two Theurges in the final battle depending on the playthrough.
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Just one thing…tried playing the updated Dec 2016 version, Breden got killed for being suspected a traitor. Shortly after,at the end,she was alive again as if nothing happened. Something wrong there.
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yes, but it should be edited in due time
(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)
Actually, Elery is a bit more malleable than people give her credit for, though it isn’t obvious.
For one thing, if a charismatic MC makes their own cult, especially of skepticism, Elery is the first one on board.
Or if you have de Firiac as a captive, and go to kill her/him, but then decide to let them join, Elery is among the first to accept them.
I’m not saying she can’t be stubborn, and whatnot, or changing beliefs wholesale, but she will grudgingly change/admit if someone did good.
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Very true and knowing @Havenstone my mc’s valiant efforts in harrying and demoralizing the Hegemony forces in those woods likely will benefit the various Shayardene nationalists in the form Laconnier royalists and independent yeoman and freeman clandestine organizations in the short to mid term, perhaps moreso than our own rebellion. Particularly considering we are wanted enough that we need to hide out beyond the wards for a (good) while during the second game.
Honestly I expect our band of followers to have split and diminished in our absence and at for least one other rebel faction, most likely either the Laconniers or another Yeoman driven rebellion to have come out of the woodwork in our absence. Since starting with the (second half) of the second game I expect the (political) situation will have become much more complex and fragmented, to the point where we are quite possibly no longer the only, or even the most significant, game in town and we’ll need to begin making those uncomfortably compromises and questionable “alliances”.
Obviously my mc would prefer to deal with a yeoman driven faction rather than the Laconniers, since his aims are far enough removed from the Laconnier ones that I don’t see any possibility for a lasting alliance or compromise there, since my mc will never consent to subordinate himself to another “master” who would call themselves king/queen, as he will never go back to being a slave or even servant or sharecropper ever again.
Unfortunately true, but my mc has unfortunately got nobody else with even a glimmer of hope of keeping the rebellion intact, without selling it out wholesale. 
I have a question about the games format when it comes out: Will the game have a option to play the more streamlined less resoursce focused way that was how it used to play or is it going to be the resource managment and strategy system we have currently? In any case its a brilliant game and I look forward to seeing the finished product!
In recent updates you can leave the ugly disgusting resource management to your second-in-command for better or for worse, allowing you to only focus on events and raids.
Also the mule glitch will get fixed. Or not. Depends on how many people do well without it, I guess.
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Ah, thank you. Missed that
Apologies if this has been answered before, but why exactly is our character sick for three days in the prologue after meeting the helot? The text doesn’t really make it clear.