It’s a very nontraditional sort of route, as you might imagine. Just cooperate with Leviathan and offer it empathy and understanding as much as possible, and eventually you’ll be able to connect on a deeper level.
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I gotta say, that was one of the craziest parts of reading the game code. I think I even did a spit take when I saw it.
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I was trying to go for it in my final beta playthrough, but I ran out of time. So I definitely have something to look forward to when I play again! 
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Yep! It requires that you side with Leviathan, and aren’t romancing anyone else.
I said once that I don’t put supernatural creatures that you can’t romance in my games, and by god, I meant it.
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One of the many reasons we are all waiting with bated breath to see what strange, brilliant creation you’re going to spring upon us next. 
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Without spoilers… is the ability to romance Cecilia open if you stay as a ghost OR return to your body? Especially if you haven’t sided with Leviathan?
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So far as I know, none of the romances are restricted based on the decision you make about the body.
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That’s correct about your body, yes! Cecilia specifically, you can romance whether you’re with Leviathan or not. Other characters are trickier in that regard. (You might be able to avoid breaking up with them entirely if you side with Leviathan, but things will be pretty strained, and you won’t see a lot more of them in any case.)
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Wonderful, I’ve only had eyes for Cecilia in this. Well and her, alter ego shall we say. So you did a great job of attracting me to 2 different characters that it turns out we’re the same character! I think that’s really cool 
Still Meredith from Heroes of Myth is my favourite, so far!
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Despite the efforts made I would say I did find pretty hard to actually romance Cecilia (the only way to gain points with her would’ve been to completely be on board with the: “let’s drown the whole world together!” following Leviathan’s scheme. Something I didn’t want to do 
so even if at any chance I was “Join back to the good side!” I would never win that argument (Even kept the Eye at the end just in case as I was hoping, Leviathan’s defeated, to give it back to her but she never showed up)
I Assume is because I started at the begin of the story picking the option “we were like friends” instead of declare an obvious attraction for her (To be a bit critic I do find is very common for many choicescript’s games authors to unfortunately define in stone, right from the start, the MC relationships based on players first choices/impressions and don’t allow instead the relationships to actually evolve as the story progress. I rather would take time and learn more about the characters instead of right away from a physical description and vague understanding of their roles in the mc’s life:
- Ok I pick them as the romantic option,
- Ok I want them just as friend,
- Oh I hate them
As it keep things very straight-forward after in the story (That’s the type of exchange you will have with that other character for the rest of the game).
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You can definitely romance her regardless of which relationship status you pick. As long as you hang out with her a lot, express sympathy about her home and family (if you’re not gentle or dutiful enough in the beginning of chapter 5, this may backfire, but it’ll work every other time), treat her with respect, and be understanding of (not the same thing as “completely agree with”) Lev’s situation, she should like you enough.
It’s definitely harder if you pick the “hate” option, doable if you pick “respect,” but “friend” option gives you almost enough points from the start, as long as you don’t seriously piss her off it should be much easier.
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Yes, the difference in the starting relationships is not actually that large - there’s a lot of room to vary your relationship after that. I also didn’t want to lock you into anything right at the beginning! Starting as a friend gives you the same starting relationship with Cecilia as with all the other ROs. Starting with the romance option puts you a little higher, starting with respect puts you a little lower. Starting as real enemies is decently low and would probably make it significantly harder to romance her - I’d be surprised if it were completely impossible, but it might require some pretty deliberate choices.
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I definetly picked the “respect” option to play out the rivalty side of her character (as I find them banter with the Main character be pretty believable as childhood knights/friends) but at best I got towards the end a 50% relationship and that made Very impossible win her over or sway her towards redemption 
I’m glad to know start as Friends put a good base however si thank you guys! (Is unfortunate I feel the only times you can “hang out” a bit are either when you see her in disguised and didn’t suspected It was her so I pretty much stood faithfull to the role of serve the King than chase skirts or when First you’re lead to Met Leviathan) I feel Is doable but gotta give up on some other characters space/time to work
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Alright, what with all this Cecilia simping time to let my inner contrarian loose, because what I missed was the lack of options to hate on her. 
I mean, the game gives me the “I hate her more than anything in the world” choice when establishing character, but then more or less forgets it. There is a hostile remark or two before the ghost business, but after ghosting I wondered if I accidentally triggered romance route or something, because some choices did not even allow being coldly indifferent about her. Nothing like “Oh no, “Vatrai sank!” IDGAF Anyway, Cecilia also died, so all is well that ends well!” And this was all so disappointing because I find Ciles so, so hateable that I would have hated her anyway without picking that choice. 
Inability to express my feelings about her gave me flashbacks to Mass Effect series, where Shepard wasn’t allowed to be unimpressed with that grandstanding useless coach potato Aria, and even worse – the Mist fight (not sure if scripted or just stat fail) sent me right back to that one Kai Leng (
) temple encounter everyone hates. Except that Shepard eventually smears Kai Leng across the floor, while with Cecilia, when she escapes and bluntly tells she is going to kill you, you are offered a selection of answers that were either slightly different flavour of “Nice weather we having innit” or “Wow Cecilia, you escaped, you so awesome!” and not one polite (because we are by default a very polite ghost) variation of “Bitch I’d like to see you try”.
Anyway. I only whine this much because I loved everything else and lack of fulfilling resolution of Cecilia problem is kinda like a zit on a beautiful face: nothing life threatening, yet it would be so much better without it. Was a little wary at first, because I read very little fantasy and things like “human-dragon hybrid” had me picturing very goofy things, also cross my legs real tight, but soon it became obvious it was going to be about people and politics, not wizards shooting mah lazers and I got hooked. 
So yeah, liked worldbuilding. Liked how every faction is a den of vipers nuanced and not clear-cut. Loved characterization via idiolects, how not only dragons as a whole has their own distinctive pattern of communication, but you also can tell each dragon apart by their speech patterns only; same with humans, pretty early on you start to notice how Alek differs from Frey from Senna from my favorite, Leo Caldwell 
, who’s excellent at obfuscating with that bumbling upper class twit persona of his. Loved droll humour. Totally buying other Abigail Trevor’s games, tried their demos – fraud magician who lies all the time and mini-godling who understands that manipulating press is the key to victory was also fun to play, though I’m far from finished with Specters. I got a pretty good ending despite of switching gears mid-game from “I am a grumpy ghost, my duty’s over, leave me alone” to “Thwart Cecilia’s plans, don’t care what they are”, curious to see what will happen if I am more consistent or pick different routes. 
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Agreed, though I feel like with Specters of the Deep I may have achieved an ending so good I can’t imagine others being more ideal! Though others will disagree with me, I’m sure, but I judge it by doing the most good and the least harm on the whole.
I kept everyone alive, kept the royal family in power, saved Galdrin and become an ambassador of peace for the warden there, restored Vatrai and its people, restored a primordial force of nature to the world, and get eternity in a mutually loving relationship with Cecelia.
Specters of the Deep is amazing, as I should have expected, since Stars Arisen was so good.
I really like the simultaneous way @abbytrevor made it feel like nearly every fantasy ever, but also unique by subtly turning traditional fantasy conventions on their head. You can see it at work with how many of the readers are talking about they didn’t want to side with Leviathan and “drown the world” and I’m over here smiling because they just bought hook line and sinker into the propaganda of some of the factions, which in any other fantasy work would probably be true, but Leviathan is an elemental force of nature, neither good or bad, really, but wronged and locked away and disrupting the natural balance of the world.
It really felt like, despite what other characters may believe, that Cecilia and I were indeed the greatest heroes in the world. We were still saving the world for everyone, whether they understood or not. She kept expressing sadness or doubt that I was turning my back on Galdrin to restore and save Vatrai (because I felt both of us had been lied to and manipulated as children and young heroes to do things neither of us understood or grasped the full ramifications of), but I kept hoping I could achieve saving BOTH if I played my cards right, and I did!
I liked that Leviathan was a sympathetic figure if you dug deep enough. It killed people, sure, but like a rain storm might kill people, but is also responsible for watering crops and bringing life-giving drinking water. I really did feel like they’d been wronged. So often in the fantasy stories, people have taken things from an ancient being and the being is treated as totally in the wrong for trying to get those powerful things back from said people. Specters of the Deep is great for allowing me to go, “Hey! This ‘ancient evil’ has a legitimate grievance!”
Great job!
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It really seems like siding with the thing is an ending and line of playing I need to do next. It personally didn’t appeal to me very much. As sympathetic as it came off as, I was mostly in the camp of, yeah, but at this point, it doesn’t matter, it needs to be stopped
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That’s what I appreciated in Specters of the Deep. In most fantasy works, your choice of action WOULD have been correct, because the thing in question really would have been evil, even if sympathetic.
I felt like I was threading the needle the whole time with my choices and all the way to the end I was holding my breath, but I really do feel like the best ending achievable (most people saved and restored, the world put right) is by siding with Leviathan.
You really should try it the next time you play, for sure. You can still be good and try to (and succeed) in saving people, even while working for the ‘big bad’.
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Don’t know how the spoiler tag works on mobile so I’m gonna have to be a bit more vague about this than I’d prefer, but, yeah. I definitely will try it in my next run, it’s just a matter of finding a way for my relatively hard line loyal no nonsense Kings man to essentially take a U-turn this massive, especially when it has orders like, the whole missed thing or generally let the tide rise when it’s going to kill people and cause tons of damage. I do have that PC originally being in a relationship with C, so there’s that
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My character was a loyal royal family supporter too and loyal to the king. Again, staying vague, but there are ways to minimize loss of life. Galdrin won’t be unscathed, but you can force surrenders and evacuations.
Also, I don’t think the great ending I got is possible if you are NOT someone loyal to the king. @abbytrevor has done a great job of letting you act against someone, but for their own best interest in the end.
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Noted
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