Ren'Py Seeds of Chaos [v0.4.13a] [Vénus Noire]

[T51bwinterized]

Throwing my at into this ring. Bought the game on steam, keep coming here for the discussions and because i am impatient so.. "Do what you want cause a pirate is free" or something like that.

I cant really see where the issue above 27 is seeing so much problems with Rowan's power, i have not done much of the ntr stuff, but i cant really say that Rowan feels weak, he "can" , if dice allows, battle against an orc champion in the arena and win, he does manage to hurt Adras in a point and there aren't really any npcs that come to mind that go after Alexia other than the red brute we all love to desire to see have his but kicked.

I have to say i agree, in some sense, with the idea that Rowan does not get a good amount of power to do much in terms off revenge or getting something palpable from acts of defiance.
Using Rastandel has an example, the werden route, i admit, i bitch and moaned here about how much i disliked it, so i shall try to use this example in a better way, not getting something big or immediate from that makes sense, its the first arc and all. But at the same time, it goes to great extremes to punish the players effort in getting there, and shows little reward, yes, a vague "that will help in the future because now there is a resistance" can try and show that its not a purely punishment for players who think a game called seeds of chaos can have a "even lesser evil route", but it does not make it better. In immediate and medium term times it just becomes a bad deal. A lesser evil Rowan can still save delane, corrupt praticia or put jackes in charge,get the daughter of werden has a slave and more or less have more of the city under control and someone who might be with him in the distant betrayal of the twis. that is close to 3 "good things" . A werden route Rowan has delane turned into a latex husk, the efforts to rescue her be for nothing, gets nothing for said efforts and gets no closer to anything. I believe most will go with lesser evil in that situation.

Now, do i believe Rowan should be sucessfull and recieve everything in that route? No, that would not make sense, do i belive he should get something more that a vague unlock of resistance content? I do, something to show the player Rowan is learning better that just take everything that could go wrong and making it go wrong, maybe he gets better insight on how the sister (i forget how to write her name) spie network works, at least something better than "we always knew that you did x", its not out of this world to imagine that lady delane appearing in the city after mysteriously escaping can be pointed at "the hero did it". But it just seems..strange that Rowan did not see that one coming, the sister prety much has "i belive i am a master of spies and intrigue" writen on her.

Al that said, has a whole the story is good one route does not change the rest.

Finishing in a question, will the goblins and the orciad lines be mutialy exclusive or will Rowan be able to recruit both groups?

Ideally, we'd like doing both to be possible, but challenging to do under the game's time constraints.

 

[martinlongbow]

You are being ironic guess but that's how it is. Rowan is a pathetic little cuck that gets dumped on by almost everyone. Sure he takes out his frustrations on the ocasional random encounter in the woods but where it counts he is sissy bitch getting shit on by everyone, even those who are supposed to be his friends like Greyhide. When he will eventually turn the tables it won't be at all satisfying given the amount of stuff that he went through. The only way that would be satisfying is if ACT 2 starts with him beheading the Brother and enslaving the sister, or enslaving them both, and returning the abuse he got tenfold. Or... just admit this is an NTR game and then the way Rowan and what happens to him is written makes all the sense in the world and it is how it supposed to be.

Thanks, Yeah i am with you on this one. If you already have a cuck path at least in the other path make Rowan dominant over the twins

 

[manscout]

It is outside my purview since I mostly only play as a good guy, but I think a potentially good way of making the corrupted route feel good for people who want a more "empowering" experience would be to gradually change how the Twins treat Rowan during their events.

I think the issue right now is that the Twins entire fetish most of the time is about trying to break Rowan, I can understand how that would be amusing to them in routes where Rowan either is trying to hold on to the goodness in him or gets off to being broken, but in routes where Rowan is embracing the corruption I feel it might come off as needlessly adversarial. A dynamic where they are more genuinely interested in tutoring him into their evil ways rather than having every situation be some "carrot and stick" game where they keep threatening and creating uncomfortable situations for Rowan would probably appeal more to the type of player that is interested in the "corrupted" route.

On the subject of revenge, I do feel people aren't satisfied with the corrupted playthrough because Rowan can only really lash out against meaningless characters, I understand direct and satisfiying revenge against the Twins will have to be something more long term, but it can be frustrating nonetheless. I think maybe an idea would be to have Rowan take revenge on some servants of the Twins, shallow characters that won't really be interesting as potential allies for being too loyal to the Twins but that Rowan can mess with to indirectly get back at the Twins.

I think an interesting way of looking at the different routes (corrupted Rowan, submissive Rowan, pure Rowan) is to think of them as ways Rowan tries to find to cope with his suffering. A corrupted Rowan tries to numb his pain by becoming increasingly uncaring and ruthless. A submissive Rowan tries to find a way to confuse his pain into pleasure. And a pure Rowan should ideally find a way to make peace with his pain (lots of potential ways of approaching this, a more stoic Rowan, a buddhist Rowan, etc), point is, the result needs to be a Rowan that manages to resist the pain by deriving greater happiness from the good he manages to create. Note that I'm not saying a pure Rowan should be a melodramatic masochistic Rowan, he still needs to find faith that he is creating SOME good so he has something to help him stave off his suffering, so SOME positive reinforcement is required (looking at you Werden's route).

 

[Nym85]

I think that from the start of Act 2, a corrupt Rowan route should have a VERY different balance between Rowan and the Twins. Largely because with a corrupt Rowan it fast becomes obvious that Rowan can be far more faithful to their god's dogma than they ever are. I'd love if the High Priest eventually teaches some magic to Rowan so he can eventually bind Andras and Jezera (or bind one and kill the other).

 

[gogliagoop]

Might have been already asked but do we know if there will be anymore scenes with Greyhide in future updates?
I find the relationship (and scenes!) with Alexia brilliant, but with the rewrite of the tea scenes it hints at this might be closed?

 

[T51bwinterized]

It is not closed.

 

[Semantics]

Since it's everybody-chime-in time.

I've written out my issues with the Werden route of Rastedel in regards to the final post-Rastedel scene, but the end scene in that path that isn't my only issue there. (Nor are Alex's comments toward payoff, which I honestly agree with. Oh look, two "allies" against the twins, one who wants to at-best jail Rowan after it's all over, the other who probably wouldn't mind killing him before then if she got the chance and has a past of screwing over the efforts against the twins multiple times for her own ends.)

There aren't many times where Rowan actively tries to screw with the twin's plans or actually make his own. Right now I'd say it comes down to choosing Werden in Rastedel, choosing to corrupt Patricia in Rastedel by himself, trying to secure Cliohna to Rowan's side, helping Delane escape, and helping Helayna escape. I don't thiiiiiink I'm really missing any others, beyond exceedingly minor "Don't give them this pocket change" level stuff? None of these forms a plan beyond a vague goal of "get allies."

The last two are debatable. Non-Werden path Delane seems like she won't be a help since she retreats off to some family friends, calling Rowan a coward while Rowan rebuffs any opportunity for her to help, and Werden path Delane doesn't end up helping Rowan either beyond being an in to Werden's path. Helping Helayna escape might help Rowan down the line, but it's not like she's presented as a notably great warrior, cunning tactician, or influential noble, and the corruption of the ring and her uncle put the damper on what measure of those she could bring. And losing her certainly doesn't cost the twins anything. Choosing Werden and choosing Patricia are obviously opposing choices. This means it could be argued that there are only two real ways to attempt to rebel against the twins in any given playthrough, trying to win over Cliohna and who Rowan supports in Rastedel. This will obviously probably change as more castle characters are fleshed out, but is mostly a lead up to my next point:

One of the few big things Rowan can do to try to set up things against the twins is to support Werden, and it's the only method to do so in Rastedel if Rowan isn't corrupt (Unless you trust Jacques will have anyone's back but his own. Good luck.), except it's so totally vague that the player doesn't even know HOW Rowan plans for this to all go down until it actually, well, does go down. The most informed the player can be for this choice are vague "Werden is the most capable of pushing back against the twins" type statements, and those come AFTER the decision has been made. To a lesser extent, the same is true of Patricia. The fact that Rowan could corrupt her instead of the twins doesn't really become an idea in Rowan's head until it, well, does. In fact, in the text immediately after choosing her, Rowan internally states that he wouldn't be able to do it and that it would only hand the Twins more power. And again, only brought up AFTER the choice anyway.

TLDR: Nearly half of the current actions to fight the twins end up feeling like the equivalent of spitting in their food (Which Jezera might well get off on anyway), and some of the other actions are mutually exclusive and feel less like a concrete plan Rowan and the player work on and more like the player making choices with limited information of what Rowan is actually planning.

 

[T51bwinterized]

Since it's everybody-chime-in time.

I've written out my issues with the Werden route of Rastedel in regards to the final post-Rastedel scene, but the end scene in that path that isn't my only issue there. (Nor are Alex's comments toward payoff, which I honestly agree with. Oh look, two "allies" against the twins, one who wants to at-best jail Rowan after it's all over, the other who probably wouldn't mind killing him before then if she got the chance and has a past of screwing over the efforts against the twins multiple times for her own ends.)

There aren't many times where Rowan actively tries to screw with the twin's plans or actually make his own. Right now I'd say it comes down to choosing Werden in Rastedel, choosing to corrupt Patricia in Rastedel by himself, trying to secure Cliohna to Rowan's side, helping Delane escape, and helping Helayna escape. I don't thiiiiiink I'm really missing any others, beyond exceedingly minor "Don't give them this pocket change" level stuff? None of these forms a plan beyond a vague goal of "get allies."

The last two are debatable. Non-Werden path Delane seems like she won't be a help since she retreats off to some family friends, calling Rowan a coward while Rowan rebuffs any opportunity for her to help, and Werden path Delane doesn't end up helping Rowan either beyond being an in to Werden's path. Helping Helayna escape might help Rowan down the line, but it's not like she's presented as a notably great warrior, cunning tactician, or influential noble, and the corruption of the ring and her uncle put the damper on what measure of those she could bring. And losing her certainly doesn't cost the twins anything. Choosing Werden and choosing Patricia are obviously opposing choices. This means it could be argued that there are only two real ways to attempt to rebel against the twins in any given playthrough, trying to win over Cliohna and who Rowan supports in Rastedel. This will obviously probably change as more castle characters are fleshed out, but is mostly a lead up to my next point:

One of the few big things Rowan can do to try to set up things against the twins is to support Werden, and it's the only method to do so in Rastedel if Rowan isn't corrupt (Unless you trust Jacques will have anyone's back but his own. Good luck.), except it's so totally vague that the player doesn't even know HOW Rowan plans for this to all go down until it actually, well, does go down. The most informed the player can be for this choice are vague "Werden is the most capable of pushing back against the twins" type statements, and those come AFTER the decision has been made. To a lesser extent, the same is true of Patricia. The fact that Rowan could corrupt her instead of the twins doesn't really become an idea in Rowan's head until it, well, does. In fact, in the text immediately after choosing her, Rowan internally states that he wouldn't be able to do it and that it would only hand the Twins more power. And again, only brought up AFTER the choice anyway.

TLDR: Nearly half of the current actions to fight the twins end up feeling like the equivalent of spitting in their food (Which Jezera might well get off on anyway), and some of the other actions are mutually exclusive and feel less like a concrete plan Rowan and the player work on and more like the player making choices with limited information of what Rowan is actually planning.

- We have not shown the full consequences of the choice to help Helayna escape.
- If Rowan helps Delane escape, the tribe is damaged in substantial ways. As a consequence the twins are left weaker in all circumstances. This will be shown more clearly in Act 2 when we have a proper "military situation" screen.
- Tarish (on her route), Jacques, Delane (Ulcro's route), are all personally loyal to Rowan instead of the twins as well.
- The Goblin Recruitment arc is not in the game yet and is set to come. Most of the castle staff event chains are not done yet.

Smaller note. Rastedel is almost certainly going to have a mini-rework down the line. Beyond a few narrative problems, it needs more interactivity.

 

[diebesgrab]

For my part, I see Rowan’s “power level” as fine.

As others have mentioned, he’s not really meant to be a hugely overpowered individual—he’s a tactician, a leader of men, and a trickster, but not the absolute best man with a blade and certainly no mage. I like that the writers went that direction—it gives a realistic base for his powerlessness in the beginning which is the basis for the plot, and it makes for a protagonist who has to do something other than just “train harder” or “yell harder” in order to achieve meaningful victory, paths that are already all too common in fiction.

Cliohna, who I assume would know, and unnamed others in Rowan’s backstory already tested Rowan for magical potential and found him entirely lacking. Again, I find that interesting. Too often in fantasy, magic is set up as being severely overpowered—those wielding it with any skill and possessed of any foresight can overcome and even trivialize any mundane challenge or challenger. I like the idea of an entirely nonmagical protagonist who will eventually grow in mundane competence to the point where he can topple the most powerful mages of his time. If I’m remembering (and reading) Cliohna’s arc correctly, Rowan may even possess some talent in overcoming magic targeted at him.

I further see Rowan’s skills and situation as suiting a third kind of leadership; one apart from that represented by the official human governments and Solansia, as well as that represented by twins and (perhaps?) Kharos. Rowan, at least at the point by which we first meet him, did not lead because he was stronger or more powerful than those he led, nor because he had any inherited authority—he led by virtue of his competence. He tries to twist the meaning of “might makes right” to reflect that, if he chooses that path in the post-Raeve sequence, but it’s fairly clear the twins and other “adherents” of chaos don’t quite see the philosophy the same way he does, even though Rowan tries to convince them. Rowan could certainly progress down certain other paths of leadership depending on player choice, but it seems like the story so far has set some relatively hard limits on him that he’ll have to be clever to overcome, instead of simply powering up.

And while all this has given us a Rowan without a great deal of agency in the first act, I again see this as fine for a three act game, though I can understand some frustration with the pacing of reaching a point where Rowan can act more decisively. I feel like the three acts gives Rowan’s character arc, regardless of which direction the player takes him, three separate portions (though obviously each would have to lead into the next). It makes sense to have him just getting his feet under him in his new situation during the first part—perhaps trying a little to flex his muscles only to get smacked down for it. The second act should be where Rowan begins to find ways around his bonds, ways to undermine or defy his captors or the human authorities of the wider world, tools and allies to support him against more powerful foes—that sort of thing. The third act would then be the crunch, where the bulk of Rowan’s planning comes into action the main conflict with whoever Rowan chose to fight comes into play, and where the player sees whether their decisions have paid off. It’s a long path to get to a victorious Rowan, assuming that’s where the player is trying to get, but conflicts that are solved instantaneously through the protagonist’s natural talents or deus ex machina don’t tend to be inherently interesting.

 

[Nym85]

I mean it definitely makes sense that he will have no arcane magic. If he did, he'd know by now. But Divine magic comes from Faith. Maybe he never had sufficient faith in Solansia before (and he never considered Kharos). But I think that especially with corrupt Rowan, he may actually gain substantial faith towards Kharos over the course of his journey especially when it comes to a disgust towards the classist approach to society that Solansia fosters. Ultimately everything that went wrong, went wrong because of her church elevating and justifying useless nobles' authority. So it would make sense for him to gain some power.

Ofc he doesn't need magic because his wife has it. I'd expect that by act 3, Alexia can grow to become dangerous as a magic user and if Rowan has her support that covers the power difference with the twins. What we do need is a path to corrupt Alexia via Rowan so that she doesn't need to have faith in one of the twins but I think that is being worked on.

 

[errte13]

I'd expect that by act 3, Alexia can grow to become dangerous as a magic user and if Rowan has her support that covers the power difference with the twins

I'm not convinced Alexia would be able to be significant in the arcane unless she's some hidden genius. Cliohne should cover the arcane aspect, including free both Rowan and Alexia from the amulet. At most, Alexia wouldn't be defenseless and give Rowan more leeway to plan their freedom, or if Alexia is corrupted to be loyal to the twins, betray Rowan and trap him.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

Cliohna, who I assume would know, and unnamed others in Rowan’s backstory already tested Rowan for magical potential and found him entirely lacking. Again, I find that interesting. Too often in fantasy, magic is set up as being severely overpowered—those wielding it with any skill and possessed of any foresight can overcome and even trivialize any mundane challenge or challenger. I like the idea of an entirely nonmagical protagonist who will eventually grow in mundane competence to the point where he can topple the most powerful mages of his time. If I’m remembering (and reading) Cliohna’s arc correctly, Rowan may even possess some talent in overcoming magic targeted at him.

Yes Rowan has some resistence to magic attacks.
I mentioned this some time ago as a possible plot point that Rowan could use this as a defense against the magically adept demon twins when/if he decides to betray them.

 

[diebesgrab]

I mean it definitely makes sense that he will have no arcane magic. If he did, he'd know by now. But Divine magic comes from Faith.

Sorry, not doubting you, but can you point to a source for that in this world? Because the only thing I remember re:the source of “divine” magic in this game is Cliohna’s various interactions with Rowan during abbey capture events, which, if I’m remembering correctly, implied that magic was just magic, there was no division—people with magical potential were sought after by and inducted into the church, and that was why there were so many mages among their ranks, not because of faith.

Of course, even if I am remembering correctly Cliohna is clearly heavily biased against the Church of Solansia (and maybe religion in general), so she may not be a reliable source here.

 

[Semantics]

- We have not shown the full consequences of the choice to help Helayna escape.
- If Rowan helps Delane escape, the tribe is damaged in substantial ways. As a consequence the twins are left weaker in all circumstances. This will be shown more clearly in Act 2 when we have a proper "military situation" screen.
- Tarish (on her route), Jacques, Delane (Ulcro's route), are all personally loyal to Rowan instead of the twins as well.
- The Goblin Recruitment arc is not in the game yet and is set to come. Most of the castle staff event chains are not done yet.

Smaller note. Rastedel is almost certainly going to have a mini-rework down the line. Beyond a few narrative problems, it needs more interactivity.

I'm just referring to stuff the game itself, in its current form, presents the player with. Obviously, when I am not immersing myself in the game I can acknowledge there are certainly going to be more effects to some of these decisions. But that's like a reverse fridge logic, which is honestly more dangerous than regular fridge logic.

Jacques is presented pretty uniformly as a pragmatist who will do what he needs for his own survival and power. Not a nefarious one, but the way the game presents him it's hard to trust him as a long-term ally, in-universe. The game also doesn't really present Tarish as loyal to Rowan over the twins if helped right now, and only in the sex scene after does Rowan even try to push that. Nevermind that she is also power-hungry, and naturally inclined against the other forces Rowan might be utilizing. The decisions to help Helayne and Delane escape may get explored more later, but for now the first wouldn't seem like that big an issue for the twins (And also suffers from the fact that, again, Rowan makes the decision wanting her to just flee to safety. Helayna is the one to say she's going to stay in the area and fight back, after the player decides.) given how much the rest of the game plays up how absolutely unable Helayna is to muster even a shred of non-sex concentration. Likewise, the second of those two is made by Rowan, in-game, for a "Help Delane" reason, not a "This will throw the Orcs into chaos and weaken them!" reason. (Though I did forget the blurb about the tribe being weakened if you help her escape.) And as stated, the goblin recruitment arc is not in the game yet, nor are the castle staff chains.

My point being that right now, it does often feel like Rowan isn't so much working or even planning toward eventually be able to rebel, but falling into a bunch of incidents that may or may not eventually let him. The fact that I know, from using my brain when not playing the game and from reading posts from you on here, that these decisions will eventually help him doesn't change how it feels when playing the game sometime.

 

[johlem]

I really like this game and the evolution of it,
But I think it might be a good idea to incorporate a little "prologue" quest into this story. Before the twins cross the path of Rowan and Alexia

This would allow Rowan to be played as a hero, and would increase the player's feeling of playing has a "fallen hero" (if it can be considered as such xd).

it would also increase the chance and the opportunity to appreciate Alexia, because although she and Rowan have been married for a long time, as a player we do not have the feeling to know her more than the other png, and that It's a shame because of the different events that focus on this character afterwards, which have less impact than it should be.

Of course it's just a small detail, but I really think that's missing at the beginning of the game.

 

[RC-1138 Boss]

There is no full gallery implemented so far, if you want to just see scenes use Unren.bat for it.

 

[Ragingrager]

I love you. Never stop. Fight for your dick potion, my friend.

Perhaps to help our limited writer brains, you can teache how we can make Rowan dick potion drinking a more dramatic moment. Does he drink it before or after his final confrontation with Andras?

"Ah, I see your Schwartz is as big as mine."

I notice you keep avoiding answering my question about how the growing giant cock scenes are somehow different then the potion and how you ignore the potion idea was just an example. If the girls can use magic to enchance themselves sexually, why can't Rowan? Once again can you explain Rowan doing it is somehow different then the image that you posted or the other scenes of it happening? My guess is you know you're wrong and will keep being disingenuous about it.

Pretty sure the answer is "We dont have enough resources, and your fetish isn't as important."

I guess to be fair, it would be fetish related content for someone. But my reasoning wasn't ever fetish related. I guess somehow in this setting only girls are allowed to grow giant dicks! Men doing it is just unheard! It's only not preposterous when women do it. T51winterized is being a massive hypocrite on the topic for sure.

Is this supposed to be feedback? What am I looking at here?



Well the fact we don't have enough resources definitly makes more transformations impossible. But, also, just honestly, the notion of a dick growth potion is something we would do as a kink. But, as like, a silly one off. Transformations of unusual and sexual nature are a thing we do. It'd probably be with Nassim or X'z or one of Rein's characters.

But, the guy isn't asking for it as a kink. He's asking for it as a plot point.

The idea of having such a thing be a major story beat is just the ridiculous. Like what, we follow up the painfully detailed city sack arc with the "rowan grows a huge schlong arc"? Also to put my writer hat on for a second. The idea of pairing Rowan dick growth with some kind of dramatic character shift would imply narratively that the reason why Rowan was losing out to the twins was because of insufficient height on his mast.

And like, it's not. Rowan's dick is fine. It's probably actually above average length. I've literally never spaired it a moment of thought before this week. It just is wildly irrelevant to the game.

I like how you claim its wildy irrelevant to the game when the game goes out of its way to make Rowan smaller just about everyone that bangs his wife. I mean it consistently happening certainly isn't a clear pattern at all or anything. As for it being a plot point, I don't think it would take a whole lot of writing for Corrupt Rowan to just decide to give himself a bigger dick for petty reasons, since thats something corruption clearly does in this setting. Then its just a thing from there on out. Hell maybe the corruption settling into Rowan just happens to make him sexually enchanced, since corruption clearly changes people in general. I'm guessing corrupt Rowan is going to start getting a bit more demonic right? It never had to be a potion, it never had to be a major plot point or plot point at all. It literaelly could have just been a side effect on whatever path "Chaos" Rowan takes. You're taking a simple example of something and blowing out of proportion, to avoid addressing anything I say.

 

[T51bwinterized]

I notice you keep avoiding answering my question about how the growing giant cock scenes are somehow different then the potion and how you ignore the potion idea was just an example. If the girls can use magic to enchance themselves sexually, why can't Rowan? Once again can you explain Rowan doing it is somehow different then the image that you posted or the other scenes of it happening? My guess is you know you're wrong and will keep being disingenuous about it.

We do those as light hearted one offs. If you wanted A Rowan big cock scene, because of a particular kink, that would be fine.

 

[Ragingrager]

We do those as light hearted one offs. If you wanted A Rowan big cock scene, because of a particular kink, that would be fine.

Please read the second reply to you of my post, admittly I don't blame you for missing it, I added it later. Also no a one off scene wouldn't address the problem I'm referring to. You go on and on about how a corrupt human could surpass a demon. I'm guessing Corrupt/Chaos Rowan will start undergoing changes yes?

 

[T51bwinterized]

Please read the second reply to you of my post, admittly I don't blame you for missing it, I added it later. Also no a one off scene wouldn't address the problem I'm referring to. You go on and on about how a corrupt human could surpass a demon. I'm guessing Corrupt/Chaos Rowan will start undergoing changes yes?

1. The scenes we give to Alexia with the futa penis are fun, optional one-offs to indulge a kink. The distinction between that and what you're asking for is as big as you percieve her futa dick to be.

We would also not hinge a major plot point on futacock growth.

2. You would be entirely wrong in your assumptions. We have zero physical transformations planned in any way for Rowan. What I mean in terms of capacity to surpass demons is in terms of his ability to corrupt other humans and his ability to act as an agent of chaos.

No, I don't sigh mean that his penis will grow.