MC

Overall
Every seven years the seven kingdoms send their best and brightest young people to be their delegates at the Vail Isle Summit. A tradition where seven weeks are spent together to form friendships, alliances, and marriages. This year, however, things are different. Since the Great Peace, never have alliances been so close to collapse, the seven nations on the razor’s edge of war. What happens at this summit could very well determine the fate of the known world.

You are one of the delegates.

In this world of politics, intrigue, and danger will you find love? Make friends? Alliances? Or will you fail and be forced to watch as the world once again crumbles into destruction and despair?

It is your story and it is not yet written.

9 Unique Backgrounds
All roads end up with you as one of the attendees at the Vail Isle Summit, but the choices you make to define your history and character change who you can be when you grow up.

Here are the possible backgrounds:

The Daughter of a Notorious Pirate
One of the representatives from the island nation of Hise, your mother is the infamous pirate Blackthorn, who disappeared when you were still young. People from Hise tend to be more blunt and egalitarian than the other nations and your experiences have made you the same. Your father is a proper lord from Wellin who was kidnapped by your mother. His proper nature has so far kept you from captaining your mother’s ship on a more permanent basis. It is to balance your own restless nature and your father’s worries that you agreed to compete for your nation's delegation spots.

A Court Lady
As your mother is one of the favorites of the Empress, you have spent most of your life in the inner court of Corval. Such a position means you have risen to prominence and have the favor of the Empress and Emperor but in the thorn political intrigue of Court that has made your life more dangerous than ever. You were selected to join the delegation as you are considered high ranking and talented enough to reflect well on the Imperial family, but disposable enough that whatever your fate is an acceptable loss. Your actions at the Summit are sure to have consequences on your family and friends back home, so you really better do your best.

A Minor Lady with a Scholarly Bent
An intelligent and studious minor lady from a family of scholars, you never intended to represent Jiyel at the summit at all. Usually, candidates are selected from the top scorers on a nationwide test and are given special classes and training for years. Your presence is an unhappy happenstance. Your cousin was selected as one of the attendees, but soon before she and the others were set to sail, she got married, leaving an empty spot, that you, as her relative, were picked last minute to fill. Really, the whole thing is quite illogical.

An Ambitious Widow
You have come a long way from where you were have started. Born into a large family of indebted and destitute nobles, you managed to save yourself (and your family,) by marrying a wealthy older man. Very conveniently, he died and left you his fortune not long into your marriage. You could be satisfied with the comfortable life you are now guaranteed, but your ambition doesn’t stop there. You went to the Revaire Court and quickly earned prominence, enough that when candidates were being chosen for the Summit your name came up. Now you have the chance to become something even greater than even you dreamed, maybe even a queen.

The Widow, depending on how you set her up, should be one of the easier ones. Since she isn’t state-dependent to unlock, you have a lot of freedom in setting her up how you like.

A Tomboy Countess
You spent most of your childhood happily running around in puddles, getting dirty and dueling whoever you found annoying with sticks. You would have spent your life like that forever, if your father didn’t die, leaving you the title of Countess and all the lands and responsibilities that came with it. Being one of the very few female nobles with titles in their own right in Wellin, you then spent a long time avoiding the annoying advances of second and third sons. You hated the social dances required to be polite and diplomatic, you never would have agreed to be a delegate, except several bad years has left your people hungry and desperate. You accepted relief from the crown in exchange for being one of the delegates.

The Countess is very difficult. You have to make sure to take advantage of making people like you on her.

A Sheltered Princess
The Princesses of Arland are raised with a single duty in mind: to marry well for the sake of the country. You have been carefully and deliberately raised with this goal in mind, training on things like etiquette and dancing, with little to no interaction with the outside world. Now, for the first time since you can remember, you are own your own as you are forced to navigate the world outside of your palace as a delegate for Arland. The pressure is on to make a good match and do your country prou, like your sister has famously done before you.

More Than You Appear
Perhaps, if certain conditions are met, you might be something else, something more than you appear, with goals quite different than your background might first hint at.

Skills
Are you a courageous tomboy who’s terrible in etiquette but has a strong natural charisma and leadership skills? Are you a conniving politician whose cunning and manipulation can bend people to her will even as she’s graceless and clumsy? Are you a brilliant scholar with a great grasp on history with the charm and beauty of a toad? With over thirty skills, your character will have unique strengths and flaws that have an impact on how people react to you, perceive you and how you manage to face the challenges of the summit.

Skills
An individual skill check will never be over 100.

Beauty:
Your natural beauty, plus your skill in appearing well (dress, style, fashion, make up etc.)

Courage:
Your courage in the face of danger, uncertainty and fear.

Self Defense:
Your ability to defend yourself.

Intelligence:
Your overall intelligence and smarts.

Etiquette:
Your ability to abide by proper etiquette. Knowledge of curtsies, address and manners.

Charm:
Your ability to win people over and make them like you. (Active)

Cunning:
Your raw cunning. The ability to shrewdly assess and manipulate situations to your advantage.

Charisma :
Your raw charisma. The ability to draw people to you and secure their attention. (Passive)

Insight:
Your ability to gain insight about people and situations.

Leadership:
Your ability to inspire others to follow your command.

Eloquence:
Your ability to speak well and effectively.

Manipulation:
Your ability to manipulate others.

Grace:
Your natural grace. Your ability to move and dance fluidly.

Poise:
Your ability to maintain your composure and calm in all situations.

History:
Your knowledge of history.

Politics:
Your knowledge of politics.

Street Smarts:
Your knowledge of unusual skills, not suited to a proper lady.

Warfare:
Your knowledge of tactics and warfare.

Practical:
Your knowledge of practical things.

People:
Your knowledge and understanding of people.

Academic:
Your knowledge of math and sciences, and other academic subjects.

Animals and Plants:
Your knowledge of animals and plants.

Likability
Your overall likability.

Persuasion
Your skill at persuasiveness.

Quick-wittedness
Your ability to think quickly on your feet.

Defensive Instincts
Your instincts in regards to danger and protecting yourself.

Interpersonal Insight
Your ability to gain insight and understanding into people and relationships.

Booksmarts
Your general academic and book-learned knowledge.

Personality
Your choices influence your character’s personality. Your character will have different reactions and dialogue based on different personality traits.
 * Humble v Arrogant
 * Noble v Selfish
 * Subtle v Overt
 * Imaginative v Sensible
 * Introverted v Social
 * Autonomous v Dependent
 * Indifferent v Compassionate
 * Cynical v Romantic
 * Unassuming v Ambitious
 * Innovative v Traditional
 * Spontaneous v Methodical
 * Immoral v Ethical

Do note that being immoral, indifferent or/and selfish would be difficult for the characters to like you!

Romancing
Some of the personal stories have parts where other characters are involved, and it will acknowledge your relationship with them there, but it’s another one of the things where the branching would get to be too crazy for me to handle if on top of having a different branch for every background that then branches again (typically) in week four and then add branches for every possible romance you might or might not be in.

Political marriage and romance paths are treated separately. Unless something happens to knock you off one of the romance paths (in which case the romance would be completely over) and you aren’t on the political romance path in the first place, then you won’t be able to have a political marriage.

Only some of the characters are okay with being in a romance with someone willing to marry someone else. (And the opposite is true also, only some characters are okay with marrying someone without love.)

There’s no character that requires you to marry someone else to romance though.

it’s possible to be on the Political Marriage path and be romancing no one, it’s possible to be romancing someone on the Pol. Marriage path and not intend to or actually marry anyone.

There is specific content on this path targeted towards people wanting to build alliances for potential political marriages, but it’s completely optional.

There is one exception to this, where the ‘secret’ romance character in question will expect you to marry him. Jarrod probably

There is a background-gated option that ends up giving the ability to marry a different one of the secret romances. with Ria or Jasper probably

Political path
You are not able to romance the six delegates that have full romance paths if you chose to marry someone on the political path as just a political marriage. Partly this is because some of them wouldn’t be on board for such an idea, but mostly it’s because that would require writing two separate romance paths for them.

You can still marry some of the people on the full romance paths if you are on the political path.

Romancing someone and marrying someone else requires being on the political path. So it won’t be an option on Lisle’s full path, but if you are able to convince Lisle to marry you politically it is

Potential marriages will have an effect on the ending of the game as well as how well your country thinks you have done for them. A persuasive/talented/high-achieving MC will be able to convince their nation to accept just about anything though. (If she, for example, manages to resolve international issues through the power of friendship, or blackmail etc. No one’s going to have much to say if she decides to marry someone unsuitable. The goals will have been achieved still.)

Romance path
So while once on a romance path, it will be possible to get off it, the reverse isn’t currently planned as an option. And while you won’t have the opportunity to ‘fall in love’ with someone different from who you have chosen in week 3, you will have the ability to marry someone else.

Epilogues
The epilogue will address both the goal you picked for yourself and how well you pulled it off. So if your goal was love and you marry Lisle, it will be addressed.

But how well you achieved your goal is something that is more personal to you, and while it will be addressed in the epilogue, i.e. “As you reflected back on your time at the summit, you realized that you didn’t manage to capture any Pokemon from the isle and make them your pets, despite the fact it was your biggest goal for the summit. You have come to accept you will never catch them all.”

It won’t actually change anything events wise. So it would go from that to

“But since you successfully managed to drug everyone at the summit and brainwash them into becoming a traveling troupe of hula dancers and the world found peace through the practice of swinging hips.”

(These examples are obviously ridiculous so as to not give away any real ending info. So the goals and how they play out are more a case of personal satisfaction? (with a few exceptions)

Aly is not going to force a “and they had kids” ending on any of the MC’s. That sort of thing is going to be covered in the future of where the game leaves off, purposefully, so you can decide for yourself if you think that happened or not.

Is it possible that some of the currently undecided characters would be convinced having kids with the MC is something they want? Yes, absolutely. Is that something that will happen in the game? Probably not. Aly is not sure future kids is something that will come up in the game at all for various reasons.

Extended epilogues will probably take place around a month after the summit.

Living into
For most of the MC’s they don’t have any lands/holdings/titles/money of their own, so it’s pretty much assumed that if they marry, they are going to go live with their new spouse.

The Widow and the Countess are different in that they have lands/money/titles of their own. What happens then is that the pair would primarily spend their time with whoever is higher ranking and then some of the time at the other’s estate (assuming they both have titles/lands, if their partner didn’t they would live full time at the Lady’s estate)

That’s the general rule, but things are of course more complicated when you start talking about the actual people.

(For instance, Hise!MC has no real rank at all, but she’s not generally the type to be a happy housewife who doesn’t ever leave her husbands lands. Or It’s possible for the Countess to marry and outrank Lord Clarmont, but he has reasons not to leave Revaire.)

Male MC
Because the fact that the MC is a lady-type is assumed for so much of the game, adding a male MC would basically almost be as much work as making an entirely new game. Because of that, there are no plans to add a male MC to 7KPP.

That being said, if I ever make a game where you can 1) romance people and 2) play as a dude, there will always be male love interests for male MCs.