The Divine Speaker is Two And A Half Studios' first visual novel. It was released on March 29, 2022, after a successful Kickstarter campaign three years ago.
In the city of Aurelia Cavella, a child is first presented to the Divine Speaker, who grants Judgements determining their fates after communing with the gods. One such child, Raen, received a poor Judgement and was sent to an orphanage. Upon coming of age, he received strange markings and went to investigate them, only to be exiled from Aurelia Cavella. Along the way, he meets a young man living in the woods, an assassin from the same hometown as his, and a seductive nobleman. As his journey goes on, will he find the answers he was looking for, and who will his heart belong to?
A prequel, The Sun and the Moon, was released on June 8, 2023. It stars the previous Divine Speaker as its protagonist.
The Divine Speaker contains examples of the following tropes:
- A God Am I: Throughout history, most Divine Speakers believe they're gods people should bow down to.
- Achievement Mockery: You get achievements from getting any of the three Non-Standard Game Over at Oxhabor and the bad endings of each romance route.
- All Myths Are True: All the myths about the gods' existence turn out to be true.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: According to Veras, the gods started as mortals with widespread influence and renown in life, whether for good or bad.
- Because Destiny Says So: The people of Aurelia Cavella are presented to the Speaker upon birth, and he learns about their fates by communing with the Divine Beings in a ritual called the Judgement. Nobody challenges their fates.
- Beta Couple: Two potential pairs: Illran and Veras, and Aemyl and Caspian.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Sid Caeham is full of spies that keep tight surveillance on its population for any talk of the old gods. One mention of them, and you'll vanish without a trace.
- Comically Missing the Point: Lilas asks Raen whether he and Leos use the latter's whip while they're together. Raen replies that Leos uses them while they're together, unaware that she meant it as a kink rather than as a weapon.
- Developers' Desired Date: Leos' route has the most details on the story and is the only one that dives into Raen's origins.
- Elder Abuse: According to Illran, Azuros isn't a retirement home, but a factory where the elderly are slaughtered and their life forces fed to the gods to make them more powerful. Morwen added that even many gods have been consumed by Lucius. This is foreshadowed early in the story when Fawn mentions angry spirits coming from an increasing number of bodies being dumped in the forest, causing plants to grow slower and wither earlier, and animals to seek shelter.
- Endless Winter: Sid Caeham is covered in snow for most of the year.
- Fate Worse than Death: Played for laughs. Cyne's retainer Ether thinks being fired is this when urging Cyne to return to Sid Caeham.Ether: Sir! We're already two days late! There's no explaining ourselves out of this... I'll be killed, or worse, fired...
- Gondor Calls for Aid: Raen and his companions ventured to a village hidden in the mountains to ask the gods living there for help against Lucius.
- Hate Plague: The Amaranth Forest has an unknown force that causes people with bottled-up anger to go berserk and try to kill whoever provokes them. It is said that the lingering presence of a dead god is responsible for this, though it's never confirmed.
- Hidden Elf Village:
- Aurelia Cavella was founded as a refuge for the Divine Speakers and their followers after a war between the Speaker and the King of Sid Caeham's followers. Its inhabitants have long believed that they're the only civilization left in the world.
- A mountain village near Sid Caeham is inhabited by gods who shut themselves off from the outside world.
- I Own This Town: Oxhabor has been under the de facto control of the Murano family for a few hundred years through their control of its glass industry and intimidation of the townspeople.
- Land of One City: Aurelia Cavella is this due to centuries of isolation from the outside world.
- The Lost Woods: Aurelia Cavella is surrounded by one, in addition to a Mysterious Mist conjured by Aemyl that keeps out strangers. Subverted in that while the woods still has its hazards, it's ultimately just like any other woods.
- MacGuffin: The markings on Raen's arm first appear on his eighteenth birthday, prompting him to search for what they mean after his exile from Aurelia Cavella. They weren't brought up again until Raen reaches Sid Caeham, where he learns that they're in an ancient script and mark him being the next Speaker.
- Nay-Theist: Enforced by the King of Sid Caeham. The gods do exist in Vidis, but worshipping them is outlawed because they and their spokesmen the Speakers were a threat to the kings' power, resulting in a war between them and the royalists.
- Non-Standard Game Over: This can happen in Oxhabor three times. Each romance route also has one.
- If you try to escape Nox's manor, you're treated to a horror scene where the love interests are killed, followed by Raen being Killed Offscreen by a mysterious figure and buried by Illran and Veras.
- After investigating the items in Raen's room in the manor, choosing to hold the door or stepping out of the wardrobe instead of waiting for a little longer results in a mysterious figure tying Raen up and holding him captive.
- On the next day, If you choose to leave rather than investigate the serial murders, Raen gets hypnotized into entering Nox's manor alone, where a mysterious figure feeds on him.
- In Fawn's route, picking more choices Fawn disapproves of results in him losing control of his pyrokinesis during the battle against Lucius. In the ensuing fire, Lucius kills Raen, prompting Fawn to seek revenge as a freedom fighter known as the Blue Demon.
- In Leos' route, picking more choices Leos disapproves of results in him being mind controlled by Lucius to kill Raen after failing to kill Aemyl. Even though his mind fought back, he ran away. Months later, he found Raen's body in Stagwich, laid him on a bed, and reminisced their memories together.
- In Cyne's route, picking more choices Cyne disapproves of results in him handing Raen over to Lady Vemond after meeting Caspian and Aemyl. With Lady Vemond's help, Lucius kills Raen and takes over his body. Months later, he rules over Sid Caeham with Cyne by his side, but the latter runs away after realizing that his lover is actually not Raen.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons are fallen gods corrupted by torture at the hands of humans, giving them unbridled hatred of humans.
- Orphanage of Love: Raen was raised in one.
- Physical God: When the king of Sid Caeham outlawed the Speaker and the Aurelian religion, the gods who stayed outside Aurelia Cavella slowly begin to die unless they take over other people's bodies at the exact moment the person dies.
- Rich Bitch: The nobles of Sid Caeham care only about themselves, tearing one another apart, and gossiping.
- Sequel Hook: The epilogue has Veras or Leos telling Raen that Soren has something important to say to him.
- Shout-Out:
- One of its achievements is "Raen, I Am Your Father".
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Because Aurelia Cavella is a city-state isolated from the outside world, its currency is not only useless beyond the city, but its exchange rates with other currencies are also impossible to find out, as Raen learned the hard way in Stagwich and Oxhabor.
- At the end of Cyne's route, he says that he no longer has a source of income after leaving his estate to Ether, and because he hasn't cooked by himself before, he fares badly as a chef.
- There Is Only One Bed: The room Raen, Fawn, and Leos rented at the Sleeping Ostrich Inn has only one bed, forcing them to sleep on it together.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Oxhabor is a prosperous town with a thriving glass industry, but it's also plagued by a Serial Killer on the loose, forcing the townspeople to stay indoors in case a murder happens.
- Tuckerization: Tobias and Miah, the orphans who appear early in the story, are named after the developer's cousins.
- Would Hurt a Child: As a child, Fawn accidentally burnt his hometown Cliffspire. Its survivors beat him and called him a demon child before attempting to kill him.
