Hey, folks. Chief here with the weekly update. No dramatic or interesting intro this week, I’m not doing so well. Health, the weakness of man. Just like a crazy dancing red dot is the weakness of Fuzz now that I bought a cheap little laser pointer. I don’t know what red dots did to him as a wee kitten, but he will try to maul it with unseen ferocity. Anyway, on to the update.
Wordcount: 5,220 (Most of the writing this week was focused on the core story, aka the non-investigation/non-romance sections. The reason for this is to get the script properly set for the voice acting, which auditions have just started. Read below!)
Backers at the physical item level update: Everything is in! …except for the wall scroll shipping tubes. Curse you winter storms! Shipping will be started next week by my lovely assistant Figerit. Zuri’s has to be my favorite of the group.
Voice acting update: Voice acting auditions have been started! Sakura Hughes has joined us as VA director, so no crazy attempts of Komi tring to figure out which end of the microphone is which. There are going to be two different casting calls. The first one (this one) is for the characters with the most lines in the core path. That means it will be Natalie, Nàme, Zuri, Kika, Sol, and Anton. The rest of the cast will be done in a later casting call. If you are interested in auditioning for these roles or know someone who is, more information can be found at…
Music update: Music is coming along nicely. As a part of today’s update, a small snip-it of one of our mystery tunes by Terranivium is available for you to enjoy!
Since it seems like I’m always up on the stage singing and dancing for everyone, let’s take a moment for an update from the other writer on the team, rellimkram!
I shall share a bit about Eve Auroch, one of the characters I’m responsible for writing and developing for Fates. While I’ve worked on her, especially at the beginning, I got to write a bit of the lore for the RA universe as well, as Eve’s race, the minotaurs, haven’t really been expanded on much (even in Chief’s hidden stash of writings, it seems). As such, I’ll talk a bit about them as well.
If you haven’t seen her yet, her sprite was shown in Weekly Update #14. Minotaurs are a nomadic people, wanderers that only settle down when forced to by something. For Eve’s band (groups of minotaurs are called bands. Racists call them herds, though), the cause was the inability to continue supporting themselves, as the war between the Directorship and the Empire made trade more difficult, especially for those with no clear allegiance. With their ability to obtain the necessities for constant travel crippled, they settled down and tried to make a livelihood for themselves. Unfortunately, minotaurs aren’t always well liked by other races, especially humans, which is rather ironic, seeing as the all female race of minotaurs require other species to continue to reproduce. The distrust and general disapproval, even hatred, shown to Eve’s band made life for them quite difficult, especially for the young Eve, who was only four at the time. Other children avoided her, and the adults did so as well for the most part, with most of their interactions with her being to tell her to stay away from their children. Skipping over details (don’t want to spoil too much), the loneliness of her childhood drove Eve to seek acceptance, which she chose to find in trying to make herself indispensable to society, namely a doctor (her profession was also revealed in the update). After a rather emotional series of events (which I plan to reveal during Fates somehow), she found herself caring for everyone’s favorite lupide, Faye.
Eve’s interactions with the cast of Fates is largely still undetermined at this point, but I can say for sure that she will be tied to Faye’s fate in some way or another. Basically, if Faye gets killed for some reason, Eve may chose to leave the group, as she will no longer have an obligation to stay, and if Faye’s condition worsens, Eve will likely recede to the sidelines, her efforts being focused on keeping her patient alive rather than interacting with the others. Now, don’t let those things discourage you, as Eve may still prove at least moderately significant, as Chief has told me that some romancing with Eve is something I’m allowed to write (though I still haven’t really worked out how I’m going to do that yet). I might take suggestions (or at least indirect influence) from you all as I write her part of the story, and maybe I’ll reveal something about an old acquaintance of hers that will more likely than not also make an appearance in Fates, an elf by the name of Sovran.
Okay, Chief back. I’m gonna take a moment to do an inclusion to this since the question was asked before. There are other relationships that can happen in Fates. Natalie is not the only person who has a chance of finding love while the universe explodes around them. However, Natalie (and you as the player) do have the chance to either help it along or completely ruin it. It’s not a full matchmaking game, but there are some characters who can get close.
As many of you were curious to why we were really late with today’s update, the reason was to let the voting end on the Raltin Ship name contest. It was a really, really, really close contest, but the winner has been decided… it is… me discovering I set the time wrong. You have until 7AM EST tomorrow to get your votes in. It’s currently a dead even tie between Ardent Flare and Darklight.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned. Chief out!