Hannah

One full ass year ago, I made a post recalling my experience with a little-known indie game called Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle. I said I was going to replay it soon, but well... anyway, thank you to the person who clearly checked the Embric tag and found my post, for reminding me I was gonna do that.

So what is EoWC? It's a charming lesbian visual novel, with the trappings of a classic rpg. It's name your own price on Itch, so I do hope I can encourage some of you to try it for yourself. I played a few hours of it myself last night, and I'm pleased to report that it's just like I remember. I'll be discussing some early game stuff in this post, but proper spoilers won't happen until future posts. Future posts may also contain NSFW images, as this is an adult game.

EoWC starts with you (The Duchess of Elstwhere) arriving at Castle Wulfhammer to meet your new fiance, Embric. Embric is one member of a famous adventuring party called The Awesome Fellowship, who freed the land from tyranny by killing your evil uncle several years ago. He is also conspicuously absent from his own castle. Instead you meet a variety of his quirky servants and followers, as well as the other members of the Fellowship (seen above, with one exception).

The game is very tongue-in-cheek, and loves its jokes and puns. The puns are ever-present, and personally I think the humor holds up pretty well in most cases. You'll notice fairly early on that The Awesome Fellowship is meant to represent a stereotypical ttrpg party, who got up to a lot of murder-hoboing before saving the kingdom and settling down. Except none of them can seem to fully let go of their old adventuring lifestyle, especially Embric, who is off hunting brigands and monsters when he's supposed to be administering a fief.

I want to talk about the art as well. It's pretty obvious that several different artists worked on the game, from the shifting styles seen in various parts. You can see that pretty starkly here, with the contrast between the dialogue sprites, the pair of character introduction portraits, and one of the many mid-scene illustrations the game contains. I find the differing styles pretty charming, but I definitely like the full illustrations the most. Especially the style of the one depicted here - all those thick lines and the soft shading (nice and pixelated, courtesy of RPGmaker I assume). And of course we love to see an elf design with long ears.

I don't think I'll be covering all of the story beat by beat, but I will hit the important bits as they come up, and show off my favorite artwork from the game as I find it. I have so many things to say about Embric, and can scarcely organize my thoughts. I think this is going to be a journey. Nothing would please me more than to see others posting in the Embric tag, celebrating a unique piece of sapphic media. Won't you join me?