In most story I think parents have less love than it should be, most MC is portrayed as orphan not much known about the parents.
I am rather glad this one have good parents.
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Feel absolutely free to ignore me because it’s just personal preference but I don’t like the Potions surname too much. I think Lamplighter sounds better? Other options: Pulpman 
, (Philosopher’s) Stone, Spicer, Chymist (doesn’t fit the others you’ve got that well but is the old timey word for chemistry/alchemy).
“Mr. Potion’s, I tell you I am going into battle, and I want only your strongest potions.”
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I’m not the biggest fan of Potions myself, though I think that’s part of the point! It’s a bit of a misnomer due to the perception of others. In fact, none of the creations from a Potions MC have been a potion so far ahahah
I’ll consider Chymist, though, as it’s not something that had occurred to me. Would need a few changes (beyond just word change) since, if I well recall, there’s a narrative section that goes into it. Once I’m finished with Chapter 3 I’ll spare some time to look into it.
Speaking of Chapter 3, it’s currently at 12,043 words without code (at the time of this post, since I’m also writing now). It’s the bulk of the kickstart that will lead to the chapter’s story. Some of the story so far includes:
A new temporary companion
Another magic bump, not relying on the bear
Portrayal of an actual town outside of the village MC was born in
A small investigation that will need some deduction from the player based on clues shown.
In regards to what’s coming, Chapter 3 will include:
More fighting that will lead to an emotionally significant choice by the MC
Significant story choice at the end
Another magic bump that is dependent on choices and/or skills
A little more light on the orcs attacking the village—it wasn’t a random raid
Romance scene
I’ll also push another small update later today that optimizes some of the code greatly in the statscreen, plus some typo fixes throughout Chapters 1 and 2.
I’m gonna struggle to not include a line of YOU CAN’T HANDLE MY POTIONS now.
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I love your demo!
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Alchemist can go by tinker although it’s bit common, I get it why potions though people have misunderstanding that Alchemy is about making potion but it’s actually more than that.
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Hello again, it’s your weekly progress update on the state of Chapter 3! I intended to release a partial Chapter 3 today, but the more I wrote it, the more I realized I could do better and that new branches needed to be fleshed out to give the experience I want.
Currently, Chapter 3 stands at 24,400 words without code. There’s not a lot more that needs to be written before this partial update is released, but there’s some editting, not to mention bug testing, to be done after I’m done writing and I don’t want to rush it.
The partial update isn’t the entirety of Chapter 3, and though I hesitated with the notion of releasing just a partial chapter, there’s a specific point during an investigation that I could use some feedback on, particularly in regards to word detection.
This partial Chapter 3 will be released, at the latest, Saturday (11/02), though there’s a high likelihood that it’ll come earlier than that during the week.
Other minor features also include some stat gain rebalance, typos fix, some minor rephrasing for certain sentences to flow better throughout Chapters 1 and 2, and new artwork for the chapter heads. Those are all finished and the focus is on the new content.
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CHANGELOG 01/NOV/2024
The partial Chapter 3, Road to Cadena, is released! Although it’s not the full chapter, there is a total of 30,800 words without code in it. The biggest focus on this part, and a big reason for the word count despite being only a partial release, was to allow the main character to fail and redirect to different branches, providing reactivity and potential of succeeding if that happens.
With all that said, there’s also been a few minor changes that affect Chapters 1 and 2.
01/NOV/2024
Artwork
New images for chapter heads that follow the same style of the cover image. These are transparent rather than having a background and I tried to make the colors to work on any of CS backgrounds.
Writing
More typos fixed throughout Chapters 1 and 2.
Rephrased a few minor sentences to make the prose flow better.
Coding/Mechanics
Minor stat rebalance in Chapter 2. You should have appropriate stat gains when fighting the orc now.
Feedback is greatly appreciated, whether it’s about the story, the writing or the characters, typos, bugs and continuity errors, whether you liked or disliked something. This is particularly important for the investigation’s input text, and much of the reason I decided to make a partial update: when it comes to allowing any text input, there’s infinite possibilities to include in the answer’s word detection and almost certainly many reasonable conclusions that I haven’t thought of.
For now, there is a placeholder that will throw you back to the input text in case the word isn’t detected. Given the wide range of possibilities, it’ll be very helpful if you’d like to suggest detection of particular words, even if they’re not the right answer to the puzzle in question, to ensure there is reactivity to a wide array of conclusions.
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Switched to using variables instead of parameters, should be fixed now!
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I am wondering how high difficulty level of the monster in this universe? Some story have extremely difficult monster like Claymore, Goblin Slayer or Berserk.
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It can vary wildly depending on the monster. There’s some who, wildness aside, aren’t a lot more dangerous than an angry orc. Harpies come to mind for that. They have wings and sharp claws, so they’re by no means harmless, but as far as monsters go, they’re not very resilient.
Other monsters are only as dangerous as you’re cunning, such as sirens. If you don’t get enchanted by their singing and you don’t get pulled into the water, you should be fine to face one.
Some are dangerous, like a cockatrices, manticores and gryphons. Planning and awareness is important for them, but it only goes so far. They’re not fragile like humans and they’re much stronger (physically speaking) than one.
When Nelanya created these monsters, she took animals and twisted them into something else to fight in the War of Ascension, so while they’re not harmless, they can be very varied in terms of how dangerous they can be, just like in nature. For the examples cites above, I’d wager good odds on a group of soldiers (5-10) with a resourceful commander, which is to say these monsters are dangerous but you don’t need specific knowledge or specific training to fight against monsters in order to kill them.
If we drift away from Nelanya’s creations and dwell into the realm of magical or sentient monsters, there are monsters that probably shouldn’t be fought against save for dedicated monster hunters that know what they’re doing. Trolls, created by Andrath, banshees or wraiths, created by necromancers, are good examples of that. Blindly attacking them is useless; a troll will regenerate, a banshee and a wraith are incorporeal most of the time.
There are demons, whose range is as varied as those of Nelanya’s monsters. Imps are about as dangerous as your average goblin, but some of the major demons are creatures you’d do best to avoid rather than fight.
Dragons… don’t fight dragons. It won’t end well.
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So world with powerful hostile fauna and monster with high difficulty level.
Well that’s good lore to have, this world have goddess of monster so it’s not surprising that some of her creation is dangerous and outright deadly it is after all created to fight the Gods.
I am just wondering about the journey will it be flight or fight situation as not everyone in the party is competent fighter, like we have 2 front line fighter, at least two ranged fighter an archer and one apprentice mage, not sure with the guy william is he a bard or something? Since he hit that old lady and thrown to jail and incapable of jailbreak I am assuming he is the bard?
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Yeah, William’s just a musician for now. He’s physically strong because of his job, but he isn’t exactly the most competent fighter around. He’ll evolve through the journey and find himself, becoming more helpful
As far as Origins goes, it’s unlikely that the group will face the most dangerous things that the world has to offer. At its core, Origins is a journey to save your village from the orc attack and the way that this journey transforms the characters in it.
I intend to keep Origins a relatively short story since the concept of the story is pretty straight forward, and adding new things may end up detracting from the overall story of saving the village, avenging the father. I’d guess it’s a sub-200K story.
Some things do come up as I write, though, so it’s hard to give certainty. I had Amara written as a concept from the very beginning, but as I wrote the scenes in Concession, her role became a little bigger than originally intended.
As far as the Strings of Fate universe goes, though, I want to keep writing for as long as I have stories to tell and time to invest. Not necessarily sequels (though one, singular, is a possibility) but other stories from other characters in different parts of Atheryn. I already have a map drawn for the south of Hendell Island, for instance. It becomes easier for these stories because it breaks away from the concept of a villager that’s struggling to rise to the occasion. Can’t exactly throw a gryphon against the villagers and expect them to win!
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Just how powerful is magic in this universe because at the moment we’ve only seen beginner level magic? Also does magic work better with a specific origin/background?
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Magic can be terrifyingly powerful depending on the mage. Most of the historically great mages have been dead for centuries with the fall of Andrath and much has been lost, but even now a single mage could kill a dozen soldiers with one spell.
There’s associated problems with it, though. The first is that magic is dangerous: when you make a spell, you write sigils on the air and draw the ambient magic from your Source, then channel it into the written sigils. Your body is a pipeline for the ambient magic, and the sigils are what give spells their shape. But the body wasn’t meant to channel magic, it’s like breathing in fire. You can handle a certain amount, but if you do it too much, the magic will start killing you.
The second problem are the sigils themselves. You need to actually draw the symbols in the air, and for some spells they’re pretty intricate. It can be difficult to do that when there’s an angry monster five feet away from you. Enemies won’t simply allow the mage to finish writing symbols in the air.
All backgrounds handle magic equally, there’s no difference. The protagonist in Origins will always draw from Arcane, but there’s other Sources in lore.
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Wow! holy crap I love the demo! I dunno if I’ve previously commented before I’ve no time for back reading butttttt yessssss the lore is
(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ beri beri noice love all routes can’t wait for the next update (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻
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Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed the story!
I’ll admit I’m quite curious to see which routes people have taken and how much of the things written have been experienced. There’s some particular scenes in Chapter 3 that are pretty out there and I suspect not many will see. There is, in fact, a way to fully awaken magic in the demo as it is now, though it requires a pretty specific set of choices for it to happen this early.
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@the.normandy I dunno if this will be dubbed as spoilers but my fave route was I chosed to be a Hunter plus a hobby in potion making then build my relationship with Elanor since he’s affiliated with magic and ol
ʕ´• ᴥ•̥`ʔ I think it also helps if we chose not to kill the 
then skip to the part wherein, Mc successfully killed an orc alone, the gang then supposedly need to reach Cadena? Caleda? But was stopped at the village where goblins starts invading Omg sorry there my MC met an elf forgot her name it start with letter I and chosed to be friendly with her so she teaches my MC about my latent mana reservoir is that what ur referrin to? Ahhaha but I think its much more faster if people chose Alchemy as their main profession🫶
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Since author already have the world lore and have substantial bestiary figured out it will be a shame if it’s not explored further.
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Even after using alchemy at the market to buy the supplies the variable hasSmokeless is not set to true.
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