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Reference Sheet

For my own ease of use, I'm compiling all of the infographics about the main five Redspring has posted so far into one place, and I've decided to share.

Character Bios

Relationship Charts

Character Bios pt 2/Monster Silhouettes

Flowers

Character Lore

Stat Charts

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Ugh, was having a great time mocking my recently imprisoned rival when I noticed the camera positioning makes it so that I appear behind the bars, thus framing me as trapped in a metaphorical prison of the narrative, now my whole day is ruined. Fuck.

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I keep seeing all the Leander theories, about what he is, and I understand the appeal of them, but I cannot overstate how much I hope all of you are wrong.

I desperately want Leander to be the human he appears to be. He is just some guy, a regular dude, there should be nothing inherently horrifying about his nature.

But his choices. He should be making choice, after choice, after choice. And that should be the reasons monsters look at him and say, "that is not a good man."

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Fantasy Guide to Ambassadors

How do different kingdoms negotiate when there aren't any phones or Microsoft Teams available? How can one government let another government how they feel? How can one monarch deliver an insult or compliment to another? Ambassadors, of course.

The Role of Ambassadors

Ambassadors are representatives of a government or monarchy who live in another country and communicates with their host nation on behalf of their own country. Ambassadors are there to make sure that their country's needs are met and that their host nation remains a friend - or at least they are there to remind the host nation of why it's a good idea to be friends.

Ambassadors tend to act as eyes and ears of their government/monarch, reporting back on all the goings on in the country they have been assigned. They can tell their boss the local tea, what the political climate of their host nation, who meets with the head of state and who doesn't. The Ambassador is there to pass on messages from their master and receive messages directly from the opposing head of state.

How to Ambassador Successfully & Not Start a War

The Ambassador must at all times be respectful toward their host nation. They must abide by their customs, behave themselves, act always in a professional manner and guard the information they handle with care and their lives. Ambassadors are welcomed into the country with a private audience with the head of state, wherein their references are accepted and their role is formally acknowledged. After this, they may only approach the government or monarch by appointment or after being summoned. Their boss would communicate their wishes and words to them and it would be up to the Ambassador to pass these things along, albeit more skillfully and more diplomatically.

The Perks of Being an Ambassador

Ambassadors can live at an official residence called an embassy like today or they can reside at court. They can take their families with them if they choose and are usually paid to establish a good sized household. Ambassadors are usually rewarded with honours and titles, if they are successful in their post or after a long posting. Ambassadors can also be awarded orders and honours by their host, along with places of honour for their family if they reside within them.

Ambassadors are usually welcomed and treated with great respect (if their country is an enemy, they are still treated well in hopes that things don't esculate). Ambassadors are invited to most important gatherings, included in the celebrations at court and spend much of their time at society events (i.e. intelligence gathering). Ambassadors can also get rich on their work, they could sell out their country's secrets to their host nation or even accept bribes to pass on false information to the boss.

The Downsides of Being an Ambassador

Ambassadors do have to leave their homeland for their job, this can mean a long posting away from family and from their own people. Ambassadors can be blamed for rifts or bungled international relations. They may even be accused of taking bribes or being corrupted. Ambassadors could also face being spied on, particularly in a nation that is hostile to their nation. Ambassadors can also be the target of violence from their country's enemies or the focus of emnity by the host nation itself. Very often in times of war of political turmoil, an Ambassador can be expelled from the country. When you're the symbol of a nation and you're in reach of enemies, you are in considerable danger (though it's not recommended to kill an ambassador, it's sort of against the rules).

Who can be an Ambassador?

Ambassadors are usually found amongst the nobility or within government. They are usually chosen by:

Pedigree: The better kind of person you send would mean a bigger compliment to the people the country want to make an ally. Sending a Duke would be a great compliment while sending a simple government official might be seen as an insult. To offer somebody high-ranking is to signal you trust the nation.

Skills: Communication skills are key. Knowledge of the languages and customs of the nation are required. Any ability for espionage, good social skills and a likeabilty would be recommended too.

Political Affiliation: Ambassadors are mouthpieces for their masters. It is generally smart to chose somebody who shares or endorses your view on politics. For example, you wouldn't send an Ambassador hungry for war to a nation you want to make peace with.

Loyalty and Uncorruptability: If you're picking somebody to speak for you and handle very sensitive information, you will chose somebody loyal to you and somebody you trust not to be led astray by the other nation or spies.

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I like the title Twitter ppl gave him :33

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A list of potential cures for the Calling, that we know about, that BioWare has apparently forgotten

Andraste's grace: it's not specified whether the flower the kennelmaster has you pick in the Korcari Wilds is Andraste's grace or if the game just needed a one-off asset and decided to reuse one they already had. However, in the dark future in DAI, Leliana is found to have unusual tolerance for the taint, and in DAO she talks about her mother pressing her laundry with dried Andraste's grace flowers, so it makes you wonder. Anyway, the flower stops Barkspawn becoming a ghoul and seems to make them immune to the taint from that point on.

Maric's longsword: he finds it in the Deep Roads and is suprised it isn't covered in the same Blight-rot as everything else - until, that is, he touches the sword to a patch of it and sees it wither away. Whether it's the dragonbone the sword is made of or the runes on the blade is difficult to say, though if it was just the dragonbone then it would make sense for that to be a more well-known property of the material (and would have been an interesting reason for why dragons were hunted to extinction). If Alistair carries it with him, doesit slow the progession of the taint through his body? Does he know its effects, and give it to the HoF to help keep them safer on their journey to find a permanent cure?

That obsidian dagger Duncan finds in The Calling: the dagger belonged to First Enchanter Remille - who also gave the expedition members brooches that accelerated the spread of the taint. iirc the both the dagger and the brooches are made by the Architect with Blight magic, which means the darkspawn magisters have more knowledge of how the Blight works than the Chantry attributes to them.

Whatever the fuck is going on with Avernus: he hasn't managed to cure himself yet, but he's managed to make it to 200 and the Warden can let him continue his experiments if they don't kill him - and he'd be a really useful resource if the Warden later wanted to send him other potential cures for testing.

Dragons: they have an ability to isolate the Blight in their bodies by forming crystaline cysts around the initial infection to stop it spreading. Useful if it can be more widely applied. Also, it's implied that Maric's reaver blood, which Calenhad gained by mixing his blood with a dragon's, is what somehow cured Fiona of the taint, kinda like a reverse STI, BUT in the Deep Roads they went through an area where the walls were coated in a pale, chalky substance suspiciously devoid of Blight-rot and she touched it, so I'm a bit suspicious of that.

Blood magic: makes sense since the taint is a problem that starts with infected blood. There are two major instances in DA canon where blood magic has been used to purge the taint from an object or being (both by elves btw). The first is Isseya using it to draw the taint out of a clutch of unhatched griffon eggs, which she says is only possible because the taint hasn't yet taken over the hatchlings' bodies to the same extent that it had with the adult griffons. The second instance is Merrill purging the Blighted eluvian in DA2. It's insane that Anders - who is a reluctant Warden and who possibly knows the HoF seeks a cure - isn't more excited about this. She literally removed the Blight from a fully tainted object. Since Isseya proved the same can be done with living tissue, it's probably the closest we've come to an actual cure, but since it also took years there's no telling if it could be a practicaly solution for all Wardens

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I wanted to be with you, of course.

I thought that might be the case. I'm glad.

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Return to the Shadows.

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PSA: Tumblr/Wordpress is preparing to start selling our user data to Midjourney and OpenAI.

you have to MANUALLY opt out of it as well.

to opt out on desktop, click your blog ➡️ blog settings ➡️ scroll til you see visibility options and it’ll be the last option to toggle.

to opt out on mobile, click your blog ➡️ scroll then click visibility ➡️ toggle opt out option.

if you’ve already opted out of showing up in google searches, it’s preselected for you. but you also have to opt out for each blog you own separately, so if you’d like to prevent AI scraping your blog i’d really recommend taking the time to opt out. (source)

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im busy with an art trade but wanted 2 share some recent scraps of charlie. i haven't posted abt her in years oh my god

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think it’s obvious who my favorite is (mhin SO fine)

also tried to flesh out my MC a little more! They are called Samala (she/they) and are from the alchemist background :)

*!note that neither of these depictions are meant to be religious!*

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DnD spells in Touchstarved Demo

After my post about the LI's classes, I wanted to make one with the spells used in the demo. Have fun reading it!

I'm not sure that at the beginning of the game, MC just passed out and lost their arms or actually died. In the former case, Kuras could use Regenerate (7th level spell) to restore the arms. If the latter, he used Resurrection (7th level spell) Well, only if it took him some time to find MC. Which is more than possible, but if some miracle happened and he found them within a minute, he could just use Revivify (3rd level spell).

Leander's famous shiny flowers are probably just Minor Illusions (cantrip). He tells the Bloodhounds that this was the last time he did it, indicating he performed this trick several times that day. Cantrips can be cast without using a spell slot, so Leander could use minor illusions as many times as he wanted. (Actually, Minor Illusions can't cast light but I'd totally allowed it. Either this or he used Dancing Lights (cantrip), but instead of glowing orbs the lights appeared in the form of flowers.)

When MC leaves the Wet Wick they feel a shadow passing over them. Vere could use Pass without Trace (2nd level spell) which causes a veil of shadows and silence to radiate from the caster. Creatures in the shadows can only be tracked by magic. (It also gives a +10 bonus to Stealth checks, so guess who has the key to MC's room now)

In front of the Senobium MC hears a whisper really close, then spots the Seaspring woman standing down the staircase. The woman probably used Message (cantrip). It has a range of 120 ft and only the creature affected by the spell can hear the whispered message.

After they said goodbye, the woman calls MC by their name. She could use Detect Thoughts (2nd level spell), which helped her learn MC's surface thoughts. (Well, not so sure about this. Is someone's name a surface thought? Do you constantly think about your name?)

When MC meets Ais, they see massive tentacle-like shapes around the wooden beams. There sure is a spell called Black Tentacles (4th level spell), but later MC finds out Ais just wanted to be intimidating, because scared people tend to be more honest. Well, to scare someone, it's enough to use some kind of an illusion. He could either use Silent Image (1st level spell) or Major Image (3rd level spell). Depends on if the tentacles were accompanied by voices. I think they were not, but I don't really remember.

Later in the Wet Wick Leander has a pair of shot glasses in his hand. For a finishing touch, he could use Shape Water (cantrip) to freeze the contents of the glasses.

In the Secret Ending, Vere asks MC to move somewhere quieter. If you choose to surrender, MC says that surrending is the easiest thing they've ever done. I like to think it was because of Vere casting Fast Friends (3rd level spell). Unlike Charm Person (1st level spell), using Fast Friends has another effect: While the creature is charmed, it undertakes to perform any services or activities the caster ask of it in a friendly manner. (Vere sure asked MC nicely!)

That's all for now! I know it was just a demo, so the list of spells shouldn't be too long, but I feel like I forgot about some.

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I realized something about the Touchstarved mc. A lot of people have said they think it's goofy or overly edgy that they wear bandages rather than gloves because "yeah obviously gloves would be safer and less conspicuous", but for one I don't think wearing elbow length gloves 24/7 is as incognito as y'all might think. Second I think reason they actually wear is because they want it to seem like they have wounds like severe burns or something similar because then people are less likely to even try to touch them. If you're wearing gloves someone may still try to grab your hand or if you're purchasing something they may try to give you the money directly, where as if they think your hands are wounded or sensitive they'll avoid it even if necessary (like Ais catching them around their waist in the Seaspring) or placing things on tables rather than passing it directly. It seems like the kind of thing the team would use for sublet story telling, maybe we'll even get a scene of one of the love interests asking about it and this will the MC's answer. Idk what do y'all think?

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The silhouettes of what i assume to be their monster forms 🤭 first are ss from the animated intro. Kuras’s is absolutely nez’s work though holy shit 10/10

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I did all three backstories for Touchstarved (I have 12 hours on this thing and it's only the demo)

Kuras and Vere don't seem to have red options, but Vere does have a secret ending and Kuras... I don't know, holds you for a bit longer?

For Mhin, it really is just picking The Alchemist backstory. You can call them short or whatever and you'll still get it.

For Leander, you have to take the flowers and keep touching him. It's okay if you hold back the first time even.

For Ais, you gotta tell him fuck you and pet the soulless, and after that red option pretty much all yours.

Differences I found between the three backstories:

It is pretty much like how they tell you, Oracle gets premonitions, Hound has experience with people and survival, and Alchemist has knowledge about magic and science, so there's different things you find out with each one.

The Alchemist:

I may be a little bit biased, but think The Alchemist is the most informative (It's also the first one I picked). There's the expected info of noticing that Vere's collar is enchanted, or knowing about how strong Leander really is when it comes to magic, but it's got the added bonus of MC's mentor having been in the Senobium in the past.

Compared to the others, The Alchemist is more familiar with Senobium, albeit through word of mouth. It's interesting how many times the MC says something similar to "I didn't know the Senobium did that." It calls into question whether MC's teacher was lying, or more interestingly (and what I think might be the case), the Senobium has changed a lot recently. It's talked about, even without the Alchemist backstory, that the Senobium used to be somewhere you could go to for help, but now most of the characters you meet do not like the Senobium, so what changed?

The Hound:

The Hound (the least popular option, apparently) was pretty fun. The Hound notices more about Ais, specifically that he's very suited to be a leader, and that the number of scars he has (one) seems suspicious for his temperament (or "how seasoned he acts", as the MC puts it).

One thing that I found very fun was doing Mhin's route as the Hound. They're somewhat able to keep up! They can (or tried to) recognize tells, and noted that Mhin was one of the few people who was able to sneak up on them. They also weren't sure how Vere managed to get their key. They were also prepared to steal to survive.

The Oracle:

While The Hound notices physical things, the Oracle notices... how do you say, otherworldly things. The Seaspring seems to be hiding a lot (of course it is), but the MC notices a heartbeat. A presence. They feel something from Ais. The name Ocudeus means something, they can feel it. They feel like they can see Ais' tattoo move.

Also, the MC feels something from Mhin and Kuras (in his clinic at least), which is interesting!

If I had to decide which love interest was better with which backstory...

Vere: The fact that the Alchemist thought that they could tell what enchantments were on his collar if only they could touch it feels promising! And both their connections (though I mean connection in the loosest term for MC here) to the Senobium makes it feel like you might very well find something.

The Hound might be one of the few who can actually survive this guy if I'm gonna be honest. (I mean you can still get killed by him but. You know.)

Ais: The Oracle's sixth sense makes going to the Seaspring a lot more interesting compared to the others, and the way they can feel something from Ais is very cool.

The Hound can tell his character better than the others, and I wonder how that will come into play later on.

Kuras: The Alchemist knows their way around spell-crafting and alchemy (When I picked this I wondered if they would be able to help Kuras around the clinic, which doesn't happen, but hey it might).

The Oracle seems to also feel something from him.

Mhin: First things first, their red option literally requires you to have the Alchemist backstory. Mhin's precision is noticed by the other MCs sure, but not to that detail.

Watching the Hound observe where they could be was so fun to watch. It feels like this MC will be able to keep up.

The Oracle feels something from Mhin, something inhuman.

Leander: The Alchemist was able to tell that the flash of magic was a barrier spell, and that most magic (or at least the ones they're familiar with) uses an incantation or spell circle. His didn't.

But either way, there will be things to find no matter the backstory you choose, and all of the character's stories are intertwined, so don't let this dissuade you from a specific backstory! There will always be things to find, you just need to look.

Extra: I found it pretty cool how each MC has a different way of knowing what a Groupmind is. Story-wise this makes sense of course, but each of their reactions to it are slightly different, from I heard this from rumours of people in cults (Hound), to I used to be told I could put people in a groupmind (Oracle), to legends suggest it was possible with a strong enough catalyst but it's never been done before (Alchemist).

Also, it's interesting to know what they each think of surroundings (specifically the Amaryllis district). They all have different opinions from I used to be told bizarre things about this place and now I kinda get it (Alchemist), to it's not that different from the place I grew up in (Hound), to it's VERY different from where I grew up in (Oracle).

And if I'm not mistaken, the reason Vere gives for your desperation is different for all of them!

You can find gameplay from me on my Youtube channel, or watch me getting all the red options and secret ending here:

I didn't read it out loud cause my mic sorta sucks and sometimes it peaks and gets a bit shrill. Also you see how my mouse moves sometimes? It means I'm screaming. I don't think I'd have been able to keep calm enough for this. Also my reading kinda sucks anyway hope you like it lol