The Shadow Society (WIP) Writing Update on #1545

Shadow-Society-Logo-Blue

“There exist a world parallel to ours; alike in many aspects, yet different where it matters most. The only thing we know for sure is that certain people of that world have found a way to get to ours. Don’t trust them. And, whatever you do, look out for your own shadow.”
-Unknown

Edit 3/2 - 2020: “The Shadow Society” releases on February 6th 2020, three days from now. If you’d like to wait for the release before diving into the story, it’s recommended that you hold off on playing the demo!


Hey, everyone! This is my very first attempt at writing an interactive novel, and I finally feel confident enough to upload it as a WIP.

Warning: This story contains profanity and violence (in the full book some of which may be considered grotesque).

EDIT 5/2 - 2020: The demo is down, since the game releases tomorrow.

The story starts off in a dream that alters something within you, forcing you to return to your now abandoned childhood home to search for answers.
Little do you know that the abnormalities of the house is tied to another realm; a realm your ancestors have a mysterious connection to. But where their story closed, yours remains to be written: Will you trust what you see, or search for a different truth? Will you put faith in those who claim to be your friends and shun the enemy, or turn the tables around?
You may find your best friend, your arch nemesis, or even fall in love during your journey. The outcome is up to you.

“The Shadow Society” is the first book out of three planned ones. It is heavily focused on characters; the supporting ones as well as the MC, which you build yourself through various choices. It has themes related to fantasy, the supernatural, relationships and politics, among others. Currently, the prologue and five chapters are done, included in the demo, with roughly 300,000 words.
The demo covers around one third or so of the full book.

The personality traits you choose for your MC will eventually come to matter in certain circumstances throughout the story, if the percentage is high enough; I plan to make the supporting cast very reactionary to your choices, even further down the line. EDIT: I’ve changed this somewhat; throughout the series, I want the characters to be responsive to the MC’s personality, but the traits will not determine outcomes. In book 1 this won’t happen much, as you are in the process of getting to know the characters - thus it wouldn’t make sense for them to comment on your personality as if they’ve known you for a long time. Just thought I’d clear that up!

As for how the relationship system works:
You practically have 3 “romance dialogue-options” to choose from, depending on how you want to play your character: One more awkward, flustered option, one that is confident and flirty, and one for those who prefer a stubborn character who have a hard time realizing their own feelings. All of them works for all characters, and you are free to play pretty much any kind of personality type with no hindrance to the romance (except the very, very harsh options that will instead lead towards rivalry if you pick enough of them).

Now, I do know that romance isn’t for everyone, and whilst I really want to focus on the romance aspect of this story, the options to become just friends with the characters will exist and be just as valid. A character can become your BFF, and instead of a potential romance scene, you might get a friend scene instead if you are not romancing anyone. Same with rivalry. In other words, you will not miss out on content for not choosing the romance route.

Stats will determine your MC’s abilities to do certain things, but there are no hidden choices or dialogue options, and no game overs. There will be multiple possible outcomes, though.

UPDATE: Poll on post #306 about favorite character/RO!

Some additional info:

-Option to play as male, female or non-binary
-5 love interests that change gender depending on the MC’s chosen preferences (Along with 2 hidden ones)
-Both smaller choices having to do with personality/appearance to ones that might decide the fate of a character (yes, it will be possible for characters to die; but it will not be dependent on stats, but rather your choices)
-I want to add that picking the option that you do not feel physical attraction will NOT lock you out of any romance or alter anything other than the other characters sex. It’s simply an option included for potentially asexual or aromantic people out there.
Any kind of feedback or constructive criticism is highly appreciated!

**The Demo includes chapters 1 - 4 of “The Shadow Society”

Some things to consider:

The rival romance/friend romance will NOT be featured in the extended demo, or the whole of book 1. The romance featured in book 1 and this extended demo are the “original” ones; the other two will come into play in book 2

In this extended demo, there is an option to escape from the group. This option will NOT end the story or affect your relationships negatively; it will warrant reactions from the characters, different scenes and different conversations down the road, but it’s an option as valid as choosing to stay, so don’t be afraid to try it out!

A’s first interaction scene is the shortest; this is because of character reasons. Future interactions with them will be longer :wink:

Enjoy the extended demo, everyone! I’d love to hear your opinions on it.

For anyone who’s interested, here’s the tumblr link where I will post updates etc.: https://carawenfiction.tumblr.com/

Credit for the logo goes to Sasquatchii

Link to new discord server: https://discord.gg/kzUPuVe

Link to old (still active and not as strict in terms of rules, though not very TSS-related) server: https://discord.gg/vvtYd9Z

EDIT: I forgot to update here, but for the time being I don’t offer any Patreon rewards or extra content. I’ve tried several different approaches but it always leaves me with too little time to focus on writing. I still have the link up if anyone would want to support me over there anyway. Sorry if this is disappointing, but thank you for reading! Patreon

Wanna buy me a coffee? Here is my ko-fi! https://ko-fi.com/carawen (only for those who really want to, please don’t worry if you can’t/don’t feel like it!)

UPDATE 08/04/18: As I’ve posted further down below, I have put together a document containing some world info, character interaction and character profiles. In anticipation for the extended demo, I wanted to provide something fun for all of you who are waiting. Thanks for sticking with me!

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Noticed a bug: when I was asked what my best skill was, I chose intuition, and when I checked my stats I found that combat was raised instead.

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Good catch there Denton

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very very very very good . Did I forget to say it was good? cose it’s really is :grin:

question (cose was too lazy to look at stats) : will we have stats like Str and such? and does the body you choose add anything to that ? like say , if I pick athletic…does that add like + 2 or such?

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Thanks for pointing that out - it should work properly now :slight_smile:

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Thank you so much! Hmm, that’s a good question. I’m still playing around with stats, and they might very well change in the completed version, so that’s definitely something that might be implemented in the future!

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I enjoyed this a lot! I chose “only attracted to women” and encountered a couple pronoun mix ups in the intitial house scenes with M and maybe one or two with the others. Hopefully when I’m not on my phone I can take some screen shot a to be slightly more useful

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So, Reyhla is going to be my waifu now

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I let out a yelp of pain when my head hit the floor.

Should be hits
Already got me hooked! I look forward to seeing more~

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“An impatient sigh brings my attention to Azuridian. Folding his arms, she starts tapping his foot.”
Just a pronoun mix up, I chose only attracted to men. Other then that this story seems really interesting I’m hooked already lol.

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Oh my, all these pronoun mix ups… That’s what happens when you write late at night, I guess :sweat_smile: I can’t believe that I missed all these when playtesting. Thanks for reporting the misspellings and bugs, I will look at them ASAP and update the link! I’m glad some of you seem to like it so far!

EDIT: I have updated the link a couple of times now, and will continue to do so if I catch more misspellings/bugs :slight_smile:

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Looking good so far! I like it!

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I don’t know if it’s just your personal preference or not, but I realize that there’s a loading every choice, so I knew that you made a new ‘scene,’ AKA linked to a new .txt file using a goto_scene.

Are you intentionally using goto_scenes and scenes to every choice because you like it that way, avoiding goto and labels like the plague, or are you unaware? :sweat_smile: Because you are new, and I would like to clarify, in case it might be adding unecessary work for you to make a new .txt file for each choice.

P.S.: Interesting concept, keep up the good work.

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Haha, I didn’t even know that it loaded extra if using *goto!

Well, the biggest reason is that I’m pretty horrible with coding, and encountered a problem when using “finish” where only one option would pop up. So when goto worked, I just used that instead :sweat_smile: but it’s no problem on my end, really; as long as it’s not distracting for the reader, it’s okay. Thank you so much for bringing it up, though! :slight_smile:

EDIT: Now I know what chocolatemix meant, and it’s definitely a much better tactic than the one I’ve been using this whole time, so I just want to say - don’t follow my example and use *goto_scene after almost every choice lmao

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Will the MC get to develop any sort of shadow powers over the course of the story?

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That would be a a bit spoilery to reveal; what I can say is that MC’s family have ties to the Shadow Society for a reason, and that they had a purpose there, which connects to certain supernatural elements :slight_smile:

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This is great and I already love it. Can’t wait to see how this develops!

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Thank you so much! I’m really happy you like it :smile:

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Seems really interesting.
Why are there so many scenes in the code by the way?
Also:
I know I ought to be more surprised to see something as illogical as an object appear out of thing air
Thing should be thin

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THAT WAS SO GOOD.
I love Rheylo already <3

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