#Chrom!Brady recruitment line

[almoststedytimetravel]

What I don’t get about the way child characters were implemented in Fates is that it could have been an opportunity to advertise Revelation, and they just... didn't take it. Like the child characters could have come from the end of the route but because they never truly defeat Anankos after some amount of time the events of Heirs of Fate can take place and they go back in time and get their memories erased. Maybe the gang find them wondering around in mysterious fog or whatever. They would say something like "Yeah man I was just living my life then suddenly a bunch of fog spewed out the bottomless canyon, i got lost and now I'm here. Wonder if something evil is festering down there. Please play Revelation."

Bonus points is that this absolutely ruin the Awakening kiddos, I love watching my Blorbos suffer.

[iturbide]

I'm curious, what would your ideal FE be?

And do you have any particular FE concepts in mind?

So, fun fact: I actually talked about this a while back.

...and by 'a while back,' I mean 'five years ago,' because time is soup.

So because that's a heck of a lot longer than I remember and a lot changes in that amount of time, let's come at this fresh and see what changes and what doesn't.

So I still really want to keep the lead character concept: dual sword/mage older sister and priest younger brother (with natural promotion to dual healer/mage) is a nice shift on the usual Fire Emblem formula, where we rarely see female Lords in the lead who are set to inherit the throne or male healers (and I can't recall the last time one was a prince, barring Brady with Chrom as his father and I guess Forrest though he's not in the immediate line of succession since he's Siegbert's cousin meaning Xander and Siegbert would need to be removed from the equation before he'd be in line for the throne but since Leo's a prince I think that technically akes him one too and now I'm just going down a rabbit hole of technicalities).

Intro/tutorial would be fairly run-of-the-mill, border skirmish type thing against a small incursion from a neighboring nation and going out to take care of it. But something I think would be fascinating is an expansion on the usual mid-battle recruitment and the option to spare foes that we saw at times in Three Houses: I want every main chapter enemy to have a name and unique portrait. I want there to be a frankly ridiculous number of characters who could theoretically be recruited depending on who approaches them, and I want every enemy to have an option to spare them even if they're not recruited.

Think of it: you go into battle and you see that every enemy is an individual. Every enemy is someone you can engage with. And you can approach any one of them with any of your units and talk to them. As you play, you start to get to know the different personalities of your units: someone may have a kind and gentle approach that's more likely to convince someone who's not exactly keen on fighting -- but that same approach might get steamrolled over by another person that's more set in their ways. Conversely, one of your units might be blunt and straightforward, and could butt heads in a constructive way with someone like that, but whose approach would scare off a more timid foe. Maybe approaching another unit with a character just recruited in the same battle can be helpful -- one of them bringing a friend or close ally over, because they don't want to hurt each other -- or maybe it can backfire spectacularly, with the enemy unit accusing your new ally of stabbing his comrades in the back, which shuts down all attempts at conversation.

It could be an interesting risk/reward system that encourages getting familiar with your various units beyond just their mechanical strengths and weaknesses: knowing their personalities and being able to employ them to take enemies off the field and bloodlessly thin the ranks could be a lot of fun -- plus, it's something that's not required. You don't have to try and bring them to your side -- you can breeze past those little dialogue snippets and just take them out if you want. And at the end of combat, if they weren't recruited, you have an option to spare them or kill them. If you spare them, you might see them again in another battle, and maybe they'll remember you: maybe you'll have another chance to recruit them, and more success the second time around because your actions challenged their preconceived notions about you. If you kill them, though, you might run into someone else later on -- a sibling, a relative, a friend -- who can't be reached at all because their quest is one of vengeance against the one that murdered someone they loved.

And then: what if that built into Supports. What if recruiting units off the battlefield had long-running effects based on how that unit was used? If someone was initially hesitant to join you, and then you bench them permanently, maybe they desert your force after a while because they felt isolated and lacked any kind of community since no work had been done building a new support network for them. Maybe someone else was a little too eager to join based on their impression of your army, and if you build out their Supports it becomes clear that their character has goals that are entirely at odds with the main characters' -- but because those Supports also gave them an understanding of the disconnect, they end up betraying you at some point to get what they want. Recruitment becomes a mechanic that needs to be considered, rather than just a 'collect them all' thing, because indiscriminate recruiting can backfire on you down the road.

With that many characters, of course, it would be completely insane to have all of them as combat units -- so what if some recruits unlock camp options. Maybe they're hesitant to fight against their own people directly, but they want to help and learn more about your force, so they offer non-combat skills: cooking, hunting, fishing, foraging, various sorts of combat/weaponry training, medical aid, merchant services. Similar to Three Houses monastery activities, you can pick a couple of combat units and send them to do different tasks that help keep your forces in fighting shape, building support bonds and learning things about the non-combat units in the process.

One thing I definitely want to see though is a reversal on the stereotypical Divine Dragon and Evil Dragon dichotomy. I want the main characters to talk about their Divine with absolute reverence, I want them to refer to their Divine as their protector and guardian, I want them to make their Divine out to be so kind and compassionate -- and then at some point deep in the game, I want it revealed that their Divine is the one that's seen as that world's Ultimate Evil. I want their Divine to look incredibly daunting, too, big and dark and toothy and terrifying -- but the main characters have nothing but respect for it, and it's eventually proven (maybe through calling it for aid against the threat of the neighboring nation's Divine) that their faith is not misplaced nor mistaken, and their Divine is everything they claim it is.

I still really like the split narrative concept, too, with the two siblings having different stories and different objectives: the kidnapped brother would likely have missions emphasizing escape or endurance (which takes advantage of his status as a healer), while the questing sister would have more objectives to rout an enemy or defeat a particular foe. Odds are that the narrative would begin with a single straightforward story, then split at the kidnapping, and only join together again at the very end before the closing chapters (so you could bring your favorites from both sides of the story to the final confrontation, but wouldn't get all the out of battle/camp stuff).

And above all: I wouldn't want it to be a story that ends with unification under a single banner. A lot of Fire Emblem games have this as their 'ideal' final state, and that's just never worked for me. I would want every nation to remain independent -- maybe with more connections, an openness to diplomatic discussion and free trade, possibly some leadership changes -- rather than having one country dissolved into another.

[fang-emblem]

Things to remember in Fire Emblem Awakening

I'll try not to spoil the story!

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1. Game mode-

When you start up a new file, you'll be asked to choose your game type. Normal, hard or lunatic, if this is your first time playing Awakening or a main line FE title, choose normal.

After that, you can choose between casual or classic. Again, you should probably play casual if you don't understand.

In casual, your units merely retreat when they lose all their HP. In classic, they're dead.

Chrom and the avatar are exceptions, if they die, its game over even if your other units are fine.

2. Avatar creation-

At the beginning of the game, you have a choice to create your avatar. You can choose between male/masculine or female/feminine. You can customize their height, hair, face, hair colour, and voice. You can give them a name and a birthday.

Asset and flaw affects their stats growths, Luck is an okay flaw to have. Depending on things like what classes you want or who your spouse/kids(s) might be, this can change your thinking a lot. You should probably go for something like HP as your asset.

3. Options-

After you start, you can press A on an empty tile to bring up the menu, you can choose options like the music volume or how fast the gameplay goes. You can also access the in game guide from the menu.

4. Characters-

You'll start off the first couple of chapters with- Chrom, Lissa, Frederick and your avatar. Slowly, more people will join your army as you progress through the main story or play paralouges.

Some child characters are connected to their parent.

Chrom -> Lucina

Robin/Avatar -> Morgan

Lissa -> Owain

Sully -> Kjelle

Miriel -> Laurent

Sumia -> Cynthia

Maribelle -> Brady

Panne -> Yarne

Cordelia -> Severa

Nowi -> Nah

Tharja -> Noire

Olivia -> Inigo

Cherche -> Gerome

5. Recruitment- These units will not join you unless they are recruited!

Other characters will join automatically.

First generation:

•Have Chrom talk to Kellam.

•Have Chrom talk to Gaius.

•Have Chrom talk to Tharja.

•Have Chrom talk to Libra.

•Donnel has to level up at least once in order to join. Make him kill low HP enemies, and have him pair up with another unit, like Chrom, to gain a stat boost.

•Have Chrom talk to Anna, keep in mind this Anna is in the paralouge that appears when chapter 9 does.

Second generation:

•Lucina automatically joins your army after Chapter 13.

•Have the avatar/Chrom talk to Morgan.

•Have Chrom/Lissa talk to Owain.

•Have Chrom/Sully talk to Kjelle.

•Have Chrom/Miriel enter the village on the left.

•Have Chrom/Sumia talk to Cynthia.

•Have Chrom/Maribelle talk to Brady.

•Have Chrom/Panne talk to Yarne.

•Have Chrom/Cordelia talk to Severa, then assist her in making her way to Colin.

•Have Chrom/Nowi talk to Nah.

•Noire automatically joins on turn 2.

•Have Chrom/Olivia talk to Inigo.

•Have Chrom/Cherche talk to Gerome.

There are special streetpass characters you can get by going to Wireless -> Bonus Box -> Bonus Maps. But you can't play them until the endgame...

6. Classes-

The avatar can access basically any class, barring gender specific ones. F avatar can change into a pegasus knight, which M avatar cannot.

Your units start off with their base class, and a couple of reclass options.

You can advance their class by using a Master Seal, or change their class by using a Second Seal. They can be found in chests, dropped by certain enemies or bought on the world map.

Units learn one skill are level one, and then another at level 10. When at an advanced class, they learn a skill at level 5, and level 15.

There are special classes that can't be accessed by other characters. Only Chrom and Lucina can be lords, only Olivia can be a dancer.

7. Inheritance-

The children that came from the future to save the past from the clutches of Grima.

Technically, Lucina is the only child unit you have to recruit. But who wants that?

Your child units base stats, and stat growths depend on some crazy math shit that I dont understand. Some characters base classes depend on magic, like Nah. While others depend on physical attack, like Yarne. But most of this stuff is up to preference! Any character can be great. (Their hair colour also depends on the father. Not Lucina though)

Your children will always inherit the last active skill in their parents skill slots.

The very bottom skill (left), would correspond to the middle skill (right), if it was filled.

Chrom is a special case, his daughters will always inherit Aether from him, while his sons will always inherit Rightful King from him. Even if he doesn't have those skills yet.

His grandchild, Morgan, if the avatar marries one of his kids, will also get those skills passed down from the sons/daughters.

8. Supports-

After like, chapter 3 or 4, you can see support conversations. Some characters can only reach A with each other, but others reach S. S rank is the marriage support, characters will confess their undying love.

Some supports will grow faster than others, like Mirel and Stahl is a very fast support! To even grow your level, have them stand beside each other in battle, or pair them up.

Chrom and Sumia are picky about their romantic partners, supposedly it's the canon pairing but it doesn't have to be that way. If you wanted to pair up Chrom with Olivia, for example, you'd have to keep him away from his other potential wives. (Try not to get at least C support, it makes things easier)

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This is only a really basic guide, if you have questions, I'll do my best to help out!

[fvtvrelegends]

( charlie rowe, trans male, he/him, fire emblem: awakening ) * &. i know it must be scary for you, owain, after surviving the takeover. to turn into someone like owen faulk, a twenty-three year-old clerk at the hq, right here in castle town. just remember that you are as imaginative as you are impulsive, and to be wary, be safe, be true to who you are : heroic through and through. ( (H)O(Y)-(LIA) THERE )

               HOY THERE. Sup guys so I’m here with . . . the closest Fire Emblem has ever written to an actual LARPer who is ALSO my baby boy , fucking love of my life , favorite weirdo 10/10. Click for more under the cut , but beware of spoilers for Fire Emblem: Awakening !!

BEFORE CASTLE TOWN. / O W A I N. ( tw: parental death )

SOOOO OKAY. let me get some stuff out of the way ,

- - - UNDERNEATH THIS BOY CONSISTS OF SPOILERS FOR FIRE EMBLEM: AWAKENING ( and kind of Fates ) . A MARKER WILL BE SET TO INDICATE SPOILERS ARE OVER. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Soooo’kay Owain !! Now Owain. Owain has the exact same circumstance as Lucina , who I recently dropped if you remember her. 

Not too familiar still ?? That’s fine !! He’s basically the future child of one of the heroes of the story , and like the rest of them , traveled through time as his future was a ruined land where chaos took over and zombies and evil dragons and . . . yeah. In his time , his parents are long dead. It’s not pretty.

Now who are his parents ?? Well his dad is determined by the player - I won’t clarify who his father is for plot reasons ( but my favorite candidates are Gaius & Lon’qu ) , but his mother is LISSA. Lissa , yes , your first cleric in the game , one of your starter heroes , and Chrom’s little sister. So this makes Owain Ylissean royalty of sorts ( his mother’s a princess ) , and also Chrom’s nephew , and Lucina’s cousin. 

Of course , you find out that all of the children got separated as they traveled through time - some like Laurent , who were displaced five years earlier than when you find him. Owain didn’t have a scenario like that , but this poor baby actually curled up into a ball and cried upon realizing he was alone. My POOR FUCKING SON -

An interesting fact is that he bears the brand of the Exalt - a thing of the Ylissean royal family that surfaces on the skin of each member - while his mother’s actually never surfaced. He has it on his arm ( isn’t clarified exactly where , but I like to think it’s on the back of his hand. ) 

SOOOO lemme just get this one out of the way because I feel like I need to address it - because the way Awakening works , Owain is one of the many characters who - thanks to the fact that every child unit save for Lucina inherits their dependent parent’s ( in this case , his father’s ) hair color , his hair color and be... literally anything. Now in Fates his hair’s blonde ( because Lissa’s is ) BUT ... I prefer Owain with dark hair so I simply said fuck it and went with that. Technically either Frederick , Kellam , Lon’qu , or even Stahl ( closely in a way ) could give him that sorta hair color but just because I made him have dark hair doesn’t mean his dad’s any of these dudes. Again , I won’t clarify. 

ALSO . . . I’m not. SURE on what I want to do for Fates because Owain actually does appear in Fates ( as a dark mage named Odin working under Prince Leo of Nohr ) but I’m not. Big on some parts of Fates but ALSO I . . . I REALLY LIKE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH LEO & NILES so I guess I’ll be including that but not Ophelia since. As much as I love her it’s so hard to picture Owain as a dad with this kind of plot. He’s still Baby in my eyes.

AKA bring me a fucking Leo.

- - END OF MAJOR FIRE EMBLEM: AWAKENING ( and kind of Fates? ) SPOILERS. 

SO YEAH THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT OWAIN is . . . well , remembering when I said he’s basically a LARPer ?? I wasn’t kidding.

A good chunk of his character is that most of the time he actually acts like a character from an old hero’s legend or something. He speaks in this overly theatrical Ye Olde kind of . . . dialect ?? I’m not sure if that’s the right way to put it but he basically puts on a show 90% of the time - but he also breaks character quite a few times in game.

( SPOILER WARNING )  Like when you recruit him with Chrom : “By the gods old and new! Another future traveler?! And yet, impossible, for I saw none like him in the light... Who are you, villain?! Speak now!” “Um, I'm Chrom. ...Of Ylisse? I have no quarrel with you, but if we must fight, then-” “UNCLE CHROM?!”

That is singlehandedly one of the best conversations in-game and it’s not even a support.

BUT YEAH he loves stories like these and always wanted to be that legendary hero so he goes around acting like it because he likes it and it’s so fucking pure.

One thing he has is his “sword hand” - it’s purely a theatrical thing , but he has this uncontrollable “sword hand” that thirsts for duel and battle and it’s why I almost made his url “svvordhvnd” but that was too obvious for Owain.

It’s changes to “aching blood” in Fates but that’s not as good as my opinion since in Awakening’s one of his voice lines is literally “My sword hand twitches.”

Lucina describes him as “colorful.” She’s not wrong. 

He also has a habit of naming his weapons and attacks and . . . shouting when he performs them ?? He also names these weapons & attacks after actual Fire Emblem characters & titles from previous games - it’s fucking funny.

And of COURSE all of these theatrics and imagination isn’t for naught since he’s actually a bit of a writer !! In his Hot Spring Scramble conversation with Laurent he actually has a manuscript all written down and apparently it’s well-written and damn good. 

But yeah in a nutshell - Owain is just a nerdy sweetheart who honestly never really grew out of playing pretend and it helps him cope with all the shit he’s faced so ?? Are we gonna blame him ?? Fuck no that’s my baby & he’s a creative baby who drinks respect women juice. That’s important. 

AFTER CASTLE TOWN. / O W E N. 

SO. Owain survived the takeover meaning he has all of his memories from Awakening ( and Fates w/ the exception of Ophelia I guess since I’m a sucker for Leo’s terrible trio ).

His one token is a staff from his mother ( in-game , he actually keeps a piece of one of his mother’s staves that he named after her but this time it’s The Actual Staff. )

He works at the HQ because honestly in this world too he was a fucking nerd and he embraces that shit constantly !!

Unfortunately he CAN’T be all theatrical because he realized Castle Town is a way different world than his and because people already thought he was strange back there , that’d only increased tenfold.

. . . BUT HE STILL GETS IT OUT SINCE HE REGULARLY PLAYS D&D and also acts sometimes at the theatre !! ( did u know in the future past dlc he actually becomes a performer w/ inigo and brady in the end it’s Fun )

. . . He. He Also. Performs at children’s parties for some extra cash because they looooove his whole “legendary hero” schtick and it makes him happy so yeah there’s that too. 

He likes a lot of things about Castle Town but again when he woke up and realized he was all alone AGAIN he really didn’t react well and basically . . . it was like the first time he got separated from his allies again. He’s gotten way more used to it now , but in the very beginning it was harsh.

His name’s now Owen bc I’m uncreative : )

He has parents he doesn’t really talk to - mainly because he knows they’re fake , and also they apparently weren’t the best fake parents either so he’s more dead set on finding his real parents again. 

AND.... yeah that it that’s !! Honestly it on my boy. I’d love to plot with u all bc I plan on being awake a bit longer to finish up tasks and things so YEAH come 4 me. 

Also bi as hell bc I do love projecting & also there’s no way Owain is straight thank u