Shepherds of Haven (WIP) (DEMO UPDATE: 3 Aug 2021)

When you put it like this, elves look like major badasses(I’m sure it has nothing to do with your profile picture :slight_smile: ).
I’m not exactly sure I follow the “adaptability for change” thing. You mean they don’t change their traditions, their clothes or you mean they generally stay the same in terms of personality and beliefs(hmm so you say they are conservative -just like old people- well it kinda makes sense…after all, they are old people, judging by the standards of everyone else)

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Both! They are very conservative and very resistant to change, partially because time moves so differently for them. If you think new iPhone models come out too quickly for you to keep up, or there are new words of the year that become incomprehensible to you as you get older (‘yeet’ and ‘bae’ are on the way out, ‘bde’ is already somewhat outdated, ‘mood’ is still in?), Elves are like that, but with everything. It’s like “hey there’s this new thing called trains that just got invented ten years ago!” (which to an Elf is like… last year); and they’ll be like “horses have worked just fine for the last 4000 years for me, thank you, I don’t need to change my whole routine for some gimmick that will go out of fashion in like three months

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So you say trains we’re invented?
Also disclaimer : in the end, it’s your book and you decide how advanced the technology is(you could have robots made of sticks,leaves and stones) but please hear me out.
You said that the norms still use flintlock weaponry, and that technologically they are inbetween 1500-1800 and that revolvers are out, but they are new and therefore not common.
However, from what I gathered, the norms are actually closer to 1900(1890) to be more precise.
In the book you mentioned rubber bullets(flintlock can’t use bullets because the bullets have the powder incorporated in the projectile, so to speak; also flintlock are somewhat recognized for being shitty, having no accuracy whatsoever, not to mention the fire rate so I personally doubt flintlocks drove away the diminished), rubber bullets being invented about 70 years later that the modern bullet(the one with the powder incapsulated, it was invented around 1820) so we have rubber bullets around 1890(when rubber became popular) the revolvers appeared around 1850 and it’s worth mentioning that during the WWI the infantry used machine guns(so maybe we get a machine gun prototype, not revolvers).
It’s your choice on what to do next. I just wanted to point out this thing(I compared it to human advancement). Also I would like to suggest an idea : maybe we won’t get machine guns and maybe revolvers will still be a rarity, but please at least make the flintlock obsolete and give us rifles(rifles shoot accurately and are reloaded faster, being an actual match for magical races, unlike the flintlock, which is a joke).The main difference between flintlock and rifles is that rifles use modern bullets(and the barrel of the rifle has cylindrical ridges inside it so that it inputs a spinning motion to the bullet, while the flintlock’s main disadvantage was that the owder was separated from the bullet, which caused the lead projectile to hit and bounce off the walls of the barrel, making the shots imprevisible -to an extend- , also making flintlock a hassle to reload) I used wikipedia (along with Civ VI entries -yes I read them all; I got that bored a week ago)
I feel silly for pointing this out(since it’s a fantasy game) but between bottling things up and subsequently losing sleep and expressing my opinion in what I hope is a constructive manner, I chose the obvious.

Ooh didn’t know that! That’s actually even better!

I was just asking because my MC is a bit of a snob :sweat_smile:
But please don’t feel pressured to do it if you don’t want to! I’ll just go with the “I’m not a bird” :grinning:

chandry she’s being polite, why u still like dat

Sorry! I meant an MC who is skeptical about the One-God and the old gods.

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Yes, even in the prologue you get extra gold if you save Prihine! :grinning:

Respectfully, the Norms aren’t really close to any time period of ours, because it’s not our world. :slight_smile: I use time periods as comparison to help readers, but like I said earlier, it’s really a pick-and-choose mixed bag of some real-world parallels, with way more fantasy and steampunk elements. Because the world of Blest has such a wildly divergent history and evolution from our own, I don’t think that worrying about specifics or real-world comparison is too important. :slightly_smiling_face: This is all just my opinion, of course; I respect yours and the research you put into this!

But imo, talking about what flintlocks can or can’t do or using so many real-world parallels to guide the story is a moot point. This

is cool, but it’s ultimately irrelevant to the history and timeline of Blest. They have/had very different resources available to them than we do here, and very different cultural and political forces driving their development. If we go down the rabbit hole of “in 1890 we had X,” there’s no reason to also not point out that we also had electricity, telegraphs, submarines, and batteries. You know? :slight_smile:

Probably more importantly, too, is the fact that guns in Blest don’t work like our guns: I say similar to flintlocks, or that I imagine then as more like “19-century revolvers and pistols with magical/steampunky elements.” But the actual mechanical processes are by no means identical to our own, so again, worrying about how rubber bullets work with our guns or when they were developed in our world isn’t too necessary. I appreciate all of your efforts and thoughts, but I’d personally like to focus on nailing down the story of the game and the characters populating the world than worrying about how the technological integrity seems to hold up when compared to our own!

No need to feel silly, I do really appreciate the constructive discussion! :grinning: I hope I made my points clearly, too!

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Oh yes, definitely! Religious beliefs (including atheism and agnoticism) won’t preclude you from any romance, though some interesting conversations could arise with certain characters!

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That’s good to know, thank you!

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Can we be the generic internet 13 year old atheist ? Because I can see Assholetep like that

Summary

Assholetep: Sneezes

Shery: God bless you

Assholetep: YOUR GOD IS A LIE MADE TO ENSLAVE YOU

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I can say, I kinda missed your point when I posted that post. And blimey, you are correct! You could write libraries about the technology and the general rules that govern Blest, but kinda no one looks that much at the world. People are more interested in the characters, the dialogue and the story, so it is only natural that you focus on them.

Ok big question : as far as I can see, the old ways don’t require sacrifices, but the onegod does require sacrifices. It is only a few years until they move from sacrificing chickens to sacrificing people(just a speculation, but sacrificing animals will eventually lead to sacrificing people, if the times are harsh). Onegod seems less benevolent than the old gods(because he requires sacrifices, obviously) and since onegod is just a god, could he be in fact tapyt? If you add the fact that the onegod’s religion has inquisitors and torture, it kinda fits the bill(I wouldn’t believe its beneath tapyt to do something like that).

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Shery: I’m headed off to church, see you in—

MC: BY CHURCH YOU MEAN PHONY HOUSE OF LIES?

@DudeInArmour I’m serving jury duty today and I’m on mobile so I can’t answer your post in as much detail as I would like, but all I can say is s p o i l e r s! I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the gods/One-God yet: you’ll have to see how the story plays out! I love your theories, though. :wink: I can only say that in the religion of the One-God, Tapyt doesn’t even exist as a god! There can only be one. Also, Inquisitors and torture weren’t part of the original religion and are still technically outside of the purview of the Church!

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My theory is that the old gods did exist but were killed (either by another entity or by starvation when they lost most of their believers) but one didn’t die but shattered, and one of its shards found its way to the MC. But the MC only got a small shard and that’s why they have a limited number of words

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I’m not sure they died from believers lost. Gods, by definition would know your true feelings/beliefs so even if you went to the onegod church and supposedly prayed publicly to the onegod, but your feelings would be with the old ways, they would surely notice; and in times of great strife, the faith increases a lot.
Perhaps they we’re killed, or simply went mad and stopped caring about the world. I wouldn’t know.
What if the gods aren’t actually gods? But instead very powerful beings? And what if they we’re killed because they tried to stop the natural couse of the universe? What if actually tapyt was kinda the good guy(so basically the world should have never harbored life, the earth/the corporeal realm -as in every patch of dirt that exists anywhere in this universe- is upset that the old gods-very powerful spirit beings- are maiming him -by creating life out of his flesh- so that he gave tapyt the power to reclaim his lost parts back -through brutal conquest- and the endarkened are malformed due to harboring too much power/or the il feelings of the corporeal plane towards its inhabitants)
Just a follow-up theory on the whole gods we’re killed subject
Basically : earth(or the corporeal plane) is sentient and kinda mad that the old gods we’re maiming him by creating life out of his flesh, so he gave tapyt the power to create beings out of the others-it fits the endarkened theme of being corrupted elves, I guess- and so he made tapyt his champion, a champion that will return the earth’s flesh where it belongs. Tapyt is the only being able to harm the other gods, because he is a spirit too, a spirit fueled by everyrhing that exists

Even so, I doubt the one god covers every aspect. Some gods are bound to die from lack of faith

Could you help me decipher something?
So there was this concept that I read about, about a world where people became obsessed with weapons and started worshipping them. Also they say that war is a divine intervention.
Semantically speaking, is it correct? Does it make sense?(war being divine intervention-I don’t understand very well how war could be divine intervention, because divine intervention implies something which will help you achieve victory-economically,industrially or military etc, which war does not do any of those- )
Perhaps it’s supposed to be narratively unique and interesting, disregarding meaning completely. You’ve read and wrote a whole lotta more books than me, so your opinion would be very valuable.

I would say it could make sense: my interpretation of divine intervention is not that it’s always positive. If we dissect the words as they are, “intervention” merely implies that a higher power is meddling with/intervening in earthly affairs–it doesn’t necessarily say it’s always for the benefit of the ones on earth. The destruction of the world by flood or Sodom and Gomorrah being consumed by holy fire in Abrahamic religions could be interpreted as “divine intervention,” meant to prevent the world from falling into sin. It didn’t benefit the people on Earth, but God intervened to do x, y, or z. So war could be divine intervention in a way, particularly if those who are worshiping the weapons believe that they are being mandated to go to war by a higher being!

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Wow…you are pretty damn awesome!
I forgot to mention that the purpose of the weapon-worshippers is to teach(impose through conquest) their way of life to all nonbelievers, but even if I forgot to mentioned this, you figured it out anyway.
Thank you for explaining this to me.

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Some thoughts (with no guarantees)!

Would you want a checkpoint save system in ShoH where you could save your progress at 3-4 critical points in the game?

  • Yes, this is a long game and I like saving my choices in case I mess up.
  • No, I don’t need a save system to enjoy the game.
  • Yes, but I would prefer a save system where I can save after every chapter, even if there’s a greater risk of bugs.
  • Something else.

0 voters

What if you couldn’t load any of your saves until you’ve completed the game once? Then you could get the option to load and do things over without having to restart completely?

  • I’m cool with having to live with my choices the first time around, with loads being available at the end of the game.
  • I would prefer the option to load a previous chapter and do over things on the first playthrough, before reaching the ending.
  • It doesn’t matter either way.

0 voters

How interested are you in a New Game+ where, upon finishing the game once, you could have the option to go through any subsequent playthroughs with a maxed stat or legendary weapon?

  • I would be very interested in this and it would definitely motivate me to replay.
  • I would replay regardless of a New Game+ option or not.
  • This would not really matter to me and it would not motivate me to replay.
  • I would actively dislike this.
  • Something else.

0 voters

And finally, do any rigorous replayers know if achievements carry over after you restart the game in CoGs/HGs? I imagine so to fulfill completionists’ desires, but I’m not sure!

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Since it’s impossible to get all achievements in one playthrough,. Yes they do remain after you finish the game.
Although I think fallen hero is an exception since all the achievements seem to be gone after I restart but I’m not sure?

Edit:

Although I would like a save system, I don’t really need it and i’m not really bothered by replaying. I once replayed all of GTA IV in one session because I wanted to get the ending where Roman didn’t die (about 20 hours)

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I saw this coming.

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Thanks, this makes things much easier for me! :grin:

You prophet, you! :joy: