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[gimymblert]

1. the order of visit is random and left to the player, the only girl you are guarantee to have is the one that will be interested in the clans.

2. each path toward clans is self contain story part with 3 phases (that can be seen as a whole area):
a. while traveling toward the clan, fall into a "narrative trap" that locked them in a "situation", the antithesis of the clan's ideals, and get out symbolically by the ideal of the clan.
b. inside the clan a phase where they look to who to address to fulfill their quest, possibly solving some indirect quest to find her, and serve as a tour to present the concepts and ideals of the clans
c. the final phases is a task to fulfill by the person they found to "pay" for the object you are looking for, more explicit about the ideals, one of the girl is impressed and choose to stay. The interest is gradual and part of the story arc.

3. Girl don't have personality define precisely, they do have an overall traits (athletic, talkative, etc ...) that match clans' concept, I'm leaving this for later as the writing as proven it was too early, I was burnt by that in early draft. It's easy to match personality to plots once the plot structure is done. So situations and themes will drive personality.

4. There is no prerequisite tools to get to the clan in general, if tool are needed they are local to the narrative situation they will be in once locked.

5. the hidden concept of this story writing is that it's basically a collage of caraibean cultural reference, per se nothing is original, everything refer to something. With the added constrain that the overall writing must still make sense to people who don't have the culture. For example: Lady kelemen is a well known sorceress from our tales, well for other people it's just a sorceress that works too. They stand on their own but nothing is random. So adding stuff like "tools" must be a reference AND make sense in their use thematically, in fact early draft where straight up zelda except it was hard to match tools in way that make sense and not just shallow visual theming. In fact my major problem is balancing just that, I'm still having headaches to find just the right word ...

6. the main character is mute link style

7. I did work to progress on the problem. I'm not looking for a perfect solution, just brainstorm something that put me out of getting stuck. It's basically finding framing element that work thematically, magic isn't allow in this part. Here what I'm having so far:

a. I expended on the shallow example above. The girl are on cliff road, there is a drunken priest driver (chariot) who carelessly past them at full speed, which send them down the cliff and separated them from their guide. They fall down in an area where they meet with two drunken maroon men that complain about their freedom, because it's too harsh to sustain themselves and complain about how awful life was before they run away. The girl help them doing task they don't do because they simply lack the will but when their alcohol bottle is empty they trap the girl to trade them for more priest wine, ending still pending. filling off a cliff goes symbolically with the maroon clan "poto mitan" as being well planted on their feet on the ground is a way to show willpower, that transition to the girl meeting people lacking willpower.

b. The framing with the kapistrel is all about oppression, the girl must traverse stealthily a place full with slave hunter, they get discovered by a little colon girl who blackmail them to her will or else she will denounce them to the slave hunter, until we can finally trap her into doing something where her parent will punish her.

c. matador, well this one still need proper documentation, most document I have focus so much more on historical plantation rather than city live, especially what was the early structure of city and their evolution.

d. Katrin pitjan is the one I asked for help in the pollution thread. I already know it's not about water and food per see (travel is to short for that to matter), not fuel because they are on feet and that's anachronistic. Those things are still up in the air, but maybe if the local situation allows for it (for example in another universe you could have something too much water it create an impassable river or suck it too much and leave with a dangerous chasm).

[gimymblert]

Anyway, let's log my current situation:

I thinking I found a framing for the forest part, I was trying to break the problem in component and found that locking the character come primarily in two way: physical and moral. Physical mean having a direct barrier to movement, like in the example where they fall off the cliff, moral would be like the blackmail, character can move but are tied to a greater stakes that give consequence to movement.

Trying to apply it to the last problem (as I leave matador for now, though framing might be generic enough to find a solution), I think maybe something along the line of debt slavery, where the character is tricked into doing something (surely related to movement) he must repair but is given an impossible price to pay with inflating interest. This is a moral barrier who justify that the enforcer block the character physically from progressing. I don't have the proper practical transition as now (like falling off a cliff, ie a concrete situation). It does work as a reference as many tales have the hero confronted with impossible task in which they must outsmart their antagonist. Though here the exist must be tied to "measure", "economy", etc ... it's always about "control" lol

Now I still don't have exit of many situations, like how they escape thematically from the maroon trying to sell them or the debt slavery.

I wonder if I can find a framing for the matador regarding a lock about "etiquette" or "control of passion", etc....

The main problem with designing theses situations is that they must be external stakes, unlike linear character story, the player won't do an action out of the blue like a character of a book. It must happen at progression chokepoint (narrow road on a cliff) or by a stake that enforce clear target (like gathering the object for the clan), so the player can't ignore or avoid it and we can predict what he will do.