Thank you! As with others above, I may not upload a new build before the beta goes up, but I’ve fixed that in the game files.
Thanks! That was just some text that got copied into the wrong place, “Why are you here?” is all it’s supposed to say (and it’s the PC talking, like the other options). Again, fixed in my files.
If you can use the spoiler tag on anything post-chapter 4 or so, that would be great! I can add that into your post for the moment.
I believe that’s one that’s already been reported and fixed in my files earlier, just not uploaded to the demo.
Looks like that one’s already fixed as well.
Additional psst: epilogue is complete and being reviewed! Stay tuned for even more updates soon!
oh my god this is so sick. my eyes lit up at the first sentence—straight into the deep end!!! only looked at the first few pages so FAR (i’m currently procrastinating a tad, but need to get back to work lol) but i will 100% be playing through the full demo today. i’m already hooked kjhfjsf
edit: i forgot to update but i did play through the full demo and omfg it is awesome. i’m so excited it really feels very ghostly and the SEAAAAA and the GHOSTS?>??? and dragons too. god. it could not get any cooler. what a fabulous perfect vibe and tone and storyline erjhegjbfnm,.avdljfbmng i’m very excited
Regarding even more updates soon:
One other thing I should probably mention is that if you’ve played the demo from this thread through chapter 7, that was a bit under 500,000 words. Despite the chapter counts, that’s less than half the game. The full thing is 1.1 million. The later chapters got…a bit out of hand.
A lot of that is due to significant branching, so I’m not sure how the first seven chapters and the last three + epilogue will compare in wordcount on the player’s end, haven’t run those numbers yet. But especially if you’re going to replay, there’s quite a lot of content that you haven’t seen to explore in the beta. (It’s also the content that’s likely to have the most continuity issues, since it’s huge and complex, so I will very much appreciate your feedback!)
I literally just came to this thread specifically to ask about the total word count, so either this is a nice coincidence or we have a creepy psychic connection. 
I’m starting my first playthrough tonight, and very excited. 
Sorry, I have to ask. Is “Frey” pronounced like “fray” or like “fry”?
Fray.
It’s hard to give very useful descriptions for achievements in this game, because the names of multiple major characters are spoilers in themselves. So be prepared for those to be kind of esoteric.
And I haven’t even gotten to naming them yet, except for two. One of them is a pun that will pop up during a pretty serious situation, and one is so stupid I honestly might change it. These are not the same one, to be clear. The pun is locked in.
My husband would appreciate you.
Getting close to the end of the beta! I really appreciate everyone’s feedback so far, and encourage anyone who’s testing and hasn’t sent comments yet to send them in now.
I was looking back at the character descriptions I gave on the game’s original outline in March 2023, to see if anything significant had changed. It turns out they’re mostly still pretty accurate! But if anyone’s curious, here they are, plus some of my thoughts on the fairly small things that did change. A few of them have spoilers, as noted, but most of them don’t in particular.
PC
The PC rose to fame in their teens when they (alongside Cecilia Anker of Vatrai) impressed the dragons in a series of challenges, prompting the dragons to bestow the Eyes of the Serpent upon Galdrin and Vatrai and grant their rulers incredible magical power over the lands they ruled. The PC then became the foremost defender of the crown of Galdrin, protecting the royal family during the ensuing wars with Vatrai. During those wars, they fought several storied duels with Cecilia, again Vatrai’s equivalent champion. Eventually, the PC fell in battle from a hundred wounds (the last dealt by Cecilia), making a heroic last stand to allow time for reinforcements to save Galdrin and the queen from certain doom at Vatrai’s hands. The PC passed into legend as a hero who would one day return if Galdrin ever faced such a threat again – and now, they have.
Thoughts on PC’s description
Yep! That’s who you are!
Alek
The king of Galdrin, the son of the deceased Queen Amalia and her human husband Elvar. He currently bears Galdrin’s Eye of the Serpent, giving him a magical bond with the land of Galdrin and an even closer empathic connection with his castle. Because his death while bearing the Eye would result in chaos, he’s very closely guarded. Most of his duties are related to magical maintenance of the environment, while an elected council has more political power, which is a change from when the PC was alive and the monarch’s power was absolute. He’s very devoted to the use of the Eye and views it as necessary for Galdrin’s safety. He often prioritizes Galdrin and the Eye’s needs above his own. In his late twenties. Romanceable.
Thoughts on Alek’s description
Again, still very accurate.
Frey
The half-dragon son of Queen Amalia and her dragon husband Horizon. Human/dragon hybrids vary in appearance and abilities. Frey has functional wings and some white scales across his back and arms, but no other dragon abilities aside from very limited draconic telepathy, and has thus far aged at a human rate but may have that vary throughout his lifetime. Because of his dragon blood, he’s unable to wield the Eye of the Serpent and ineligible to inherit the throne. He’s advocated for Galdrin to give up the Eye, which many have murmured is so he can make his own claim on the throne without it, and has fallen in with groups with even more anti-royalist sentiments in the past. Despite this, and despite Alek’s own doubts, Frey is actually content with his position and has no designs on the throne, but worries about the toll the Eye takes on his brother. He’s currently serving as Galdrin’s ambassador to the dragons, a position that was originally intended to get him out of the way but has recently become significantly more complicated. In his mid-twenties. Romanceable.
Thoughts on Frey’s description
Again, more or less accurate, though it emphasizes people thinking he’s opposed to the Eye specifically because he wants the throne for himself a little more than I think ended up being focused on in the game itself.
Iris
The teenage daughter of Queen Amalia and the heir presumptive to the throne. She was born after both of the queen’s husbands died and her other parent was never publicly announced (which does not impact her inheritance eligibility), but it’s something of an open secret in Galdrin that it’s Senna, and she has inherited their magical skill. However, Iris herself only learned this when Senna confessed it after Amalia’s death last year. She used to be close as them as a tutor, but resents the secrecy. She’s interested in going to the continent to study, something which Alek and Senna view with trepidation for a variety of both separate and overlapping reasons.
Thoughts on Iris’s description
Mostly accurate again, but I’m curious about exactly what I meant about her parentage being an “open secret.” Certainly it’s presented as more of an actual secret in the game itself, though mostly when it comes to the League and outsiders generally. I do think even in the game as it currently stands, a lot of Galdrin’s elite probably do know or suspect without discussing it publicly. I would imagine that the councilors are all aware, for example.
Senna
An advisor to the crown of Galdrin and a wizard who specializes in healing and magical surgery. They have a complex and somewhat infamous history on the continent, rising from a common background due to their prodigious magical talent, but then being expelled in disgrace from one of the top universities for (among other scandals) stealing corpses for anatomical studies. Afterward, they came to Galdrin, which had less of a taboo on the subject (of autopsies, if not graverobbing), and rose even higher there. They were the former queen’s lover for a few years, though the relationship was never officially acknowledged. In their early forties. Romanceable.
Thoughts on Senna’s description
The biggest change here is that in the game as it currently stands, Senna was definitely not Queen Amalia’s lover for “a few years” - I go back and forth on the exact timeline, but it was less than a year, and had already ended before Iris was born. That’s something that’s been shifting throughout the writing process, and one of the things I’ve been doing in beta is trying to look out for moments in early chapters when Senna and Amalia’s relationship is described in a way I wouldn’t agree with now. That said, a lot of times when people are discussing it, they’re either making assumptions about things they don’t actually know (Iris and her brothers) or deliberately not going into detail (Senna), so I don’t strictly mind all the inaccuracies either.
Vesper
A black dragon who eagerly befriended the PC during their original lifetime, centuries ago. In the present day, she’s serving as a consultant on the Broken Stone League’s expedition, which Galdrin views as a betrayal. Somewhere around four hundred years old. Romanceable.
Thoughts on Vesper’s description
This is accurate, but it’s also noticeably shorter than the others. Sorry, Vesper!
Cecilia (SPOILERS up to chapter 5 or so)
The court wizard of Vatrai during the PC’s life time and their mortal rival. She impressed the dragons alongside the PC when they were teenagers, then went on to duel the PC several times after Galdrin and Vatrai went to war, eventually ending in the PC’s death. She lived on for two decades after the PC, but ultimately fell while trying to rescue the people of Vatrai when the country collapsed. Or so it appeared. Kind of a weird age situation due to death and resurrection, but died in her mid-fifties. Romanceable.
Thoughts on Cecilia’s description (SPOILERS, as above)
This is also basically accurate, but it doesn’t mention her relationship to the royal family of Vatrai, because that wasn’t something I came up with until later.
Juliane and Leo (SPOILERS up to chapter 5 or so)
Princess Juliane Hallsten and General Leo Caldwell are two of the leaders of the Broken Stone League, a couple who joined their previously-warring countries with their marriage and started the web of alliances that led to the League. They’re in charge of the expedition to recover Vatrai’s Eye of the Serpent, and Leo’s supposed cousin, Aina Caldwell, is one of the expedition’s wizard researchers. However, in reality, Aina is not only not really Leo’s cousin, but actually Cecilia Anker, back from the grave and in disguise, here to try to steal Vatrai’s Eye for herself and restore Vatrai. (Juliane and Leo do not know this.)
Thoughts on Juliane and Leo (SPOILERS as above)
This is probably the one that’s changed the most, though the basic story beats are still the same. Starting with Juliane: apparently she was a princess and not a duchess, originally? I think I had no memory of that by the time I got to actually writing her in the game, because I have no specific recollection of changing it. Also she had a different surname that I forgot about. Saying that they “joined their previously-warring countries with their marriage” is also not accurate because Wallstor and Nochalle weren’t at war (at least not at a time relevant to the game’s storyline - they probably have been at some point in the past, given continental history). The main relevant continental war in the backstory is the Nochallan civil war, which Juliane and Leo were on the same side of (Leo sent Wallstorian soldiers who ultimately helped win the war for Juliane’s side). And none of that “started” the Broken Stone League, the League already existed. That said, most of this is minor backstory details that don’t come up much.
Aina is only mentioned as being Cecilia “in disguise” without any corpse-stealing details because I hadn’t decided exactly how she came back at the time, just that she did and Leviathan was responsible.
Mist
A silver dragon, one of the oldest dragons living and the closest thing they have to a leader. Horizon was their son and Frey is their grandson, though Mist has had a large number of descendants over their centuries of life and appears largely uninterested in those relationships. Mist is more reluctant to communicate with humans than many of the younger dragons, perhaps because they are a traditionalist or perhaps because they have secrets to keep. No one knows how old Mist is.
Thoughts on Mist
Generally accurate, if fairly minimalist. I probably hadn’t decided what most of the secrets Mist was keeping were at the time, but they were definitely there. It interested me that Mist was described as silver, because I felt like my current image of them is a dark steel-gray that I wouldn’t necessarily call “silver.” Then I looked back at the code and found that they are described as “silver-gray” in a couple of places. I guess maybe they’re a dark silver? Possibly I should consider if I’m going to update those descriptions.
Spoiler character post-chapter 5 (predictably, SPOILERS)
Leviathan
An ancient sea serpent bound deep in the ocean by the dragons after it threatened to flood the world. This did not necessarily decrease its desire to flood the world. Leviathan is the buried Warden of the Sea, and also has some power over life and death. Only the dragons know Leviathan exists. This may be about to change. Older than time. Not traditionally romanceable, but you can get weird about it.
Thoughts on spoiler character (SPOILERS)
Was I capitalizing Warden of the Sea back then? I stopped by the time I was actually writing the game and then partway through the game wished I had been capitalizing it but didn’t want to go back and change it everywhere. Alas.
Hadn’t gotten to the relevant parts in the pre-beta demo, and I don’t know if anyone’s actually done it in the beta yet, but you can still get weird about it. (Do not expect amounts of content equivalent to a regular RO, but it’s there.)
Everyone else, including Eclipse, Lucero, the councilors, and other members of the League, did not yet exist as defined characters at the time of the original outline.
Well drat! I’ve been having a great time romancing Senna, and I’m not sure I have the heart to cheat on them with … you know who, but I also kind of want to see just how weird things can actually get.
That said, this was a fun look back at how some of your ideas have developed … although what’s most fascinating to me is how little has actually changed. Would you say you went into this game with an unusually clear vision of the characters? If so, did you have an equally strong sense of what roles they would play and what kinds of arcs were available to them, or did that mostly come later?