[Question] How do you portray Kalyskah's personality
Hello everyone!
Following up on my last post, I'm using the small downtime I have from the engine while the combat and NPCs get rearranged, to take a look at the dialogues we haven't sent to voice acting yet.
I noticed that in some cases, since we don't want to extend the prologue too much, there are areas where we didn't add many small options that don't necessarily change the outcome of things, but allow you to better shape Kalyskah's personality by tweaking her tendency here and there when she replies in a certain way.
For erotic scenes, our rule of thumb is to offer at least 3 choices through the scene, with them ranging from dominant to submissive. Offering then 9 total 'blocks' with different lines, camera framing, etc. And that's something I'm using on the new scenes incoming.
When it comes to the dialogues, we tend to focus more on either Kalyskah showing more humour, authority or that murderous urge that we know a proper vampire should have!
But I'm also curious to know your vision of Kalyskah and how you play her. This week is the right time for me to improve upon these written dialogues, so let us know your thoughts!
Comments (7)
Apologies for the wall of text but I’ve got a few thoughts on how I personally interpret and play Kalyskah, and I also do have some criticisms. I’d place her The character somewhere between Yennefer and Philippa from The Witcher. There is a capacity for softness, but underneath that she is fundamentally ruthless, calculating, and self-directed. In my interpretation, she should lean more into a darker, morally ambiguous identity. Intimacy especially sexual intimacy feels more like a tool or transaction rather than something emotionally meaningful. I also imagine her as with a certain noble arrogance. If pushed or disrespected, she can become extremely dangerous without hesitation. She is viewed by her underlings with fear respect but also has a certain inviting allure to her. In actual gameplay, I tend to play her as a Toreador archetype enjoying beauty, pleasure, and generally tends to resolve things diplomatically. However she tends to have a short fuse and will sometimes let her more beast like instincts take over. What I do like is that she doesn’t feel naïve in sexual or intimate content. She feels playful, confidence, aware, and active in those situations, and I must say that the sexual content is handled surprisingly well. My main criticism is that she can feel too nice and grounded at times. The vampire aspect the predatory, inhuman edge doesn’t always come through strongly enough. I feel that there's sometimes a slight disconnect between what she is described as and how she can be played. I also think there is room to be more selective with player choice in some areas. Since she is a pre-established character with implied history, not every moment needs multiple tone branches. There should also be moments where her darker nature clearly surfaces, even if they are uncomfortable. Note that most of my feedback is based on older builds of the game I haven't really played the games newer builds, I'm most familiar with the legacy version and the prologue version.
I think you were very spot on with her personality! One thing to note, though, is how the 'niceness' of her play, and how grounded she is. Imagine that she knows people. She has seen every ruler, peasant and people in between suffering good, bad and worse consequences for their actions and inactions. So it's natural for her to have a certain charisma that will make people like her because she can be extremely manipulative, since she knows how people would react. So in my view, don't see her 'niceness' as an expression of her true-self at face value. But sometimes is simply because she knows how to make people cooperate with her. Although for her legion, she has a soft spot, she truly and genuinely cares about them!
I tend to take a more submissive approach with her, serving as a counterbalance to her strength. I see her as a dominant figure that is not afraid to use her power, but that ultimately cares for her followers, or at least ends up learning to care for them. To me, she’s someone who has discovered the value of compassion while also learning to enjoy the thrill of taking on submissive roles. She seems to relish the feeling of being dominated, perhaps as a way to counterbalance her excesses as a vampire queen but also to let go of the pressure tied to her regal nature.
That works well! It's definitely one way we like to frame it when she behaves submissively. It's without naivety, but more of an exploration of that side of hers!
As far as I'm concerned, Kalyskah has a deeply ingrained desire to be submissive, so I choose compassion, loyalty, and submissive responses to build on that.
For me its often Humor murderous only with enemies who deserve it in Sex scenes mostly submissive because shes a badass dominant Vampire and wants to Just let Go in intimate encounters
I guess it depends. When interacting with members of the legion, I go the compassionate route. When dealing with humans, I pick the opportunist options, as I'm sure she uses humans as play things from time to time.