itch.io

I would provably focus more on contract related responsablities than being a host, not that i don't want to handle guests alongside Asterion and the rest but it always felf that the Mc could spend more time in the Obsidien layer. Kota (i chose him as the first guest) is doing a great job managing the lounge and i belive that with Themba's assistance and Asterion's expertise the Hotel's management is going to be fine without my presence. I don't plan of being cramped there and ignoring them all day, i would still spend time with the crew and show myself as one of the co-owners during diners in the lounge, i think this will also give Asterion his well deserved freedom to do what he wants with the Hotel. And the contract related responsablities would go from increasing the rate at witch projects are being done (i think that with Wi-Fi being avalable to the Hotel we could do more that a project once every couple days days i guess), all the way to finding ways to deal with the beasts of the valley. Even without knowing their importance to the plan to free Asterion i had the idea of getting rid of them since they were always introduced as torturing machines thet the Argoi used against Asterion. Another idea i had in mind is making countermeasures for the Olympian gods, even tho they can't get into the Hotel with what we knew in the latest chapter there might be an iteraction with them and i know that they will not like seeing Asterion with a suit on greeting the guests. Hiring Pedro is also on my bucket list but i feel like this would happen naturely. I'm also really curious about the Labyrs.

My plan is basicly spend less time as the co-owner of the Hotel and more time as the master of the Labyrinth (smth like 40%/60%) basicly getting rid of whatever will hinder both the Hotel and Asterion, and once i either get Asterion's freedom or some compomises from those bloddy Olympians i would focus more on being a proper host.

*May contain spoilers: Since Hermes brought the ichor negociations up, and if they take place in the Hotel or i would be involved in as Asterion's Master, i would do my best to get rid of whatever pride these gods have left under their names for the poor exuses they used in the votes we find and if possible get a proper punch on Athena's face. I would also ask Lord Dionysus (he was on Asterion's side) to bless the Hotel in the same way Hades did so that we can have a proper wineyard for Asterion.

DUDE that is soo good and i loved it.

*I couldn't help but notice the abscence of the smuggeled beef event since Asterion stated that it was done by his sisters but instead you used her snaping in the festival as the reason why Minos exiled him.

*You have no idea how amazed i was when i saw you include the Labyrs into this, but Ariadne was never a martial artist and the Labyrs is not your average weapon that you can suddenly wield in a moment of rage as stated by Asterion in his chat with the Mc and by Lord Apollo in his vote, wielding the Labyrs (or the Threadcutter as Apollo called it) needs a certain amount of talent and strenght enought to scare even the Olympians so her using it in a fit of rage or as a last resort still has some holes in it.

*About Argos's involvement with the owner of the resort: In the latest chapter we know that Argos (or Nikos) has an immense trust and loyalty towards the Mc so why didn't he tell him about Ariadne's fate first, if he knew it means that Hermes knows too so why didn't he say anything either. I think that the Mc of MinoHotel must be involved in the chosing of the reort's owner somehow since cannonicly he would try and help Ariadne too.

*If the events of this spinoff happen after the Mc gets Asterion's freedom back i think that he will eventually go and meet Ariadne but this might help in solving her past regrets and possibly making the efforts of the MinoResort's Mc not needed. (Just wanted to point it out)*

*Lord Dionysus being hurt by the Labyrs might also be reworked since Asterion stated that the relic was defiled my the foul liquid (according to the wiki the liquid is Asterion't own blood and ichor) and it was even stated during Asterion's trial being one of his accusations so the ichor that was stated to be on it is not Dionysus's its provably someone else's (the Labyrs was ruined while Asterion as alive). And even Asterion wouldn't use it in that state so again Ariadne using the axe just doesn't sit well with me.

Congratulation on your father's recovery.

I do like the idea of exploring other perspectives of the myths like what MinoHotel did to Asterion and i just wanted to give certain pointers. 

*What caused her to want Asterion sent away : It's a complicated question i guess you could say she feared him alongside King Minos, or jealousy of him being blessed by an Olymian -Poseidon- upon birth or even jealous of the attention he was getting since he was basicly helping and tending to every ritual related to Zeus, Hestia and Poseidon, or maybe she had other reasons. 

*Why was she abandoned by Theseus : I am not fully versed in Theseus myths but from playing the game MinoHotel we know that he was one of Athena's favourite heros (aka as her personnal anti posidon hunting hounds) and Athena had this obssession with ereasing all that relates to Poseidon from the face of the earth. So Theseus's betrayel isn't that unjustified since he used her to kill the Asterion and then left on the island to die to erease the Cretein lineage as per Athena's orders.

*Did she really marry Dionysus : The awnser is yes, mostly. I assume that you read Lord Dionysus's vote if not i highly recommend it, in the vote he proudly stated that Asterion is his brothe in law and since he and saved Ariadne i am 99% sure that he married Ariadne. A counter argument is that in one of the scenes when the topic of incest between the Olympian gods was brought up between the MC and Asterion, Asterion said that Gods would rather chose a relative as a partner than go through the pain of losing their mortal lover so this could be a reason why in the myths Ariadne was said to marry Dionysus but in reality that did not happen.

Personnaly speaking i don't think that Ariadne deserves a redemption Arc and same goes for King Minos because their actions were the cause of Asterion's exile and torture and she even guided Theseus to kill Asterion.

By reading your post i had the impression that you might be going full bara route and im curious about how you will introduce her.

And on the topic of her being a minotaure, in a recent discussion about Oscar's origins with a member of the community we talked about the possibility that maybe her descendents could give birth to a minotaure as a recessif gene and that makes sense in a way, but her being a minotaure that is a bold idea and i would love to see how you would do it.

And the thing that caught my attention the most is "clutching onto the skull of her bovine brother" , does this mean Asterion gets his mortality back ? did she perhaps take his place in the torture and became a minotaure that way (this is a fitting redemption in my opinion) ? How does  the resort connect to the Hotel ? Is the resort owner one of the MinoHotel Mc's descendant ?

I had more comments but it would turn this into a Lore discussion

I loved your idea and i would like to see more.

Poseidon's descent is a fact as stated by Hermes, yes him ending up in Downed Tapir is merely a speculation to defend my therory but going from Olymus to the mortal world is something that Poseidon is fully capable off and Olympian gods have been doing it since the beginning of time if we belive the myths. As for his actions while in his lost state it might be easier that it looks; both Zeus and Poseidon are known for their affairs with mortals with Zeus being the most famous one but Poseidon did have his share, so him "getting into character" and ending up having an affair isn't that out of his dictionnary. Perhaps he was playing as a wandering person and suddenly the fog took over his mind and idk saw Oscar's mother and you can guess the rest. And in the topic of Downed tapir being nowhere near Greece, nor some coastal village by the sea, personnaly i never payed attention to that so i am taking your word for it, we know that Poseidon was in the mortal realm for 30 years and Oscar is 21 so between the descent and the affair we have 8 years and if we assume that Poseidon started his investigations from Crete i think that 8 years is more than enough to go to Downed Tapir.

I belive it was mostly an accident of fate, but Pedro did say that Downed Tapir lacked the signs of big human cities that usualy drove away the mythicals and magical phenomena as a whole so that might be it. And i don't think that Poseidon had any intentions to "make" a new minotaure since he descended to free one not to make another, but as i said he most likely lost sanity and had his fun without giving it that much thought.

And if you are curious about the scene of the juges of Hades, i think it was in chapter 16 when Asterion when to the rooftop to relax.

That could also be the case yes but i still belive that the bull is important. Like it could be that the side or lost branch survives and stays hidden until the present day and then Poseidon finds his way to Downed Tapir to replace the bull in the equation. The reason i still bring the bull up is because it was stated by the juges of Hades and i don't think they could be wrong. 

And thanks for pointing out the naming mistake i corrected it.

The idea of their being a living descandant seems -at least to me- hard to be the case, even if Ariadne survives or another one of creitan princes does it still wouldn't be possible because a major condition for the bovine blood to be preserved is the continous appearance of the bull every generation. Plus the time between the fall of Crete and the present day is so long that even the Gods lost their sanity so it doesn't make sense that a lineage of mixed blood and ichor to survive more that the Gods without the bull appearing.

Plus, when i was reading Lord Dionysus's vote, he called Thesus when talking to Athena by "the hero you so favored", and considering that Thesius left even Ariadne (the one who helped him) to die i was under the impression that Athena really wanted to erase the Creitan lineage of the face of the earth witch makes the idea of a survivor and a descendant a bit hard to belive.

About the bovine origins: The juges of Hades stated that every king is to have a special child blessed by blood and ichor of an Olympian taking the shape of a bull and this is a long-standing tradition from the very creation of Crete. In king Minos's case he only had one special child and that is Asterion. I assume that the children of the special child would also inherite some of the bovine blood, but im not sure if Asterion's family members survived the war, the only one i know of surviving is Ariadne (that traitor b***ch) since on Lord Dionysus's vote in favor of Asterion he said that he saved her from the island after Theseus betrayed her (serves her right). So it's not impossible that she would have a child after living as a refuge or smth , but the main reason why the bovine blood was preserved is because of the tradition, the bull descending every generation so i don't think that her descendant can be Oscar's father.

As for the differences between Asterion's and Oscar's bodies (junk, nose ...) i think that it might be because in Asterion's case the Olymian was in the form of the bull and the mother was of creitan lineage but in Oscar's case Poseidon was in human form and the mother was a normal women who was never blessed by Gods. I am not 100% sure this is the reason it could be just the artist playing with different designs.

OH I never payed attention to this, thanks for pointing it out

When playing the the latest chapter and during the 1st conversation that Oscar and Asterion had, we were given a bunch of criterias that Oscar used to see weither Asterion was his father or not. The thing is i personnaly find that Lord Poseidon is the one most likely to be Oscar's father. For starters, Hermes did say that Poseidon descended to the mortal realm for the last 30 years trying to deal with his regrets the biggest being Asterion's torture and this duration lines up with Oscar's age being 21. Another thing is that Oscar's mother always refered to his father being a human and Greek gods have been known to pull this off. And the "Downed tapir" region have been described by Pedro to be almost empty of cell lines and towers that usually drove away magic and mythicals so Poseidon ending up there isn't too farfetched i mean their is a litteral skinless god chilling in the city. And Poseidon was described to have lost all sanity, even in the conversation he had with the Mc we couldn't guess who he was.

So what i think happened is that Poseidon descended 30 years ago, found his way to Downed Tapir, lost sanity and got completely into character and met Oscar's mom and then disappeared to meet the Mc 21 years later in the train station.

I don't think that their are that many possibilities for a "man" to be the father of a minotaure even in a place like Downed Tapir, but this is just a speculation.

This is a recollection of ideas i had while playing the Vn and even tho this is tagged as Lore their might be light spoilers so i will leave reminders before certain paragraphs not to spoil anyone, and if anyone has similar ideas or has smth to add feel free to comment

1-Tricking the Labyrinth in a way:

During the story, we were intoduced to a passive rule that both the Master and the Hotel have to follow and it was stated by both Asterion and the Argoi on multiple occasions : "Any contact that goes against the will of the Labyrinth  cannot be accepted". Asterion stated that if we were to write such a contact (for example forbiding the Master from hurting the Prisonner) the ink will fall and the paper will slowly decay as a signal of the Labyrinth refusing that contract. But what if we could trick it somehow.

I did previously share a similar idea on a post by Corbenix where i said that if the Mc had a wish (helping Asterion/immortality...) all he had to do is make a contract in a way that looks like it's following the will of the Labyrinth but it actually isn't. An example i had in mind was protecting Asterion from the beasts of the valley or any other entity that tries to hurt him, the way i think that the Master can achieve it is by writing a contract stating that torturing the Prisonner and hurting him is a duty and the right of the Master alone given by gods and he cannot tolerate anyone taking this right away from him even if it's a god or a creature of the valley, therefore no one exept for him has the right to hurt Asterion. I think that from the way it looks this contract is just the Master claming possetion over Asterion's torture and the Labyrinth has no reason not to accept it, and a way of making this permanent is perhaps making it using ichor as an ink (if you are curious about ichor i recommend playing ch19) but even without it i can see this contract being accepted.

***Possible Spoilers : (this could also solve the problem with creating life in the Hotel)

2-Abusing physics:

I can see this happening with the math background but it would be better if their was a background dedicated for knowledge about physics, but considering that we have wifi and computers in the Hotel it's manageable. The reason i brought it up is because of an idea i had, if the Mc tried to control gravity as a way to overpower the beasts of the valley for example or just like those times when people can subdue others with aura or their presence alone i guess. I think that if the Mc was to print a huge paper about gravity and it's applications then send it to the Hotel he can achieve it (I'm sure Greta will be exited about this idea), another application is thunder in case the Mc wanted to alter the weather in the valley (make it rain) or he just wanted to give a big middle finger to Zeus (Personnaly I would).

****(SPOILER : Considering that the crew and the Master can teleport in and out of the Hotel as long as they have precise coordinates i can see the gravity thing happening) 

3-Increase the Hotel's security:

It's possible to write a contract stoping people with ill intentions from entering the Hotel, since the statue of Hades only stops the beasts of the valley and Wolf is usually in exploration with Luke this could help until we recruit a security manager or proper personnel.

4-Playing with Death:

I know this sounds a bit too much but it might make sense. It's very common to stumble upon characters who can manipulate the concept of death in fantasies but that is not what I'm trying to achieve. My idea was to make a bullet i guess that is actually a contract describing Death, and any entity to be shot by it will have an immidiate death. I admit that this is the most likely idea to be refused by the Hotel but since the only reason that creating Life is not easy because past masters restricted it for ethical reasons (and other reaons too i just don't want to spoil much), playing with Death is not that farfetch. 

And if this one works we might even solve Asterion's immortality by opening the gates of Hades (I just got too exited)

5-The seal of primordial law:  THIS MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS FROM CH 17-19

So this one is not an application of contracts, more like an aspect that i was curious about. This seal can be found on the records of Asterion's trial -i recommend playing the game before reading this because these records have some very intresting pieces of lore and i don't want to spoil anyone- I speculated that it might also be the seal on the Master's deed but since i didn't find a direct clue to confirm it i'm keeping it this way. This seal stands as a proof that this document is the oldest in the realm and it makes the contract industructable but also unrevocable no matter what, and as stated by Asterion no one not even the Master can create such a thing. This raises the question; who putted the seal in the first place ? It was most likely Hermes since he was the one that left the records in the valley but how did he make it? And in case that it was made by ichor witch is the only thing i can think of capable of such a thing, what is stopping the Mc from making one ?

6-Using the contracts as weapons : THIS MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS FROM CH 19

Another passive rule that the Hotel has is that "contracts are indestructable unless revoked", a way to use this rule is using the contracts as a building material as stated by Asterion, but considering that the Mc has to get ichor from the valley in order to bargain for Asterion's freedom we can use the contracts as a way to subdue the beasts of the valley, one way of doing it was making chains since the Mc has no martial background at least according to the choices in CH1 i think that it's a safe and easy way to subdue the beasts of the valley making the ichor collection easier. Another way to use it is as a shield, i was thinking an immediate shield that appears whenever the Master or the crew is in danger (i don't think the Labyrinth will accept giving such a thing to Asterion) witch might also be usefull in the future quests considering how dangerous tha valley is.

I hope no one was spoiled by this post and it is mostly a bunch of the ideas i had while playing so if you have anything to add or comment feel free to do so.

About the identity fraud, I did speculate that it might be the reason why they had that second fight since Robert confirmed that the rage they had was 100% due to the gruge between the two lineages, but when we meet him in the corridor following Nikos he said "This is all your fault! You pushed him over the edge!" that is why i think that his hatred for the Argoi is because of the acts of Nicos's grandfather during Clement's time as the Master but their is also this subconsious part that stems from them sharing the title of the Argos Panoptes one being the descendant and one wearing the mask.

And i too know that Pedro was not a "good person" and I never hated him for it, but we are all under this impression becasue of us knowing of his background as P. But the Master has no way of knowing it unless their is a cannonical reason to the Mc seeing the Hinterland scenes.

(Spoilers) During the call and the deal with Hermes we knew about the Ichor (Olymipan blood) that was used as an ink to make the Hotel, and aside from the one we will give Hermes to regain his sanity we're having I guess 6 drops to negotiate. I think that in case the negotiations go south their is noting stoping the MC from using that same ichor to grant himself a wish by adding a new section to the Original contact of the Hotel.

*If it's Asterion's freedom he wants it might be a bit complicated to do because if a contradiction happens in a contract built by ichor it might a bit dangerous and might endanger the basic functions of the Hotel (generate food ...etc) by causing a sort of paradox. But allowing Asterion to leave the Hotel and see the outside world seems doable.

*If it's an eternal life alongside Asterion, this might be easy to make. I think that if the Mc was to make a contract stating that idk he wants to become immortal to be Asterion's torturor in order to aphold the Labyrinth's mission and please the gods for eternity, the Hotel might accept this contract and since it's ichor we are talking about, immortality is attainable. Then he just has to keep on treating Asterion the same way he did up until now. (Personnaly I don't like how this contract sounds but in order to trick the Hotel it has to sort of agree with the Master's mission)

So when I was playing the recent build, I couldn't help but notice that his actions were not that of a guest and was kind of overstepping the boundaries (at least from my perspective), even if he had to go through the entire Hinterlands stuff and his family/inheritance stuff he did go overbord and wanted to get some opinions on it :

DISCLAIMER: This is not me hating Pedro, as a reader i like how he was portraited and the P's relation to the Hotel, the entire Panoptes lore was interesting but this is just how i would have seen his actions if I was the Master 

1-The way he entered the hotel: He sneaked into the hotel, then to the Obsidian layer that had a god made shrine of Hermes (who almost killed him), took something and even if it was rightfully his it stil doesn't change the fact that unless the Mc and Asterion do a full inventory check they can't make sure if he took or put smth else in the room. I mean the hotel has a FRONT DEST FOR A REASON and it's not like the Owners would have rejected him taking the feather in the first place, and as a Panoptes entering a room dedicated to Hermes is a really dangerous thing to do.

2-His constant attacks on Nikos: Here I'm talking about the first time since in the second fight they had none of them was in control. I know that he had a grudge agains the "Snake man" who pushed Clement over the edge, but I think that the Mc should have a conversation with Pedro not to tell him the entire Argoi thing but just to let him know that the Argoi in the memories and Nikos are two different people and Pedro has no right to damn Nikos for his grandfather's sins since if we were to do the same to him it wouldn't look good either (the tapir incident his grandfather had). And i think that a good time to have this conversation was right after the 2nd fight when the Mc told Asterion to calm Oscar down, and before he talks with kota, this could have been a great time for the Mc and Pedro to have a talk.

3-His "What are you?" question to Asterion: This was him straight up overstepping his bounderies. Yes he has the right to be curious, and we have guests who were curious about the Hotel and Asterion like Robert who chose to stay in the Hotel to find out more about it and minotaurs but Pedro was just rude, he had some info from his grandpa's memories but not enough to get the full picture but even then it was not even who are you it was  WHAT, from the way i see it he has neither the right nor the authority to ask Asterion in that manner.