Love the game (and your other work)! Your choices of dialogue have made me laugh out loud several times and have really made my day!
However, because of how my brain works, I've found myself with some rather tricky lore questions, many of which are pretty far from relevant to the events of the game itself. As much as I know this is "funny living fursuit RPG" I can't help myself so here goes nothing.
1. You explicitly stated that the Empire's war with the Pentarchy had devolved into "trench warfare" in one of the lore bits, and we see some the technologies that were created because of it in game: the Flumen guards' flamethrowers and a reference to chlorine gas as a way to kill wargs. While there are conceivable ways to make both of these sorts of things with magic/fantasy alchemy, the issue of how a WW1 style trench war came to be in a fantasy setting interests me. You've addressed some parts of that by making large empires with seemingly large bureaucracies to handle the resource drain and management of such a conflict, and you have provided in game reference to the fact that much of the area's population has been affected by the draft of men to the frontlines. The issue comes in when examining trench warfare as it happened WW1, where it evolved due to an increase in lethality and range of weapons while the mobility of soldiers did not improve, leaving forces vulnerable unless they were to dig in and fortify. Given that the primary weapons of the game are medieval in nature, I am led to conclude that this means that magic (including rune augmented weapons) has replaced the improvements in firearms and cannons that enabled WW1 and am curious as to whether or not this is assumption is correct.
2. If a warg were to infect a person missing a body part, would it replace it (i.e. a person missing a hand is infected, does the warg only generate the one hand or does it create a replacement for the missing one)? If the answer is no, how would a person who was missing a limb putting on an anti-warg generated off someone who had all their parts work? If the answer to either of these questions is that the warg does replace the missing part, how far does that ability stretch? Can it only replace extremities, or can it replace things like eyes? Given that movement still seems to be controlled by the human body under the warg, I'm assuming it couldn't fix something like paralysis, but I include it for the sake of completing the thought.
3. (This one's a much smaller question, I promise) It seems as though the Empire has pulled much of its forces out of the frontier, with the Lamina Pass guards being the only of their forces left. However, there are still an awful lot of guards around both Flumen and Rehling. Were the church and the Countess granted exceptions to the draft to maintain their security forces, or have they been forced to recruit from what was left behind after the draft?
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Thanks! What a bunch of excellent lore related questions. :3
I won't go too much into detail, but I can comment on some aspects of the bigger picture.
"The trench warfare" is not necessary a spitting image of our WW1. It mainly emphasizes how the war has gotten completely stuck (thou trenches are likely involved). This is why the area the game takes place in, the Frontier, is largely neglected by de facto governing power, and running the area has fallen mostly into the hands of local nobles and the church. There's no doubt lethal weapons are used in the war, both rune-based and conventional, and yes, mages and rune weapons fill many conventional military roles. Chemistry and physics have evolved to a point, but much of it has likely evolved hand-in-hand with magic. While flamethrowers exist, we do not know what they shoot out for example. Gas warfare is mentioned, but how they produce chemicals for it is unclear.
The combat in the Frontier is medieval largely due to the area being, well, a frontier and under quarantine. Due to the evident lack of guns in the frontier it's correct to assume that they do not exist in the form that is familiar to us, or they are such a new invention that most people in the Frontier do not even know they exist.
The guards seen in the game are personal hires for whoever is running the area (usually Catherine). Everyone is having very bad time generally, so the quick and easy solution is to just hire a lot of guards until the root issues can be solved. The society is more or less circling the drain, though I admit it could be better indicated in the game.
About the wargs' abilities: they do not replace body parts. While they can plug wounds and can even fortify broken bones to some extend, at some point the host is just done for (warg queens MAY be an exception to this).
If a person with no arms puts on a warg with arms in place, the warg would either morph to match its host on that part, or fill the arms with its goo to make it appear it has arms, but they would not be functional, or they would be very weak. But a complete limb replacement - probably not possible. If the host takes a grievous injury like a dismemberment, the warg may separate from its host willingly and find a new healthier host.
When it comes to eyes and ears it may be different. The wargs *technically* form working eyes and ears on their host, so if the host's brain can interpret sight and hearing signals, they should be able to see or hear at least somewhat even when they normally could not. I mean wargs carry over fully functioning genitals too, so why not eyes?
Hope this clear things. Yea I haven't thought the war aspect much. It's mainly there to justify why the Frontier is so neglected and there's really nobody properly in charge. The empire would likely solve the warg issue immediately if it was in full strength and stable, so war it is.
Thank you for your prompt and detailed responses! I am a worldbuilder, amateur historian, and writer so I tend to think about lore stuff a lot (to the detriment of ever finishing any story I attempt to write).
I look forward to seeing what you add to this game in the future and any other projects you're working on!