New MC, New Body, New Interactivity
Added 2025-05-20 04:42:18 +0000 UTCThe body customization is something that I did a really crappy job of coding-wise last time. As frustrated as I feel at times, I'm significantly better at coding than I was when I started earlier this year and I now have a good system in place to make characters feel truly unique depending on your choices.
Rather than just slapping in the same adjective to describe your hair color every chapter or two, I'll have a more dynamic manner in which to reflect your physical traits in various descriptions and interactions with the love interests. I will be prioritizing customization based on various factors, including specific niche tastes, roleplaying, and the fixations of the ROs. Don't shy away from the standard impact traits. If I can stress one thing, it's that the standard impact traits are the same as what we currently have in Bride of Shadows. The high impacts are just bonuses.
Sorry for the crappy formatting. I'll be converting this into an pretty cheat sheet pdf later.
Body Types:
slender - high impact
lithe - standard impact
curvy -standard impact
voluptuous - high impact
I've added more body types and intend on putting a particular focus on readers who enjoy the size dynamics between a slender MC and a big, muscly love interest, as well as lovers of BBW erotic romance, who want a love interest who will cherish her voluptuous figure.
Breast Sizes:
small - standard impact
modest - standard impact
generous - high impact
Despite the derision it can generate in forums, a lot of female players actually enjoy big breasts on a heroine. I know, because I'm one of them. My boobs are small and I love having the fantasy without having to suffer the backaches. This is just something I personally enjoy and I'll write special passages for others who enjoy large breast worship.
Hair Types:
curly - high impact
wavy - standard impact
straight - standard impact
Hair length is going away. Your heroine will have medium to long hair by default for story reasons. Don't come for me short-haired people, I'm one of you. I told you, it's only for plot reasons and not because I don't want to code hair lengths! You can't argue with the plot. Instead, we'll have hair types. Curly will be slightly higher impact than the others because curly haired ladies can't wake up and do whatever with their hair. We need big, strong men to give it extra brushing and to complain about how annoying it is to brush even though they secretly adore our hair.
Heights:
petite - high impact
average - average impact
tall -standard impact
Heights are cool. Tall will put you at around half a head shorter than Serax, while petite will put you at around chest height with him and a million miles below Valdricht. This one is also for readers who like being small and tossed about by a big strong man, and also for readers who are perplexed by that kink and want to avoid it. Petite doesn't mean slender. You can play a petite + voluptuous MC and still get that juicy he's-so-big-he-could-snap-me-in-two treatment. You know.
Human Skin Tones - standard impact
ivory
fair with subtle freckles
olive
bronze
ebony
Human Hair Colors - standard impact
golden
obsidian
copper
sable
Shadewalker Skin Tones - very high impact
lavender
blue
violet
indigo
Shadewalker Hair Colors - standard impact
silver
wisteria
peony
midnight blue
Shadewalker skintones and hair colors are coming to The Nightborn Edition and they'll be high impact traits. The guys will see you differently, given that those skin tones are quite rare, and people will treat you differently. I won't spoil too much in this regard. Just pick whichever you prefer and watch the story unfold accordingly.
Eye Colors:
sapphire - standard impact
emerald - standard impact
amber - standard impact
amethyst - high impact
garnet -high impact
citrine - high impact
I added a couple of shadewalker eye colors. They'll be higher impact than the other tones, but overall eye color will have a low impact on the story.
Conclusion:
Consider this a cheat sheet as you go into the rework and decide how to build your character. I won't be sharing this with the general audience. Feel free to let me know if I forgot something major. I can't account for every detail, you'll have to headcanon some stuff, but hopefully this will give you a good base on which to build your MC!
-Mortish
Comments
The new options seem really cool! I am almost tempted to take on a classic shadewalker look even though I don't want to change too much about my MC in the new version. I suppose Valdricht is gonna have to manfully lift petite!MCs up in a Princess Carry or by their waist/armpits/hips/whatever in order for them to reach one another when they're standing? Or he can crane his neck and back all day because he's too powerful to need a chiropractor? I loved my Bull/Dalish Inquisitor's romance in DAI and it was always fun to imagine where she got the box that she's seemingly standing on in some of the cutscenes. π Imagining Valdricht asserting dominance by making MC fetch The Box so that he can kiss/bite her without always having to stoop down is kinda funny. Is Sable a dark brown? I interpreted the Fawn color in the first version as a lighter shade of brown because fawns usually are more of a light brown. It's okay if it is! I'm thinking of maybe going over to copper because a muted, natural shade of that will presumably be in a similar shade range. And it might be fun to be the redhead to Serax's blond and Valdricht's black -- that's always a fun chromatic arrangement for a trio. Since we're on the topic of customization, have you decided if true names will still be a thing in the rewrite? Would it be more cohesive with Vestal customs to give MC a birth name that ends with -a or will a differing name cement MC's status as an outsider within the order? If the latter, I can keep the name Lydie; if the former, it won't be a hardship to change over to Lydia and/or keep Lydie as a sort of nickname.
ayesleigh
2025-05-23 21:22:21 +0000 UTCCongratulations, you unlocked a therapy session! The challenge I've had is that when I do small boob stuff I get messages from people saying it's affecting their dysphoria. That's why I cut out most of the breast descriptions from the current version of the IF. Apparently small breasts are what players with gender dysphoria tend to choose. Personally, as a romance writer, I DO enjoy writing the perky breasts trope and this trigger wasn't something I was familiar with until writing an interactive novel. What I'll likely have to do is update the in-game content warning to advise players not to proceed if they aren't comfortable with descriptions of female sexuality. It's something that I've been apprehensive to do, not so much because I'm worried about getting cancelled or hate messages (thus is the life of an internet content creator) but rather it feels like a female-protagonist erotic romance story would genuinely have a lot of triggers for players with gender dysphoria apart from breasts, so it would make sense to advise them to avoid it. And for reading that whole mental vomit, you get citrine eyes! They're on the list.
Mortish
2025-05-20 08:16:26 +0000 UTCOh yeah, what happened was I cut "silver" from human and forgot to paste it on shadewalker. It's already in the game, ty for catching that!
Mortish
2025-05-20 07:57:17 +0000 UTCLove all of these, especially the new skintones and eye colors! Its making me want to load up BG3 and make another lolth sworn drow. Lavender skin, garnet eyes and midnight blue hair here I comeee. (I think citrine eyes would be a neat option too) Did get a bit bummed at seeing only 'generous' boob size getting special worship flavor (i always give my mc's in IF's small perky boobs if theres a choice) but I get it though. For heights, is 'average' impact different than standard?
Sadie
2025-05-20 06:19:09 +0000 UTCYou had mentioned drow like appearances for shadewalker, itβs not listed here, but will there be a silver/moonlight hair color?
NEspey
2025-05-20 05:59:01 +0000 UTC
