[WIP] Court Of The Gilded Roses

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You find yourself among the few women chosen to become a concubine in the Imperial harem and have a chance to carve your place in the court.

While the life of a concubine might seem luxurious and idyllic, but behind the silken curtains of the harem, dangerous games are played. Games where the wrong words will cost your life, betrayal, lies and secrets are commonplace and gaining the shah’s attention is paramount to your survival.

Features

  • Start out as a princess, disgraced noble or captive.

  • Intrigue, intrigue and more intrigue.

  • Dramatic events on par with a soap opera.

  • Revenge, backstabbing, forbidden love, plots and more.

  • Rise the ranks by outsmarting or eliminating your rivals.

  • Produce and raise heirs to secure your place.

  • Influence politics through the emperor or seize power for yourself.

  • Learn fire magic or join a cult of chaos.

  • Live a life of leisure and the pursuit of higher education or a life of hedonism.

  • Inspired by the Sassanid dynasty and Persian mythology.

Romance Options

Shah Khazunef [M]
He is calm, perspective and far less ruthless than his father before him but they share the same cunning nature and intimidating aura. Khazunef has deep brown skin, dark hazel eyes and silky mid length black hair that frames his face perfectly.

Fang [M]
A former slave whose fighting prowess earned him freedom. He has since become a close friend of Khazunef and they regard each other as brothers. He serves as an informal advisor and spy to the shah but shirks any formal duties. Fang is charismatic and extroverted with copper red hair, rose skin and blue eyes.

Persa [F]
Her name means dove and fits her gentle demeanor. She was raised a princess in a land of mountains and snow that was conquered by Shah Arzad. Upon the fall of her city and murder of her family, she was brought to the capital to serve in the palace. She has honey blonde hair, dark brown eyes and alabaster skin.

Ignasia [F]
Ignasia is a fire priestess and staunch follower of the faith. Although born a noble, she gave up all claims and titles to serve in the fire temples as a guardian of the eternal flame. Ignasia has dark hair, darker eyes and a regal, reserved bearing.

Characters of note

Valide Zarayan
She is the ruthless and ambitious mother of Khazunef, originally a distrusted foreigner who rose to great power in the court of Shah Arzad. She rules over the harem like her own little kingdom and holds influence over her son.

Shahbanu Yaris
The wife of Khazunef and shahbanu of the realm. Yaris wed the emperor when he was 17 and she 26 in an alliance that strengthened the empire and influences it to this day.

Vizier Rubien
The grand vizier and advisor to the Emperor who Khazunef considers a father figure. Rubien is fiercely intelligent, loyal and wise. He remains dedicated to his work and helping the Emperor rule justly.

Averus
Averus is a high priest and soothsayer of the court. His advice is sought by all and a bad word about you from his lips can sully your reputation and relationships beyond repair.

Consort Iltani
Former consort and favorite of Shah Arzad. Her name is whispered like a curse, and her influence spreads far wide even though the valide has her currently imprisoned within the palace.

Content Warnings

This story is for mature audiences, please proceed with discretion! Story will contain violence, drugs, alcohol, death, suicide, infanticide, harm to animals, miscarriages, abuse and sexual themes.

This is a concept I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while now. A lot of things have changed and will probably continue to change throughout the development process, but at its core this is a harem drama based on Sassanid Persia (though some words are lifted from the ottoman era cause I like the way they sound) and is not, nor strives to be historically accurate.

Please let me know if they’re any typos, bugs, tense inconsistencies, grammatical errors or punctuation inconsistencies (some parts were written in word and others in CSIDE) and pacing issues cause I tend to lose track of those.

DEMO

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Update log

Demo uploaded April 2nd 2024

To do

  • Finish stat page

  • Balance stats

  • General revision

  • Upload chapter two

332 Likes
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Oh this looks delicious. I’m definitely doing a hurrem play through.
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OMG ITS MY FAV GENRE AHHHHHH! I love concubine mcs they r too fun!

:bug: prologue_doors line 574: increasing indent not allowed, expected 8 was 12

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Glad to hear that! And magnificent century was one of my biggest inspirations.

My fav genre too! I just can’t enough of mcs plotting and scheming.

Thank you, it’s fixed now!

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The writing is very high quality. Feel like I’m lost in a novel right now, in the best possible way.

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gender-locked-female ;-;

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Ahhh thank you! I was going for a 1001 nights style prose. I hope it doesn’t come across too heavy handed.

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I’m definitely interested in this! Would it be possible to have a kid with Fang (only other male ro), or does it have to be the Emperor?

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Screenshot 2024-04-02 170851
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I went along the noble route and it still appeared

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Ohhh this sounds spicy. Looking forward to it!

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Its private now? I cant access the game anymore

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It’s back up up now!

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Maybe in an epilogue? I haven’t considered that in depth yet.

Yep :confused: I considered a gender swap but things got to complicated too fast.

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It’s really good! The writing is immersive and beautiful and the setting sounds interesting.

I do wonder if you’ll be planning to add more choices to this opening section, however, even inconsequential ones.

Like when my princess went to bed and heard sobbing, the only options were snap at the person crying or try to ignore them when I think it’d be good to have at least two more options like try and comfort the person or find out more so you can possibly gain an ally.

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There initially was an option to do that but I cut it out to rework some things (it has an effect in the later chapters.) I’ll keep that in mind for the update!

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Nice :ok_hand::sunglasses:

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Hello! Would it be possible to implement a save system for demo? I know I have a tendency to leave and come back from games a lot since I’m busy, and that often causes the whole thing to reset, which can be frustrating.

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beautifully written, i am excited to read more! i love the idea of playing as a scheming former princess lol.

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Something that felt a little off.

You want to balk at the woman’s friendly manner and calming smile. Perhaps you’d expected everyone in the palace to be someone like Durga, with calculating eyes and acid dripping from their tongues, but this Shira woman so far seems the opposite. Perhaps she’s faking it? Are they all not just vipers, waiting to strike?

“Dear?” Shira’s voice pulls you out of your spiraling thoughts. “Would you not like a bath?”

You nod gratefully, the prospect of a soothing bath suddenly sounding like the most heavenly thing in the world. “That would be wonderful, thank you.”

My girl is a slave who is already planning to burn the harem down. I think I need a chance to feel nasty and sarcastic about their attempt to bribe me with a little comfort.

Following this, there seems to be a lot of telling me how I feel that isn’t in accordance with the fact that I’m still unwilling. Could you look over that section and make sure that those who are there against their will get passages that don’t present them as happy about what they’re getting?

Also, it breaks at, after “You creep into your bed and draw the curtains closed, hoping that they’ll muffle the crying”:

prologue_doors line 574: increasing indent not allowed, expected 8 was 12

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I agree, I do feel it was a bit railroady in regards to the Mc’s feelings at times, only because I felt like there were some places the text had to go. And you’re absolutely correct, players who are going in angry or upset should be able to “keep that energy” so to speak. I’ll work on adding on a bit of back and forth between characters depending o MCs initial feelings.

Glad you like it! My favorite variation of princess!mc is patriotic and full of vengeance.

Working on it! I know moody ink comes with saves already so if I can’t figure it out I’ll make a moody ink demo. But they’ll definitely be save slots with the next update.

14 Likes