JC

Author of Weeping Gods interactive fiction novel

[jcollinswrites]

Weeping Gods (WIP)

This tale sweeps you up and drops you back 3500 years into the past, straight onto the banks of the Nile, at the dawn of the Egyptian New Kingdom. The Empire has only been liberated from a hundred year old occupation. The scars left by the war are still healing and yet, threats loom on the horizon again. Some powerful artifacts have been stolen and the king entrusts you with their recovery. Suddenly finding yourself out of your depth and all out of options, you have no choice but to agree to the dangerous mission. You don't know what awaits you on this journey but you know one thing for sure: if you don't catch the enemies of the empire, you will risk more than your own life.

Take your fate into your own hands, solve mysteries, meet new friends, fall in love, learn about magic, monsters, spirits, gods, and have fun in the ancient Egyptian Kingdom in this historical fantasy novel.

The story is a work of fiction and is not historically accurate.

Features

Choose from 4 different origin characters, each with unique stories and choices that will follow you through the rest of the game:

- a priest in over their head with a caring and loyal mentor

- a noble very much in over their head with a problematic family

- the captain of the Theban Guard, who is way too tired for this

- a thief from the slums of Thebes, desperate for survival

Play as male, female or non-binary; gay, straight or bi.

Build friendships, rivalries, or find love with a young prince, a mysterious spymaster, a brooding spirit, an elite warrior… or even the pharaoh himself.

Explore Egypt through a series of adventures with a ragtag team of characters

Solve mysteries, climb the Great Pyramid of Giza, deal with the sparks of revolution, and help secure the kingdom's future

Warnings: The story will contain heavy and dark themes, excessive swearing, mental health problems, and optional sexual content, so it is recommended for mature audiences only. The whole list of triggering content can be found in the beginning of the demo.

The Romances

Narmer - A kind and patient man with a golden heart, a fierce sense of duty, a bloody past, and way too little free time.

Qenna (m/f) - The living enigma. Fun and casual at first glance, but why is everyone warning you against spending time with them?

Zaia (m/f) - Spends most of their time brooding or hiding from people, but they can be surprisingly cheeky with those they feel comfortable with.

Tabiry - A dependable and loyal woman, she is the type of person you could trust to have your back in any situation.

Ahmose (m/f) - Young and impressionable, with a dazzling smile and too much hope for a better future.

The Demo

Chapters 1 - 6 (some choices missing)

Chapter 7 WIP (check patreon)

Demo word count : 830 000 words

Average playthrough: around 110 - 120 000 words

Last public update: 23. Feb 2026.

Last patreon update: check patreon for news

(First published: 14. Aug. 2024.)

DEMO | Patreon | FAQ | ROs and NPCs | CoG Forum | Pinterest

[jcollinswrites]

if I play a man that happens to be very stereotypically feminine would the NPCs comment on it? (I just wanna play as a femboy, respectfully of course)

Stereotypes look very different based on which culture we're talking about. In Ancient Egypt, there were things that were more feminine or masculine, for example the tailoring of dresses, the style of wigs, etc, but in a broader sense, dresses, skirts, wigs, makeup, hair products, skincare products, nail products, short or shaved hair, body hair removal, and many others were worn and exercised by everyone (who could afford it, of course).

In the game, you can buy and wear things like jewelry, makeup, perfumes, etc, but these products were historically used by every gender. So if your MC wears a dress with a fancy wig, makeup, and earrings, that is a completely acceptable attire for an ancient Egyptian man. Of course, the design and application can be feminine or masculine, but the game doesn't specify that. It's just a dress. The details are up to your imagination!

Here is an example of a noblewoman (left) and her husband (right). You can see that both of them wear wigs (could be their normal hair), earrings, eyeliner, jewelry, and some sort of dresses. While the woman's dress is more tight-fitting with a low neckline, the man wears a skirt with a see-through dress on top of it, and they are both enjoying the scent of flowers.

[jcollinswrites]

If I'm parsing this correctly a Captain MC is the child of King Senhotenre's brother in law. Who had a daughter with Senhotenre's sister, who herself has (possibly male, possibly adult) children. If there's a grandson of Senhotenre through the female line is that a near enough connection to the previous dynasty to be a threat to Narmer if people become unhappy enough with his rule?

In theory, yes...

But also no.

I haven't decided yet how many children captain's sister has, or their gender, but if your MC is interested in learning about their father and any potential family, I'm planning to put in a scene at the end of the book where you can go meet them with your RO! (I'll come up with the children count by then)

So in theory, if captain's sister has a boy, then that boy was born after or around Senhotenre's death, otherwise Senhotenre would've chosen him as his successor. But there were no male heirs fit to rule at the time, which is why Narmer's father was chosen. That puts any potential boy around or younger than 20.

If this boy ends up existing, he and his family are very aware that he should never dream of becoming king under normal circumstances. Conspiring against the ruling dynasty is high treason, after all.

An official dynasty change happened with Senhotenre's death. Every surviving member of the old king's family has lost their right of succession. They have lost all titles, official functions, and the right to manage any assets owned by the crown and the state. Narmer's father allowed them to keep their private wealth, so they still live in relative luxury, but they lead a secluded, private life, out of the public eye.

I imagine, this boy would be there at the end of the line of succession though, just in case, but every single male member of Narmer's extended family would be ahead of him, and even some of the girls.

It's also important to note that the dynasty change did not happen by a coup or any violent means. Putting Narmer’s father on the throne was a collective agreement between Senhotenre’s close family and the highest members of government. The old royal family holds no grudges against Narmer's family for that. Essentially, they were the ones who put them on the throne. In fact, many of them quite like Narmer, both as a person and as a king. They would not get caught conspiring against him of their own free will.

[jcollinswrites]

I love the idea/possibility of a game where you can romance Petmes. I loved the character from the moment he appeared (my curse is that I always end up liking side characters who are not romanceable😔) I just love that silly guy

Since in that game the MC would be Petmes' spouse, the story would take place in the past when they were alive, or perhaps in the present/future, and it's like a kind of reincarnation?

It will take place in the past. The spouse disappeared with that civilization where Petmes came from. Either their soul got destroyed, or it's not in this world. Petmes doesn't know the answer, so he's still grieving and still looking, and absolutely hasn't moved on. Whether they will be reunited again in the future will be up to your imagination 🤗

[jcollinswrites]

I think the theories are making me crazy 😭 am I the only one who thought Petmes was a time traveler?? Like why is this dude talking about quantum physics 😭😭 Can't wait to play more 🙌🙌

You're not the only one haha, I've gotten many asks about this! But there is no time travel in the story :) Petmes simply comes from a civilization where these things were already known once.

[jcollinswrites]

I want to shake Petmes like a terrier with a rat. What do you MEAN "That's very kind of you to say". Are you literally the Assyrian god Ashur or is that what Narmer (other one) calls you because that's what you called yourself when arriving in Egypt 1k years ago because that's a framing humans could understand? Do you not believe in the gods because they're dead, because they don't exist or just in the sense of not relying on them? TELL ME. Also don't be mean, dying is the only way I get lore.

You see, this is the difference between MC and Petmes. Petmes is not religious. MC is.

These two perspectives can somehow coexist at the same time, if you think about it. What IS a god anyway? A fundamentally different, very powerful being. Petmes is like that.

But does that make him a god?

From MC's perspective, yes, absolutely.

From Petmes's perspective, not really.

He just thinks of himself as... himself. He doesn't think he's very special. He's semi-immortal and powerful... compared to MC and the others. But in his mind, he's just a normal guy. He does what he thinks is best. He protects these silly little things around him, gets sad when they die and forget him, and he simply tries to survive.

[jcollinswrites]

"he cannot fall in love anymore" - was he in love before?

Yes. He was married and had a child. They are both gone now. He mentions it at the end of Ch3 in Abydos, when you get your weapon from him, if you choose the silver dagger. I wrote "wife" there but I'll change it to "spouse" because if I make a game in the future about it, that spouse is gonna be the player character :)

[jcollinswrites]

You have my ass on Wikipedia trying to figure out potential spoilers. Im now about 50-50 on Petmes either being a god from a dead civilization like Minoan or Sumerian or an alien. Both seem equally likely at this point. I am losing my mind.

Minoan was not a dead civilization when the game takes place :D It was very much alive and well at the time. Narmer's mother is from there, for example. There is also one person similar to Petmes who lives there!

But Petmes has never been to Crete. He'd lived around the Canaan region before he came to Egypt, and that's where he got the name "Ashur", but he'd had other names before that.

[jcollinswrites]

"Petmes is quite liberal with his body" 👀 secret sixth ro???

Totally kidding, just the idea of a wet cat Thief!MC getting it on with a weird god made me laugh, it's even funnier than them successfully working their way into the Pharoah's heart

Lmao okay it looks like Petmes-discussion-time! I will answer asks about Petmes now :D

I think the MC in this story doesn't have enough interactions with him to make sense turning him into an RO.

But, if it was a spinoff story, where, let's say, MC is one of the Abydos temple staff members, then yeah, Petmes could be a semi-RO. But still not a full-on romance because he cannot fall in love anymore. At most, the relationship would be physical only, and he would not be exclusive.

Petmes might be a returning character though in future games, under different names and looks, where he may be romanceable :)

[jcollinswrites]

the real question is if Petmes is weirdly familiar to us are we familiar to him?? 🤔

Ooooh what an insightful question 👀

Petmes doesn’t find MC familiar at all. It’s only the other way around.

[jcollinswrites]

Just going to screech at you a bit.

WHAT was wrong with Narmer's father?! I get trying to shape Narmer into a perfect soldier, desensitize him to death, yadayada whatever, but unless he was fucked up to the point of non functionality himself (and it doesn't sound like he was) surely he realized that making your minor son participate in filling mass graves would result in (at least) unpredictable effects on him in adulthood. What was the plan there.

Ahmose has a WHAT?! Okay, you know what, yes, he's 18 and the heir, I shouldn't be surprised, but I WAS. I was s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e-d. Startled. Shocked. Affronted. Also, in the case of a Noble MC around his age, slightly offended to not have already been picked herself.

Petmes. WHAt. Petmes. The option "I know who you are" was greyed out no matter what I tried, so I don't know if you can actually know-for-sure at this point in the game but his entire deal is driving me crazy. I'm actually really impressed by how you're pacing revealing information in this game. It never feels like you're hiding information inorganically; it always feels reasonable that the player or the MC just hasn't had any reason to learn this or that thing until the game brings it up. So far you're doing a really good job of making it not frustrating to have a bunch of stuff going on that the players just don't have any context for. I'm confused, but I think only about stuff I'm supposed to be confused about at this point, if that makes sense.

... I still really want to know exactly who/what Petmes is/was but more than that I want to know when it will be possible to know.

Thank you for such a detailed feedback! 🕺

To answer your questions in order:

There was nothing wrong with Narmer's father. Parenting lessons and psychologists didn't really exist back then, his father had done the same, and look, he turned out just fine! (jk) There was no plan. He just did it because Narmer was there, he was big for his age, nimble and available, and a strong little boy, and then his father could tell the troops: "Look, my seven-year-old can do this no problem at all, so you lot have no excuse to slack off!" Of course, for us, it's horribly obvious that it would cause extreme trauma. But for them, that was not obvious at all. Even if you asked Narmer, he probably couldn't pinpoint that THAT was one of the earliest reasons why he has extreme PTSD today. He's not even aware that he has PTSD. He just thinks it's part of his personality.

Yup! Keep in mind that when Ahmose was small, the war was still on. Narmer needed to cement a strong alliance somehow. A same-ish age noble MC is all well and good, but that wouldn't bring in soldiers and foreign support.

Petmes is a bit of a contradiction. The greyed-out-choice is a real option! It can be made available, but only if you play with a certain MC who did a certain thing in the first chapter. In that choice in the desert, that specific MC can realize something about Petmes. But it's a strange thing because MC's and Petmes's belief systems don't align, and yet... both can be true at the same time. So MC can have one truth about Petmes's identity, and that would be true for MC. But Petmes will have a different truth, which you will not learn in this game :)

[jcollinswrites]

Replaying for the umpteenth time and just found the easter egg about a story about an imaginary pharaoh and Petmes, that's such a funny detail!

“Imaginary.”

Right. That’s what MC thinks 😏

[jcollinswrites]

okay so ive been playing the new update (thank u sm for your Patreon, im having so much fun with the content there<33) but ive been having this nagging feeling that sesi betrayed the gang? (im thief pilled, so I havent played the other backgrounds yet), like was he truly kidnapped like mc or did he just. take the boats and abandoned everyone? it was also strange how he kept defending the rioters, and how he very suddenly ended up joining everyone on the journey, did Qenna really employ him or did someone else ask sesi to join for nefarious reasons..? much to think about, I have major brain worms for your work

Oooh, someone's paying attention to details 👀 Mc's companion disappeared for an interesting reason. They will make a return at Chapter 8! Until then, keep guessing ❤️

[jcollinswrites]

Will there be a way to tame Qenna's demon or bring him back to his senses or is he going to stay like that forever ? Please don't answer if it's going to be brought up in the future in the game so as not to spoil !

There is a way to make the demon harder or easier to handle by how you treat him. You can see that already in chapter 5! Unfortunately, MC can’t do miracles. So, no, he will not come back to his senses during MC's life. He will not stay like that forever though... But that's a question for later :)

[jcollinswrites]

just finished my priest mc route twice over because i got curious…….how the hell did this silly thing die twice omg that whole sequence was crazy. also the little swamp spirit made me emotional like unironically i felt so bad i wanted to hold the poor boy

"how the hell did this silly thing die twice omg" - Petmes, 1550 BC.

Haha

[jcollinswrites]

with all the opportunities for the pc to have the same name as other characters, it almost feels like a missed opportunity that you can't use any of the ros' names. i wanted to name my priest narmer so they could do the spiderman point lol (esp in chapter 5)

(obviously there's a huge difference between coding a few one-off lines of flavor text and coding similarly for the duration of the game, so it makes sense why their names aren't options. but man would it be funny)

Well... I mean, I had to code in the part that forbids it, so it was very much intentional. I could allow it, and have a line or two where it's mentioned, but having two (or three) main characters have the exact same name would be very confusing to read for the rest of the game 😅

[jcollinswrites]

Running through your IF for the first time, while playing as a priest MC, and I accidentally killed my MC at the ceremony (can’t remember what choice I made, either to alert security right away or turned around too late) and honestly didn’t even click with me that they’d died? Saw the result went “oh cool near death experience?” And then focused so much on the fact my MC killed Tia and others that I sort of forgot about it. Didn’t actually get any of the results from that choice because my saves got eaten (yay technology) and when I restarted I couldn’t remember the choice I made and wound up turning around early enough that nobody died. But! Since seeing that MC very much does die, and also that there’s different scenes as a result I’m sort of sitting here going “wait do I go back and resume a play through where MC died? But Tia? And her apprentices?” Genuinely I have never felt so torn between a choice so early on in an IF.

This was a very long winded way of me saying I’m not even done my first play through and I want to start about four more this is such a good story! I’d seen it a couple times on my feed before but I’d always been mid-playthrough of something else and decided to wait. Very much wishing I hadn’t done that now I’m so in love with this story, and your writing is phenomenal!

I guess we’ve all been here at one point. I certainly love adding difficult choices :))) Thank you so much for the nice message!