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

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Huh, maybe I’m just used to it in Algeria being the most unsexy language you can speak

Edit: and also for the wiki, I think it would be helpful to include a list of the ROs and the sexuality so that no one is confused

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Well I can understand French being unsexy because Arabic is spoken there which is a cool language too and France colonized Algeria so… yeah

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Arabic is more like a formal language that’s only used for school and such. Our dialect is a bastardization of English, French, Arabic and I think there’s some Spanish thrown in for good measure. And sometimes people from different States can’t even understand each other

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While that is good to know, it is rather off topic. nudge nudge

Of course, sorry I got carried away

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Don’t worry, it happens to all of us, but that doesn’t mean your conversation has to stop, that’s why PMs were invented. :wink:

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FAQ is up! If anyone thinks of any more questions, please suggest them! I’m slowly cobbling together walkthroughs for romances and achievements as I go along so I don’t have to go back and make them all from scratch one day… (yes this means I do foresee some romances being that complicated lol…)

Also @justme I did tweak that conscription scene just a little to have the MC be forced into the Shepherds more organically and with a choice for their mindset/attitude. It’s a very (very) small change but I think it improves the scene, even slightly! :slight_smile: So thanks again for your thoughts!

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You sound so sweet in your FAQ @rinari

Remind me to buy you a coffee one of these days and maybe doodle some fan art if I ever get better at art. Lol.

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You’re going to want to add a link to the FAQ in the description of the tumblr, because tumblr’s mobile app doesn’t let you see separate pages for some godforsaken reason.

You should be able to add it when you’re editing the theme, just remember to use an html link:

<a href="link">text</a>

And for the love of god, don’t edit it while you’re on mobile, it has to be a on a computer. For whatever reason, tumblr mobile deletes all links when you edit something.

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Whoa, thanks for the tips, @rose-court!! I had no idea about Tumblr mobile being so finicky, lol! Links have been added to the description! :slight_smile:

And aw, thanks @Kanaya! :see_no_evil: And the coffee is by no means necessary: I just made the thing to help chip away at making the rest of ShoH’s character cards someday! :grin::hugs:

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Just read the FAQ and got curious when you mentioned Dragon Age, did BioWare have an influence on your story telling? And if so could you name your favorite BioWare game and favorite BioWare romance/companion?

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Love to now what got you to make Shepherds of Haven

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I think BioWare definitely had an influence on my story-telling! Although I came up with the story of Shepherds of Haven long before I played a BioWare game, Dragon Age: Origins was the first RPG I ever played that really showed me how my choices and decisions could alter the story in countless and innumerable ways, from big effects to tiny details–and how I could really become attached to characters in the party, whereas other companions in other games really felt more flat or didn’t get as much screen-time. So I’d say I definitely try to emulate BioWare in providing the same kind of experience for my readers: I want their choices to matter and shape the world just as mine did in DA:O, and I want them to fall in love with my characters in the same way, too. I think I even unconsciously modeled the “day off” system in ShoH to the campfires in DA:O, though I think I’ve also done a lot of other things to make the game my own! :slight_smile:

And to answer your question, maybe obviously DA: Origins is my favorite BioWare game! (Inquisition is a close second!) I never played the original Mass Effect trilogy but did play Andromeda, which was okay. And my favorite RO is Alistair, followed by Fenris and Cullen, though I waver on who takes second place. :thinking:

Like I’ve mentioned before, this story started off as a series of novels that I started writing when I was a young girl. :slight_smile: It stemmed from me wanting to write about a police force set in a fantasy world where a team of people would go around on missions, protecting the populace from general arcane dangers. (In the beginning, I hadn’t come up with the ideas of the Castigation and the Autarchy, so it was just people from all of these made-up races collaborating to keep the world safe and facing various threats and problems.) (I think it may have been inspired by the Artemis Fowl series? I was super young then.) The stories consisted of this team having various adventures, from fighting demons to exploring new, strange continents to overseeing magical crimes: because in my mind, in a world involving magic, who would be ensuring that no one abused that magic or used it to harm innocents? Who would be powerful enough or authoritative enough to counter people who could essentially make themselves gods?

Sometimes the stories centered around more internal dramas between the characters or within the department of their “police force”–such as the two main characters falling in love but being forbidden from seeing “coworkers,” meaning if they admitted their feelings for one another, one of them would have to leave the force.

Eventually I wrote a novel in which the team sparked an international incident and a war was waged between a Norm kingdom and a coalition of non-Norm countries; the novel explored the ramifications it had on the police force and the world at large. The characters had to suddenly contend with both all-out war and then (in the aftermath) having their political powers and reach severely limited by treaties and post-war regulations. Their old commander was ousted and replaced by a Norm overseer, and then it became a sort of weird political intrigue story about trying to reclaim their independence while working under this tyrannical political thumb. (There was a happy ending, though, but it was all very dark and dramatic.)

From there I was like, but what if I went really extreme with it and the good guys lost? What would that world look like? And from there, the Castigation and the Autarchy was born!

(PS: I hope that wasn’t too long of an explanation. That was as condense as I could make a 15-year+ journey, lol!)

Also:

My inbox has been inundated with asks, but if anyone wants to send in more, go ahead! Just remember to check if your ask has already been answered! :grin: (And try to limit it to a few characters per ask, I generally can’t do an “everyone” response unless it’s short!)

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I just finished DA:Origins last night and I do get a lot of DA vibe from ShoH but at the same time, your characters and the world you have created were uniquely your own. Gah! I can’t wait to dive in your story when it’s up!!

(Also, another Alistair fan here! And are you part of the Dark Ritual club? :stuck_out_tongue:)

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Definitely see DA and Mass effect vibes in this. And that’s great because it makes me love this even more.

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@resuri08 Ugh, as much as it pained me, yes, I forced poor Alistair to do the dark ritual! I wanted him to live, damn it!

@Mxm124, good, I hope you continue to love it! :grin:

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Also, for anyone who wants to see all of the tumblr posts by character, there’s now a character page along with the FAQ (not sure if you can see it on mobile though, I haven’t checked)! You can click on the names to see posts tagged with that character. :slight_smile:

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The Original Mass Effect 1 & 2 are both really good. Mass Effect 3 was excellent as well until the last… 15 - 20 minutes? or so of the game.

Funny how they could ruin an entire series in the course of 15 minutes. Lol

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For Norm, Ket and Hunter what are the biggest traits that make them stand out from each other? Was trying to look on Tumblr butI couldn’t find anything.

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Yeah, I saw the ending when my roommates were all playing ME:3 when it came out… that was rough! :grimacing: I did play part of the first one but only made it to the Citadel, kept getting lost, and then lost interest, but if BioWare were ever to do a remaster for current gen consoles, I would be on that so fast!

Do you mean for the MC’s background or for the races in general? :slight_smile: I’m going to assume you mean background? For the Ket background, the MC gets a big boost in strength and can share dialogue about their heritage with Blade; for the Norm background, the MC gets a big boost in charisma and gets a slight boost in reputation in the city for having been raised by Norms; and for the Hunter background, the MC gets a big boost in (I think) intelligence and will have a markedly different relationship with the Hunter character who’s yet to show up, Halek! I hope that answers your question! :slight_smile:

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