1) How do you feel about saint-based miracles, where the player invokes a prayer to the saints (in true catholic fashion) for special boons in battle? Don't think anyone really has a problem with this. I always felt power should come with some type of equivalent exchange though. Something that should never come for free nor through something simple such as just a prayer. Perhaps, memories or blood? Have to remain a virgin? The memory can maybe be part of the story. Using powers limits relationship trees due to memory loss...? 2) Should Ai-chan ignore prudes and go ahead with making this a story with lesbian relationships? Yes, despite it being a convent, there are lesbian girls. Ai-chan would know, Ai-chan graduated from all-girls school. Sounds hawt... 3) Where would be a good place to put the school? Anyone who live near Bath here? Probably a place that has religious aspects, probably in Europe... No idea on Bath...
About the prayer thing, your virtue stat determines whether the prayer succeeds or not. Your virtue has a maximum level and gets used up with every prayer but also recharges, so you can't spam prayers. You also use up your action turn when you pray regardless of whether or not it is successful.
Should "Virtue" be a roll-under stat maybe? or hidden? (Otherwise you'd only pray when you knew you'd succeed). Also would the shoujo ai activities subtract from it?
Hidden is an option, but that's probably a decision further down the line. Prayers already hard enough in the planning. Everytime you'd pray, you'd use up between 10-40 virtue. You get from between 50-100 virtue at start depending on which character you choose to play and various good actions (inside the virtue category) only grants you 3-10 virtues. You may spend every saturday and sunday just collecting virtues to use one miracle Yuri interactions shouldn't subtract virtue, but yuri sex will subtract it since to the Catholics, having sex itself is a sin, regardless of who you're doing it with, if it's not for procreation.
I don't think anyone had problem with that kind of magic. Doesn't holding hand reduce o raise the virtue?
It would be neutral in terms of virtue, I guess. Unless it involves touching each other's titties, which would be... also neutral. Supposedly, nuns did that all the time in the middle ages lol Gathering virtue is hard enough in the game. Plus the player will also need to study, train her body (because there's no leveling up system) and do research and stuff. So if there's no real catholic belief that specifically considers it sinful, Ai-chan doesn't want to subtract the virtue amount.
Hmm... historically and biblically, there were things like fasting to er..."improve" the odds or to go really Old Testament, burnt offerings where they literally burn things up as an offering. That could be another way of gathering "virtue" fast but it could be expensive since a cow isn't cheap.
I'm thinking that you can gather virtue by doing virtuous things such as being diligent (such as studying) and honest (such as not lying when asked about stuff), giving donations, helping the needy and attending sunday mass. Haven't thought of other stuff yet. If you can suggest any other way, that would be great.
Can i suggest that for a faster way to get "virtue" is to imitate who there patron saint is and emutate what the saint did to get canonized? This girls patron saint is Dymphna right? So the girls gather "virtue" by slaying demons i guess.
That can work. Maybe each saint has a 'rapport' system where if you emulate what they did that caused them to be canonized, the player can get discount on the virtue point required to pray for their aid. May need to think this further, and won't be implemented right away. It's just a few more lines of codes, though.
It's quite easy to say that such things are easy. But in reality, it is impossible for one to actually do those things that we think is easy because we do it everyday, when actually we're not doing it everyday, but we didn't realize that we didn't do it because we think we're already doing it. However, if you can indeed achieve the following, then indeed, you are a saint. You may not be canonized by the pope, but a saint doesn't need approval from the pope. There are many saints who were actually never canonized as they predated centralization of Catholicism. Basically, if you can maintain the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues while religiously rejecting the cardinal sins, then you're no different from a saint. Cardinal Virtues 1. Prudence - refers to knowing the actions to take at the appropriate time. If you keep making mistakes when choices are given, then you have failed prudence. 2. Courage - refers to confronting fears, the unknown and intimidation. If you do not do something because you are afraid of the outcome, you have failed courage. 3. Temperance - refers to self-control. If you are addicted to novels that you are no longer productive, you've already failed temperance 4. Justice - refers to doing the right thing when the time arrives. If you're afraid to stand up to bullies, or you allow others to bully you, you have already failed justice. Theological Virtues 1. Faith - Connected to justice, it is the idea of knowing that if you do good things, then good things will come and you believe that even if you are not rewarded, good deeds are necessary. 2. Hope - Is about looking forward to the future. A person who give up on life or fear the future has already failed hope. 3. Charity - It is another word for love. Can you show your love to children of God by giving to people who need help, when you yourself has nothing? Can you show your love by doing good deeds without hoping for anything in return? Cardinal Sins (there were originally eight, but I guess it was too hard for people to follow, so they made it seven) 1. Gluttony - According to Saint John Aquinas, you are a glutton even if you anticipate food. 2. Lust - In Catholicism, lust is sinful and sex must only be for procreation. If you wear a condom for having sex, then you are a sinner. If you abort your baby, you are a sinner. If you look at a woman with lust, then you are a sinner. 3. Greed - If you hoard more than enough or desire more than you need, you have automatically failed the test of greed. 4. Pride - The greek name was superbia. If you think you are better than others and use that to look down on others, then you failed the test of pride. 5. Sloth - If you decide, "It's too troublesome" or "I'm lazy" or "I don't want to do it" (without reason), then you have already failed sloth. 6. Wrath - If you get angry for any reason, or you abuse someone else due to an extreme emotional state, then you have already failed wrath. 7. Envy - If you at any time covet something owned by someone else, then you have failed envy. The only way you haven't failed is if you wish them good fortunes and do not once consider wanting that which they have. These are not easy. Even monks and bishops failed these rules. At some point, the rank of bishop had no religious connotation and there were bishops and priests who failed all of the cardinal sins. It's really not easy. Even Saint Dymphna in my dream failed one of the cardinal sins, which was superbia.
Actual lore stuff. Saint Dymphna's father lost his wife (Dymphna's mother) when Saint Dymphna was young. His retainers suggested that he find a new wife. Instead, her father said he will only marry a woman as fair and good as his late wife. So years went by and her father noticed that Dymphna (his own daughter) was just like his late wife. So he decided to marry her. As Dymphna was catholic, she knew that to marry her own father was a sin. So she left alongwith her confessor and two retainers. According to lore, she sailed from Ireland and arrived in Geel in Belgium where she spent her fortune helping care of the sick and deranged. Her father found out where she was because she had been using Irish coins. There her father arrived and gave Dymphna one last chance to marry him. She refused, saying it was sinful and was struck on the middle of her head by her father's sword. Her confessor was also killed at the same time alongside her remaining retainers. But none of these mentioned anything about her slaying demons, despite how she was portrayed as a slayer of demons in earlier art and epics. Now the rest is from Ai-chan's dream. In Ai-chan's dream, Saint Dymphna didn't go straight to Geel, her ship ran aground on the shores of Somerset. While seeking shelter in a local home, she heard about a demon worshipping ceremony not far from the village she was staying at. To free the villagers, she fought the demon. But no matter how much she stab and cut, she couldn't defeat the demon. Exhausted and beaten, she instead called for the angels Michael, Raphael and Gabriel to assist her. After which, she kicked the demon down a deep well and stabbed the demon in the heart with her iron sword which pinned the demon down for centuries. She asked a devout woman by the name of Bertana to keep watch over the demon. Then she left for distant shores.
1: Is completely logical and fine but it should also be based upon the strength of the persons belief in God like all good actual bible stories that give prophets and such power if you are going to do it seriously at all. 2: The nuns should definitely be prudish there is no point in having Nuns in a story if they are not prudes! The students so long as they are not nuns in training it doesn't matter but this would obviously have to come with some form of negative consequences with power use. 3: I have no clue
Originally forgot about this. Touching of the titties to provoke sexual pleasure is actually a sin even if it was done by some nuns. Secondly if the action is designed to bring about sexual pleasure for only oneself or only the other person it is also technically a sin. The final one is if it comes from a place that does not care about the other person's feelings/beliefs then it is technically sin. Actually much of this is unneeded I do believe, a saint requires a lasting impact upon the populace firstly this can be as small as only mattering to your own community or mattering globally it's better if you matter globally however, secondly the performance of at least 2 miracles related to people having prayed to said person after their death. The other major component is that they have to be judged as to have lived a "virtous" life by the pope whom canonises them (At this point it is literally up to solely the pope to decide wether or not you are a saint). This is unless they are a martyr in which case they only need a single confirmed miracle. Further if you do enough miracles in your life after your death you may only have to complete 1 miracle. All in all it's fairly easy to become a saint.
One more thing to consider I do believe there is a story that goes like so. A man whose faith in God weighed the same as a single grain of sand was able to move a mountain from one side of a city to the other during the night without anyone noticing until the morning. This is from Marco Polo's travels(Which is the one about mostly geography and shit) and isn't 100% accurate as I don't have that book at hand.
As an author, I must do my best to make sure my work is within the realm of possibility or legitimacy. As this is going to be a game about catholic values, then I must do my best to abide by the values set down by the catholic faith, my own personal preferences aside. So although not everything must abide by their standards, I should do my best so that my work doesn't (much) contradict the source material. Otherwise, I'd just be a poor author who writes as I please, like those isekai authors who write without knowing anything about what they're writing and ending up with a poor story that has terrible logic, inane dialogues and completely wrong facts. As an author, you have to be serious when writing about source material set in the real world. Dan Brown may have made up a lot of things in his fiction novels, but he stayed true to the tenets of the catholic church even when he dissed them for it.