#nightborn edition

[mortish-writes]

[Play Bride of Shadows for Free] [Patreon Edition]

The Patreon for Bride of Shadows is live! All that whinging yesterday and it only took a few hours for them to approve it.

What's in The Nightborn Edition?

Right now, not a lot of extra stuff apart from Night V of the Zealot route. When I started writing Bride of Shadows, my aim was to avoid paywalling the story. I know from experience that there's no better time for romantic escapism than when you don't have money. So instead of clipping Bound/Unbound modes from the free version or stopping it after x amount of nights, I opted to make a version with early releases and fan-chosen extras. Each month, we're going to have polls on things like additional tendencies, story branches, and features that will be exclusive to The Nightborn Edition. Your version will have a lot of extra choices and even a few unique story lines.

I took the liberty of adding one much-requested feature to the new edition, and that is a brand new Bound Mode which has an MFM-poly story line and an optional Valdricht only route*. In this mode, Valdricht and Serax will have a platonic maker/progeny relationship. Starting in Night VI or VII (depending on your route) Bound mode players will be able to choose whether to try to juggle the passions of both ROs, or go deep down the Valdricht rabbit hole. Or you can make two save games and do both.

This Sunday we'll have our first poll relating to some baby stuff and I'll be posting an excerpt. Apart from that, I'll be pretty hands-off for the next few days as I focus on finishing the Heretic Night V route. As soon as that is done and edited, it'll be added to The Nightborn Edition as an early release. Then we'll have some polls that will let you shape Night VI and the upcoming NSFW content. I'm dying to write the NSFW Zealot scenes.

The extra content aside, the Patreon will go a long way toward helping me to write Bride of Shadows full-time, which means more content, more quickly, for everyone.

What if I can't/don't want to subscribe to Patreon?

The Nightborn Edition will be available on Steam once the Bride of Shadows IF is complete. I don't have a date on that, it will be dependent on whether I'll be able to write full-time this year. If there is a subscription service similar to Patreon that works in your country, let me know and I'll see about setting up an account.

For everyone else, the free Bride of Shadows updates will be one week after each Patreon update. They'll still have all the content I'd initially planned, including the NSFW stuff!

I donated on Ko-Fi, can I have a free month?

You sure can! In fact, I've already sent messages to everyone who gave a Ko-Fi donation. You should have a link waiting for you that will give you one or more free months of Darksinger membership, depending on how much you donated. If the value of your free months doesn't meet or exceed the amount of your Ko-Fi donation, let me know because I may have sent you the wrong link. Likewise, if you didn't get a message, let me know. I might still use Ko-Fi in the future, either for alternate memberships or goal funding, but for the time being Patreon isn't as temperamental with payments and NSFW content so I'll be focusing on that.

I am one of the two people who donated on Itch.

First of all, you're wonderful. Second, feel free to message me for a link to a free month of the Patreon or the March Nightborn password if you aren't able to do Patreon.

The Patreon page looks so boring and plain.

I KNOW! But I'm not allowed to make it look pretty until I finish Heretic Night V and the new Elovyr map. It's a rule I made because I know I'll sink at least a full day into making it look fancy. Also, The Nightborn Edition store page is basically identical to the regular game. It's driving me insane, too, but that's gotta wait. Writing always comes first.

Final Note

Please remember that the new edition is a work-in-progress and that the extra content will be added as patrons begin voting on it. Right now, it's very similar to the free version, with only the new Zealot night and some hidden variables. The Heretic route is under construction to make some updates for the new Bound mode and will not be playable until the Heretic Night V update next week.

Thanks for reading and supporting my writing. Even if you aren't able to subscribe to Patreon, I appreciate you just following me, chatting about the story, and sharing it with others who might enjoy it. I am grateful every day to be able to write and share Bride of Shadows with you.

-Mortish

*I hear you barking. I know you want a Serax-only route. Maybe it can be a thing later. I kind of have an idea of how we can make it work. Give me some time to think it through. I don't want to promise any story routes until I know 100% that they'll work in the context of the broader plot and that they'll be satisfying.

[roach-with-the-most]

[panvibez]

I've been seeing peeps with their avantris phone themes and I've had my phone on a cos and eom theme for a while

Credits to @/itsguysnightitsironic and @/gorebek for the art and theming idea

[sebritz]

sometimes elves are gay

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

12 Days Of Christmas Countdown

10 Brotps (4/10): Eva Nightborn & Gabriel Branwell [ Shadowhunters ]

Tag List: @airwolf92 – want to be added?

[snowflake-obsidian-cat]

600x600 | ICONS | NIGHTBORNE

[best-loa-character-bracket]

And If you would be so inclined, please explain your choose

Edit : the character's name it Henri. Its Henri.

[goblin-enjoyer]

I've been struggling a bit because I want to make a priest char to do healing with and I can't figure out what race to make em. I swear I get stuck trying to decide between Night Elf and Nightborne that I've made this little drawing/comic about it.

It's all doubly funny as I already have a priest half-levelled that has been relegated to "bank alt" despite never needing to use one half the time. Just that type of character made when you were younger that served very specific purposes and had a stupid joke name to match that importance. still kept around for "legacy" because you're too attached to the design and internal characterization of em to get rid of the git. wordless version of the first drawing and extended version of the joke to attach more with above situation.

like I like the mog for him and the "grumpy old priest" characterization i've given him over the years is BIS, but the combination of me really liking blackrock orcs and at the time thinking obama was the funniest name ever for some reason (those memes of the heavily edited obama images were around at the time so that's probably why) does NOT look good in hindsight with adult eyes. That and the fact I used to roam the forums with this git for hours at a time, several posts a day sometimes, doesn't really help his case for being unretired from gold storage and occasional tailor and org invasion combat rezzer.

[gatheredfates]

Altitis Edition ✧˖°.

Tagged by: @riftdancing / @thefreelanceangel - thanks so much!

FAVOURITE.

Oh man, that is like asking someone to pick their favourite child. All of my characters are my 'favourites' for different reasons. I think, if I had to narrow it down, I'd default to the big three: Ashe, Azuma and Koret.

Ashe is my content main; she is the character who has everything as far as mounts/titles/etc. She was my mental health cleanse coming from WoW, and her entire existence as a character is someone I can escape into when the darker aspects of my other characters may be too much to deal with. She's your bog-standard adventurer; she's always up for a challenge, nothing complicated happens in her life, and she just wants to hang out and meet new people. I love her spark and how she follows the beat of her own drum, whilst also being a caring friend to those around her.

Azuma was my first character in xiv, and really the only one that exists just in this universe. I wouldn't have met @riftdancing if not for her, and the friendship she has with Siyoh mimics the same I have for her player - even if we didn't have the luxury of knowing each other since we were children. I'm far shyer in sharing stuff for her than I ought to be, but her quiet strength of will is a comfort to me and something I love playing.

Kor... is feral. Who knew a off-handed OC made for WoW would turn into my absolute hyper fixation. I love her strength and snark. I love how, on the one hand, she doesn't give a fuck what people think about her whilst holding the opinions of her loved ones in high regard. Much like Azuma, the bonds I have made with people in writing her mean the world to me and that's why I've played her for so long.

OLDEST.

Aryele. Originally called Arianna — I made her when I was ten years old and injected her into nearly any roleplay that would have me. She's gone through a couple of name changes (Aryele/Aryette on WoW, for example, just to name a few), but the fundamental crux of her character as a wandering mender has stayed the same.

NEWEST.

Technically Elandervier. She was the last OC I made in WoW, though a few other characters have preceded her since then, but her adaptation to XIV has been the most recent change to my roster. I found it difficult to have her and Seelu, for example — as well as trying to differentiate her between other characters whose defining traits were 'void-aligned' verses 'fel-aligned' (El was a Nightborne Warlock in WoW, which is why I have her Gelmorran heritage, but void and fel are two clearly defined factions in WoW). I'm really happy with how she's turned out, though. She's quickly shooting up to be one of my favourite OC's.

MEANEST.

If we're talking characters who will say hurtful shit or just be a bit of an asshole? Kor. If we're talking characters who will actively undermine you for their own ends? Elandervier or Z. The latter are closer to villains as opposed to Kor, who is just aloof and bitchy as a surface level protection. Z is a voidsent with heavy inspiration from vampirism - he will take what he wants from who he wants with reckless disregard. El has bargained with said voidsent (including Z) for most of her life and will offer sacrifice and placation to keep her power. I think the major difference is that Z hunts for sport, whereas El will keep to herself unless you disturb her or go out of your way to be a nuisance in her space.

SOFTEST.

Aryele or Alaice, but they both have different reasons. Alaice is Ary who went through trauma but kept her softness, whereas Ary is just blanketly soft but knows herself enough to not fall into some of the trappings that Alaice did. Azuma is not too far behind, but her soft is masked behind a layer of Doman formalities and trauma that tends to make it seem forced for those who don't know the culture well.

MOST ALOOF/STANDOFFISH.

Kor. Next question. (I think El and Z can be standoffish but they're more likely to say nothing where Kor is just 'fuck you, fuck off.') ...Eve is also a close contender.

DUMBEST (AFFECTIONATE / DEROGATORY)

Some of you might remember when @riftdancing did her Altitis edition and mentioned Poki twice here... Ashe is her adopted mum. It runs in the family.

I JEST, THOUGH. Ashe is not book smart but she's emotionally intelligent. I like to think of her as a character who really 'sees' people for who they are; cutting through the fat and bravado (positive or negative) people use to cloak themselves. She gets a good read on people quickly, even if she doesn't understand their specific situation, and that makes her easy to talk to/interact. She's the kind of person who will admit honestly and earnestly she probably has no idea what they're going through, but she'll listen and help where she can.

SMARTEST.

Probably Elandervier. I think Seelu would be a close contender, but she didn't have much of an education growing up and has had to work hard for the intelligence she now possesses. El would simply 'know' what something is, whereas Seelu would work hard to find the correct tome and cultural knowledge.

HORNIEST.

Sarrai.

I will not elaborate. Sarrai is the kind of person who loves unabashedly and will return affection to those who give it to her in kind. Understandably, she knows there are people who don't give it altruistically but she's lived with an egomaniac capitalist for the better part of eighteen/nineteen years and knows how to 'play the market', so to speak She'll forgive a lot of shortcomings if the dick/strap is good.

CHARACTER YOU'D BANG.

Sarrai. I think she'd treat me nicely but test my limits (in a good way)! DFKGHJDSFGSD. I thirst for Kor probably the most, though.

CHARACTER YOU'D BE IRL BEST FRIENDS WITH.

Ashe or Sarrai, no contest. Sarrai is the world's biggest hype-woman and would be amazing to have in times where I am not feeling my best mentally/physically. She'd be like "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FEEL SAD?? YOU'RE SUCCESSFUL, YOU HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP, YOU HAVE FRIENDS WHO ADORE YOU GIRLIE!!! But also get therapy if you need it, you crazy slut."

Ashe would be nice to go on a walk with and just chat about life. She's easy-going and doesn't expect much of the people around her, other than to treat each other kindly and with respect. She's much more active than I would be, though!

Another close contender is Azuma. Much like Ashe, she enjoys easy conversation and good food. She likes to surround herself with people who love her and will go out of her way to maintain relationships with people she cares about.

Tagging: @gaygentofchaos, @dawnstriding, @syerraffxiv, @snakemoltsiren, @dragons-ire, @fist-and-fury-xiv (I know you all have alts, don't look at me), @allyennah, @thefrostflower, @82-99 and anyone else with more alts than sense. If you'd like to be tagged in any dash games I participate in, I heavily recommend you like my permanent interaction call here!

[laedrin]

Painted my nightborne rogue, Scillienn, but I didn't have watercolors that matched her actual skin color, so I just edited over the picture.

This is what she actually is supposed to look like!

[belialhaematemesis]

Arcan'Dor, the Tree of Redemption (Shal'Aran, Meredil) | WORLD OF WARCRAFT

[mortish-writes]

No Patreon quite yet.

The Bride of Shadows Patreon isn't ready yet, I didn't realize that a month after giving them a picture of myself and a copy of my government ID, and then them saying I was all set, they'd still do an additional review when I was actually ready to launch my Patreon. Apparently this can take as along as a week, but usually takes a couple days.

The Zealot route for Night V is edited and will be ready for early release as soon as the Patreon is up. You will have to start a new game and only the Zealot route is available right now. The Heretic Night V route will be out next week.

The Night V Zealot route is an additional 25,000 words, with two separate branches depending on whether you're aligned with The Weaver. It also has separate endings depending on which RO you have the strongest bond with. There are also breast sizes now. See? I also added the option to refuse The Weaver and...stay dead. Cause apparently the offer to not be dead was frustrating readers.

The name of the patron version is The Nightborn Edition. Right now, it is largely the same as the current build (+Zealot Night V and a few new variables, mostly hidden), but once the Patreon is live we'll be running polls for new content. Our first few polls will be regarding conception/pregnancy since that will start in Night VI. We'll nail down how we want to handle paternity in poly relationships and how random/not random we want things like gender/appearance/multiples to be. Then we'll vote on a new tendency and which tendencies you'd like to see more of. The goal is to make a version tailored to the interests and tastes of patrons, without taking content away from free players.

I've also changed Bound mode for patrons. It will now feature an MFM storyline with the option to go crazy and have an exclusive MF relationship with Valdricht. Serax TBD, I'll explain in the FAQ, no I don't love Valdricht more, there are important plot reasons for it, if you want Serax you can still have him in MFM mode or play MMF mode as the gods intended. I know that the Duskweaver Cultist won out in the poll, but MFM/MF will be much easier to integrate into the existing story at the moment. Also, you get updates earlier and you can support my goal of writing Bride of Shadows full-time.

Hopefully the review process will be quick and I'll do an official Patreon launch announcement/invitation soon. It will be much prettier and more comprehensive than this. In the meantime, I'll be working on the Heretic route for Night V. Just not tonight. I'm going to relax now.

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Off-topic rant don't read unless you have nothing better to do. Sometimes a girl just has to type some feelings in a big block of text. So Bride of Shadows has gotten a ton of new players/followers this week. Idk if it was blessed by the algorithm or what. That's not the rant, I'm incredibly happy about that and insanely grateful. So today while I was trying to set up the Patreon version, I thought I could just add the Patreon edition to my regular page and password lock it. Maybe I can and I just couldn't figure it out, but that's a question to puzzle over another day. Anyway, somewhere in the process of attempting this I restricted the main game for like 30 seconds and it completely removed Bride of Shadows from the Itch algorithm. It went from getting a new follower every 15 minutes to totally disappearing from all the categories. Which sucks because we were doing so good. Like, we were almost in a warm, fuzzy sandwich between the hot succubus game and the sexy Minotaur game and that's without a new release in two weeks. I know, I still can't believe it. Anyway, I think the vanishing is only temporary and it'll creep back into the algorithm again, but I'm too tired to worry about it right now. I cried on the phone with my husband for like 5 minutes about that and Patreon and then he came home with chocolate filled caramels for me. Anyway, it's impossible to be sad while eating them, so I'm feeling much better now but I wanted to rant in a wall of text regardless. In February the big stressful thing was my old blog getting shadowbanned, and I went through this whole 24 hour emotional crisis where I thought the IF was doomed and no one would ever find it again and now this month my crisis is that it was getting tons of followers until I derped the algorithm. It's all to say, sometimes I gotta complain about things that annoy me, but I never lose sight of the bigger picture, which is that I'm writing a story I love and lots of people are enjoying it, so no matter what shenanigans befall me, I don't let it distract me. And if I do get overwhelmed, there are always chocolate filled caramels. And because you read all of this the Nightborn Edition password is "veryeasytoguess". I'll be changing the password once the Patreon launches. In the meantime, feel free to check out the new Zealot night. I hope you'll be able to join the Patreon and help build the Nightborn Edition into something really special. For players in non-Patreon regions or those who hate subscriptions (I totally get it), the Nightborn Edition will be available on Steam once the IF is complete and you're always welcome to submit suggestions for things you'd like to see in the final IF. Also just in case it wasn't clear, the regular free story will still be updated. Night V will be out not long after I finish writing the Heretic route. Thanks for reading, you're all amazing. -Mortish

[vaesha-draecon]

Leyestra got an upgrade! I was going to have her male form, Leyestros appear behind her with transparency, but I couldn't get it to look right. for Leylah's top, I was going to make is gossamer and all, but I didn't think of that until I had already saved the model, but ah well. I'm happy with how it came out Leylah is genderfluid, she uses any pronoun!

[tengwar]

Amidst her torment

[themistweaver]

Date in Dalaran

I imagine Malunera and Synclair would just hang a lot around in Dalaran, going on dates, meeting new & old friends, trying the excellent bakery and cake shop. 

This would be just around the end of Legion, before faction conflict really began to stire and Teldrassil was burned.

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Happy January! November / December involved a whole lot of editing so I decided to make another roundup! Ngl this is mostly to prove to myself that I actually did a whole lot even though I feel like I didn't do enough because of the countdown being late, but I'm including it as part of December anyways so that I can start January as a fresh slate!

Countdown

12 Characters

Mercedes Delgado

Adhara Black

Mina Ambrosia

Clem Wayland

Hollis Everdeen

Ilsa George

Ophelia Wayne

Kirsty Gilmore

Erin Humphrey

Caroline Fox

Aurora Anderson

Mirella Gold

11 Ships:

Eloise Quinn

Valentina Wolfe x Audrey Hope 

Reese Masrani x Emilio Contreras

Ginevra Maroni x Bruce Wayne

Adelia Kline x Quinn Fabray

Ties That Bind

Delfina Baratheon x Oberyn Martell

Summer Sol x James Coleman

Maristela Carrillo x Blaise Zabini x Theodore Nott

Aurélia Agreste x Luka Couffaine

10 Brotps:

Hollis & The Band

Topher Charming & Marnie Fitzwater-Hood

Emily & Luke Patterson

Betty Fabray & Finn Hudson

Cassia Potter & Dimitri Volkor & Sebastian Rosier

Camila Nelson & Will Byers

Luciana Davila & The LDB

Kennedy Quinlan & Alex Claremont-Diaz

Vanessa Kline & Jason Todd

Eva Nightborn & Gabriel Branwell

9 Christmas Aesthetics

Kirsty Gilmore

Cece Cartwright

Noelle Of Arendelle

Sophie Dugray

Cassia Potter

Aurora Anderson

Ivy Knight

Chessy Of Arendelle

Betty Fabray

8 Platonic Crossovers

Ava & Roni [ @thecaptainsgingersnap ]

Aurora & Sydney [ @megdonnellys ]

Thalia & Remy [ @cecexwrites ]

Dylan & HN [ @ocmerunaway ]

Jax & The Girls [ @ginevrastilinski-ocs ]

Ivy & Amelia [ @darknightfrombeyond ]

Gloria & Gabe [ @manyfandomocs ]

Kirsty & Richie [ @the-witching-ash ]

7 Romantic Crossovers

Angel x Roman [ @the-witching-ash ]

Will x Kit [ @ginevrastilinski-ocs ]

Lily x Greyson [ @manyfandomocs ]

Cassandra x Waverly [ @megdonnellys ]

Savannah x Andrew [ @the-witching-ash ]

Ariadne x Elys [ @ginevrastilinski-ocs ]

Coco x Matthew [ @manyfandomocs ]

6 Intros

Reese Masrani

Colton Cartwright

Hollis Everdeen

Ophelia Wayne

Aurélia Agreste

Nevaeh Murphy

5 Posters

Katia McKinley

Olivia Olsen

Coco Bates

Maristela Carrillo

Laura Hyde

4 Neglected OCs

Quinn Hargreeves

Briar Tyrell Stark

Caitlin Watson

Miranda Granger

3 Nicknames

Arianne Martin

Sabina Maximoff

Kirsty Gilmore

2 AUs

Sophie Dugray + Arranged Marriage

Kirsty Gilmore + Raised By Emily & Richard

1 Video

Kirsty Gilmore