The Summoner | Updated Nov. 26th, 2024 (217k words) | Kofi Demo ~237k words

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Edit: LMAO for some reason this wound up in the Summoner thread! My fault! I had the tab open cuz I was gonna read it in a couple minutes my fault :sweat_smile:

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Love it a lot. My mc hates being forced to die for her kingdom, not wanting to be like her parents. But at the same time, being happy to have met Caine :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::heart_eyes:. I hope we can choose to escape or betray the kingdom in the future. Love you’re writing a lot author.

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I’m back with a quick development update! (not yet public)
So far, since the initial demo, I’m at 85220 words w/o code–this consists of a few additions to the festival w/o calla and mostly me writing about wine lmao

I know nothing about wine, but Calla does and your summoner can grab a cup in they want and nearly get in a spat! Or they can just not and eavesdrop on people throwing medieval insults at each other, which are terribly fun to write. (Don’t call someone’s mom a hoe, have some decorum and call them a puterelle)

I still have some things to write for the calla path, but after I finish the festival scenes, I’ll be working on what comes after when you’re at the reserve camp!

Also on another topic, I’ve been curious how your summoner handled the bandits in your 1st playthrough, or the “canon” one :eyes:

  • talked them down
  • spared them
  • killed some yourself
  • killed some with Calla
  • Caine killed them
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And this one applies to your canon playthrough as well

  • going to the festival w/ Calla
  • going alone
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I’m definitely planning on including the options to, I’m hoping to have them be substantial paths if I can muster up the willpower to write a satisfactory length lol c:

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Who’s Calla?

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One of the soldiers we meet in camp when we get escorted by tobias.

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Okay, clearly I need to play through again…

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Lol yep and no worries

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Yup, as Valixon said, she’s a soldier at camp, one of Willow’s friends. You can get her to come on your journey to Celen if you want!

I find it funny Calla completely floated by you though, haha
As she calls herself, she’s BG character number 3 c: (although I’m now slightly worried I might need to rewrite something lol)

EDIT: Also I’m impressed people are more equally bloodthirsty/careful and merciful than I thought! I dunno what I was expecting, but it’s neat that it’s a more even skew.

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hmm I mostly play with mercyful MC’s, so I talked them down. I noticed that if we don’t kill the bandits and don’t get Caine to fight his afftection grow a little bit? It was something like 1%, but :sweat_smile:

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I chose to draw my sword with Caine and kill them all. Which is interesting since I’m normally a pacifist through and through. But with this story my MC feels very resigned to their fate and just goes along with what they should do - and also, they’re stealing from an enemy kingdom, they’re not leaving this kind of trace that could come back to bite them later.

Overall, it was a very satisfying choice to make and I hope we get to make more choices like that in the future - and perhaps also allow the MC/the story to acknowledge that these choices both harden us and also wear us down.

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I had Caine kill them all, both for a similar reason (in another country to steal from their god) and because I clearly wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last person they preyed upon but, given who and what I am and the mission was, I had no way to alert any authority to them. It was an “I hate this but it’s better for everyone” decision, for me.

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@Kezthier defintly going to do even more playthroughs but before i get distracted again got some thoughts wanted to put out there that i can later continue on lol

Why do i get this feeling willow isnt going to be long for this world?

I got to thinking about are relunctant MCs in particular how we have the option to hate the parents and yet not our aunt? Not even to resent her it seems like this thought more so comes along for if we tried to run away i know as my mc i would resent her at the very least and would be tempted to not even say goodbye to her.

Thats it for the moment lol if i can colase the others or think of something will add to this.

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I really like the concept for this one! It’s definitely a unique one and the story is is great so far! Usually in new WiPs there are alot of spelling and grammar issues all over but there was maybe like 1? And that was like a debatable one that I don’t even remember lol but to the author, it’s amazing super excited to see how you progress the story!!

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I love discussing and reading your thoughts on things, thanks for being interested in the story you guys :smile:

Also as a quick dev update, I’m now at ~91k words and am currently writing the path where you watch plays with Calla & Caine. I’m almost-ish done with the whole fes w/ calla, but I was pretty busy this week so I didn’t write as much as I wished I did :')

But I’m steadily getting there!

Still, maybe it would be better to release the fes w/ calla once I’m done with that instead of waiting until I finish writing the part where you meet w/ rei as well? Let me know your preferences, otherwise I’ll still keep with my initial idea because it does let me iron out bugs easier.

Yeah, sometimes I use fairmath vs not fairmath, so it’s like +3% instead of +3
So that for those who don’t want to get along with Caine, it doesn’t bump it too much (but it does that w high affection too bc it’s percentages)
But it rlly just goes up bc I have your summoner help them mount the horse if you’re riding w them in that path lol

If you try to kill them solo, it seems a bit standoffish to disregard Caine’s desire to protect you sooo I imagine that as your summoner’s reluctant to fully get along w them

But if you want to kill w Caine, then I see that as your summoner doesn’t mind their presence. Even if Caine would rather you not put yourself in danger, it’s still pretty nice to have you willing to do so, so it actually gets you a +5

(But affection vs guarded is just a representation of how well you two get along, rather than picking the right choices to have them like you; that’s more Like stat territory I feel) they do rlly go hand in hand, though!

I’m not sure if the way I approach stats makes sense at times, but hey, it works :’D

Yes, the next time you’re in battle, if killing the bandits solo had you shaken up, it should affect you when you’re faced with bloodshed again. Maybe your summoner will get used to it, at least outwardly, or maybe they won’t? I dunno how I’ll approach it yet haha

Although killing in this world is fairly normalised so if you had Caine kill them, it’s a bit of a different experience.
Your parents took you to watch battles from afar, they’ve seen acts of killing as a child :sob:
Certainly still different when you’re the one who gave the ok though, I’ll try to write pivotal moments with the weight they’d typically have!

But anyway, I find it neat that the story had you doing something you normally don’t!

That’s very reasonable, they’re not exactly good people–although I wonder if they’ll be a tad bit more sympathetic if you meet them again? Or meet their community, at any rate lol

Well… jackal does become your partner somehow. Teehee.

I think the summoner would generally be too guilty to be able to resent her, especially since in the beginning of the story, she’s the one you’re the closest to. Illia’s the only one they could rely on, really, your summoner did not have any friends :sob:

They, like most summoner kids, had private instructors and didn’t attend a public school. The instructors switched throughout the years and didn’t keep in contact so even if they got along, it was hard to keep a bond going.

There may or may not be a fallout w your aunt moment, depends on if I can find a place for it haha. And maybe you can reconcile because Illia’s not a villain, just one who’s too indoctrinated into the whole sacrifice thing. It’s very normalised so your summoner finds it hard to not feel like they’re in the wrong in some way sorta like a parent not wanting you to drop out of college/highschool or pursuing a passion instead of a high paying/respected job, smthn like that. ‘Everyone else does it w/o a problem, so I’m just being selfish, aren’t i?’ Or ‘it’s for my own good’ type beat.

also, Illia and you know that if you actually succeeded in running away, you’d be hunted down by the Rulers very easily and even if you weren’t, it wouldn’t be easy living

Hurray! I went through everything I could think of way too many times to try to make it polished, honestly typos and errors make me embarrassed lol

I know some writers prefer to leave that up for a 2nd+ pass through bc it can make writing faster, but it physically pains me to do that.

IF is quite diff from traditional novels, however, especially when you have gender variable characters. I didn’t realize you should take that into account so who’s saying what doesn’t get confusing until I released the first demo I think haha

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Lol true certainly would feel guilty for it but still i think would feel resentment i think but im glad there is that potential for that moment of fallout and or reconciliation in the future. I agree the society as it is has so much going on and look forward to seeing how it all plays out. :smiley:

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@Kezthier thought of something is kaelish and poli the creators of the MCs kingdom?

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Yup, Kae and Poli are the Creators of Faolkr!

There are–or were–10 Creators, each kingdom generally found itself with 2 Creators for strategic reasons. And there used to be 6 kingdoms until Weir was defeated and assimilated into Faolkr. Thrandull, the only Creator of Weir is still alive, however, and joined the Kingdom of Kergin.

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Does that mean that kingdom now has two or three of them?

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Another quick update, I’m now at ~97k words, I’m almost completely done with the fes w/ calla route, I just need to write a few POVs for after watching a play with your crew c:

Although now that route has 31k+ words compared to the 28k+ words for where you’re only with Caine, which I’d like them to be more equal. If anyone has any ideas of things they’d potentially like to see in that path, please give me suggestions, my brain’s running on empty :sob:

Yup, Kergin was one of the few with only 1 Creator until Thrandull joined it. So currently the only solo kingdom is Celen lol

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I’m back with a dev update :smiley:
It’s now at ~105k words–I’m pretty proud of myself ngl. But it also makes me worried how much more words will need to be written haha. I wouldn’t say I’m even halfway done, but it seems doable when I partition it. Future me will be the one suffering, not present me woohoo

I’ve finally gotten the whole festival arc over and done with. Actually, I had finished writing it a few days ago, but yeah! When I publish the update, you’ll get to taste wine, eat food, or watch a play, the choice is yours. Give a hug to Caine if you’re especially charitable. I’ll go slightly more into detail into some aspects when it actually comes out lol

But please do check out all the options then, I tried my best at making things interesting enough for you to want to replay c:

Currently I’m writing the stuff that comes after you initially meet Rei. Their personality was decently different to how they will be now because I don’t want to give the first impression that all the major characters are perfectly pleasant for some inconceivable reason :smiling_face_with_tear:

Writing them is challenging because of multiple factors. For one, they’re treading a fine line into taking Jackal’s personality and another is that I don’t want to be so subtle with their motives that they’re uninteresting. I also don’t want to beat you over the head with it!

When the update comes out, please tell me if I’m being too obvious–It’s not going to be a drawn out mystery probably, but I’d like things to seem natural.

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