Fire Emblem Fanfiction
Story Part 1/?
Edelgard Journal
To rule Adrestia, you must be licensed by birthright and crest inheritance. This makes me a destined empress instead of a lawful one. The power I stand to inherit is supposedly mine only because the Goddess says so. It is because of the Goddess' will that my siblings had to die, only so that Fodlan could progress toward its fate. I would like the Goddess to sign a paper admitting her 'will' killed my siblings. If I had such a paper I could stand a chance in outliving my own guilt. The Seiros elite do not question such motivations; instead they pray so as to discern what it is the Goddess is telling them to do... so they can do it, blindly. I cannot remember when I started to question the motivations of our Goddess, however I have always known never to share my doubt with anyone. Adrestia's empress must be unwavering, and entirely certain. I can never be that, because even if I ignored my suspicion it would undoubtedly affect my actions indirectly. Doubt is a disease that is now a part of me.
I can only share my deepest struggle with Hubert, my personal advisor and protector. Hubert is a mage who specializes in dark magic. He is also a genius. It's obvious that his mind is often elsewhere— bound in the constant computations of other worlds, he is my interdimensional earpiece. It is through him that I became aware of the reawakening of Nemesis, and Byleth's return to Garrech Mach. I am now one of a select few who know that it was the Rhea who transformed Byleth into a vessel for Sothis the goddess herself. This realization hastened me to align with him— I'm desperate to ask if he has a relationship with Sothis, and if he can truly discern her true motivations. Does she endorse the atrocities of Seiros, their human experimentation, or the brutal enforcement of allegiance to Rhea?
Supposedly, Sothis has appeared to Byleth, not as a goddess but as an amnesiatic child. Her hair is green like the Seiros elite, except she has no idea who they are. She has even expressed suspicion of them and their motives. Is this girl really Sothis, or did Rhea's experimentation fail? Hubert believes it is reasonable that Sothis is amnesiatic. He thinks her forgetting is a condition of her earthly immanence. It has often been thought that the Goddess lives outside of man, as in she lives non-relationally to man, and is indifferent to any impact we may make. This cannot be true simply because Sothis is here, inside Byleth. She can impact us, thus we must be able to impact her. This may have something to do with why she is amnesiatic. In order to remain unbiased, unentrenched in the ecosystems of Fodlan, and the world she must be in a state of constant forgetting, renewing her amnesia nightly.
Byleth does not know that I plan to usurp Rhea and the church of Seiros. Adrestia cannot be oppressed by a church that falsely claims to enact the Goddesses' will. I should admit that my dutiful opposition to the Church of Seiros is complicated by a personal vendetta. They are fucking eugenicists! The good thing about being a destined empress instead of a lawful empress, is that it is permissible to have such a complication. Hubert and I have thus begun planning our usurpation.
I'm learning how to use magic faster than anticipated. My education has brought me closer with the Goddess, because magic inhabits a space of unknowing, and confusion. No mage can fully explain why magic "works," thus a successful mage must be okay with pseudo naivety. This is partly why I believe Lindhart is so sleepy all the time; he must be worn out by rampant curiosity. This is the mindset that precipitates an aptitude for magic. The church would call it faith, but I think it is closer to embodied uncertainty, and speculation. I am growing stronger by the day.
Proposed Controls 1/?
FE3H combat involves percentage-based turn play. The damage a character will inflict, alongside the percentage chance of an attack hitting / missing is shown in a "combat forecast." This forecast is constituted by a character's stats relative to whomever they are attacking. A character's effectiveness on the battlefield is determined by speed, strength, resistance, charisma and dexterity. Charisma determines the effectiveness of Battalions, strength constitutes damage and in part affects speed (if you are strong you can swing a sword faster), resistance impacts how much damage you will take from magic attacks, and so on. These stats can be boosted by either abilities gained from leveling up or special "crests" added to a players' inventory.
I think certainty should play a role in how likely an attack is to hit, or how likely an attack will become a critical strike. Certainty while at war should bolster strength and defense. In order for a player to master this new FE3H combat, they will have to incorporate a strategy of swift/certain decision making into their probabilistic war tactics, that is in near constant adjustment to changing combat forecasts.