Bride of Shadows Rework - First Look

As promised, here is a first look at the new and (hopefully) improved Bride of Shadows. Before you check it out, keep in mind it's a very short preview. It covers the events of what we would formerly consider Night I: your MC waking up in Kalat and getting rescued from the sithrak.

However, you'll notice several key differences. I've discussed them at length in other posts, so I'll summarize them here, as well as provide additional details we haven't yet gone over. I'm going to include several things I haven't told the general audience so you have a clear understanding of what's ahead. Nothing is too spoilery, I've still got a lot of twists up my sleeve.

New Story Routes

Classic Route - The standard Bride of Shadows storyline. Build a romantic and sexual relationship with Serax and Valdricht, explore Nazralt, conceive a child, and go on a journey of self-discovery. MMF or MFM explicit content available. Ideal for dark fantasy romance enjoyers or dark fantasy-curious readers.

Dark Maiden Route - Nightborn Exclusive ★ Everything in the classic route, but darker. The choices are limited. Serax and Valdricht will expect the MC's complete submission. Love looks a lot like Stockhom's syndrome. MMF only. Ideal for veteran dark romance readers looking for a more intense submission & breeding romance.

Fated Mates Route - Nightborn Exclusive ★ Contains everything in the classic storyline, but the MC will experience an intense, monogamous mate bond with Valdricht. Serax and Valdricht will not be romantically involved. Your MC can develop a friendship or antagonistic relationship with Serax. MF only. Ideal for dark fantasy afficionados who prefer monogamy.

New Story Structure

You wake in a frozen wasteland, abandoned, hungry, and with no memory of who or what you are.

Two dark and powerful men find you in the snow. They take you in and keep you warm. Try as you might to resist them, it isn't long before you lose your heart and your virtue.

As your past unravels, the mystery surrounding you only deepens. They tell you you're one of them—a darksinger, immortal and god-touched, yet cursed with a lust for blood and a barren womb.

If that's true, how is it that you are carrying their child?

That's the new blurb. I think. I love and hate it. It does a great job of establishing the rhythm and the subject matter of the rework, so let's go a bit deeper.

No Memories

I often hate this trope, I think it's really common in IFs for an obvious reason, it allows players to make whatever character they want. But I suspect that can lead authors to kind of treat the MC like an empty vessel because there's not much emotional attachment. And on the flip side, I've seen it done really well. Like (no spoilers) in Baten Kaidos, KOTOR, and Persona 3, where learning your past recontextualizes your whole story.

I don't intend to get super fancy with that, but I do have what I think is a great way to thread the needle. As the first few nights progress, you'll be reliving your MC's youth in dreams. During said dreams, you'll react to and eventually influence the course of your MC's life. For a third party POV, you'll influence your younger self's interests, traits, and even how she copes with trauma. All of this will both effect your backstory and your current personality profile.

For new readers unfamiliar with Bride of Shadows, it may not be immediately apparent that the child in her dreams is her. That's because the girl is badly burned and doesn't resemble the MC's current body. Also, a few other red herrings that'll be in there, but I don't intend to go out of my way to trick readers. The really rewarding part will be seeing how your MC ultimately comes to terms with the fact that she was the girl in her dreams, a girl whom she's come to feel deeply for.

I think this will give the MC a solid emotional core and it'll also give players the opportunity to start scratching the parenting itch. This will serve as a more structured/rigid version of how I ultimately intend to handle the parenting arc once your child comes.

The Weaver is still present and she'll creep in gradually as the prelude progresses.

Sex & Conception

If you play the classic route, your story will be very familiar, following a hybrid Zealot/Heretic plot from the original game. However, if you play Dark Maiden or Fated Mates, those are more sexual storylines. In Dark Maiden, your MC will be pulled into a sexual relationship with Serax and Valdricht on what we'd classically call Night III. Fated Mates will have a lot of steamy & sexual content in earlier episodes as the MC and Valdricht will have to contend with the deliciously cliche mating heat. This is one of my personal favorite tropes, especially when the characters don't know each other well but can't keep their hands off one another. If you enjoy that sort of thing, too, you're in for a treat.

While I'll endeavor to ensure there's romance development prior to sex (at least in Classic & Fated Mates) I intend to do this more by fleshing out the nights and moondays with more character interactions than delaying sex until X number of days. Additionally, your MC won't know the full context of her past when having sex for the first time, so rather than having all of the religious angst prior to sex, it'll catch up afterwards and you'll be able to shape the extent to which that impacts your MC.

Your divine child will be conceived either the 1st or 2nd time your MC has sex, depending on your route.

Preludes & Acts

The new story structure will be as follows. Note that the prelude is an approximation, as some routes such as Dark Maiden will bear virtually no resemblance to the original story.

Prelude - The Maiden of Mourning (Nights 1-4)

Act I - The Breaking of Grace (Months 1-2/varies)

Act II - The Burden of Light (Month 3)

Act III - The Warden of Radiance (Month 3-TBD)

We'll discuss more precise divisions as we move through Act I. I have core plot points I intend to focus on and a lot of optional side stuff. You guys are going to vote on how much of that you want, thus controlling the pacing of the story.

Act I will likely be the longest as we'll be taking a lot of time to flesh out the relationships and the MC's emotional journey from vestal to lover and expectant mother. Act II will be focused on rounding out the relationships with Serax and Valdricht as you prepare for the birth of your child/children.

Your MC's pregnancy will be approximately 3 months, although the plot does permit to speed that up if enough readers want it. Just not too much, the poor MC already has to do a full gestation in a trimester and I don't intend on writing one of those magical romance novel pregnancies where the baby never shows and everyone's still having hot sex up until delivery day. It'll be a challenge for her to cope with the rapid changes to her body and the very brief window between conception and motherhood.

The choices you make in Act II with your love interest(s) will have a big impact on what sort of parents they'll be in Act III. The final act begins following the birth of your child/ren and will be focused on parenting, primarily raising your child to be a good future overlord and also keeping him/her safe from the forces that would do them harm. Your child will grow very quickly. How quickly is another thing that will depend on readers. I have tons of content I can write, but I'll also be respectful of readers who would like to see the story concluded in a timely fashion. It'll be a constant process of checking in with Darksinger & Duskweaver members to guide the pace.

Romance Dynamics

Apart from developing your MC and getting her pregnant, an important function of the prelude will be developing your relationship style with each love interest. This is a variable I'll keep hidden until the end of the prelude and one I think will define your story almost as much as your personality.

My aim isn't to give you a ton of choices post-prelude. That bogs down the pacing, and arbitrarily so because your MC will still end up in the position of becoming a divine mother in Act III regardless of whatever she does in Acts I & II. You'll still have choices, particularly in how you spend your nights, be it developing a skill, learning Wyransith, or indulging in carnal pleasure, but my intention is to give you a somewhat linear erotic dark fantasy romance novel that feels tailored to your specific character and tastes in your love interests.

As such, how you interact with your love interests in the prelude will create a dynamic. Your dynamic will define how your MC engages in both conversations and intimacy with both Serax and Valdricht. As of right now, each route has two dynamics for each guy, and that includes Serax in FMR. We can discuss adding more later.

For example, if you're playing Classic and you spend the prologue teasing and bantering with Serax, that dynamic will persist as you enter Act I. However, if you prefer instead to show him a more vulnerable, tender side of your MC, you'll see a different side of Serax in Act I--gentle and responsive to the MC's needs.

In Fated Mates, you can play an opposites attract dynamic with Valdricht, crafting a coy MC who knows she has him hooked and enjoys shaking his composure. But if you spend the prelude letting him walk all over you, don't expect to claw back any of your agency once you're carrying his heir.

In Dark Maiden, both of the love interests will treat your MC an awful lot like a pet if you let them. Or you can establish a more nuanced dynamic with each in the prelude, orienting your MC toward the difficult but rewarding arc of gaining Valdricht's respect and Serax's admiration.

There's no right or wrong way to play. Pursue whichever dynamic feels fun to you and avoid the ones you dislike. The choices will be very intuitive--whichever options you pick will naturally shift into your dynamic.

Wyransith

Wyransith or Shadespeak, will have a much bigger role in the re-work. As we build up to the MC beginning to learn it, I'll be making weekly posts with vocab & grammar lessons just for Darksinger and Duskweaver members. I'll generally focus on translations that are immediately applicable to the chapter we're already on.

If you're playing Dark Maiden, the love interests will speak various languages, but none of them will be your MC's. Learning will be a slow process, similar to learning a real language, so relax and enjoy the language barrier barbarians trope while it lasts. Or if you can't bear it, come here for the aforementioned weekly language posts, as I'll be breaking down most of the Dark Maiden translations. It'll be good for me, too, as I can ensure the language is remaining consistent and also share my weird obsession with linguistics with fellow dorks.

Lorehall, Bondweaves, Codex

None of them are there yet. I'm still considering how to best implement the bonds & codex, and the Lorehall will be out once I have a weekend to sit down and edit my lore files into a cutesy format. You'll still be building your relationships with Serax & Valdricht, threads or not. I might snoop around in some other IFs to see how they're handling the relationship page. Let me know if there's one you particularly like.

The First Look

The first look of the new demo will allow you to see the new interface, color schemes, and the plot structures. If anything feels off, we can fix it now before we get too deep in. Some improvements include:

• Cleaner stat management. You'll get a notification advising you of how your traits have changed each time you make a consequential choice.

• Clickable translations. In light mode blue + bold text will indicate words you can click on for a translation. In dark mode, it's gold + bold.

• New character design options. Shadewalker skin tones, eye colors, & hair colors are now in the game. The skin tones will affect your gameplay. I've already added some new ones based on reader feedback including a dusky rose skin tone and citrine eyes. I welcome additional suggestions!

• Dynamic descriptions. If you choose silver hair, you won't just see "He grasps your silver hair" and "You flick your silver hair." No, no. Once you lock in your body, your game will henceforth return a variety of personally tailored descriptors thanks to a cool macro I made, ensuring that your MC feels grounded in the body that you gave her.

• Clear route tagging. Never again will you have to puzzle over whether you're playing the Unaligned Valdricht Branch Zealot route or the Aligned Unbound NSFW Heretic. Your route name is clearly listed at the top left corner of your screen.

• Choice hints. Not relevant yet, but next week you'll start to see the ★ and ♥ icons attached to certain choices that will tell you when you're getting a unique choice based on previous actions and a choice that will raise your bond with a love interest. In rare cases where both choices have a positive effect on your bond, the choice with the highest effect will be labeled. You can toggle hints off in the menu if you want to play blind.

• Content warnings. You can click on potential triggers before entering a story route for more details. I've done my best to avoid spoilers.

• Not interface related, but there's some new lore about the MC's backstory, particularly her origins. I feel like some of you guessed that her mother wasn't a random servant. There's still a lot to peel back there later!

  Potential misses include:

• The color schemes. If anything sucks, let me know, just please offer a suggestion so I know which direction to go in.

• The pulsing lights. They're pretty minimal, exclusive to the introduction area and the body selectors. This is to ensure you don't miss them. If they're too intense, let me know.

• Intro music. I think it adds some charm, but if it's annoying I'll remove it. It should cease once your story starts.

• The cover design, store page, and profile sections are not yet finished/optimized. You're welcome to give feedback, but I'm aware that they're not ideal and I will be working on improving them next week.

• Could be a couple of typos, I did write this all in a couple of days. I'll be preening it again tomorrow with fresh eyes (they're pretty bleary right now) but I welcome you to bring any you notice to my attention.

• Mobile optimization. I have played on my phone and it looks good, but every device is different so let me know if it looks crappy on yours. Especially if you have a tablet, because I don't and I'm just guessing at the configs. The popup menus like Profile and Save are tricky to click off of on mobile. I'll be editing them tomorrow to ensure they're easy to dismiss!

Conclusion

LINK: First Look

PASS: anja

You'll notice it's a different page and says Darksinger Edition. This is because you guys get the game updates a week earlier than Shadewalkers so you'll have your own version with a separate password.

Assuming everything looks good structure-wise, I plan on releasing new content every few days until we're caught up. The poll below will let me know which route you'd like more of this weekend.

Thanks for sticking with me through this transition. When I started Bride of Shadows earlier this year the extent of my coding knowledge was making a Neopets store in middle school. I have learned so much in the past few months and I hope it will show in the rework. I also have to give credit to Becky the author of Chop Shop for making the awesome template that I am using and ChapelR for the amazing macros they provided. If anyone would like to know how I coded things like the starlight backgrounds, notification sounds, or the dynamic descriptors I will happily trade notes with you.

Apart from the coding, I've learned a great deal from you guys. What you're most interested in, what you dislike, and what works and doesn't. I've crafted the new storylines with your tastes in mind and I'm optimistic that this will be a story that not only progresses faster than the previous version but hits much more satisfying emotional, romantic, and intimate beats.

-Mortish