Monarch of Witches (W.I.P.) [Demo 1.0.3]

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Hello! I’m Rasberry, also known as RomanFyre in other places. I’ve been lurking around these forums since around the final release of Choice of Romance. Finally made an account, haha! I absolutely love CoG and have been inspired to make my own for a while now. I’ve been toying with this idea for some time and finally mustered up the courage to begin the creation process and post it here. I hope everyone finds it interesting.

Summary: You’re a modern day witch in a modern day world, with a modern day sized Ambition. Fresh out of high school, you decided to change career paths as soon as you finished listening to the final inspiring graduation speech of the day. You’re re-determined to follow the dream you’ve had since you were little. You’re going to become the first ruler of witch kind. The only question now, is how are you going to go about it?

Details

In this world Witch is a name for those who can use magic, whether they’re male or female. The term Prosaic is used for those without magic. They’re generally considered second-class citizens. The society for witches is currently ruled by a council, whose (re)elected every 50yrs or so. And with the council there are of course rules. When a human is born with the ability to use ‘active’ or ‘passive’ magic they are called witches. Depending on the witches’ specialties or aptitudes they may be called a subset name, such as Seer, or Empath. The previous subset names are usually reserved for those with ‘passive’ magic. Then there are the ‘good’ witches and ‘evil’ witches. Those terms are designated to witches who use ‘active’ magic (Elemental, Summoning, Illusion/Mind Altering, Necromancy, etc). Every active magic witch who comes of age (graduates high school) must go before the council to make a binding promise to never do something with their magic. The promise they make is then decided by the council on whether they think the promise is inherently good or evil. This then determines on whether the witch in question is then dubbed good or evil on all of their legal documents. Due to the nature of the magic used in the promise making, the councilors can’t force anyone to change their promise and if the promise maker breaks their oath then they’re stripped of their magic.

Ex of promises: 1) “I will never harm another person with my magic."
2) “I will never intentionally harm another person with my magic.”
3) “I will never cause a tsunami with my magic."
4) “I will never clip my toenails with my magic.”

The first two would be considered ‘Good’ witch promises and the last two would be dubbed ‘Evil’ witch promises. Though it seems like it’s black & white there is plenty of room for a gray area. It’s an imperfect system.

In the game you’ll be playing as a middle-class ‘active’ magic Witch who comes from a good home. You have a Seer older sibling, a ‘Good’ Witch mother, and an ‘Evil’ Witch father who mysteriously disappeared fairly recently in his pursuit of immortality. The promise you choose in the beginning will be a small or medium strength modifier for your relationship stats and morality stats. You’ll be able to choose or type your character’s name and nickname (if I code it right Characters who have a relationship stat that’s 60 points or higher should start calling you by your nickname if you have one). You’ll also be able to choose or type in your favorite color and symbol to represent your future heraldry/coat-of-arms.

I’m currently toying with whether or not I should make this at least a two-parter, with the first story-game about your rise in influence and power and the second game about you actually tearing down the current system and assuming control of the country, whether that’s by force, intrigue, or being a Sovereign-of-the-people.

The title is also still a W.I.P.

Potential Stats

(Please let me know if any of these feel/sound redundant)

Non-Magic Stats:
HP & MP

Perception
Endurance
Charisma
Intelligence
Agility
Strength

Magic Stats:
Vigor (Healing & Poison magic)
Mind (Illusions & Mind Control)
Elemental
Necromancy
Summoning
Technomancy (? I’m still on the fence on whether I should have tech based magic.)

Morality Stats:
Deception/Honesty
Ruthlessness/Merciful
Chaste/Flirtatious
Equality/Supremacy

Other Stats:
Respect
Fear

Romance Options

2 gay, 2 bi, 2 straight. All NPC genders will be locked. I haven’t decided on who will be what yet, and am considering doing a poll for each RO character. The player character can be gay, bi, ace, or straight.

  1. Val Rose – One of your two best friends from high school, she’s rational, honest, energetic and playful. Others often count on her sociable and down-to-earth nature when things start to get rough. Nobody’s perfect though. Not far underneath that high-energy is a person who is also known for her opportunistic and callous ways. When she wants something, she bulldozes straight for it, no matter who or what gets in her way. Val made a promise that dubbed her a ‘evil’ Witch after graduation.
  2. Hennie Van Haanraats - One of your two best friends from high school, he’s selfless, intelligent, discreet, and a bit of a flirt. These traits are often overshadowed by tendencies of arrogance. Born as the nephew of one of the past ruling councilors, he’s had plenty of help in training for diplomancy though. He generally means well and wishes to gain a council seat to implement some of the reforms he’s been planning since his second year in high school. Hennie made a promise that dubbed him a ‘good’ Witch after graduation. N
  3. Naseem Delaney – A lot can be said about Naseem, but above all else he’s confident and farsighted. Of course he also has a love for bad puns and very active in Prosaic rights. He can be obnoxious and abrasive sometimes though. This is due to him being ‘passive’ Empath Witch. He believes that there’s no point in holding back when he can get impressions of another’s emotions anyways.
  4. Robin Naess – A very focused and methodical individual, Robin was a student who graduated before you. She works as an aide for one of the councilors. She’s also quite a stoic person. Though hoping to be voted her councilors successor, she is quite comfortable with the current Witch/Prosaic status quo, and doesn’t plan on changing the way of things. Robin is a ‘passive’ Sensor Witch.
  5. Keone MacGuire – One of the few Prosaic students who graduated from your school, he’s clever, patient, and all around carefree. He enjoys helping people out, whether or not it’s at his expense. Miraculously, and probably because of his helpful, carefree nature, he was considered the coolest kid in school. Even so, now that graduation is over, Keone his jovial self-indulgence has bit him in the back. He’s had very few good career prospects since graduating. This has become a serious problem for him due to his materialistic nature. He currently works in a dissatisfactory, managerial job at one of your hometowns stores.
  6. Camille Delacroix - Camille was ‘the Rebel’ of your school. She’s a very prickly individual and is not shy in hitting below the belt, emotionally or physically, when getting into fights. Even, so, it’s not without good reason. As one of the few Prosaic students from your graduating class she’s been chafed one too many times by Witch Superiority. She’s vowed to either pursue a political career or start a revolution/insurgency and get Prosaic leaders to form a new ruling body, no matter what. Good friends with Naseem Delaney, she’s perceptive, resourceful, and devoted to her friends.

Other relationship stats will include your mother, sibling, and the council.

Any questions, concerns, or suggestions would be most welcome, since this’ll be the first CYOA game I’ve ever made. c:

Demo: https://dashingdon.com/go/1861
Changelog: Monarch of Witches Demo Changelog - Google Docs

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Oh, this will be my Ro. Hopefully. Could you list their sexuality?

I was a little psycho :blush:

What are the differences between good and evil witches?

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a magic world where i can take over the world without being called evil or cruel, that’s what i always wanted to do. count me in.

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Will I be able to kill people? :slight_smile:

Also, Leadership and Charisma skills often do the same things, they aren’t exactly the same but are usually derivative of one another so unless they have vastly different uses I’d recommend taking one out.

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Seems an interesting idea, although I’m not sure whether my witch would want to be the monarch… :confused:

I’m just going to suggest you make them all bi. I have called for more exclusively gay ROs before, and I do still want them, but I’ve seen them done poorly far more than I’ve seen them done well. I feel that your game would probably work better without them.

For one thing, you only have six ROs, meaning that any monosexual player will only be able to romance two of them, and it’s quite possible that they’ll end up hating both of them (but loving the forbidden third). I wouldn’t suggest having exclusive sexualities with fewer than eight ROs. For another, as this is your first game, I’d suggest you concentrate on the story and characters, rather than trying to deal with sexualities on top of everything else. Thirdly, why do you want the characters to have their own sexualities (aside from bi), anyway? If the answer is “realism”, then I feel you should really reconsider, not least because you’re writing a story about magical witches. You’re writing the story, and it’s up to you what counts as “realistic” in your world.

If you really do want to give them their own sexualities, I would suggest that you at least give us a demo to get to know the characters in first, since it’s often hard to get a real feel for a character in just a description.

Sorry for the essay; :sweat_smile: it’s just that this is an important subject to me.

Good luck with the game. :smile:

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If you’re going to go with the 2/2/2 for RO’s, my sugestion would be to the two best friends the bi options, as my guess is those are the first the reader meet, and maybe the only ones the character knew before the start of the plot?

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In regards to elemental magic, is it going to be the basic fantasy elements(fire, water, earth, and wind) or is there going be other like lightning, ice or even darkness/light? The game sounds like a really cool idea.

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Ruling all witches in modern day eta? Count me in !! Looking forward to it and also I like killing many people in the story so just saying

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I’m glad you like her! I haven’t determined the RO Characters sexualities yet. I was considering doing a poll. ParrotWatcher brought up a good point, so now I’m also reconsidering making all of the RO Characters bi.

The difference between Good and Evil witches all boils down to what the promise they made to the Council was. This promise is magically binding and if they break it their magic will be stripped away.

For Example, Good Witch promises are usually promises that are good for something more than them. “I promise never to use my magic to harm flora and fauna.”

And Evil Witch promises are usually promises that are blatantly looking for loopholes so that their magic could never be stripped away or of a selfish nature. “I promise never to blind myself with my magic.”

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Yup! Depending on how you go about it, there is potential for a high death toll!

Thanks for the input. I’ll take out leadership then.

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Why the toenail thing?

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Thank you so much @ParrotWatcher! I wasn’t even considering if anyone might want to have their PC change their mind at some point. I’ll add that to my list of potential endings. You bring up a good point with the romances as well. The main reason why I desired to lock the RO’s sexualities and gender is because, as an avid player of these kind of games, I’ve also wished for exclusively one sexuality characters. Originally, there was supposed to be eight RO’s, with the last two being Bi-Romantic Asexuals. As ace myself, even though there already have been a couple games where the PC is ace I thought it’d be nice to have a bit more asexual representation in these games, and I don’t think I’ve seen asexual RO’s before either. I ended up cutting the two characters though because I didn’t feel their personalities would be different enough from the others or add something meaningful to the story. And it’s perfectly fine! In depth critiques like this are my absolute favorites. Thank you!

@The_Lady_Luck, thank you for your suggestion! I guess it would make sense to have the two best friends as the bi options, since they’ll be the first introduced RO’s and the first you (hopefully) get attached to. Though every RO is a former student/graduate from the PC’s high school. They’ve all interacted at least once with the PC before the start of the plot, albeit may have been years since the last time they spoke to each other, like with Robin.

@Renzenar, elemental magic at it’s most basic is simply Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. The higher point you put in it though will allow your character to begin mixing the basic elements and use Lightning (Air/Fire), Ice (Air/Water), Flora (Earth/Water), & Metal (Earth/Fire).

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It was just an example of the potential “Evil” promises your character can make. “Evil” promises are considered anything that the council would consider of an inherently selfish nature or blatantly looking for a loophole so that your magic could never be stripped away no matter what you do.

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Hm, interesting concept. I like the emphasis on intrigue and the overall feel of this. However, that being said, I think the whole bit about being good and bad, while integral to your story, kind of disregards basic choice. The idea that certain abilities are simply bad, ect has always irked me, along with all magic being somehow morally based. I don’t think that self agency in magic is inherently selfish or evil. :rofl: Maybe one day I shall write about my science mages, lol, but first must finish On Foxtrot Hill.

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I vote for this.

[quote=“rasberry, post:9, topic:28721”]
The difference between Good and Evil witches all boils down to what the promise they made to the Council was. This promise is magically binding and if they break it their magic will be stripped away.
[/quote]So is there any difference to how their viewed? Laws?

I promise to never permanently lose my magic

I promise to never die permanently

I promise to never cheat on my beloved

I promise to not permanently kill myself with my magic

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@rasberry, regarding the RO situation you could make all of them bi but with preferences, like snoe did in Freak: Amidst the Neon Lights. That way you have some representation but still allow every player to follow their desires.

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Maybe combine these two? Because electricity.

How good is necromancy? Is it spirits and corpses or just cadavers? If both how can I use a spirit? Is there a way to take another witches power/skills?

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@rasberry Is mp mana? Because if so I think it shouldn’t be under Non-magic stats seeing as how it would govern available spells and the number of times you could use certain spells. Also building off of what our friend @Dark_Stalker said combining them because they are similar isn’t a bad idea. However, if you feel up to extra coding/writing you might want to add in technomancy as a sub-genre of elemental magic through electricity. Also exploring the idea that maybe masteries of certain things such as energy manipulation could affect how powerful certain magics are. It could lead to a more complex set of coding but would make balancing skills and proficiencies more important. So you can’t be a master pyromancer who learns a master level death magic spell and use it efficiently. It doesn’t make sense to be able to do that. (just a friendly note from your not so friendly tester.)

p,s, Can you add enchanting? And then the ability to enchant food? I want to make the DoD

p.p.s. Doughnut of Doom :wink: *cackles evily

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I’m sorry for this post so soon after the other I hate doing that. But thinking a little more about it. Do you have a world in mind or are we basing this off of our current day society and going from there? If we are that’s alright, and if we aren’t. Well, that’s also alright. See the big thing I see here is you said assuming control of the country. My question is what about the other countries in the MC’s world? Wouldn’t they have something to say about their possible ally Republican government being overthrown and replaced by a Monarchy? Or is the country of the MC the only one with magic users? And if that’s the case how’d that happen? Did they raise an island out of the ocean? Take over an already existing one? Basically, I’m curious about how the politics of the world work both social and geopolitical. I realize that I might just maybe be asking for a little too much info too soon (just kidding I know I am and a simple it’s all a secret will be fine) but any questions you can or are willing to answer would be much appreciated.

p.s. I’m quite interested in this story already.

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Thank you @thumper! I know what you mean, when it comes to the Evil and Good Witch thing. Normally I wouldn’t have something quite so polarizing. I think it helps emphasize the imperfect system of the government though. c: Also, On Foxtrot Hill looks awesome. I love a good mystery story, and the fact that it’s set in my home state is a plus. :wink:

@Dark_Stalker, that seems to be the consensus. I even asked some of my family and they said I should make them all bi too! So, looks like that’s what’ll happen!

When it comes to how their viewed, for Evil Witches, most people would view them with varying levels of caution. For lack of a better example, think of the treatment of neutral Slytherin students in HP canon or fan fiction. And that’s only if they choose to disclose their Good/Evil status. In Athal, the country the game is set in, the terms Good/Evil is mostly a legal/census thing. Like, when applying to college you can choose to mark a check box to state your ethnicity/sexuality or a box that says Prefer Not To Answer. The same goes for Good/Evil status. Most people wouldn’t tell others unless a) their boastful, b) answering a direct question, or c) it’s something their comfortable telling about if it’s relevant to a casual conversation. Though, depending on how their promise is worded an Evil witch is much more likely to be put on a watch list for potential terrorist/criminal activities than a Good witch. In short, filing the promises and the people who make them under Good/Evil is another way for the Council/Government to control the populace and public thinking.

Yeah, I think I’ll go with that for Technomancy. Especially since two advanced magic elements (Lightning and Metal) could be used to at least control Hardware. I’ll probably make it an action that’s only available if the player has 90 or above in their Elemental skill.

For Necromancy, depending on how many points you have (and in no particular order atm), you can reanimate corpses, communicate with the dead, resurrect someone, take someone else’s life/lifeforce thus aging them and allowing you to live longer, and eventually induce immortality for yourself. You won’t have the ability to take another witches power/skills and use them yourself and once they’re dead you won’t be able to use their powers/skills either if you only reanimate their corpse. You could resurrect them, but after the resurrection you won’t have any control over them. They’re their own person again. When it comes to resurrection though you would be required to actively kill someone else. Like, a random person on the opposite of the globe won’t just drop dead when you resurrect someone. You actually have to go out and murder them. A life for a life, pretty much.

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