QSP Jack-o-Nine-Tails [v2.3] [ImperatorAugustusTertius / qwertyu12359]

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

What about something like these when it comes to hospital?

The hallway (third image) fits best, but I prefer the more personal feel of the dentist chair image.

The first image, I am not sure what that room is for. It has bottles on the desk, which might be oils or lotions, and it has a partial screen for the bed, which does not appear to be meant for overnight sleeping, so maybe it is a massage room in a spa.

The crowded beds scene (second image) could work if we thought the hospital had beds but I am arguing that it does not.

The last image with the liquid filled tank seems like of a cloning or healing or suspended animation, but it's not in any place that looks like a medical center and does not fit the concept of quick treatments. It might be interesting to use it for some kind of quest.

 

[Lokplart]

I never watched any robo-tentacle hentai, so I can't visualize what you mean at all.

If you stumble on images that you think would fit, I'd gladly consider

I think he's referring to one of those multi-arm surgical robots that surgeons use to perform high accuracy surgeries and things like that??

Never seen any robo tentacle hentai either so I could be wrong

 

[Lokplart]

What about something like these

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Or even

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when it comes to hospital?

Second image, second spoiler is already reserved for a future feature

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

I never watched a robo-tentacle hentai myself

And I think that the last one is sure good looking. Even if we are talking about rome, I don't think that EVERYTHING should look scary and bad.
With people of many, MANY different world and culture... finding something different should be ok.

Maybe, it should be possible to find a small piece of "heaven" where things seems good or at least normal even Rome. What do you think?

Never mind watching, you have never seen robotic tentacles in a hentai manga or a hentai image on some forum or booru? Mind-boggling. I come across them without even trying. It's like we live in different universes or something.

I think he's referring to one of those multi-arm surgical robots that surgeons use to perform high accuracy surgeries and things like that??

Yes, something like that, just with more body horror.

As for finding heaven in Rome, I think that is a very subjective concept, but within the constraints of the society and culture everyone would be trying to optimize their situation and achieve whatever they view as good. Some of the constraints in Rome: very low value placed on life itself (no "intrinsic" recognition of a right to live, it's purely what value you provide or who you belong to that determines if you get to live or are disposed of in some way), limited space (see my long posts up-thread), living under constant "siege" (limited supplies, monsters always invading from the Fogs = need to station soldiers to protect the city and attrition/deaths of those soldiers requiring replacement = conscription/mandatory military service [for the ones who aren't able to dodge the draft through money or political connections]). What is heaven in this context?

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

Second image, second spoiler is already reserved for a future feature

Is it secret?

 

[Arrkhon]

The first image, I am not sure what that room is for. It has bottles on the desk, which might be oils or lotions, and it has a partial screen for the bed, which does not appear to be meant for overnight sleeping, so maybe it is a massage room in a spa.

It's a doctor's office, I thought it's a quite well-known look
Also beds can also be used for short rests after operations, unless they last like ten seconds and don't use anesthetics or everyone has someone drag them home beds could be used to hold people until they wake up or simple things like checkups

Is it secret?

How can something so obvious be a secret?
Beyond any doubts it's going to be random encounter in the fogs where you happen upon a fresh remainder of a cloning laboratory

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

I don't think there are hallways like that in the Fogs, unless you mean "on another world."

 

[Lokplart]

Is it secret?

I think I already talked about it on the thread. It's for the NPC we want to add that would make pregnancy an actual feature in the game. One of the bgs for him anyway.

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

Still no successful births, right? Just horrifying experiments?

 

[RasMonk]

Android?

 

[qwertyu12359]

Android?

Nope, sorry. No one with the skill or the motivation to do an Android port has ever manifested himself.

 

[Lokplart]

Still no successful births, right? Just horrifying experiments?

I said actual feature. Lets be honest, the fact that the Vatican are the only ones who can achieve successful births is just an easy chicken out from developing a fully fledged feature. And even if it's not, everyone sees it like this.

Everyone wants births and we can make it lore friendly.
Search for "Mori" in this thread and read the posts. I explained the concept quite a lot to qwertyu12359

It's basically a crazy scientist exiled from the Serpentines, now located in the Necropolis. He has a facade as a research resource provider but his main job is providing births for guild members rich enough to pay for it.
The way it would work is:

• High failure rate, lowered by the slave's health
• Requires another slave to sacrifice
• Bad wounds and a huge recovery time. (Which btw, recovery time should have an affect other then just not being able to have another medical procedure)
• Really high price
• Only available after mid game
• I think I had other conditions too but I can't remember them on the top of my head.

 

[qwertyu12359]

I said actual feature. Lets be honest, the fact that the Vatican are the only ones who can achieve successful births is just an easy chicken out from developing a fully fledged feature. And even if it's not, everyone sees it like this.

Everyone wants births and we can make it lore friendly.
Search for "Mori" in this thread and read the posts. I explained the concept quite a lot to qwertyu12359

It's basically a crazy scientist exiled from the Serpentines, now located in the Necropolis. He has a facade as a research resource provider but his main job is providing births for guild members rich enough to pay for it.
The way it would work is:

• High failure rate, lowered by the slave's health
• Requires another slave to sacrifice
• Bad wounds and a huge recovery time. (Which btw, recovery time should have an affect other then just not being able to have another medical procedure)
• Really high price
• Only available after mid game
• I think I had other conditions too but I can't remember them on the top of my head.

What really convinced me was a post in private message. Where we discussed the actual event of when a slave gets pregnant and the Vatican arrives to take her from you and then give her back. The dialogue is cringe worthy. The slaver gets intimidated by the possible consequences stated by a random character and then hands out his slave of his own will (and not yours). The worse about that, is that the Vatican spokesperson says: "someone denounced you" (or smth like that). But what if my slave is in a cell for 9 months? This event is a magical plot cop out, not a bad one, but we may have interest to expend on it.

So should Serpentine's president be alone in this quest against the Vatican? How about an underground genius alchemist/scientist that tries his best to imitate the result of the Vatican concerning dead-born babies? How about a lore friendly implementation of pregnancy content? How about real attempts at a rebellion against Vatican's law? Maybe take sides, go to war, and if you win, take control of the religious institutions of Rome on one side, or get awarded a place as a war strategist for the Vatican or the house you sided with depending on your military success. There's room for a lot of crazy ambitions.

We just have not to suck at writing.

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

I don't have an issue with attempts to circumvent the Vatican (although there should be consequences). But, the lore is very clear about the problem itself:

[REVEREND BLANCHETT]
- God rarely allows new soul to appear right in Rome. Especially since this is not possible without special rituals. Without our guardianship your baby will be born without a soul and will die soon.

Births fail because babies are born without a soul. The Vatican has a monopoly on how to get souls in. I'm skeptical that some random mad scientist would succeed in duplicating that feat. I could see some necromantic ritual that transfers a soul from someone else to the baby, but that would not be the same thing as the baby having its own soul. It would be more like a homunculus.

As for the dialogue you disliked:

[REVEREND BLANCHETT]
- We have received a signal that you keep a slave with obvious signs of pregnancy, is that so?

I see your point about keeping the slave locked up for the entire pregnancy, but maybe your assistant let it slip, or someone takes an unauthorized look around the slaver's home when he is out running errands. It's a city of intrigue, it's not that far-fetched to think that keeping a pregnant slave would be discovered within a timespan of 15 decades.

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

I do like the concept of the end-game allowing the player to get involved in politics, take sides, and potentially ascend to God-Emperor of Rome, with the ability then to do whatever he wants including having pregnant slaves and keep the babies (using Vatican rituals once he has control over them). . . seems like an avenue with a lot of story potential.

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

Speaking of things that don't make sense, the ability of the player to train gladiatrix slaves that can defeat the champions of all four of the Great Houses and the Vatican champion stretches credulity to the breaking point. How are these the champions if some no-name slaver can train a slave with no combat experience for a few decades and then the slave can defeat all of them?

For the combat system overhaul, there was an idea of an experience system mentioned. I would prefer not to have exp as a form of currency or points to be spent, or levels or anything overt like that, feels too "JRPG", but having skills that take a long time and a lot of practical experience (grinding) to reach mastery in makes sense, and especially for defeating the champions in the arena, it should be a longer grind and also require some unfair advantages (like giving the slave mithril armor from a certain quest).

 

[Lokplart]

I don't have an issue with attempts to circumvent the Vatican (although there should be consequences). But, the lore is very clear about the problem itself:

Births fail because babies are born without a soul. The Vatican has a monopoly on how to get souls in. I'm skeptical that some random mad scientist would succeed in duplicating that feat. I could see some necromantic ritual that transfers a soul from someone else to the baby, but that would not be the same thing as the baby having its own soul. It would be more like a homunculus.

Ok, I'll just say it straight. I do not like this lore aspect. It's bs, purely bs. I think it should be changed for the sake of the game because I think it deserves better then "A monopoly on souls" or any other assumption to how this piece of lore could make sense. I'm not trying to be disrespectful to you or the game, that's just how I think. I think it deserves better. I think it's a feature that everybody wants and I think the current way it is, it's just a chicken out with some lore built on top of it to justify it.

But here, I'll still try to stick to it: The soul gets transferred to the child while they're inside the mother's belly. So if the problem is that the babies are BORN without a soul then this gets rid of it. The slave killed doesn't provide the body. Every time someone dies, a soul is freed and another one gets spit out by the fog. Mori's ritual attracts THAT soul and implants it into the newborn.

He's not a crazy dude.
I think the way I mentioned it was that Prof. Mori was a student under the Serpentine leader and they were both looking into this matter. Mori found a way using a sacrificial ritual followed by intense technological assistance to heal the girl. The serpentine leader hated it and saw Mori as unstable and thus exiled him and cut all connections between Mori and himself.

He's not a crazy dude in a basement. He's an amoral genius, a trained scientist and good necromancer. He can operate high tech equipment and perform rituals on his own because he was forced to do so if he wanted to continue his research. His ways got him to the point where he doesn't have the support of the great house of the Serpentines so that means he can't reveal his discovery or make his services public. So he secretly works for the guild. Very few people actually see Mori. Only the trusted of the guild are even allowed to know of his services and when used, the slave gets taken by the guild and brought back with the child, who has been grown fast in an incubation center.

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

I like your handwavium explanation and find it plausible except for "the another soul getting spit out by the Fog" part. Not that I know where souls come from, but if they're not already inside someone or anchored somehow (lich phylactery, etc.), I would expect them to be wherever loose souls go, and I would not expect to find them floating around in the Fog. Another detail we know about souls in this game (lore-wise) is their connection to the "Flame of Creation" (specifically, sparks). And it seems the Vatican has some special access to that (as they supply sparks to the Great Houses). I theorized that the Vatican might be engaging in forcible extraction of sparks via some kind of necromancy on a massive scale, but there are some holes in that. Someone would notice all the bodies... What I find more plausible is that a baby grows its own soul, but "draws spiritually" upon the Flame of Creation (a universal power source, if you will). Access to the Flame of Creation is limited by the Fogs surrounding Rome, and without the intercession of powerful beings (gods) who require appeasement/amusement/tribute in the form of proscribed rituals, the necessary access can't be obtained, so the baby's soul development is stunted and ultimately the soul fails to anchor itself solidly and detaches from the body, whereupon it goes wherever souls go (or disperses, unable to hold its form).

Obviously the Vatican would find out about Mori, and dislike having their monopoly infringed upon. Since it's not public, it could be tolerated after an understanding was reached (involving bribes exchanged from Mori's protector - the Guild in this case - to the Vatican). So Mori would be paying the Guild a significant portion (if not all) of his job commissions, likely with a cut from those going to the Vatican (the Guild would want to negotiate something per-job vs. paying the Vatican a large sum up front and being paid back by Mori over time).

 

[Lokplart]

I like your handwavium explanation and find it plausible except for "the another soul getting spit out by the Fog" part. Not that I know where souls come from, but if they're not already inside someone or anchored somehow (lich phylactery, etc.), I would expect them to be wherever loose souls go, and I would not expect to find them floating around in the Fog. Another detail we know about souls in this game (lore-wise) is their connection to the "Flame of Creation" (specifically, sparks). And it seems the Vatican has some special access to that (as they supply sparks to the Great Houses). I theorized that the Vatican might be engaging in forcible extraction of sparks via some kind of necromancy on a massive scale, but there are some holes in that. Someone would notice all the bodies... What I find more plausible is that a baby grows its own soul, but "draws spiritually" upon the Flame of Creation (a universal power source, if you will). Access to the Flame of Creation is limited by the Fogs surrounding Rome, and without the intercession of powerful beings (gods) who require appeasement/amusement/tribute in the form of proscribed rituals, the necessary access can't be obtained, so the baby's soul development is stunted and ultimately the soul fails to anchor itself solidly and detaches from the body, whereupon it goes wherever souls go (or disperses, unable to hold its form).

You know so much more lore then me. If you could help me find a way to integrate this lore wise I'd be so grateful. I can't really describe him in full detail because idk where to start, but I can answer any questions you have about my vision of him that would help you with that.

Obviously the Vatican would find out about Mori, and dislike having their monopoly infringed upon. Since it's not public, it could be tolerated after an understanding was reached (involving bribes exchanged from Mori's protector - the Guild in this case - to the Vatican). So Mori would be paying the Guild a significant portion (if not all) of his job commissions, likely with a cut from those going to the Vatican (the Guild would want to negotiate something per-job vs. paying the Vatican a large sum up front and being paid back by Mori over time).

Actually, what if the Vatican didn't know. No one is perfect and I think that one character who manages to elude them would be a breath of fresh air and would give him so much character. He would see the Vatican as fools stuck in their ways and his view of them (and any other views he may have of this type) would reflect perfectly through his egotistical personality.
+ It would be a sign that escaping the eye of the Vatican is possible which would play nicely into the conquer Rome for yourself idea

 

[Imperator_Augustus_Verus]

I don't believe that someone who provides services to the rich could escape notice. I see Rome as a city of intrigue, meaning spies everywhere. The rich of course would be watched, and someone would let the secret slip. It's a question of when, not if. Supporting this notion, it is mentioned several times that the Great Houses are feuding / have rivalries. Since they aren't out-and-out warring with each other, their antagonism is being channeled into more civilized forms of conflict, namely politics. Which is all intrigue, schemes and plots and spying and blackmailing and coercing etc.