My god this story has me feeling absolutely feral. The characters, the story, the setting, the fantastic interaction and internal voice of the MC with their most complex of sovereigns, and the morality and emotion of it all! Can’t wait for the next chapter!!
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It’s explicitly mentioned in the game that the current founding narrative of Iudia originated with the Church. There were some other ideas floating around beforehand.
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This whole situation is reminding me of a person from a certain JRPG who founded a Church and controlled the rise and fall of empires and kingdoms so she could maintain control over them.
Is this a Fire Emblem 3 Houses situation, or a Dune one, or neither of them? It remains to be seen. We still don’t know if that being we call Gaia exists in any form. That variable alone can drastically change any and all theories that we might have about the existence, purpose and actions of the Church.
Whatever the possibilities, at this point I’m not even concerned about the Senate, the Barbarians, Darius or my boy the WITCH-KING. All the red flags are around the Church. Holy Moly they seem so… villanous. That Mother of Sorcery lady can’t even attempt to not be threatening even if she tried to. She oozes “I’m far more knowledgeable and powerful than you”. The whole conversation we had with her is a classic example of “she’s so mysterious she’s gonna be a villain”.
At this rate I’m going to believe the Witch-King coming would actually be a good thing. Iudia seems to be the Church’s spawn more and more.
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Is sorcery in this story actually magic related or is it more similar to alchemy which is basically just science and mysticism?
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If one goes on the Sorceress route they will found out that most likely the “sorcery” is just chemistry, and mostly creation of powders such as the Holy Fire/Godsash. Although it is not 100% sure and it still could be alchemy/magic, for a certain reason.
I’m so very curious about this IF’s “low-fantasy” tag. If that tag wasn’t attached to this game, I would be completely convinced by the “technology cult” argument we’ve had around, but that tag sticks out like a sore thumb. What does it entail? Is there some sort of divinity/magic in the world of Shattered Eagle? That tag alone can change the entire world-building we are presented/believe in. Consequently, it can repudiate all of our theories related to this story at a whim. That tag is very much exciting.
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This whole thing makes me happy my character is not pious lol!
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Its more similar to alchemy/chemistry and science
The tag could either be to maintain the illusion, or for other reasons entirely. Remember, we don’t really know what built Kyro or inhabited the region in pre-history. It could easily be supernatural entities or magically empowered people of some sort instead of a modern civilization. The existence of false magic does not preclude the existence of real magic at some point in the past.
As for the Iudian Empire being the Church’s doing, I have the sinking suspicion that you’re right, and the final test for a loyal MC will be to go along with the Church’s Missionaria Protectiva, with which the Empress is colluding, in order to save the Empire instead of throwing it to the wolves when the Witch King puts the whole enterprise in jeopardy.
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Now that would be a great set-up. The Prefect could therefore pursue two endings.
The first I would call the Arcanum Imperii aka “Secret of Empire” ending, after Tacitus’ famous words. It would have the Prefect remain loyal to the Empress and the Church, thus maintaining the Empire of Lies for the sake of love/stability/order whatnot.
The second ending I would call Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum aka “Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall" ending. In this one, the prefect would side with the Witch-King in his “crusade” against Iudia and the Church.
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Oh yes, I forgot the fact that Julia is actually a Crusader now. Very nice. I do wonder, is she the first one in Iudian history who declared a holy war, or is it a long-running tradition to justify wars? Does Iudia engage in many such crusades?
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Religion is often used as a justification for conquest in Iudia, in the sense of “we must spread the Goddess’ holy light of civilization” against those people deemed barbarians. However, the Empress is rather new in linking demons outright to the foe the Empire faces.
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Well, I know what I’m eagerly awaiting for updates on. This was an incredible read with varied effects, crafted personality, and captivating depictions of feudal politics. The author’s very active too. You won’t regret your time on this!
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I’ve always thought the concept of ancient rome was an untapped gold mine for the hg format but was afraid someone might not do it justice. But other than the rare odd name choice, i belive this wp is shaping up to be an awesome piece of work! Im very excited to see where the author goes with this work.
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i get my femdom not!roman empire setting and theres nothing but HAGS in sight. suus 'ita supra…
shitty jokes aside I do like the game. the plot is interesting and the characters are nice. seeing titus being butthurt because we cucked him is very funny. am already thinking of ways to butcher that family that augusta married into (dont remember their names just that they dunked wine on me). for someone new with choicescript youre doing really good; you have a system thats simple but also allows for a lot of complexity with branching. my only recommendation is more uses for the warfare stat. economics is KING and scholarship, subterfuge and rhetoric have their uses, warfare is left out to dry.
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In this latest chapter I’ve been writing, there are more potential Warfare checks and with narrative significance. In my overall design of the story, I’ve endeavored to ensure that all skills have their place, and some are best suited to certain playthroughs than others.
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I might’ve have missed it but does the MC prefect have their own staff to assist them in their duties in their office. I saw mentions of employed agents with the subterfuge skill but it it feels odd that after around 20 years the MC doesn’t seem to have any staff assist in their duties.
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Absolutely, the MC functions as the chief servant of the Imperial government, somewhere between say a Vizier and a Prime Minister, so they have servants to see their decrees carried out among the various ministries. I’ve mentioned it a bit here and there, but for the sake of conciseness I’ve had to gloss over deeper details like that.
There will be occasional mention of agents and underlings throughout the story, but they’re bit players for a reason. The cast of characters is already large enough and will grow larger over time as I introduce more, though some may die off or leave stage as well so it won’t be constant expansion.
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First of all, and primarily, I really want to commend you on how this WIP is written and designed. You both show great attention to gameplay, including background options and stat checks that both make a real difference to the story and the story and romance aspect(s), with the characters and worldbuilding both being interesting and with quite a bit of depth and the plot seeming like it will have quite a few surprises up its sleeve, so to speak. There’s also plenty of branching, with different choices leading by the MC leading to different branches, which is always a good thing. I do suspect that it could eventually become one of the top-tier HGs, even now it’s one of the strongest current WIPs IMHO.
It’s a bit sad that none of my male MCs can start out as a sorcerer, since scholar and magic-user MCs are my favorite kind of MCs and I do prefer playing male MCs. However, I fully understand that world building in this instance supersedes character customization and having a male MC start as a sorcerer wouldn’t make sense in this story and there are also still enough other interesting background options to make me happy
I have to admit I’m not a big fan of using flashback sequences as a way of increasing the stats of the MC, since that can lead to consequences that seem kind of illogical, such as the MCs not passing certain stat checks because of them not yet have had enough flashback sequences to decide that past actions of the MC in question increased the current score of that particlar stat enough for it to be high enough for the MC in question to make those stat checks. You’re certainly far from the only one and far from the first WIP,HG or COG writer to use this as a way for the MCs to increase their stat and it’s certainly not a dealbreaker for me, although I can see the issue, this is one of the areas where I’m willing to suspend my disbelief in order to enjoy the IF in question fully. But I still thought I’d bring it to your attention, in case you know of any way to solve this in a more elegant way.
I also have to admit that, unlike many of the other people commenting here, I actually do have quite a bit of sympathy for the husband of the empress. Yes, he was basically forced upon the empress, but that’s not his fault. From what I understood, he was, at least originally, infatuated with the empress. And despite being maybe being a bit spoiled, there doesn’t seem anything to indicate that he was a particularly bad person. Yes, he does make a scene in one of the first chapter, particularly if your MC has an affair with the empress. But considering that he’s trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman who doesn’t respect him or care about him and generally wants as little to with him as possible and maybe also has an affair with another, making a scene certainly doesn’t make him a bad person. Both he and the empress are victims of the decisions of the former empress, but implying that he deserves being cuckolded or otherwise treated badly seems quite cruel or at least overly harsh to him to me, at least based on what we’ve learned in the story so far(if there will be further flashbacks that indicate he’s really a bad person, I’ll be willing to revise my option at least by a bit, however
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Thank you! I appreciate the feedback.
The Male MC can certainly pursue the study of sorcery throughout the story, but yes it wouldn’t have made sense with the setting. There are certain options in the game that simply won’t be available to male or female MCs and that’s by design, I hope to make character customization feel weighty in that way.
I understand this, but not every stat improvement will be via flashback. In fact, there will only be flashback sequences like these in Act I (so there’ll be two more since that will end at Chapter V), and after that there will be different sorts of opportunities to improve stats.
I haven’t commented as much on this, because personally I’m a big believer in ‘death of the author’, and I enjoy reading people’s interpretations and so on even if they may not be in my eyes strictly correct. But I try to have empathy for all my characters, I do my best to make them all human and not just tropes or caricatures.
With Titus, his attitude towards the MC can shift pretty dramatically depending on choices, which I’m certain influences how readers perceive him, but at least personally I’ve always viewed him as a both a product and victim of the system he lives in.
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Personally I’ve always found Titus to be a pathetic and naive person. I pity him. He was the butt of Galeria’s cruel joke much like Julia, and it seemed as if he was too dumb to even get that.
He’s such a loser it’s difficult to hate him, I just think he’d be better off coming to terms with the fact he’s always been a pawn, that Julia never loved him and never will and that there’s no place for him in the palace. I dislike him, but a part of me understands where he’s coming from and thinks he doesn’t deserve what’s very probably coming to him.
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I personally never liked Titus but after playing with an MC who didn’t have a relationship with the empress I discovered that he is actually a very nice person who is simply angry at his wife’s lover (which is honestly a very reasonable thing) I started to feel sorry for him
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