Author Answers (June) (Patreon)

General

how willing would the ro’s be to watch David Attenborough documentaries with their so?

Blade: he'd be happy to watch David Attenborough documentaries with his SO, but then I think he'd be happy doing anything with them, particularly solitary, quiet, calm activities like this! I think he'd quietly be fascinated by a lot of things in nature, though he'd probably be more interested in things to do with animals than in things like plants or fungi!

Trouble: I think he'd be happy to watch them in theory, but it's a toss-up on whether he'd be riveted by the gnarly predator chases or what have you or if he'd just immediately pass out and be snoring on the couch 30 minutes in! I think it depends both on the mood of the night as well as the subject matter!

Tallys: this would be exquisite for her and would be absolutely one of her favorite things to do with MC in a modern AU! Just curling up on the couch and watching nature documentaries together sounds like heaven for her, regardless of what they're about!

Shery: I think she'd enjoy doing this for sure, but she wouldn't be avidly like "can we watch another??" or wanting to make it a weekly thing after getting through the Planet Earth series or something like that! But she'd enjoy it in the meantime for sure, even if she would find the cute little animals getting eaten by hawks or the inevitable "this is what happens because of climate change" plugs a bit depressing!

Riel: he'd enjoy this a lot, but not as a constant/regular thing, more like something to do every once in a while or as a special treat. He'd most likely have it on in the background while he was working (he can pay attention just as well while multitasking) but he could also give it his sole focus if that was what his SO wanted to do! He'd get a lot of inspiration out of observing animal behaviors and ecosystems, I'm sure!

Chase: uhh I think you'd have to sell him on this one a little bit, he's not really the "sitting still" type to begin with but he's game to try anything once! I think he would ultimately enjoy the experience if you could upsell it to him a little bit and point out how absolutely metal some of that shit is, but he wouldn't be all gungho to do it again like suggesting it himself in the future! But he'd be game!

Red: I think he'd be so excited by this proposition that he'd probably end up making out with his partner before the documentary started, this is like his idea of a perfect date 😭

Ayla: I think she's on the Chase side of things, where if you market it to her like "dude do you want to watch some hawks tear the absolute shit out of the sky? have you ever seen a fish that can create works of art??" she'd be intrigued and excited to watch, but it's not the very first thing she'd suggest on a date night or during an afternoon of free time! She'd enjoy the experience but she wouldn't avidly need to do it again right after!

Briony: she'd enjoy this a lot, she loves learning and she loves animals and she'd probably adore Sir A., so she'd be enthusiastic about this and would be down to make it a regular tradition!

Lavinet: sure, she'll do it, but only if she gets to pick the next documentary (which will probably be something like true crime or fashion-based or something like that). In other words, she'll politely enjoy it and treat it as a learning experience, but it's clear it's something for you rather than something she'd choose to do if she were by herself!

We know Blade has a lot of hidden weapons in his room. Would he rearrange his hidden weapons if a romanced!MC moves in with him? What would he do if the romanced!MC ever accidentally hurt herself with one of his hidden weapons?

He does in fact rearrange his hidden weapons if romanced!MC moves in with him, and even tells her about the majority of them and where they're hidden in case she ever needs them to defend herself while he's not there! The thing about Blade is that he's extremely good at figuring out how to hide weapons so that there's 0 chance of being hurt by one unintentionally (weapon safety is drilled into the Khehi Ket as part of their training--otherwise you're going to have a lot of kids stumbling on/hurting themselves on like concealed katanas and shit lol) so the chances of MC hurting herself are pretty much next to impossible. But if that were to somehow happen, he'd feel horrible and would drastically reduce the number of weapons in his room so that it wouldn't happen again! (...But he still wouldn't get rid of all of them LOL.)

I hope that you are having a lovely summer Lena! Apologies if this has been asked before, but what approach would the ROs (deeper in romance) take if the MC suffered a head trauma and as a result suffered significant amnesia to the point they did not remember the RO or their relationship? Would some do everything they could right away to try and make MC remember right away? Would others give more space and take a slower approach to try and make MC fall in love with them again more organically? Let's also assume MC's personality has remained the same and that most long term memories have remained intact, but everything from the time they have joined the Shepards has been erased. Really curious about how each would approach a situation like this!

Hi Jonathan, thanks so much for your well wishes, I hope you're having a lovely summer as well! There's actually an #amnesia tag over here, and here's the specific post about how the ROs would act if MC suffered amnesia and forgot about them: hopefully that suffices!

Hello!! I'm new here, so I'm not too sure whether this question has been asked before, but my beauty/skincare loving self needs to know: What does the average hygiene/skincare regimen look like in Blest? What kinds of products/treatments do different social classes have access to? A similar question regarding cosmetics: What kind of cosmetics do people have access to? I remember Briony mentioning something about maquillage during the Lockwood mission; are cosmetics something almost exclusively used by the upper classes or is it more accessible to the general populace (and there are just different grades of it, like today!). How do different sectors of society view the practice of using make-up/cosmetics? Are there different beauty standards? Different cultural associations around the usage of cosmetics?   Sorry about the long question, please don't feel pressured to answer every single one and give out a really detailed answer! I'd be perfectly pleased with just a very general sketch. Thank you so much!!

Hi there, I talked in a bit of detail about maquillage (makeup) here! (And in case you're curious, the equivalent of each RO's skincare routine here!) I would say that wearing no makeup is more common than wearing it, at least among the everyday working class; if a "commoner" were to wear any kind of makeup, it would likely be a touch of kohl to darken the eyelashes and a touch of color on the lips, cheeks, and tip of the nose, with an emphasis on achieving a dewy, light, fresh, youthful look rather than a really dramatic, heavy, or "glam" makeup style. (I guess if we're going by the makeup archetypes as I understand them, it would be like "natural," "nude," or "ingenue" makeup.) The goal would generally be that someone couldn't tell that you were wearing makeup (among that specific class), because it's such a luxury purchase that people could easily read into you wearing it as a really obvious desire to impress them (or that you're obviously in love with them). And no one really wants that assumption being made, so makeup (or "spectacle") is generally used more as an undetectable way to enhance beauty rather than as a fashion statement on its own, if that makes any sense? Again, this is only among the commoner class!

Of course, among the bourgeoise, wealthy merchant class, and aristocracy, it's the complete opposite, where wearing maquillage every day is the standard and just as noticeable as one's choice of outfit, but I go into that a bit more in the post I linked above! It would be extremely unusual to see Lavinet without makeup unless you were literally rousing her from her bed in the middle of the night, she was in a mourning period (and would be veiled in that case anyway), or you were a close family member such as a sibling or a parent. It should be noted that wearing maquillage is equally common between all genders within the aristocracy; men like Auberon are as prone to wearing iridescent crushed pearl powder or gold dust on his cheekbones as a Lavinet would be, though lip paint is not as common with men as it is with women!

As for cosmetics/skincare, I would categorize them into a few different categories. The absolute baseline is that hygiene in Blest is more advanced than many grungier medieval fantasies and hovers around latter Victorian standards: everyone who can afford to put food on the table also uses soap and water to wash up (though the quality of soap differs depending on what socioeconomic class you belong to), plumbing and flowing water is fairly common and advanced enough that baths are regular, everyone brushes their teeth (though again, the quality of urban toothpastes versus homemade rural "tooth powders" varies), and et cetera. With that established, cosmetic and skincare products are add-ons on top of these hygienic routines, and are divided thus:

- Peasantry, rural farmers, and the poor: skincare/cosmetics/maquillage are such non-essentials that they basically don't exist or aren't accessible for the truly poor or rural. Soaps are harsh, plain astringents intended just for hygiene and cleanliness, and do not contain any additives or scents. Homemade toothpowders might involve households ingredients like salt, pulverized charcoal, cinnamon, and crushed mint.

- Common working class: Soaps most likely contain added crushed herbs, flowers, or scented oils to make you smell nice as well as clean. "Hair soap" (shampoo) and "body soap" might be distinct products in an upper-working class household, whereas they wouldn't be in poorer households. Most inns provide you with at least a wash basin if not a bathtub with plain, unscented soap as a standard. Because public bathhouses are extremely common, especially in cities, additional skincare beyond this is most likely achieved at a bathhouse: you can pay extra to have access to an herbal bath with added herbs, extracts, and essences for specific things like soft skin, glowing hair, increased vitality, etc. However, for the majority of people of this class, this would be something to save up for once a year, not something to partake in regularly. Owning cosmetic products of their own just for skincare (lotions, creams) is pretty much unheard of. Unless you're in a client-facing position like a shopkeeper who's desperate to sell things, a bar server who relies on tips, a courtesan, or a performer like a bard or tavern singer, wearing makeup every day isn't common, but things like kohl, blush, or "dew-powder" (a kind of brightener/highlighter) are also not so expensive that it wouldn't be unusual to have some tucked away for really special occasions. Like a Nessa (the barmaid at Trouble's favorite tavern) would have some kohl or blush on hand for a date with a serious suitor or a night out at the theater, but she wouldn't wear it every day at her job. Perfume and cologne are not really that common among the lower class, though cheaper varieties are sold. More common might be "scented" powders, which are basically like deodorant and tend to just absorb body odors rather than have a real scent of their own.

- Bourgeoise/wealthy merchant class: Perfumes and colognes are common. Hair oils and pomades to style one's hair are common. Wearing makeup everyday, at least for women, is fairly common: I would say half do, half don't, depending on wealth, status, age, and taste. Here is where it becomes more common to own actual cosmetic skincare products in the home: nightly hand creams, face creams, and eye creams, usually to soften the skin or reduce wrinkles, are most common, and poultices and potions to treat or conceal blemishes might be quietly purchased. Notably, a common marketing trick is to slap on the label of "Elvish-made" onto skincare products to make them sell like wildfire, because the Elves are known to appear ageless and have incredible skin as well as general heightened beauty. Unfortunately, most of the customers who buy these products aren't aware that Elves disdain products like these and would never use them (because they would never need to, not having to worry much about their appearance or aging)!

- Nobility/aristocracy: Perfumes and colognes are standard, as is wearing maquillage. Along with the skincare that the bourgeoise have access to in the tier below, the aristocrats take it to another level. Special baths for different skincare needs are had at least once a month: this might be a milk and honey situation to make the skin brighten and glow, rosewater baths to soften it, etc. Exfoliants or pumice stones might be used during the daily bathing routine. Several steps of hair products and only the finest-milled soaps are used during baths. Nightly mists to promote hair shine or growth or special serums/elixirs to reduce pore size or even promote eyelash growth are used (think toner + serum + moisturizer-type skincare plans). It's typical to wash your face once in the morning and then take a longer bath at night. Body lotion, in addition to hand creams, face creams, eye creams, and lip creams is more common. Their beauty routines tend to be really long, but not very involved, because servants are typically the ones applying all of these products for them!

Hope that's enough detail! :)

I was rereading the codex entry on the Tkaan and it has me wondering. How many sophont species/races call Blest and the surrounding islands home?

This is going to sound really cheap, but I actually have no idea! 🥲 I basically don't put an exact number on it to give myself room to add and subtract things as I like: the Tkaan were always kind of there, but every few years I go through a phase where I'm like, "Pixies are a thing!" and then "Pixies don't exist" and "Pixies exist but they're called something else, also they're probably mostly extinct!" "Never mind they're not a thing" or "Faeries are a thing!" and "nvm I guess they're just Asteriae" and "wait no they're their own thing!" Sooo long story short, I can't give a definitive number because I don't have one in my notes myself! Sorry about that, lol!

Welcome back! I’ve been looking at character backstory lately, so: What’s the state of weapons training like in Blest for the average person? Is there a formalized system (weapon-masters in towns, at the Circle, etc.) or do kids just have to hope they’re trained by whatever adults happen to be around?

Thank you!! And good question! The average person in Blest does not typically handle any weapons at all, so weapons training isn't really included as a part of most people's background or education. If you're a farm kid in a rural community, the most you're probably taught (if at all) is how to handle the ancient family rifle to ward off wolves or bandits, and that's typically just by your parents or an uncle or a neighbor. Of course, it depends on profession--the kids of foresters or hunters, of course, are usually taught archery and so on and so forth--and I'm not including Elves, Ket, or Hunters in this, because as you can probably surmise, their cultures go harder with the combat training than the average everyday citizen of Blest! City kids also aren't typically taught to handle weapons or given combat training unless they specifically go into a profession that will involve them, like joining the military, the Vice Guard, the Mercenaries Guild, and et cetera.

So most kids aren't given any weapon training at all, at least as a baseline standard. If they want it, they'd have to seek it out, and there are several avenues of how to do this. Among the most common would be to train under a specific battle-master: these are typically either retired veterans or prestigious specialists who open up their own schools or temples for people to train under them. You'd of course have to pay them in order to learn from them (though there are cases where they'll take on apprentices who interest them due to their potential), and they're also free to accept or reject whoever they like based on their own criteria. Battle-masters are pretty common, with multiple schools existing in and around large cities like Haven, and even rural towns typically have at least one battle-master known to reside somewhere within a few days' ride (though these can range from large official schools and temples to, like, just some fuckin dude who lives by himself in like a cave Obi-Wan-style). Depending on proximity, price, and the nature of the training, it might be feasible for a kid to attend regular schooling (or farmwork or what have you) during the day and train with their battle-master part of the week, on weekends, in the afternoons, or what have you, or if they're too far away, they might be sent off to live and train under the battle-master for a period of months or even years. There are also many different styles and kinds of battle-master schools: you might get an Elven master of sword-dancing who lives in a temple high up in the mountains and only accepts one apprentice at a time, you might get a Norm military-style school with a whole class of students who train together in a yard every morning, you might get a Ket battle-master who travels around and is only around for one season and is notoriously hard to impress, etc.

If you're a noble or an extremely wealthy merchant, it'd probably be more common to have your own arms master or master-of-arms who aready serves your estate or is hired specifically to come to your home and tutor you (this is what happened with Lavinet; the master of arms for the Naveens, who was already in charge of training their guards and private army, took a liking to her and included her in their training sessions as well as gave her private lessons).

If you're not able to get into (or afford) a battle-master's school or hire a weapons sergeant to teach you, there are always other ways: one is to contact the Mercenaries Guild to find a mercenary who'd be willing to teach you the basics, and typically this would be very cheap and quite easy to do, though it wouldn't be a very extensive education. And of course, you might end up picking something up as a result of your chosen profession: Caine learned a bit of how to handle a knife from 'van guards in the Kinley Traders, etc.

(Pretty much all Circles, in case you're curious, do offer some form of combat class or weapons training, not least because Battle-Mages need to learn it anyway.)

Last but not least, there are salles in every major city: these are like training halls or exercise facilities or gyms, but specifically only for the combat arts like fencing, dueling, and sparring. (Unarmed combat or boxing is basically something you can do for free on the street just by picking a guy and swinging, so these are typically not part of the repertoire of a salle: it's exclusively weapons-based.) Salles are typically run by instructors who may or may not be on the level of a battle-master; usually they're  just there to keep an eye on things and act as the authority to keep things civil, and members of salles tend to be upper-class because you have to pay to be a member there (not just anyone can typically walk in off the street unless invited, or they're a guest of a current member). There, you could practice your skills in basically any weapon imaginable, and the culture of the salle is that you typically start to recognize other members and become comfortable sparring and practicing with them. You can also take classes or lessons from instructors at a salle, so this is a good option to polish one's skills (but it's not typically as extensive as it would be for a beginner, because the assumption is that if you're paying to be a member of a salle, you've held a weapon before). Sometimes the children of lesser noble families in the city are sent to learn and train at salles in the afternoons or evenings, so they do have classes aimed at children there too!

Hope that all makes sense!

What is something the MC could do that would make the ROs swoon?

Blade: smile at him suddenly and sincerely when he's off-guard and not expecting it

Trouble: snipe someone from a stupid distance away

Tallys: make a heroic, rousing speech that rallies everyone's flagging spirits

Shery: do something kind, generous, and charitable for someone in need. Bonus points if it's a cute animal and you're rescuing it and talking to it softly in a calming voice 🥹

Riel: viciously peel apart someone's carefully thought-out strategy, whether it's in a chess match or a game of politics and wits. Bonus points if you do it while looking coldly unaffected by it all

Chase: catching MC in a completely natural, unconscious, unguarded moment of cuteness, like they're working away on something without noticing he's watching them and blowing a strand of hair out of their eyes and he's suddenly just like hrgggh so cute

Red: as we see in Chapter 7, act really smart around him or effortlessly solve a complex issue through intelligence and logic gfdlgd

Ayla: casually show off their physical strength, like nonchalantly heaving a man over their shoulder like it's nothing

Briony: she is not immune to the flashing of--whether flirtatiously or unconsciously--a little bit of tiddy, thigh, muscular forearms, or rippling abs 😭

Lavinet: MC staunchly and unabashedly coming to her defense in the face of some detractor (like if someone were subtly insulting her in conversation and MC immediately called it out). Also most chivalrous/gentlemanly manners if she senses it's coming from a place of sincerity!

Spoilers

Is Tallys the sole survivor of clan Ironwood?

Yes! 🥲

do the legendary weapons have any canon lore beyond their descriptions or is it up to headcanon?

They do have some canon history/lore, which is mostly described or implied by Chandry when you buy them: Clarion was forged in the North at the Eye of the World (that's my version only at the moment :D), the Thunderer was the first working prototype of a shotgun made by an inventor in the West (though it is no longer the only shotgun out there), the Warpwood Striker is Elvish in origin but does have a kind of spirit/spell inside of it to direct its arrows, and Whisper and Requiem did belong to a notorious assassin! And their powers, obviously, are as described in both Chandry's shop and in the game itself. But how they made it to Chandry's shop or their history in between the time they were created to the present day is sort of up in the air, so I haven't nailed any canonical timelines in that regard yet!

How widespread are personal depictions? Like is the camera invented or is it just painters and posing for portraits?  The kids in Ashtown didn't recognize a Commander MC so I'm assuming it's not quite so readily available. Though perhaps the kids don't really queue up to read the newspaper.  The thought of Blade having to sit still doing nothing for several hours for an official portrait is funny to me.

Hi there, as noted here, photography doesn't exist in Blest, so there aren't any photos, just a lot of painters and painting workshops! A lot of courts or noble houses usually have artists in residence who kind of hang around on retainer and paint stuff for you; if you're a commoner or a merchant, it's more common to visit an artist's workshop and pay to have a painting of you done there (if it's a workshop run by a master, you can even pay for a package where multiple apprentices paint you simultaneously so you can have copies), or to visit certain markets or squares around the city and have a street artist do a painting of you more casually (kind of like the artists in Montmartre in Paris). Ironically, a traveling artist does stay with the Shepherds for a while in the game, which is the story reason for why you can wind up unlocking portraits of your companions if you max out their relationships! There's even a group portrait you can keep in your room, one with your friends and one with your recruits... 🥹

Notably, there was a "photo-like" spell among Mages that allowed one to use existing pigments or paints and arrange/"print" them on a canvas according to the image in one's mind, but because you'd not only have to assemble the materials and canvas, learn this high-level spell, and had to have a level of artistic vision and extremely high degree of concentration, focus, and recall in order to do it, it didn't actually have the convenience of having a camera you could carry around and sort of fizzled out! It's more useful if you want to, like, make a sketch of a suspect that you're looking for, but again, because it produced extremely mixed results depending on the user, with some people producing photorealistic copies and others (whose attention wasn't as cohesive) producing nightmarish approximations, no one has really pursued it beyond that yet!

Hi Lena! 💙 I’ve been thinking about this for awhile once you said that post-torpedo, MC avoids Chase, so if it’s not TOO huge of a spoiler, what would Chase do in the event MC just like next day volunteered to take a mission that’s in a remote destination that left ASAP to get some distance from him and the situation for a bit?

Hi kingdom! 🥰 And I think on the surface, Chase would pretend like everything was fine or like he didn't even notice MC had been gone for a while (Trouble: "damn, MC's been gone for weeks!" Chase: "oh really? I didn't realize it's been that long" Trouble: 😒 yeah okay) and would sort of bravely act like it couldn't possibly have anything to do with their thing ending, it's just a coincidence, right, MC was always going to take that mission and it has nothing to do with him, nothing to feel bad about or dwell over! But inside I think he would just be like moaning pathetically and sort of crawling along half-dead and miserable. He'd probably not be able to sleep and would just be like tossing and turning and trying to keep himself ruthlessly occupied by overworking with a kind of feverish "everything is fine!!! i love doing things that don't allow me to think!!!" doggedly cheerful, smiling-with-gritted-teeth mania that people would probably have to intervene. Like I just imagine Chase waltzing in after a grueling mission and immediately cheerfully volunteering for the sixth consecutive night of guard duty in a row and then trying to walk out with like six people trying to drag him back like "STOP, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH YOU, YOU NEED TO SHUT YOUR EYES" and he's just like "NEVER HAHA!! :D" And Blade would eventually get annoyed and probably force him off-duty to just chill. Which would be an absolute catastrophe for him and would make things much worse!!! But luckily for Chase, he's so out of touch with his own inner feelings that he could carry on nice and chipper (if a little more subdued and in his own head and preoccupied to a friend's scrutiny) while slowly dying inside like an inchworm!

NSFW

#tellmeeverything - What's one thing that will make the characters go "no thoughts, head empty?" Doesn't matter if it's sfw or nsfw, just whatever makes their brain stop. (If it's even possible for some characters *looks at Riel*) Perhaps you could also include Halek, because I have to back of all the Halakmancers out there.  P.S. I hope your time off was lovely!

Thank you!!

Blade: the period of time immediately following sex

Trouble: oral sex. It just turns his brain to static. Also when he's mad and is about to start swinging LOL

Tallys: meditation or being out in nature by herself

Shery: any one of her comfort hobbies where she gets in the zone, like baking or crocheting

Riel: I'm gonna be real, I don't think anything ever makes his head completely empty lol. Maybe when he's at the opera and really lost in the music, but usually even then, he's admiring the skill level involved or thinking about something else!

Chase: honestly I think like a quarter of the time this is just his state of being, he's guided by impulse, instinct, and feeling alone, I often think he does things with no thoughts in his head at all 😔

Red: once he finds a treasure trove of rare artifacts or interesting magical ephemera, he's gone. Also, if we're going to be real, as a former playboy, this state of mind seemed to have been his guide when initially dating/pursuing people 😔

Ayla: food, especially when she's hungry LOL

Briony: boobs! also I think massages tend to make her mind go completely blank! she just emerges from them like coming out of a long period of unconsciousness. oh and also rage, especially when her friends are threatened!

Halek: when he has determined he is in want of a nap, his faculties drop drastically until his head is basically empty. So basically tiredness/exhaustion lol!

Lavinet: someone telling her she can't do something... her mind goes blank except for the all-consuming desire to prove them wrong