Centuries prior, the merciful Builder foresaw the end of the world. To protect humanity, he formed the Mosaic: a towering, vertical continent to serve as a haven for His people and His creatures. The Outside World, now flooded with monsters and natural disasters, has only in recent decades been deemed safe enough to reenter.
Far to the north of the Mosaic sits Tarn, a frigid Ghost Town hanging on by only a thread— the dying flame of the Lamplight, an inn situated at its heart run by a crotchety-yet-generous former adventurer named Alma. Years ago, it would have been frequented by a network of treasure-hunters, eager to re-explore the world outside the Mosaic in search of relics the world left behind. However, they found little- leaving an "age of discovery" that died in the shell before it could hatch. Once again, with no particular reason for most to leave the Mosaic, the old world has been left to rot. Nowadays, the Lamplight is hardly more than a charity for Tarn's less fortunate.
Loïc, a soft-hearted friend of Alma's, does what he can at the Lamplight to offer a helping hand to guests in need. One night, in the midst of a blizzard, a pale-faced woman calling herself Ysmé collapses in a sorry heap at the Lamplight's doorstep, pleading for help. Freezing and exhausted, she proclaims that she received a vision from a pagan deity telling her that her terminal illness could be cured, if only she lay upon an altar in the Hollow Temple- a holy site lying just a short ways past Tarn. Despite Alma's reservations about Ysmé's request, Loïc immediately volunteers to act as her escort, and the two set out into the snowy wastes in search of a miracle.
If only Loïc had any idea what lies in store for him.
SoulSov takes bountiful inspiration from literary fantasy and JRPGs alike, weaving both forms of storytelling into a fiction that delves into both the self-interest hidden in acts of kindness and the virtue hidden in one's most selfish desires.
As of December 2023, a short demo entitled Soul of Sovereignty: Prelude has been made available on the creator's itch.io page, and may be downloaded here
. The soundtrack is by Gigi and Toby Fox, and can be found here. A developer/art blog can be found here on Tumblr.
Soul of Sovereignty contains examples of:
- Ability Mixing: Loïc notes that the effects of several flowers can be chained to create new ones, such as cloud sage being used in tandem with a few others to form a full Teleportation spell to a remembered place rather than the brief glimpse at it that it grants alone.
- All-Accessible Magic: Artisanry is so popular in the Mosaic that it's used for the mass-production of goods and even children are capable of minor illusions with it. In addition, Loïc's flower reading is explicitly a form of magical linguistics that can be studied by anybody with the time and resources to do so.
- All for Nothing: Despite Loïc making a mad rush back to the Hollow Temple by snowmobile, Langlais bombs it to smithereens anyway. On the other side of this, Langlais destroys the temple only for Loïc to render that act meaningless by completing the ritual anyway and allowing Ysmé to become Sovereign.
- After the End: While the Mosaic still stands, most of the world outside of it seems to have been wrecked by natural disasters and infested with monsters alleged to have once been the planet's remaining fauna. Neither Loïc nor Ysmé's narration paints a pleasant picture of the ruined world that Mosaians left behind.
- Anachronism Stew: The rigid theocracy, fantastical airships, and colorful costumery painting the world are meshed with cable television, flashlights, snowmobiles, and most notably a distinctively modern semi-automatic handgun.
- Animalistic Abomination: According to legend, the monsters lurking outside the borders of the Mosaic originate from normal animals that were transformed by the outside world's influence.[…] the animals caught in the flood changed. They trembled and twisted and came apart, then came back together the wrong way.
- Beat: The text frequently pauses momentarily to add timing to its delivery.
- Big "WHAT?!": When Loïc relays that the ritual to invoke the Sovereignty involves a Resurrection Gambit and that he was made to name her his god, Ysmé can't hide her shock.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Twice in the prelude. When Ysmé discovers the new Geas she has over Loïc, she briefly contemplates how funny it would be to force him to attack Langlais before realizing this would almost definitely get her new servant arrested or worse. Later, when Ysmé ascends to godhood, she considers whether she wants to kill Langlais and his troops before deciding he'd serve her better by warning the Church of her coming reign.
- Corrupt Church: The Church of the Builder has its own militarized police force in the form of the Shield, and devouts don't seem to take kindly to "pagan" faiths outside of their own.
- Dies Wide Open: No Discretion Shot here. Ysmé is stabbed clean through the heart by the Voice of the Sovereignty's deadly scroll, all while Loïc looks on in horrified shock as the light leaves her eyes.
- Emergency Transformation: Loïc initially wants to leave the Sovereignty well enough alone, but when left with the choice to turn Ysmé into a god or watch her bleed out on the floor of the Sovereign Hall, he quickly chooses the former.
- False Utopia: The Mosaic is a bright, beautiful superstructure with everything civilization needs to continue in a world After the End... but it is heavily controlled by the resident Corrupt Church, which Loïc mourns has displaced countless disparate peoples with no hope at a life outside of its borders.
- First-Episode Twist: The details about Ysmé's identity, true intentions and the kind of bond she develops with Loïc are revealed through the prelude and greatly affect the course of the story.
- Flower Motifs: All over the place. Every flower Loïc uses does indeed have a meaning, but he explains that the popular meaning of a flower in Mosaian floriography doesn't necessarily have anything to do with its applied meaning in flower reading.
- Geas: Even when the ritual naming Ysmé as the new bearer of the Sovereignty and Loïc as her witness is only halfway complete, leaving her as a disembodied spirit, Loïc finds that he must now obey any direct command Ysmé gives him.
- Ghost Town: Tarn is almost empty. Stricken by harsh economic decline and terrible snowstorms after the end of the brief treasure-hunting boom, the only people who remain there are those who don't have the means to leave. Broken infrastructure is no longer repaired, resources are hard to come by, and they no longer even get cable there.
- Glamour: Along with its more practical effects, Ysmé uses artisanry to modify her appearance on the fly. This seems to extend to more than just her clothing.
- Godhood Seeker: Ysmé won't dare settle for less than absolute power.
- God Is Inept: Upon being approached by Loïc and Ysmé, the Voice of the Sovereignty claims that the current holder of the Sovereignty has "failed" and it has been waiting patiently for a replacement to save the world.
- Gone Horribly Right: The invocation naming Ysmé as Sovereign functions just as intended when complete, transforming her into a massive facsimile of herself with the omnipotence to match. Unfortunately for Ysmé, her rampage is cut quite short when the Voice of the Sovereignty calls her and Loïc back to its hall to reveal that this has effectively been a trial period. Ysmé will have to prove herself worthy of the Sovereignty if she wants to keep it.
- Happy Flashback: While under extreme duress, Loïc flashes back to bittersweet moments spent with his daughter Lelia, complete with a vivid color palette and soft strings in the background. Besides his life flashing before his eyes, it turns out that these memories are on his mind because he's contemplating how he wants to use the single cloud sage flower he keeps on hand.
- Heal It with Nature: Loïc is able to heal Ysmé's wound by using flower magic - more specifically, he uses a yellow rose to heal Ysmé's broken ankle. He tells Ysmé that this is how he has been able to keep busy in Tarn for a few months despite being no healer, implying that he has been making a living healing others with flower magic.
- I Choose to Stay: The prologue climaxes with Loïc giving up his one chance at freedom by using the last of his sage to finish the ritual and bring Ysmé back to life instead of using it to return to the Mosaic.
- Identical Stranger: The Stinger of the prologue involves a shadowed figure praying desperately to the Builder in the same church seen at the beginning of the prologue. In response, a stranger who bears a striking resemblance to Ysmé, laid against the altar, opens their eyes.
- Imperfect Ritual: Loïc gets a few sentences into the invocation naming Ysmé his Sovereign before he is interrupted by the Voice of the Sovereignty, who has suddenly lost its composure. Later, with the help of the sprig of cloud sage he'd been saving to see his daughter, he creates a link to the Voice and completes it with prejudice. It goes off without a hitch.
- Language of Magic: "Flower reading," the specific type of casting that Loïc is practiced in, involves the use of flowers as a conduit for communication between a divine idea and a mortal concept to bring the communicated phenomena into existence. Legend even has it that they were originally imbued with meaning by the god Fayim, a pagan deity of language. One can think of flowers themselves as a sort of glyph, functioning as a focus for magic so long as the caster can understand and communicate the idea held within each flower. This comes with two major complications: Firstly, the flower withers away completely after it has been used for a spell, so someone who wishes to use this sort of magic regularly must have a steady supply of them on hand. Secondly, the meanings of individual flowers (even at the more basic end of the scale) can get into highly specific and esoteric territory. Poetry seems to be paired with many of them as a means of conveying a complex concept more readily, giving spells a verbal component.
- Light Is Not Good: Ysmé, upon being crowned a goddess, proudly declares herself an embodiment of "light and hunger" as she initiates her plot to destroy and remake the world. Loïc, himself sporting the light-bringing white dawn's eye right on his cloak, becomes her willing servant.
- Limited-Use Magical Device: Loïc's Spell Book is a field journal full of pressed flowers, each of which can be used as a casting component only once before withering away for good.
- Living Statue: Inside the Sovereign Hall in the Hollow Temple lies the Voice of the Sovereignty, a living statue guarding an altar and the power of Sovereignty itself.
- The Lost Lenore: Discussed during the prelude:
- Loïc tells Ysmé he is searching for a legendary flower to cure someone, though he won't say who. When Ysmé is revealed to be faking her illness and pursuing the Sovereignty, she compares her true motive to Loïc's. When she later makes it clear to Loïc that her pursuit is not to save another, but for herself alone, she mockingly adds, "But you're free to keep thinking of the Sovereignty as my dead wife flower if that makes you feel better."
- After Ysmé learns that Loïc is motivated by his daughter's illness, she remarks:Ysmé: You know, all this time, I thought you were a dead wife guy. Turns out it was a sick kid… Though I guess it could still be both.
- Magically-Binding Contract: Upon watching Ysmé's demise at the hands of the Voice of the Sovereignty, Loïc immediately agrees to perform a divine ritual that would ascend her to godhood. In addition, his naming of himself as her Witness leaves him completely at the mercy of her will. Even when Ysmé's power has been heavily limited until she can prove herself worthy in the eyes of the Voice, she is still Loïc's personal Sovereign and will remain completely immortal so long as he yet lives.
- The Maker: The Builder is the Mosaic's resident creator deity and the figure worshipped by the Corrupt Church.
- Master of Illusion: Ysmé refers to herself by this title. While "illusions" are considered childish, poorly-cast versions of artisanry, Ysmé is a virtuoso who utilizes this flawed form of magic to create many fragile objects in a short timespan, trading in the longevity of her constructs for extreme speed and versatility.
- Mundane Utility: Ysmé isn't above using magic to create fancy costumes and paint a dynamic entrance for herself. Additionally, a short comic on GG's tumblr depicts Alma using Loïc's "fire" reading as a light for her smoke.
- Noah's Story Arc: It is said that the Builder let two of every animal inside the Mosaic and leaving all others to die. This reinforces the God-like image he is given towards the public.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The plot of the prelude. Loïc does everything he can to ensure Ysmé's well-being and winds up mugged, wounded, and entangled in her plot to claim godhood for herself. The trope gets dropped word-for-word in the VN's itch.io description.
- Not Himself: The first time Loïc feels Ysmé take control of his body, his motions immediately become rigid and shuddery. Attempts to resist the loss of control fail, the feeling only subsiding when Ysmé decides to leave him be for the time being.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Ysmé holds Loïc at literal gunpoint to goad him into dispelling the enchantment obscuring the secret chamber at the base of the Hollow Temple, after firing a clean shot into his shoulder as a warning. It works.
- Panacea: Loïc is on the hunt for a mythical flower known as the "glass bell," a species that has only been described in old texts. It is said to be able to cure any illness- a wild claim, but one that Loïc desperately needs to be true.
- Post-Adventure Adventure: The story takes place years after an age of exploration and treasure-hunting that failed to turn up anything fruitful.
- The Power of Creation: Artisanry, or "new magic," allows its users to spin constructs out of thin air. The range of objects it's capable of allowing its wielder to create seems to be quite wide indeed, and Ysmé proves just how showy, efficient, and dangerous artisanry can be in the right hands.
- Precision F-Strike:
- When Loïc and Ysmé are beset by monsters in the prelude, Ysmé yells, "Shit!!", her first instance of cursing and a contrast with her frail demeanor.
- Downplayed in the comic "flower language". Ysmé teasingly asks Loïc which flower means "ass". Loïc takes the question into serious consideration and ends up repeating the word himself as part of discussing it. This surprises Ysmé, as it seems incongruent with his gentlemanly image.Loïc: It's a bit hard to imagine [the god] reaching down from the heavens to say "ass."
Ysmé: Oh, you said it. I didn't think you would.
[Loïc beams]
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Short pauses are sometimes inserted in between words to convey diction. For example, in the prelude, Ysmé exclaims, "Oh my god," the text briefly pausing between each word.
- Rather Inn-Accessible: The Lamplight, once a popular rest stop for adventurers searching for treasure in the outside world, now sits in an abandoned northerly town pummeled by frequent blizzards and surrounded by monster-infested woods. Paying customers have become a rarity.
- Religion is Magic: Subverted. Flower reading is a magic bestowed upon humanity by Fayim, the god of language, but faith in them is less necessary for its practice than a full understanding of the concepts they've imbued into flowers, which can be studied. The poetic passages Loïc reads aloud when he casts with certain flowers seem to be tools to get a caster in the correct frame of mind to harness their specific magic rather than a direct declaration of faith. Played straight later when the Voice of the Sovereignty informs Ysmé that she will be able to claw back some of her divine power using the faith of her devotees.
- Synchronization: Loïc seems to be directly influenced by the emotions Ysmé feels and made to experience them in turn, along with being magically compelled to follow her orders and her lifespan now being chained directly to his. Both her raw hatred of Langlais and her panic as she realizes he's about to bomb the temple trickle over to him.
- Soap Opera Disease: Ysmé shows up at the Lamplight seeking for a cure for an unspecified disease she has suffered her whole life and which no doctors have been able to remedy. It turns out to be a lie.
- Sophisticated as Hell:
- When Loïc and Ysmé enter the Hollow Temple, the scene opens with a passage of prayer and some narration from Loïc, which are in a more lyrical style, before following them up with an informal, crude remark from Ysmé.Almighty God of Language,
Lend us your eyes, and we will see truth.
Lend us your hands, and we will guard life.
Lend us your tongue, and we will speak power…
The temple is quiet and barren. In other words, more or less what I expected. Yet stepping through the door sends a chill through me all the same.
More than anything, though…
Ysmé: I can't see shit. - Ysmé's second profile, "The Runaway", ends in a more informal tone than is used in the rest of its text:Perhaps she's not truly suffering from a mysterious affliction after all…but a shadow still seems to loom over her heart. At least she can say "shit" now.
- When Loïc and Ysmé enter the Hollow Temple, the scene opens with a passage of prayer and some narration from Loïc, which are in a more lyrical style, before following them up with an informal, crude remark from Ysmé.
- Spare a Messenger: In the prelude, when Ysmé ascends to godhood, she considers whether she wants to kill Langlais and his troops before deciding he'd serve her better by warning the Church of her coming reign.
- The Stinger: The prelude ends with a shadowed figure praying to the Builder at the altar Ysmé stole from at the beginning of the story. A figure upon the altar who heavily resembles Ysmé slowly opens up their eyes in response to the plea.
- Sudden Soundtrack Stop: The background music stops at some key points, such as when Ysmé says, "like the magic you've been nice enough to demonstrate for me", when Ysmé manifests a gun, when the Voice of the Sovereign prepares to stab Ysmé, when Loïc falls unconscious, and when Langlais pulls out Ysmé's gun.
- Switching P.O.V.: The narration regularly swaps between Loïc and Ysmé's respective perspectives.
- Tempting Fate: The Voice of the Sovereignty openly warns Loïc about the possible consequences of his impending decision to bestow godhood unto Ysmé. He responds in just this manner.The Voice: The Sovereignty is the power to remake your world. Consider the world she will make.
Loïc: Can it be so much worse than this one? - That's What She Said: In a short comic posted on the Tumblr blog, Loïc responds to Ysmé that she's got him "pegged" (figured out), which Ysmé turns into a joke based on the term's sexual slang meaning.Loïc: Ha ha! Fair enough. You've got me pegged.
Ysmé: Not yet I don't. - The Tower: We haven't gotten a perfectly clear look at the Mosaic yet, but its description would imply that it is a massive vertical structure capable of housing an entire planet's worth of people and creatures. While appearing colorful and lively on the surface, both Loïc and Ysmé suggest that its bright, glitzy exterior hides rampant corruption and that the Church of the Builder acts as a religious hegemony over many who live there.
- Unreadably Fast Text: In the prelude, Ysmé's words about wanting to see Loïc strangle Langlais barely stay on screen long enough to be read before the screen snaps to the next line.
- Verbal Backspace: Ysmé backtracks on her words while trying to explain her burst of energy.Loïc: Alma's cooking must be better than I give her credit for if it energized you that much.
Ysmé: Ah…you know! All those vegetables.
Loïc: In onion soup.
Ysmé: All those vegetable. - Weather-Control Machine: It's implied that weather in the Mosaic is artificially controlled, as Loïc expresses that he has come to appreciate the cold weather in Tarn because "[a] sudden chill against [his] face feels refreshing when [he] know[s] it wasn't decided by committee."
- Wham Line: In the prelude, Ysmé reveals that she has had some scheme specifically involving Loïc the whole time.Ysmé: I didn't put on the sick girl act for whatever random treasure hunter happened to feel sorry for me.
I came here [turns the flashlight on under her face, grinning wickedly] for you. - Wham Shot:
- Ysmé pointing a gun at Loïc◊ when they are inside the temple.
- Ysmé getting stabbed and ''dying''◊ in the middle of the ritual to gain the power of the Sovereignty.
- Ysmé pointing a gun at Loïc
- You All Meet in an Inn: Loïc and Ysmé first meet at the Lamplight, where Loïc had been staying for months to help the innkeeper Alma look after the guests. She collapses right at the door into a waiting Loic's arms.
- You Can See Me?: After Ysmé dies, Loïc seems to be the only one capable of seeing her ghost. He speculates that it might have something to do with the botched ritual, and that her time on this plane of existence is fading fast unless he finds a way to complete it himself.
- You Must Be Cold: After Loïc and Ysmé depart from the Lamplight to visit the Hollow Temple, he frets after how well she will manage in the frigid temperature outside. However, rather than drape his own cloak over her, Loïc takes the enchanted pallisia blossom he's wearing and offers it to Ysmé instead.
