Secunda - Book of Tizian (Early Alpha)
A downloadable novella for Windows
There is "Book of Tizian", a personal route of "Secunda", the visual novel in dark fantasy setting where you play as a warlock of desires, an lord of the northern coven. This series in development is a story telled by a villain, a dark lord of islands of the mist, telled in gothic, flowery language of inner deception and corruption of your hero.
As the project is on the earliest of possible stages of the developing it is builded in need and delight of your view - it also starts a call to rebuild the Story of the North, an starting point of the series as among the time and differences of such it can bloom in different story, with different, mature and more complicated, tones and shades and designs of the world.
In the world of the fallen empire of black magic and forbidden cults, a violent, black soul of a thousand-headed snake flourishes - the heir of an ancient family was born in a house of malicious and gloomy, where the lands of winter last for years and nights - for months. Here the stream of consciousness and sensuality opens from a restless and passionate soul, and its mind is formed along with the growth of the nature of their master within - and with them vice and perversion consume their allies, home and lovers.
Your heart and love are immeasurable - protect your coven from an ill will, fill their cup to the brim and continue to fight for power and omnipotence in the name of the black hand - know the darkest creatures of your world and build alliances that will shake the archipelago.
In this book we propose you to see and build a story of the corruption - and of the divine domain, as the Tizian is an undead sorcerer along with whom your character, posessed warlock, may build the empire of the ominous lord and his devilish soulmate.
The story is written from the perspective of an unreliable storyteller, and, despite the fact that their feelings and heartfelt experiences are given the lion's share of attention, the romance does not stand in the main place - the main character can burn with passion both for each of the interests or not succumb to anyone, delving only into the warmth of his own family, care for a prosperous future and in ourselves - knowing the passion of the black and all-devouring nature, the Archon is an ache that cannot be fullfiled, a road without end.
Both of our projects are waiting your review - and each of them welcomes you warmly and wholeheartedly in our blog, where we make all amends, and discussions, and share delight of your company in any of the ways that you may find suitable: AukaneMin.tumblr.com
You may also freely download and see the "Story of the North", first part of the story that is also going to be reforged on itch.io: aukanemin.itch.io/secunda
I believe that each meeting is an start of something beautifull - any of your interest in world, or characters, or story - past and new, or craft and building of the project, of discussions and shared creating are precious and treasured in deepest, fullest of all ways<з
Download
Install instructions
1. Follow the link and download the archive.
2. Unzip the game files into any suitable directory.
3. Run the novel through the .exe file.
To exit to the menu, click on the ST monogram.
Development log
- ~Book of Tizian was released as early alpha!~May 21, 2022
Comments
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Are we not able to pick our gender anymore?
Hii! This is a bit of a complex question o---o
In both books, the gender of the main character has no bearing on playthroughs. The Archon is always referred to as "they" and only by a neutral title, and the answer to the gender at the beginning of the game only matters for that single scene exclusively (with the special consideration that it is about the birth of the archon and throughout the story it is implied that their gender, and any fact of self-identification is fluid).
In part, the inclusion of gender could have made the scenes feel more personal and immersive, but on the other hand, it also cuts down on the character and gameplay of the romance in this open, fluid form. The Secunda is androgynous, genderfluid and queer by default, and we try to leave out details in the story that could not be interpreted otherwise later. Still, any of your original character can be of any gender or presentation, this is an artistic interpretation for personal use and desire of everyone, all together and separately<з
it makes things quite confusing. not to mention there aren't really any visuals to show us what's going on and the translation isn't easy to understand so tbh I don't really know whats going on at all :/ wasn't the route supposed to start where the common route left off?? idek who my character is anymore
At the moment this short alpha includes two scenes and uses three of the five prepared backgrounds, a sprite of one character - and a number of details as the story progresses, which, when read, make the image quite dynamic (to the point that we tried to make each text screen contain a new element).
Other reworked sprites, backgrounds and reasoning were posted on our blog, but the alpha was posted a little earlier due to the difficult situation with the developer (we live in eastern Ukraine and, taking into account a number of difficulties, we decided that it was better to post the raw version than not to post it later at all).
The "Book of Tizian" comes immediately after the end of the "Story of the North", as was originally intended for the root. A brief description of the plot of the last book is contained in the prologue, and its beginning is comparable, like all other routes, with the meeting of the Archon and Tizian in the ruins of old Saugunt. The discrepancy is that if in the first book the scene ends with Titian recognizing his soul mate in the hidden mask of the Archon, and this does not happen in his personal route and he suffocates them. There are three scenes in the new book - a prologue, a scene where the Archon loses consciousness, and their vision of their current and future, bestowed by Cybelle. Everything about this place is pretty arthouse o///o
I would like to think that the point is not in translation, but in the style of narration in general - speaking shortly, this is a stream of consciousness and a weighty centering goes to the unreliability of the narrator (the main character is a possessed undead, their psyche and formulations are different from human ones and all their perception and interpretation is built on a very overflowing and flowery speech, rich in primordial and achthonic colors).
The Archon is a complex character, even by the standards of Secunda as a whole, they are meant to be a delicious twist on playing a dark fantasy, arch-historical villain. They cannot be described in one single, concretized way that could be applied to every scene and every route, their nature is fluid and full of different tones. The prism of their reality is the main weight both in the narrative and in history as a whole, and to simplify the construction of their characterization, reducing it to archetypal and easily described concepts, would be harmful to the book, in general and in particular. The Archon is conceived as a character who will constantly ask questions about their identity, gender and natural, about their personal and surrounding motives, about the structure of their thinking and inner world, and, in addition, about the reality and order of situations that they find themselves in, too o----o