hpowellsmith
patreon
Non-monogamy in The Earth Has Teeth
🕑 Added 2025-03-26 19:00:06 +0000 UTCSome of the romanceable characters in THE EARTH HAS TEETH can be romanced non-monogamously. This is the most complicated non-monogamy setup I've done so far in a game, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out once I get there!
Armell is monogamous and they're happy to romance someone who doesn't want to sleep with them; if they are sleeping together, they want to have an emotional connection.
Kiriyak is happy to romance someone who doesn't want to sleep with them; they're also happy to sleep with someone non-romantically. Although they enjoy sex, they're not particularly motivated by it. They don't require a strong romantic or emotional connection, but they do require a mutually respectful one. Kiriyak can be romanced monogamously or non-monogamously.
In most cases Nikita is monogamous and they don't want to be in an open relationship or in a V relationship, although they can be non-mongamous under some circumstances. Currently they're avoiding romance, but can grow close with a PC over the course of the game. They're happy to romance someone who doesn't want to sleep with them, but it would be important to them to be physically close with their partner.
Roschin can be romanced monogamously or non-mongamously. They're happy sleeping with someone outside of a romantic relationship; sex is important to them, but if they're close with a PC who doesn't want to sleep with them, they'll romance them if the PC's happy with them sleeping with other people.
Val can be romanced monogamously or non-monogamously and they're happy with a casual or romantic relationship. In general their default approach is non-monogamous, but they'll happily be monogamous with a PC with whom they've formed a strong connection.
Possible non-monogamous connections:
Nikita/MC/Val can happen under pretty specific circumstances that I'm keeping under wraps for now. They're romanceable as a triad, romancing each other as well as the PC.
Kiriyak/MC/Roschin can happen, either as a V or a triad. In the case of a triad, they'll romance each other as well as the PC.
Kiriyak/MC/Val can happen as a V: Kiriyak and Val aren't interested in each other.
Roschin/MC/Val can happen, either as a V or triad. In the case of a triad, they'll sleep together with or without the PC, but aren't particularly romantically connected.
Kiriyak/MC/Roschin/Val can therefore happen as a polycule; Kiriyak/Val don't romance each other or sleep together, and Roschin/Val may sleep together but don't romance each other, but the PC is romancing and/or sleeping with all three.
All these relationships are of course contingent on the PC's actions within the plot! There are lots of chances for the PC to break romances, or for the PC's actions to mean that the NPCs aren't on good terms, with varying levels of drama surrounding the situation.
And when I say "drama", I mean "the PC will be able to become enemies with some of these characters, ruin the life of and/or kill at least one of them, and all of them will be at risk of death by the end of the game".
At the moment I don't have plans for NPCs getting together if the PC doesn't romance them, or for the PC matchmaking. I'll see how that feels down the line, though: it might be that it feels like the characters have a lot of chemistry if the PC gives them a nudge.
Comments
Bessie Burnet
Nikita and Val? I'll keep an eye out for Val when we meet them, then. I'll seek if i wanna commit to poly when i comes to it tho. It isn't a fast rule for me like in CDLC. I expected Kiriyak and Roschin.
