Random idea I had while thinking about how each of the knights seems to have an affinity with a different goddess: There should be a date/sex scene where Lucette wears one of the protagonist's spare outfits and roleplays as an Inquisitor who's interrogating a heretical wizard. And of course there's an option - purely to enhance the roleplay, you understand - to turn the tables and actually hypnotize her, implant the fantasy of falling under the evil wizard's mind control, then wake her up and have her "pretend" that she's under your power and in the process of being brainwashed into your slave. Or skip the mind control and just play out the fantasy normally as her "victim", perhaps even letting her pretend to break a taboo and use a mind control spell on you.
...Come to think of it, what are the odds that the twist villain turns out to be a fallen inquisitor? Then again, Lucette's "evil counterpart" could be an even more dangerous form of that. I mentioned each knight having an affinity with a different goddess (and the goddesses themselves seem to represent the "human trinity" of Mind, Body, and Heart/Soul), and that's likely reflected in their counterparts: Elli/Coraline to Eschahn, Raine/Olivia to Syra (who I hope she's tsundere towards, in denial of how close she is to the goddess she betrayed) and Lucette/??? to Melos. A former knight wielding Syra's power, blessed by Eschahn, and with a natural affinity for Melos's intellect and magic... Someone like that could prove too much for even Eschahn to control.
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Hmm... Well if they do end up winning, I hope the fallen knights are implemented in a way that does them justice. I'd like if them being pushed to the front meant that any relevant mechanics like boss fights was pushed to the front as well, but I think the addition of five new floors is going to make balance become a big priority. It may become more urgent to implement one of the other majorly balance-affecting mechanics like an alternate source of stat points or a way to remove permanent corruption, as opposed to doing a complete balance pass when the new floors are added and then doing it
again once those mechanics are added. That might not leave a lot of time for the kinds of things that are added for the sake of "robustness", so to speak.
Then again, maybe this would be the perfect time to introduce the way to reduce permanent corruption anyway, especially if we're going to attempt to "redeem" the fallen knights. I've been thinking of how corruption reduction might be implemented, and as much as I'd love for it to just be "fall under the Inquisitor's control instead of Eschahn's", what if... Love? Maybe the key to overcoming Eschahn's corruption is the knights' love for each other, and for the Inquisitor? You could simply have a mechanic where any time you trigger a new (for that run) romantic scene, a bit of Permanent Corruption gets turned into Love. Of course, that doesn't mean there can't still be some mind control involved, as the Inquisitor can justify to themselves that "enhancing" their relationship with the knights is key to the success of the mission. Plus, if we've captured a fallen knight and want to redeem her, surely we'd need help to "convince" her to accept the love of her former comrades. (Seriously, though, there isn't *NEARLY* enough "reverse corruption" out there. "Unethical mind controller convinces villainess to become a warrior of love and join his harem of heroines" is just
.) (Edit: But I should be clear that I don't expect them to become playable, as that would mean exponentially more work in every part of the game. Maybe as some kind of paid DLC after the game is complete, though...)
And back to the subject of each knight having a different aspect, it would be neat if this mechanic was uncovered by Elli in a confrontation against Coraline. As the knight with the closest affinity to Eschahn, I've always felt that Elli should hold the key to overcoming her corruption, and turning Eschahn's own aspect of "heart" to their advantage would be right up her alley. "Why should I let some wannabe goddess tell me how to be happy? I've got everything I could want right here."
Oh, and I like the headwings on that "monster".
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Spoopy. A harmful curse, an assassin, or a symbol of corruption?
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Yuss. Although I'd prefer a sorting option, that might be more of a pain in the ass to implement, I dunno. Some way to filter by tags might be nice, though, for when we're planning out a "build" and need to know what we're gonna need to get all the relevant skills.