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Will the expansion feature a new mystery or a new "quest"? Does it gives more hints towards the puzzles that were already present?

It takes the mysteries that were already there to the conclusion we envisioned, which does involve showing off things we couldn't before. In practice it should feel like it adds a good handful of mysteries that are connected to the ones you already looked into. And yes, it does add a quest that has its own puzzles. Yes, plural. The puzzles that were already there should feel more fleshed out now, too.

Is the conclusion towards the secret shed going to be added on a later update still? If so, does that means we will still revisit the hinterlands after ch 18? Perhaps involving the other guests to the hotel?

The conclusion to the shed will come in a later update and I'm very excited to show that off. I've been joking for a while now that we'll have "Pedro's Return to the Hinterlands" someday. However, the content we're adding in this update is a "thematic continuation" of the shed, and in fact accessing it is one of the pre-requisites (more specifically, unlocking an achievement tied to it that we're implementing with the update) for the expansion scenes to pop up.

On some aspects The Feathered Line is a follow-up to the shed and many of its scenes assume you read and thought about it. The more you were fascinated by the shed, the more the expansion will interest you.

I've realized later that Pedro's feathers have displayed more magical powers than most of the cast, being able to remotely monitor and pass down memories. Beyond physical attributes, we only got hints of Asterion/Storm affinity to water and Khembish's bad luck. How capable at magic are each of the characters? and are there other powers that have been shown already, even if subtetly, beyond the ones i mentioned?

Magic in this universe is unfair and not everyone has a strong affinity to it, or they don't have innate talents that are useful. Some have it better, others have it worse. And when someone has magical properties to them, it isn't always visible, or they might affect people differently depending on gender. To name a few:

Luke is nearly indestructible, to such an extent he could take a grenade blast to the face and shrug it off like it was nothing. Kota is a small river deity and he used to enjoy all the powers you'd expect out of a kami from Shinto tradition, though he's lost much of it, and he's learned some rites over the years. Khenbish is cursed with bad luck and has no powers, but his sisters enjoy incredible fertility and aren't affected by the curse. And Robert can see souls.

There are more discreet powers/magical properties in the story, but noticing they are there is part of the experience, so I won't you help with that.

Speaking of rites in particular, though, they are a dying art. Few people learn them nowadays because they just aren't that useful compared to the time it takes to get good at them. Not only that, different traditions require different things out of their ritemasters so you might have been born in a culture whose rites require something you don't have. In this sense Pedro is lucky because his feathers are sacrifices of the highest quality for the Latin tradition.

How did you came about deciding Pedro's species as a peacock? I understand the correlation that it would have with his true identity revealed later on. Still, i'm curious about how the process went down.

First and foremost was the association between peacocks and the mythological Argos, which led to the magical feathers and all the ways we used them in the story (the ones in the bedrock, for starters). The feathers really were a great plot device, and you'll see more of them in The Feathered Line. We also liked that peacocks are birds, as it adds some diversity to the cast both in species and in body type (P is shorter, thinner, almost twink-ish, and only really muscular on his chest.)

But, on top of that, the peacock has always been something I associate with the real life hinterlands. When I was a kid I visited my family there and they had peacocks in their farm. Their colors evidently match Brazil's flag, too. But perhaps the most important thing is that I associated the hinterlands with a story my father used to tell me, a little folklore short story called "The Romance of the Mysterious Peacock".

It was a storm of perfect elements, all leading up to the peacock becoming to me the most appropriate symbol of what I wanted to portray. Usually I like it when we can wrap multiple things like that in a single design choice.

The previous side updates all had some naughty content included. Will this one too?

In true Latin American magical realism fashion, sex will be mentioned but it won't involve the Pedro or Oscar and it isn't titillating. It's part of plot things.

Considering how the original hinterlands would change certain aspects to the places you visited depending on what you found out before, will this principle apply to the new locations?

Yes, and we took it a few steps further. In fact we took it as far as it was mathematically possible to. It was very funny when we had to cut some variations because their pre-requisites were impossible to achieve in the time the player has.

If you want to see ALL of the lines in the expansion that will require a few playthroughs, there's a lot of unique text. But we don't expect people to do it all on their own, this is why we have this forum.

Is ThE aNt HiLl based of a real thing?

Maybe the real anthill was the roadside pee breaks  the friends we made along the way.