The Matchmaker has had her job since Katiya's time.
Like Jasper, her official age is ???, hinting that she's Older Than She Looks - and she already looks pretty old. In addition, the way she talks about Katiya sounds somewhat like somebody bringing up memories, not referring to history. The demo's cliffhanger refers to:
- Jasper. On the final day of the demo, something or someone already seriously unsettled Jasper, which in and of itself is a bad sign. And now, for whatever reason, somebody has decided to eliminate him. You think these past few weeks have been hard? Now you're going to have to do without your butler. Good luck.
- Jasper is known to have a secret romance path, so it's unlikely that he'll suffer such a Plotline Death less than halfway through the game.
- Lord Blain. Blain has made himself no friends at the summit - and indeed, it's been speculated in-game that he got sent to the summit in the hopes that someone would get rid of him. But unloved though he may have been, he remains a delegate, and his death will not help decrease the building tensions between the nations. In addition, as the person he declared his rival, the main character is likely to be one of the prime suspects in the eyes of many people.
- Made unlikely due to the fact that some kind of special non-romance Blain path has been added as a Kickstarter stretch goal, so he probably hangs around.
- General Falon. Of the male characters the MC has met, he's the one who seems the least involved in potential future plotlines, being neither a love interest (matchmaker-approved or otherwise) or a rival (Blain). In secret scenes, he primarily seems concerned with getting the Jiyel delegates to do their duty, while other characters are hinted to be involved in complex intrigues and might also need to stay alive for future plots. Word of God has stated that, of the four chaperones, Falon has the least amount of content planned.
- A random male delegate we are as of yet unfamiliar with. Also not very disruptive to plotlines.
- The extended demo released on January 9th, 2017 reveals that the victim is a previously-unnamed nobleman from the Revaire delegation.
Princess Anaele's letter opener, if received, is a Chekhov's Gun.
Should one of the parties that has it in for you decide to do away with subtlety and attack you - or have you attacked - in your room, you can grab and use the blade in self-defense. (Assuming, of course, you have a sufficient score in Self-Defense and possibly Poise and Quick Thinking.)- Mechanically speaking, the gift of the letter opener adds points to your Self-Defense stat, so even if it isn't mentioned again in narration it's possible that it could make the difference between passing or failing a skill check to defend yourself.
Speculation on the More Than You Appear origins.
In the demo, you can't actually play as an MC with a More Than You Appear origin, but you can see their names and if you'd unlocked them. Certain secrets within the game already hint at what these might entail:- A rebel leader: Almost certainly from Revaire, given the discussions in the demo of a possible peasant rebellion there and the two factions among the Revaire delegates. Likely to have a lot more story content with Clarmont (who may also be involved with a rebellion in some way) and Jarrod and Gisette (who will probably not like you very much).
- Game files confirm that Rebel leader gets politics, leadership, charisma, and leans ambitious, and represents Revaire.
- A secret historian: Could be from Jiyel given the scholarship involved, but could also be from pretty much anywhere else. The secrets that seem related to this one involve eavesdropping on Jasper and the young island native, so it seems possible that the secret historian is concerned with the history of the Isle in particular. Yvette may also be involved, as she frequently discusses history with the MC and is also apparently having secret conversations with Jasper.
- Revealed by game files to get boosts to politics, eloquence, history, and intelligence, and represents Jiyel. May come with an option to chase Jarrod off at the Welcome Feast with boring history similar to the Jiyel Scholar's academics option.
- Revealed in a scene in week four, as of the extended demo: the Historians are an Ancient Tradition devoted to observing and recording events objectively for future knowledge without personally interfering in them. The society originated on Vail Island, and both Yvette and Jasper are members.
- A player of the Grand Game: Seems to focus on political secrets and manipulating others, so Corval seems a likely origin, but this one's not definite either. Woodly and Avalie seem like they might be involved, due to their high political and manipulation skills and also their scenes with each other.
- Stats boosts revealed by game files are politics and charisma, personality trending subtle and ambitious, and represents Arland.
- As an addendum, among the country/group approval sliders affected by your decisions in-game are sliders for Rebels, Historians, and Weavers. The significance of the first is fairly obvious; the others do not stand out as unusual among the sliders for Servants and Merchants, but judging by what choices affect their approval ratings, it appears that these may actually be secret societies. The Historians favor observing events objectively, with an eye toward allowing future generations to learn from them as they themselves learn from the past; the Weavers, meanwhile, look for opportunities to shape the future by influencing current events. Yvette is heavily implied to be a Historian, while Woodly, Avalie, or both may be Weavers, and the latter two of the three secret origins seem to align with these two groups.
- Aly has mentioned one of the secret origins will have been adopted. Revaire already has an inconsistent number of delegates, and since the new regime tried to purge the old nobility, I'm betting the rebel will be related to the old nobility and have been sneaked out as an infant, or even inside her pregnant mother, adopted by distant relatives in another country, and attending as a member of that country's delegation.
- In an more obscure tumblr post, I believe it was also said that only one of the currently playable origins is royalty. Could again, be that the rebel is secretly royalty, but other than that, the only country whose royalty we've seen none of is Jiyel.
Convincing the ambassadors to approve your intracountry match
It will work somewhat like the trial: you have to give them a logical argument as to why this would be suitable despite going against the point of the Summit, and an emotional appeal that you two are sincerely in love(probably going off your partner's friendship/romance/respect levels); if you discovered the legal loophole in the trial, that would be the third option there, but here it will be to use whatever blackmail material on the ambassadors you've discovered in Week 6. Your Persuasion stat will play into it, and there will be differing levels depending on which pairing you're trying to get: Hise MC/Hamin will be relatively easy because they're big on freedom and doing what you want, Jiyel MC/Lyon, Corval MC/Zarad, and Revaire MC/Jarrod or Revaire MC/Clarmont will be somewhere in the middle(Revaire may differ depending which you're trying for), and Arland MC/Emmett will be the hardest: actual stat values will be somewhere between 425 and 500. With sufficient friendship and respect from the delegates in question, you can help forge new bonds between the feuding nations.
An MC who has befriended both Anaele and the Wellish royal siblings could encourage them to befriend each other, or at the very least, start communicating. Lyon, in particular, would need a great deal of encouragement, but it's plausible that he and Emmett could get along, perhaps through passionate discussion of the natural world and their mutual dislike for politics. Hamin and Zarad already have much in place for a dynamic of friendly rivalry. Related to the above, your character can become a Shipper on Deck.
Be it as a Yaoi Fangirl, Yuri Fangirl or just a male/female shipper.- Word of God is that you will be able to help arrange marriages for other characters to a limited extent, but more for political reasons than romantic ones. While it's not out of the question that such marriages might eventually turn out to be Perfectly Arranged Marriages, we won't see such pairings become confirmed as romantic within the text of the game.
