Visual Novel / Echoes of the Fey

Echoes of the Fey is an episodic series of visual novels and adventure games written and developed by Woodsy Studios, and centers on an Epic Fantasy setting for a series of hardboiled Detective Fiction stories.

In the continent of Oraz, there is a Great Forest dividing the land in two halves: one side is ruled by the nigh-immortal, magically adept Leshin (elves), the other ruled by the shorter-lived, technocratic Humans. Naturally, both sides hate one another. The Leshin were ruled by the ir-Dyeun, who waged war on the humans for using the Fey- what they believe to be the essence of their souls and the source of their magic- as siphonable energy for their machines. The Human kingdoms, split amongst dozens of House-ruled territories, formed The Empire ruled by House Lapidus to combat them. The war lasted a good thirty years but finally came to a close when the ir-Dyeun, losing their grip on the Leshin people, try to turn the tide of the war by detonating a Fey reactor within the Human city of Onigrad, condemning tens of thousands to a magically nuclear death.

Caught in the blast is up-and-coming noblewoman Sofya Rykov, the daughter of the second most powerful House leader in Human territory and someone who, until the event that would become known as The Immolation, had what could have been considered a cushy wartime job as a prison guard keeping an eye on Leshin POWs in Onigrad. The Immolation ended the war by convincing the moderate Leshin to overthrow the ir-Dyeun entirely and establish a new peaceful government, and Sofya, getting caught in the blast while trying to save as many of the Leshin prisoners as she could, is the only Human to survive the Immolation without fleeing.

Nursed back to health by Heremon ir-Caldy, a Leshin combat medic who she watched over in the guard tower, she learns both that her proximity to the Fey reactor explosion granted her access to formerly Leshin-only High Magic and that she had been disowned by her family for freeing Leshin prisoners and being branded a traitor by the Empire. With no home back East to go to and no friends except for Heremon, she establishes a private detective agency in the small, repatriated city of Vodotsk on the border of Human territory and the Great Forest, where she takes advantage of the powers she randomly attains every couple of weeks or so to solve dangerous cases and get herself caught up in a number of situations that deal with the animosity leftover from the Great War and the heavy-handedness of The Empire while trying to make enough money to drown her sorrows in booze and sex.

The series is released episodically, each episode being one self-contained case (with the exception of the prequel, The Immolation), while still having some connections to a greater story, and each one featuring Sofya and a newfound magical ability.

There is currently only one released title in the series, with one nearing release and the other announced as in progress.

• Echoes of The Fey Episode 0: The Immolation (Released February 7th, 2017)
• Echoes of The Fey Episode 1: The Fox's Trail (Released July 12th, 2016)
• Echoes of The Fey Episode 2: The Last Sacrament (Released July 10th 2018)

There are also, in addition, novellas and short stories taking place in Oraz that have also been released.

• Echoes of the Fey: ''The Prophet's Arm'' (Between Episodes 0 and 1)

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This series contains examples of:

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Any Leshin mother is this by default, including Tiatha ir-Adech.
• The Adjectival Man: Simion ir-Sheaf tells Sofya a fable about a living mannequin named The Oaken Man, which was created by a powerful Leshin sorcerer who could imbue inanimate objects with life, who made the being to prove a point to the other Leshin.
• The Alcoholic: Sofya is known to hit the bottle pretty hard when not on a case.
• The Alliance: The human kingdoms that banded together against the Leshin used to be this until the majority of it became The Empire.
• An Arm and a Leg: Simion ir-Sheaf lost his right arm from the shoulder as a footsoldier in the Human-Leshin war.
• An Ice Person: One of the only magical abilities Sofya keeps long-term.
• Anti-Human Alliance: The ir-Dyeun were more against the Fey reactors than they were outright against the humans, but their thoughts on the humans are definitely teetering on the fine line towards Fantastic Racism.
• Artificial Limbs: Simion ir-Sheaf uses The Prophet's Arm in place of his missing right arm. Said arm was an artifact of Prophet Cathal ir-Dyeun, who also at some point lost an arm during his life.
• Big Bad: There is no concrete Big Bad of the series in place yet, although it's clear Patriarch Arkady Vanzin and Simion ir-Sheaf are both planning nefarious things with Sister Emilia Osborn and Tiatha ir-Adech respectively as possible Dragons for each, but each case so far has had its own central villain.
  • "The Immolation" has the ir-Dyeun terrorists responsible for the Immolation of Onigrad.
  • "The Prophet's Arm" has Nadezhda Melinkov.
  • "The Fox's Trail" has Tiatha ir-Adech, with Simion ir-Sheaf acting as the Man Behind the Man.
  • "The Last Sacrament" has Nikolai Melinkov as Sofya's primary (yet befriendable) adversary, until Arkady Vanzin takes the spot in the last act of the game. Likewise, the B-plot involving Katerina's attempted assassin turns out to be whoever was responsible for the damage done to Morvyn ir-Cromadh's brain.
• Blessed with Suck: Her near-death experience left her with the singularly unique ability to be able to control all forms of Leshin High Magic- except that with the exception of Ice and basic Glamor Magic or just using the Fey directly, the magic she can use changes every few days, and it's a gamble on whether she can win the Superpower Lottery. Also she was exiled from her family.
• Boomerang Bigot: Folren ir-Adech hated the actions of his people, being connected through the Fey, and begin a Leshin in general that he was willing to become human and cut himself off from the Fey forever to escape.
• Break Them by Talking: Nadezhda Melinkov gets this from Sofya Rykov in "The Prophet's Arm". Tiatha ir-Adech can be stopped by this too if you make the right decisions, otherwise she gets mad, conjures fire at you, and then gets arrested.
• Burial in Space: The main reason the Krovakyns want to actively condone technological progress is because one day they want to build a device to bring Eszther's corpse back to the stars, essentially aiming for this trope.
• Came from the Sky: The origins of Eszther.
• The Captain: Imperial Commander Viola Aristov.
• The Casanova: Eduard Galkin even admits it, saying he might not be innocent in any jilted lover cases Sofya may be on.
• The Cavalry: Luka Teteriv can be this at the end of the confrontation in "The Fox's Trail".
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: Luka Teteriv, again, can be this if Viola shot Tiatha already or if Sofya lets Tiatha go.
• Colonel Badass: Viola Aristov, hands down.
• Combat Medic: Heremon ir-Caldy was one for the ir-Dyeun back during the war.
• Comically Missing the Point: For a lot of Sofya's recovery after miraculously surviving an megaton explosion with her life and being nursed back to relative health enough to speak is to complain that she has no alcohol and the injuries will mean she'll never have sex again.
• Dark Secret: Sofya's above-mentioned troubled past and her use of High Magic are this for her. Other characters have dark secrets. Viola has an eye that was lost to low magic, and Luka Teteriv... well... he's secretly an actor.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In "The Fox's Trail", Folren ir-Adech isn't the one who died. Eduard Galkin died. Folren polymorphed into Eduard and drank The Sacrament of Tears, a vial of Eszther's blood that cut him off from The Fey for good. He doesn't impersonate Eduard for personal gain, he did it because he hated being a Leshin and truly wanted to be human.
• Eldritch Abomination: The human religion, the Krovakyns, worship a tangible goddess named Eszther, described as a humanoid squid covered with a shawl, was directly said to have come from the skies, looking directly upon its body leaves a Brown Note, and its blood can expand a human's lifetime considerably and cure any and all terminal illnesses... for a price.
  • Subverted for the "Old Gods" whose worship Eszther replaced. The first mention of them is of Triglav, who is described as a "three-headed monster", which alludes to this trope, but in The Last Sacrament it is revealed they are all humans who learned High Magic just like Sofya, with the only exception being the aforementioned Triglav who was actually a bear given sentience and the extra heads to reason with.
• The Empire: Subverted somewhat. Not necessarily evil in the slightest, but assuredly heavy-handed, tight-fisted, bureaucratic and eager to breathe authoritatively down the necks of the counties and small kingdoms that haven't entered the fold yet.
• The Emperor: Emperor Lapidus, who again isn't necessarily a bad guy. At least, as far as we know. He does seem very adamant about his rule becoming law across all human territory.
• Eyepatch of Power: Viola Aristov has one, even though technically the eye still works.
• Eye Scream: Viola Aristov. She didn't lose the eye, but arguably what happened is worse. She had a botched spell done by a low human magician to fix the nearsightedness in her eye. She ended up seeing horrifying things, including things that weren't there, colors different from how she remembered them, faces that were distorted ("just their faces"), and occasionally blinding white light. The only reason she doesn't have the eye torn out is because it's a reminder of the dangers of magic.
  • Sofya nearly lost her eye in the Onigrad explosion as well, with it being covered by a bloody bandage for the second half of The Immolation. Even though she can hide most of her scars, her now-green eye with a scar running down it is the only scar she can't use glamors to cover up.
• Facial Horror: Kazamir has a huge burn across his face barely hidden by his mask.
• Fantastic Nuke: When the Onigrad reactor explodes, it becomes a dome of bright blue-white light that incinerates everything in it.
• Fantastic Racism: Done by both sides to each other.
  • Rolan shows outward hatred of Leshin many times throughout The Immolation, including trying to shoot Muriel during one of her visions and persuading Sofya to leave Heremon, Muriel, and the other Leshin POWs behind to die.
• Fictional United Nations: The Alliance of Free Cities, or AFC, is the governing body that took over central control of the Leshin cities after the fall of the ir-Dyeun.
• For Science!: One of the major edicts of the Krovakyn Church, whose tenets are psychological introspection and research for the advancement of humans. Heremon also uses this as essentially his excuse for being Sofya's partner and doctor, but it's more a mix of being The Atoner for his actions in the war and being content with as Platonic Life-Partners.

• Glamour: Sofya uses these to hide the majority of her scars, with the exception of one on her left eye.
• Guilt Complex: Heremon ir-Caldy has a major one especially in the beginning of the series due to his position as a healing mage leading him to heal a number of ir-Dyeun who later were responsible for atrocities that he blames himself for.

• Hidden Villain: The scene near the end of the game where you uncover Simion ir-Sheaf's true colors is completely unmarked and you'd only know to go to it if you checked every single door or you remembered that there's one last loose end to look into, and if you don't look into it Simion can become this.
• I Believe I Can Fly: How Sofya first learns about her magical abilities.
• The Informant: Simion ir-Sheaf is a far, far more friendly and Wicked Cultured variation of this.
• Little Bit Beastly: Some of the Leshin do have some animal traits. Tiatha ir-Adech has elk antlers atop her head as did Folren, except he may have actually hacked his own antlers off, and Braden ir-Alba had a great pair of bird wings from his back.
• Loan Shark: On top of being a pawnbroker and dealer of information, this is one of Simion ir-Sheaf's many jobs at Forest's Edge Brokerage.
• Mad Oracle: Muriel accidentally went too close to a Fey rift as a child and while she remains quiet most of the time, during the Immolation she sees and describes the Fey in cryptic comments.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Subverted in that all magic is powered by one single source, The Fey. However, most Leshin, even the longer-lived ones, have to specialize and are lucky if they can be adept in more than one field, as each branch of magic requires a different temperament and state of being when using it.
• Magic-Powered Pseudoscience: Humans trying to use this is the reason the events o fthe series began in the first place.
• The Magic Versus Technology War: The Human-Leshin conflict in a nutshell, although both run on the same exact thing.
• The Man Behind the Man: In "The Fox's Trail", Simion ir-Sheaf to Tiatha ir-Adech.
• Mind Rape: Looking upon Eszther's body directly without a vision veil can cause this. In addition Arkady Vanzin tells Emilia at the post-end credits scene of the first episode that he has a device, possibly one of Eszther's Tools, that can wipe memories from the human mind, and threatens to steal Emilia's knowledge of language and "leave [her] a savage dog that cannot even beg to be put down".
• My City, Right or Wrong: The majority of Leshin who actually fought the humans were forcibly drafted into it because their city (which is more important to most Leshin than family and certainly more than themselves) required ir-Dyeun support in order to continue trade and recieve basic resources, and ir-Dyeun imposed quotas that had to be met or else they'd revoke support for the city. Though Heremon talks about the morality of this subject in the first episode, addressing how the revolution came about almost at once as if most Leshin were hopping on the side of opportunity.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Tiatha ir-Adech gets legitimately remorseful at the end of "The Fox's Trail"; however, Simion ir-Sheaf almost immediately takes the regret out of her.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: Averted. The word "elf" actually exists for the Leshin. However, it's a racial slur for them.
• Phlebotinum Overload: Used and weaponized by the ir-Dyeun, turning the Onigrad Fey reactor into a giant magical bomb.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Heremon and Sofya, or at least as far as Heremon considers it.
• Playing with Fire: The go-to elemental magic field for most Leshin, especially ir-Dyeun soldiers. Tiatha ir-Adech turns out to be an adept fire mage.
• Power Incontinence: Depends heavily on what kind of magic she's using at the time and how much she's trained with it. Generally she's in control, but when she isn't, that's bad news.
• Power Source: The Fey.
• Predecessor Villain: Cathal ir-Dyeun, the founder of the ir-Dyeun.
• Prejudice Aesop: While not prevalent for 2/3 of the game, it's hard not to notice the motives behind the events of the first case as an allegory for the struggle of being transgender in a world that still has problems with acceptance. Folren's discomfort with who he used to be and the pain it put him through are clear for people who are currently in that predicament, and the theme of acceptance plays an important part in the game.
• Private Detective: Sofya Rykov.
• Punished for Sympathy: Almost gets branded a traitor for not leaving Leshin in the prison camp to die, and gets exiled from her family even when absolved.
• The Quiet One: Muriel.
• Really 700 Years Old: Almost all Leshin are like this. They can live for hundreds of years without dying and stop physically aging at a point where they look like they're in their mid-twenties.
• Red Herring: Ciara ir-Alba doesn't really exist. She's just a fake Leshin extremist made up by ir-Dyeun prisoners to keep inspectors preoccupied while Tiatha, a real ir-Dyeun extremist, works around Vodotsk.
• Religion of Evil: By the end of the Human-Leshin War, the ir-Dyeun were this in spades. By comparison, the Krovakyns aren't nearly as bad, even though they worship an Eldritch Abomination in a shawl. Then you learn that they did some pretty horrifying things themselves to the Leshin (For Science!, of course). And then you learn just how Ax-Crazy Arkady Vanzin truly is.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Nadezhda Melinkov's justification for her actions, since House Melinkov and Volgrad haven't signed with the county and Empire in the treaty with the AFC.
• Secret-Keeper: In some endings of "The Fox's Trail", Eduard Galkin can learn Sofya's ability to use magic and cover it up to protect her, leading to them both knowing that they have secrets to keep. A far, far more villainous example, Arkady Vanzin is currently well aware of what Sofya Rykov can do, but is keeping it a secret from the Church Elders in order to enact his own plans for her.
• Sentient Cosmic Force: The ir-Dyeun believe that the Fey is in reality this, and that the force and combined consciousnesses behind the Fey is known as "Dyeun", which "speaks" occasionally to Leshin.
• Sinister Minister: Arkady Vanzin turns out to be very, very Ax-Crazy.
• Soul Power: Most Leshin believe that the Fey is constructed of consciousnesses which are taken back into the Fey upon death and eventually reincarnated.
• Star-Shaped Coupon: Arkady Vanzin's Star Maps you need to collect in a side quest.
• Story Branching: The choices you make in the first episode are going to carry over to the next according to Word of God.
• Strange-Syntax Speaker: Query. Kazamir's speech patterns. Effective. Cuts down on long phrases. Normal speech? Whole sentences? Use of conjunctions? Descriptives? Too many long phrases. Wastes time. Time valuable. Low magician life expectancy low. Verbose sentences not reccomended.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Imperial Inspector Luka Teteriv falls squarely into this, trying to keep Imperial law upheld in a county that actively wants nothing to do with the Empire. You can become friends with Luka over the course of the series and even learn of his secret passion for acting.
• They Would Cut You Up: The justification for Sofya not being allowed to be more open about her magical abilities, saying that people who found out would stop at nothing to try to figure out why magic came so easily for you. Partially proven right as people from influential human factions have managed to find out her secret, and while the foremost person's plans for her seems to involve nothing of the sort, the faction he represents has a long history of doing this.
• Timed Mission: The Immolation is a timed game, where you have an insanely short amount of time to free the Leshin from the guard tower and get out alive.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The first episode, "The Fox's Trail", has Sofya juggling two important tasks- finding Tiatha ir-Adech's son Folren, alive or dead, and learning more about Ciara ir-Alba, one of the prisoners Sofya freed from the prison tower who may have been an ir-Dyeun extremist. Eventually Sofya learns that Ciara ir-Alba is a Red Herring made so that Tiatha ir-Adech could stay in Vodotsk without Luka Teteriv breathing down her neck, making this a case of Sofya and Luka Working the Same Case.
  • Third Line, Some Waiting: The description of the second case involving county politics clashing over Vodotsk's water, Sofya having to protect her childhood friend who also has the distinction of being the Emperor's daughter, and being blackmailed by the eldest heir of House Melinkov, the House shown in the first novella.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Sofya has shades of this toward Heremon, but this is addressed and mostly shut down early on in the series with him saying she's the only person he doesn't mind having constantly in his life but at the same time not wanting to risk anything by changing their dynamic.
• Villainous Breakdown: After either finding out what her son's become or falling for a lie told by Sofya, Tiatha ir-Adech's response is to get furious, confront Eduard Galkin, and then take hostages inside of the Krovakyn church using her flame magic.
• The Voiceless: Kazamir is the only full character portrait to not be even partially voice acted. Then again, considering the very odd way he speaks...
• Voluntary Shapeshifter: Sofya somewhat gets this power, being able to transform between human and cat for the entirety of "The Fox's Trail". Folren ir-Adech was also a polymorph, which is an important plot point in the case.
• The Watson: Heremon ir-Caldy.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Arkady Vanzin. Possibly.
• Woobie: Heremon ir-Caldy again.
• Xanatos Gambit: If Sofya lets Tiatha escape, Simion ir-Sheaf gives her a falsified Krovakyn Charter that says the Krovakyn church is converting Leshin who chose to stay behind in human territory, reigniting tensions between the Leshin and the humans. If Tiatha gets arrested, Simion ir-Sheaf implicates the entire City Council of Adech into being ir-Dyeun sympathizers, further straining Leshin and human relations. If Tiatha died, that would also have strained Leshin and human relations.