Oh boy, let me check my notes.
(addendum: Let me
Find my notes)
So originally, I didn't have any direct references for countries in the sense of X Fictional country is related to Y Historical country. Of course that adapted over time with many of the realms developing distinct personalities in an attempt to differentiate them and as one from the Western World and a Crusader Kings nerd, Western Europe is definitely a big inspiration.
The Writers Resource Page has degenerated horribly over the years with many of the images (including a world map) entering The Shadow Realm, and nowadays, the best known map we have is actually from
@Gambio 's Marcie and Gina.
It's not perfectly accurate, but it does a pretty good job at portraying the geography from at least
@AlexandraS90 's branches.
Phebis is the other notable bordering kingdom for Itheria not on the map and it's a small kingdom to the southeast and
Elves probably would be more accurate to put to the due east of Itheria as there's supposed to be a vast forest that leads into central Motania where the elves live. In my notes, there's a mountain range along the border of Itheria and Phebis and a more extensive kingdom/empire south of that, focusing on heavily armored mounted combat(Utilizing monstrous creatures like Griffins and such) for their military. Phebis is so relevant in some of my story branches because they hold the only significant pass through the mountain range. However, nothing on that kingdom has been written and it's just notes. I don't think there are any specific references to exactly where Al-Anashab is. My notes have it to the far south and/or east along with the desert, but with no direct references to its location. There's nothing to say it
couldn't be over the sea.
And the Grand Celestial Empire is on the Eastern coast of Motania and pretty far removed from everything everyone else has written. (someday, I'll get back to that).
It's important to note that I don't really care that much about consistency between the different branches. Your interpretation of the lore doesn't have to match up exactly with my interpretation, Alexandra's, or anyone else's. It would be stupid of me to expect someone to read through hundreds of chapters and use that as the barrier of entry.
As for Bryce and the demon. there's a few options where he doesn't get involved with the demon. None of them are quite as developed though. If the reader chooses to
Take Time to Prepare for his trip to Luxem he can bed Lady Victoria (or a couple of other unexplored options) and due to his time dabbling with the ladies, the demon breaks the count into a babbling buffoon which leads Bryce to figure out that she's demon straight away and a
very different encounter where Bryce outs the demon and either dies of stupidity or his guards kill her. After that he gets a marriage proposal from Phebis and depending on the options the reader takes, potentially bangs his
Catgirl Spymaster, Akina. Then after an assassination plot that she fails to foil, potentially
does it again.
A bunch of this stuff was done before conditional variables, so it's fairly branchy in places (especially at Phebis). However, that does mean that there's no extra variables to worry about in there and technically anywhere through there would be chances to write out into a different storyline. It would just take some effort to do so.
dearnise also had a branch where
Bryce beds Akina...Although it's been a long time since i've read his story arc and can't remember much about it. there may be paths to branch off of there.
Finally, I did begin a
Romance Route with Akina...Although I never got very far in it. The idea was that Bryce sends Akina's spies to deal with the Luxem problem and handwaves the demon problem away(probably through assassination). Then Bryce walks in on her training and hot, sweaty
things occur that leads to the opportunity of romancing her further.
