There's a game called
En Garde!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfUmgmMp964
Fun little fencing game, but as I was playing through the first couple of levels, I couldn't shake the feeling that the protaganist was an idiot.
Like... you're playing as a Zorro-like character, but the only thing your protaganist has to say about why the 'evil Count-Duke' is evil, is that he collects taxes.
which is his job.
Like, that it. You never see the guards beating anybody, nobody gets dragged off to the dungeons, the citizens of the world seem fairly happy and not especially impoverished (for peasants)
Hell, the protaganist gets captured at one point... and is locked in a cell filled with her own personal effects (not cleared out from last time) and which still has the same escape-tunnel that she dug the first time she was here.
It gives the whole game the overwhelming feeling that the 'Evil Count-Duke' is just playing with Adalia. She's a (lower ranked) noble family, she doesn't bother disguising her identity, she repeatedly engages in what could easily be called treason... and she gets locked in a cell and allowed to escape.
She isn't clapped in irons, flogged, beaten or executed. The guards don't seem to actually be trying to hurt her (any more than she is them) it gives the whole thing a weird playful vibe.
And it got me thinking.
Premise: The Count-Duke and Adalia de Volador's father were brothers.
In their youth, they both together rose up to resist a genuinely evil duke who got up to all kinds of not-PG stuff that you cant tell small children bedtime stories about.
The two boys were both counts (The sons of a count?) lower-ranked nobles who wore masks and disguises and who rose up against him and eventually brought him down.
Sir de Volador told sanitised versions of his adventures to his daughter (without revealing that it was him and his brother, who were the dashing heroes of the story)
Little Adalia was immediately taken with the tales of heroism and vowed to grow up just like her favourite hero.
... except, those very sanitized tales of heroism have given little Adalia a very skewed view on heroism.
If you raise your kids on tales of plucky rebels overthrowing evil tyrants, they're going to grow up thinking that it's admirable to rebel and overthrow your rulers.
Even more so if you can't really tell them what the tyrant was doing that was so bad that it warranted them being overthrown in the first place.
So now Adalia is a young woman raised of tales of heroism, trained in swordplay and acrobatics, setting out to do battle against the wicked(*) count-duke and free the people from his Tyranny(*).
*(Citation needed)
The thing is... she's actually pretty beloved in the city that she grew up in?
I mean, she's basically recreating her honoured father's adventures in tribute.
Oh, everybody knows that the previous generation's masked hero who drove out the wicked count and saved the city was her father.
It's not something they can talk about openly, what with him being a vigilante, criminal and actually basically a traitor to the crown.
But I mean...
everybody knows.
Everyone except Adalia, that is.
It's like a grand play that happens every couple of weeks. People go out, say their lines, Adalia goes out and publicly fences with a bunch of guardsmen (everybody is using blunted swords, so nobody gets worse than bruises) she causes a small amount of property damage that her family then pays for.
Really, it's great entertainment. The people love her.
The constant slander against their nice count-duke is a little rude, but he doesn't seem to mind. Certainly, he never seems to bother sending his guards off to her family's manor outside of the city to arrest her.
Even when she repeatedly raided his own manor in the city centre and damaged quite a lot of his furniture.
She even managed to fight her way to the Count-Duke himself one time, where he showed that he hasn't lost a step since his youth, and defeated her quite handily.
She then spend several hours locked in a prison cell to cool her head, before 'a collaborator' slipped her a key and she 'escaped'.
The general attitude towards her is a good-hearted laugh and "Well, she certainly gives the Duke's men quite a workout, doesn't she?"
Only... the amicable count-duke has been called away by the king, and his son has been called back to watch over the city.
Said son was sent away for a foreign land to 'become educated' and hasn't partook in the odd theatre-culture of his home-city in quite some time.
So when he returns, there's going to be a bit of culture-shock. On both of their parts.
The only idea I have for a scene so far is him being incensed at some
thief girl attacking his father's men, breaking into his father's mansion.
So he fights her. (not fencing, something diffrent, what? Can't be too lethal) and he defeats her.
After having her escorted to a cell ("why is there a giant painting in here?") and trying to speak with the madwoman, he hears her spout malicious lies against his honourable father, and quite naturally, he orders her
lashed.
Adalia is gobstruck. That's not how things are supposed to go.
The guards are exchanging glances behind his back. 'uh... what do we do?'
One of them quickly comes up to whisper in the young lord's ear.
Somehow, the young count isn't quite sure how, they end up in a dungeon cell with the madwoman Adalia stripped down to her smallclothes (which, this being the 1700s, means that she's still essentially fully dressed) and bound to a post by her hands.
Behind her stands the young count himself, and in his hand is a length of wet linen.
He looks up, the guard grins and offers a raised thumb.
... eh, I was originally planning to post on the NSFW side, but this is where I found the Video Game thread (I was originally going ot post in the interest check/idea thread, but it seems to be dead now)
Towel-spanking is about as spicy as the idea gets, so it should be fine here.
Future stuff: The reveal that the 'evil' Count Duke is Adalia's uncle.
The reveal that the duke himself is one of her childhood heroes. (and that her own father was the other)
The reveal that the young count who recently took over from his father is actually her cousin. (only to be revealed after they've started a complicated hero/villain romance, and preferably kissed.)
On Adalia's part, I want to lead off with the reveal that the old Count Duke was going very lightly on her for some reason (a thought that doesn't occur to her until she's rudely reminded that attacking the local lord's troops is usually punished by hanging, and that prisoners generally aren't left to freely roam their prison unburdened by shackles or chains.
On the young count's part, it's the idea that the crazed woman who broke into his mansion, assaulted his guards and damaged a painting of his mother is... kind of cute, actually.
Clearly mad, but she's pretty and brave and an extremely skilled fencer.
Why is she carrying a blunted training sword? Why are all of the guards carrying the same?
What the hell is going on here? 
