First of all! HAPPY NEW YEAR! May your 2022 be calm, relaxing, happy, and peaceful!
I’m still alive. Doing much better in terms of my frame of mind than I was at the end of last year. I started painting again - and now I’m writing again too. I’ve got more of the prologue typed up than I expected to at this point but I need to decide if I’m going to do most my writing in the Twine engine itself or bully myself into learning Tweego.
I am, however, back in college. And I will need to look at picking up a part time job very soon and so how much time I have to work on anything has dramatically dropped once again.
A few things on the projects: I’ve decided to postpone working on Oracle for a while. The more I’ve tried to write it the more I’ve realized that I just really don’t like the cop-aspect. So I want to rework it but I’m going to let that percolate in the back of my mind and simmer on the back burner for a while since it completely changes some of the character dynamics that had been planned (and were plot forces) so things need to get reworked there.
In the meantime PK is coming back from the dead - just like her protag.
I’m aiming to get the new prologue published by the end of March. I will probably take down the old version once I get to about the 75% mark on my writing that way anyone new who stumbles across this isn’t looking at old material.
One major note: I’ve decided to rework Eydis almost entirely (again) because the character as she is now just doesn’t click for me. There’s something missing so I’ve decided to scrap her and start from scratch again. The new version will still have connections with the Stone Knights, but rather than being an independent merc will probably be a fully integrated part of the crew. Eydis will also, likely, get a new first name that my dyslexia is a little kinder to because I, without fail, have to double check my notes every single time when I type her first name.
So, if anyone is particularly in love with some aspect of her character let me know - I’m not sure which parts actually resonated with people.
This project is in the very early stages of development – everything here is highly variable as I keep working out the details. That said, please send in any questions you like about this project or Phoenix Knight! I’m saving anything to do with PK bugs and fixes until a later date since I’m going to take a break from writing it, but I’m still happy to answer questions about the RO’s and setting.
Summary: Life in Delphi City is pretty much like life anywhere – there’s problems, lots of them, but there’s good points too – maybe a bit fewer. But whatever your feelings are about it - it is home. It is also the city with the highest concentration of super villainy on the planet.
The Guardians are the local superhero team, made up of ‘Paths’ – the people with powers – that are on the side of what is good and right, and approved by the government. Their job is to take care of the villains with powers – and sometimes the ones just smart enough to build doomsday weapons. That kind of thing.
The stuff that’s way above your paygrade.
You might be one of the city’s most skilled detectives but you’re still just a detective. Your bad guys don’t have powers (usually). And messing with one that does ends in a world of pain – kidnapped and experimented on by a previously unknown mad scientist type you’re eventually rescued by a hydrokinetic path.
When your powers are discovered, you’re a chance for the Guardians to snatch up an in-house investigator - a part of the crime fighting process they’d previously been forced to rely on the police and other agencies for. And with people beginning to develop into Paths at previously unheard of rates for some unknown reason, Delphi City needs its Guardians to find the answer.
But now they have you. Formerly one of the best detectives in the city but now... after everything that’s happened, you don’t know what you are, but they have decided what they want you to be:
Their very own Oracle.
Features
An +18 rating, again, more for my own peace of mind than what I believe the content will actually be, but I ask that it’s respected.
Warnings: imprisonment, experimentation, police, injuries, genre-typical violence, more to be added.
Planned Features Include:
Customizable Skill Approach - What kind of detective were you known to be. Are you the sort of detective that is good with getting people to tell you what you need to know? Are you the sort that can chase down and catch and answer even if it has you sprinting across rooftops? Are you the sort that notices the details and can put them together? And is that still your style?
Customizable pronouns (with an option in the player menu to reset them as desired)
Decide why you joined the police in the first place. Also decide how you feel about your maverick big brother.
Four romance routes currently planned: Siren, Warren, Cal, and Victoria
Characters
The Detective – Gender Selectable - MC – A legacy cop, whose grandfather and father were both respected life-long officers, your family has a reputation in the DCPD - one that your older brother managed to thoroughly trash, or redeem, depending on who you ask while you were still on the beat. Your position is hard won but no one can deny your skills as an investigator, family name or no. But when your kidnapping results in the development of powers, making you a ‘Path’ you’re put into the Guardians, not as a costumed hero, but as an investigative specialist.
The Villain: “Siren” – Gender Selectable – RO - Without any evidence to prove that the mysterious Siren was a supervillain and not just a very clever criminal the detective and their partner were originally assigned to attempt to apprehend them – or, otherwise, gather enough evidence to make the Siren the Guardian’s problem and not the DCPD’s. Now you’re a Guardian and in the six months since that stakeout and it’s very much your job to catch them – but why are they being so damn helpful?
The Leader: Warren Hughes, “Commander Truth” – NB – RO – The Guardian’s telepathic leader, Warren is a strict person with high expectations for everyone around them, but perhaps the highest set for themself. You know Commander Truth best by their black-and-white-lightning bolt costume from the situations where the police have had to work with the Guardians. You definitely didn’t expect your brother’s best friend – and a vague shadow in your life since Adrian went to high school and first met Warren - to be the one under the mask.
The Rookie: Callum Lindsey, “Titan” – M – RO – The newest member of the Guardians, apart from you, Cal has only been in Delphi City for eight months. The blue-and-gold clad ferrokinetic path who can twist buildings out of shape with his abilities is not who you were expecting to be the team’s grinning cinnamon roll, but Cal is definitely the warmest welcome you get to the team.
The Protector: Victoria Aragorn, “Starlight” – F – RO – One of the longest serving Guardians, she joined the official superhero line-up at the same time that Commander Truth did. Though her abilities as a Path give her control over fire – and to a lesser degree light and warmth – she is most famous for her skilled usage of traditional martial weapons and unarmed combat forms. Before Victoria put in the red and black suit of Delphi City’s ‘Starlight’ she worked for the government doing the sort of things only a Path could. (A/N: Victoria’s code name might change later on, but right now I’m amused by the idea of Siren giving her hell over it via “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” so it’s what I’ve got for now.)
The Partner: Theresa ‘Tessa’ Graves – F – Tessa and you have been partners for two years now, and friends for longer than that. She was there on the stakeout the night when everything changed. Her injuries might have forced her to retire from police work but after everything you’ve been through together she’s definitely not retiring from being your best friend. No matter what your opinion on the matter actually is.
The Brother: Adrian – M – Your elder brother is the only family you have left these days, not that that feels all that new. He’s also the one responsible for ruining the family’s sterling reputation when his work uncovered a massive amount of corruption in the police related to bribes and deals made with the city’s supervillain community and he didn’t do the brass the courtesy of backing down quietly about it – instead handing the entirety of his evidence over to the Guardians to pursue and, what was safe to, over to reporters the same day that he handed in his resignation. He claims he’s much happier these days, working as a PI and writing what he reassures you is going to be ‘the worst novel of all time’.
The Doctor: Elis Mercy - M - The doctor in charge of looking after the Guardians, and because of your position and the circumstances around your kidnapping he’s also been your doctor since your rescue. In addition to being one of the only doctors in the city that specializes in caring for Empathic people, his own Path allows him to heal injuries. But just those of the trauma variety - broken bones, bruises, cuts and lacerations, not infections and not poisons. (A/N: The doc’s name is a stand-in, I’m not happy with it. So I’m going to keep fishing around for one that fits him.)
Hi everyone! I noticed there are a few new people this morning.
Just wanted to warn y’all that The Phoenix Knight is getting a major rewrite done to it. The next time I update the demo it’s going to be almost completely different. I’m expanding the prologue and stream-lining the first chapter because the current version has some continuity issues going for it that make it easier to just redo it entirely. And that gives me a chance to expand the introductions with the other characters to reflect them a bit better and to let you get to know them and develop your character little more before we hit actual-plot-territory on Camelot Station.
Code Name: Oracle (or “Detective Delphi”, depending on the day since I haven’t settled on a title) is my other IF project. No demo has been released for it yet, I haven’t even written a respectable introduction post for it. ^^’‘ But it’s the one currently getting more of my attention since I’m writing the prologue and working on getting a more solid feeling for the cast of characters.
Both projects are moving very, very slowly because a lot’s happened in my life the last few months (or more accurately this entire year) and most my focus has been on doing what I need to to take care of myself while handling the various crises that have cropped up. So updates on either will be on the slow side.
Features: Callum Lindsey, Victoria Aragon, Warren Hughes
Just a quick quiet moment for the team I was playing with to get an idea of their dynamics with one another. (Side Note: I haven’t totally settled on the names for the characters in Oracle yet so those might change later on still.)
“Fuck,” Cal’s soft curse breaks the semi-quiet that had fallen on the room, semi because Tori had put one of her baking competitions on to watch in the background.
“What’s wrong?” Warren asks.
As far as they were aware, Cal had been sitting on the couch playing some retro video game that one of the others had lent him while Tori’d taken over the other table at the back of the room to do the weapons maintenance for the entire team.
“I’m down to my last life,” Cal groans dramatically. “And I can’t get past this level – the knight is going to die, forgotten, broken at the bottom of a canyon filled with pixel dragons and griffins and his lady love will go un-rescued, turned forever to stone by the evil sorcerer. And darkness shall rule the kingdom forever more.”
Tori gets up to throw herself on the couch next to him, “Give it.”
“He won’t learn if you do it for him,” Warren comments – smiling faintly at their papers as Tori flips them the bird in response.
“What?”
“Give it here,” she wriggles her fingers at the handheld game in a classic ‘grabby-hands’ motion.
“Wait, really?”
“Your sad-puppy look is too much for me. Now, gives it.”
“Awesome,” he beams, handing over the device and leaning close to watch as the music for the level starts up again. “Wait – that’s how you do that?”
“Mhmm,” Tori grins as the tinny noise of triumph signals that Cal’s knight has reached the summit of the level. “Here you go. Next level’s all yours.”
“Tori – you are a video game goddess,” Cal declares. “You are the best team mate ever!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it,” Tori pokes him in the ribs before going back to the table and her alarmingly large collection of weapons. “Seriously, I got a reputation to maintain.”
