12/7/2025

12/7/2025 9:25 PM

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Architect

The Dark Lord's Breeder

unpublished

The Dark Lord's Breeder Introduction Premise The shadow of evil falls over your world. A dark lord has emerged, and his armies have expanded his territories with frightening speed. The various nations and races prepare to resist him in their own way — mustering armies, forging alliances, summoning heroes from other worlds, but none of these efforts concern you. Your nation was amongst the dark lord's early conquests — as its crown princess (or equivalent in its system of government), your family was killed or subjugated, and you brought in chains before the dark lord. Expecting death, you instead received the following offer from him: Your royal bloodline carries qualities that the dark lord deems useful: in exchange for joining his harem and dutifully bearing him children, as well as provide whatever fig leaf of legitimacy there is to be had to his rule, he will spare you and your subjects the worst of his depredations. Seeing little choice in the matter, you reluctantly agree. You will be brought to the dark lord's palace in the heart of his domain, where a new life awaits you… Statistics This CYOA is planned to run on four statistics. These will primarily affect your endings. Trust How much the dark lord trusts you, and his general disposition towards you. Higher values means he will take your opinions more seriously and you will have more influence over his actions. Physique Your duties of bearing the dark lord's children will take a toll on your body, and this represents your health and constitution. Higher physique means you can withstand greater degrees of abnormality in your duties — for example, hyperpregnancy, superfetation and the like. Devotion This is not so much a measure of sexual submission, but how much you agree with the dark lord's ambitions, ideologies and means. Low devotion means you've been questioning him often, and high devotion means you genuinely and wholeheartedly do believe in his vision for the world. Envy You are not alone in your situation: the entirety of the dark lord's harem constantly vies for his favour. Making yourself useful as a dutiful breeder and raising yourself up in his eyes will invite hatred from the other members of this little crab bucket. Friendship is non-existent in the harem, but alliances can serve mutual interests. Too much envy from the rest of the harem will make you the victim of intrigues, which could range from anything from social ostracism to badmouthing you to the dark lord to outright sabotage. The dark lord's grip on his harem is tight enough that none dare cause any severe endangerment to each others' persons or pregnancies, but all do what they think they can get away with. Who Are You? Basics As crown princess of your nation, you may be considered to be reasonably attractive, enough that you wouldn't be out of place in the dark lord's harem. Anything over that, though, will be at your expense. The dark lord's physicians will ensure that you don't actually perish in the line of your duties, but comfort is another matter. The strains of constant breeding will eventually weigh on you, with consequences if your physique is not up to the task. What Race Are You? Your race determines your background, the circumstances under which your people were conquered… and why the dark lord desires your bloodline. Human The wide adaptability of humans has led them to cover a considerable swathe of territory over a variety of climates, organised in as many social systems. You could have been the crown princess of a monarchy, the chieftain's daughter of a group of nomads or the president's daughter in a republic, the possibilities are endless. As the human nations rallied together to resist the dark lord, yours was amongst those sacrificed to buy time for the alliance to form. The relative ease with which humans take to various living conditions — and is strong in your bloodline — means the dark lord is interested in them as settlers and pioneers. The children you birth will form the logistics tail of his army, taming his conquered lands and extracting resources to feed his war machine. Whether that is a better fate than dying in war, who can tell? Base pregnancy duration: 9 months. High Elf Long-lived and slow to grow in numbers, the high elves have remained secluded in their highland kingdom for ages. Blessed by their goddess with an affinity for magic, they once disdained other races as lesser and beneath notice, haughtily looking down upon the realms in their lofty spires. However, their dependence on the arcane was their ultimate downfall: now, the rest of your family has perished, your people subjugated, your womb brand displayed for all to see. During the trip to the dark lord's palace, numerous other peoples jeer at you and mock how far the high elves have fallen, to join them in the dust beneath the dark lord's heel. The high elves' command of magic is fabled throughout the lands, and your royal bloodline contains some of the most potent arcane power in all the world. The dark lord means to harness that — from your womb will spring warmages, arcanists and technomancers in his service. Base pregnancy duration: 2 years. Your starting beauty is (high) at minimum. Orc Dwellers of the steppes and plains, the orc tribes were largely nomadic herders, following their animals vast distances to wherever the grazing was good. Occasionally warring against each other and the more sedentary races, they were fierce fighters, but their desire for independence preventing them from effecting any resistance against the dark lord. Nor did he give them the change. The more warlike amongst the tribes saw the dark lord as a strong horse to follow and an excuse to finally enact more than brief skirmishes against secluded settlements. Enlisting in the dark lord's armies, the traitors led them right to your tribe, the first to be subjugated. Your family fought fiercely, but were outnumbered; your family was slain, and you dragged in chains before the dark lord, resisting your captors every step of the way. Yet the choice to sacrifice yourself for your people was not one you could refuse, and your doom was sealed. After a life of travel beneath the skies, the prospect being confined to one place, however lavish, sounds akin to torture. Your clan and bloodline were the best horseback archers in all the steppes, and the dark lord wants them for himself. The children you bear him will go to his skirmishers and cavalry, to strike hard and slip away before resistance can be mounted. Base pregnancy duration: 7.5 months. Kitsune Fox-girls from the eastern lands. If not for you, the combination of distance and lack of much your realm had to offer might have stayed the dark lord's hand until you were left for last, but it was not to be. Kitsune women are delicate and frail; their bodies are made for the careful and meticulous creation and nurturing of progeny in an extended process, not the harsh and rampant breeding that will be expected of you. Dying in childbed is not in your future, but if you do not have a plan, it may come to the point where you will wish for it in despair. Your royal bloodline is not merely touched by the gods of the eastern pantheon, but is said to be descended from their queen, granting you and your kin great attunement to the spiritual and divine. The dark lord hopes to wrest from your womb seers, diviners and the otherwise spiritually sensitive in the service of whatever gods he has sworn allegiance to. Base pregnancy duration: 18 months. Comes with traits: heat 1 Starting physique penalty Starting hips, breasts, womb may not exceed (low). Starting beauty is at least (medium). Wolf-girl The primary demographic of the northern beastkin races, wolfkin are adapted to their harsh homeland. Mating is usually timed to have the pups born during the warmer summer months when the days are long and food more plentiful, and wolf-girls go into intense heat to ensure the timing is right; childhood and infant mortality means they bear pups in litters in the hopes that some will survive to adulthood. Well-furred to resist the cold, wolfkin congregate in tribal packs that form small villages, cooperating unquestioningly to survive the harsh climate. Betrayal within one's kith and kin is unthinkable, and has always been punished with death. Life is such that there are few old beastkin — many quickly succumb without the strength and health of youth to sustain them. Excellent stalkers and survivalists with amazing senses, the wolfkin hold great potential as scouts and assassins in the dark lord's army. The fact that they breed rapidly, something your bloodline is (in)famous for in addition to you excellent instincts, is the cherry on the cake for him. Base pregnancy duration: 6 months. Comes with feats: litter bearer 2, heat 2 Cow-girl The minotaurs of this world reside on a volcanic archipelago in the middle of the ocean. With fertile soil, a mild climate and long stretches of water to protect them from the outside world, they were able to put the resources of their civilisation towards pursuing architectural genius in order to make the most of their limited land space. Occasionally, some of your people would leave to pursue commissions in other realms, feats of construction that became legendary amongst those who beheld them — and these legends led the dark lord's ships to your shores. The dark lord covets the engineering genius of the minotaurs for his own, and the children you birth will become his architects. The genius with which your ancestors built the labyrinth and countless other wonders will be put to work constructing public works and siege engines for him. Base pregnancy duration: 12 months Starting breasts and hips must be (medium) at minimum. Dragon-girl True dragons are vanishingly rare — their natures have driven them to conflict with each other in times past, and while long-lived, your kind is notoriously slow to breed and mature. Only those dragon bloodlines that managed to tame their innate desires have survived to this day. There are no dragon nations, their numbers are far too few for that; your family ruled, but they did so over other races. Your draconic bloodline was a clear prize for the dark lord, and so his armies marched forth with the ultimate intent of capturing you. The mere thought of submission to another rankled to your very nature; you and your family fought bravely in defense of the people to the point that the dark lord had to personally intervene. Ultimately, he was stronger, slaying your family and besting you in combat — and now with his brand upon your belly, you who once kept hoards are going to be part of someone else's collection. Slow to bear fruit as it is, your draconic bloodline makes it well worth the wait. The children the dark lord fathers on you will become aerial shock troops, raining down terror and flame upon his foes. Base pregnancy duration: 3 years Comes with feats: oviparous Your devotion gains are halved. Aspects Given the purpose to which you've been set, your body and fertility aren't just for show. The various aspects of your fertility determine what perks you may pick, and will make things more or less difficult for you as a breeder. More isn't always better: there are advantages and disadvantages to every choice. Beauty Your life of privilege and royal (or equivalent) pedigree means you won't be out of place in a dark lord's harem, but you are a small fish in the ocean here. The dark lord's harem holds the prime specimens of womanhood that graced the nations he has crushed, and he of all people has no reason to tolerate wallflowers. This aspect is a measure of how attractive you are compared to the rest of the dark lord's harem — your overall charisma, the physical signs of good breeding, and a healthy, well-ordered body fit for child-bearing. A stunning, perhaps even unearthly beauty will certainly help you find favour with the dark lord… and will also draw the envy and ire of your rivals in the harem. Breasts The first real aspect of your fertility anyone is likely to see. Your breasts may not be directly involved in the act of breeding, but they're vital to what comes after, and most consider them a proxy for your ability to produce and raise offspring; you will be expected to care for your children until they're ready to be weaned. Bigger breasts will increase the quality, quantity, and storage capability of your milk. On the other hand, overinvestment has obvious consequences: having to deal with such production and their resulting weight and bulk. Whether it's magic, complicated clothing solutions or simply just working out and building muscle, having huge, milky tits will impose upon you changes in your lifestyle to compensate. Hips The size of your hips and rear — not just putting on fat and muscle as a sign of fertility, but more importantly, the underlying skeletal structure in the form of a wider pelvis. Wider hips will make birthing larger babies much easier, but negatively impacts your mobility as your ass swells and thighs thicken; your gait will be forcefully transformed into a sashay, then a waddle even when you're not with child. If you've been conscientiously performing your breeding duties, you won't be very quick on your feet to begin with, but this will slow you down even more. Womb How strong and resilient your womb is — more investment means you're better able to carry larger pregnancies, be it from multiples or gigantic singles. It also means your womb is more resilient to trauma and better able to protect the children you're carrying, should it come to that, as well as its ability to weather the stresses of pregnancy (stretch marks, etc) and recover afterwards. Investment will result in increased breeding desires and sensitivity, resulting in a growing need to breed that will gradually distract and finally consume your thoughts, making you increasingly emotionally unstable when not pregnant. Ovaries The size and potency of your ovaries. Core to your breeding duties, greater investment will generally result in an easier time conceiving, and more and healthier children when you do. They also regulate the hormonal state of your body, resulting in positive hormonal effects being more beneficial and lasting longer. On the other hand, huge and highly active ovaries will leave you wide open to negative hormonal effects — violent mood swings, physical discomfort, debilitating horniness to name a few. Gestation Speed Increases your gestation speed by a % of its base; at extreme levels, this might be up to twice as quick. How this is achieved is up to you — it could be efficient and thick placenta to rapidly deliver nutrients, growth-boosting amniotic fluid, or simply rapidly-forming eggs if you're oviparous, but the end result is the same. While high gestation speed may be an obvious boon to your duties, it also places considerable stress on your physique. You'll need to eat a lot more to sustain producing new life at an accelerated rate, the rapid growth and changes in your body will be uncomfortable to say the least, and if your other aspects aren't up to par the recovery that you need in between pregnancies may even result in your average rate of breeding being lower than it would've been otherwise. Vagina If you're going to have to do this, you may as well enjoy it. More points in vagina mean greater sensitivity and pleasure, both for you and the dark lord (or any other partner). It also affects its ability to stretch, leading to easier births. Overinvestment, on the other hand, might lead to pussy lips so thick and sensitive that even walking results in a distracting level of arousal. Alternative: Corruption Instead of allocating points to different aspects of your baby-making, you may choose to accept the dark lord's corrupting influence. You will start at the minimum level in each aspect allowable for your race, but grow steadily in accordance with your actions; for example, carrying larger pregnancies will cause your womb to steadily engorge, while becoming the harem's wet nurse will ensure your breasts swell to huge proportions. In this way, your actions will determine how much and in what manner your fecundity manifests. Over sufficient time and related action, the dark lord's corruption will transform you into the perfect breeder, with maximum investment in every category. The downside is that without any starting assets, getting to that point is unlikely. Depending on your circumstances, you may need to take drastic action in order to kickstart your babymaking faculties. The Dark Lord Who Is He? Zahar the First King Born to a disgraced noblewoman driven from the drow court for her inability to bear a daughter, Zahar was raised by his mother to be the tool of her vengeance. Upon coming of age, he led a bloody civil war against his own people masterminded by his mother, enlisting the numerous slaves and discontented men in drow society against their matriarchal order. Against all odds, he succeeded, and crowned himself the first king of the drow. However, it was not long before he turned his eye abroad, seeking to impose this twisted philosophy of freedom to other lands. Under Zahar's rule, drow society has become as deeply misogynistic as it was misandric under the matriarchs; the only woman to escape this fate is his mother, who is venerated and said in whispers to be the true power behind his rule. In his palace deep beneath the earth, you will have no rights to anything, and the slightest infraction will be held against you. It is unlikely you will ever see the sun again. Scenario Modifiers: *Zahar respects his mother deeply. The dowager is always in play, and trust gained with her will also count as trust gained with him. *If you are a high elf, the old rivalries between the elven races still burn deep even now, especially since many high elf slaves occupied key posts in the rebellion. Although Zahar is personally much kinder to you than he would be otherwise, drow women in his palace will hate you viciously and sabotage you at every turn, even those who are ostensibly your servants. *The drow have a long history of enslaving others with magic. The effects of your womb brand, both boon and bane, are amplified. If the boon or bane has an easily quantifiable effect, that is simple enough; if it doesn't, the increased effect is up to you to decide (within reason, of course) Wulfgar Ice-Heart The wolfkin tribes of the frozen lands have been at most a footnote in many histories: eking out subsistence living from fishing and trapping, many have considered their lands too harsh and poor to be worth their time. But that changed with Wulfgar's awakening. Fishing out at sea as a youth, he received a vision from the northern gods: that through treachery, they had been denied their proper place in te pantheon, and hence their power has steadily faded from the world. Because of this divine imbalance, corruption and injustice run rife through the races; the wolfkin with their simple way of life are the only ones to remain untouched by this spiritual malaise. Now, Wulfgar leads a howling crusade down upon warmer climes, seeking to redress the injustice dealt to the vengeful northern gods and utterly purge the decadent filth of this world under his icy fist. And the most sobering thought is that he may not be wholly wrong. Scenario Modifiers: *Wulfgar is a pious man, if nothing. He will insist that you are properly wed before knowing you carnally; since the rites of the northern gods do not prohibit polygamy, all of his harem are his wives. While he will not demand your conversion to the northern gods, he will insist that you acknowledge them as equal to your own — an idea the other pantheons consider preposterous and heretical for a bunch of jumped-up wilderness spirits. *Cut into a glacier, Wulfgar's palace is bitterly cold and designed with beastkin races in mind. If you do not have fur or feathers to keep you warm, the creeping chill will penalise your physique. *Wulfgar's rule is rigidly hierarchical after the way of the wolfkin; those lower should know their place and be mere extensions of their superiors' wills. Unquestioning loyalty is demanded of all his subjects; half of your devotion above (high value) may be added as trust with him. *If you are a wolf-girl, you hail from a rival wolfkin clan; your father disagreed with Wulfgar's methods and paid the price for his insubordination. Your racial biology makes you extremely susceptible to Wulfgar's nature: your heat and litter-bearer traits start at level 3 instead of 2, and devotion gains are doubled as your traitorous, overpowering instincts suborn your will into following the pack's leader. Shogun Shutendoji A red-skinned oni from a distant island archipelago to the east, Shutendoji was the last thing the other realms expected to swallow them. Being largely poor in resources, this nation was largely overlooked as magic and its resultant technology spread throughout the realms and races, resulting it falling behind the rest of the world. It began as an expeditionary foray, and somehow spiralled into skirmish, which then ignited into a full-blown conflict. Rumour is that Shutendoji engineered all of this with various pretexts, but by the end of it his ships were sailing back laden with raw metals, energy crystals and more. Soon, the shogun had strongarmed a handful of coastal nations into vassalage, serving as a beachhead from which his armies incursed into the continent. Having tasted conquest and the prosperity and renown that it has brought him, the shogun looks abroad to even greater goals — and perhaps in some way make up for the shame of being derided as poor and backward. The shogun is a bit of a drunk, unsubtle, and insists on leading his armies from the front, but none can deny his military genius in everything from tactics to logistics. Shutendoji has little interest in civilisations and cultures other than his own, deeming them all inferior for falling to his blade. So long as they reliably send shipments of resources as tribute, he has happy to let them do as they please. Any vassal that fails to fulfil that one condition, though, is quickly made an example of in accordance with his cruel cunning. You have been brought a long, long way from home via ship, in a journey that has lasted months, to a land where only the shogun and your appointed handlers even speak a little your native tongue. With this blank slate you begin your new life in a foreign harem — obviously an outsider, and without friends. Scenario modifiers: *Shutendoji respects strength and desires it in his women. Physique in excess of (medium-high) also counts towards trust. However, he also detests sycophants and desires honest answers; devotion in excess of trust will reduce its effective score by the difference. It's best to first gain his confidence before declaring yourself smitten by his dark vision for the world. *Life in the shogun's harem is stifling. The customs, etiquette and language of his nation are alien to you, and it's likely you may not see any trace of your now-distant homeland ever again. It's expected that noblewomen are well-versed in pursuits both intellectual and physical; you will have almost no free time to make use of palace amenities as you are shuffled from one instructor to another. Be it music or martial training with the glaive, you are expected as Shutendoji's concubine to excel and avoid bringing shame to him, your pregnancies notwithstanding. *If you are a kitsune, you face a different challenge: Shutendoji hails from your very nation, having seized power in a rebellion, declared himself shogun, and moved the centre of government away from the imperial capital to his own power base, taking you with him. Having been born and bred to the expectations of noble womanhood, the lifestyle in Shutendoji's harem is not a problem for you. Instead, your father the emperor is being kept as a puppet by the shogun and you are a hostage; your continued well-being is contingent on your father giving his seal of divine approval to whatever conquest plans Shutendoji comes up with. Similarly, the demands the shogun makes of your father will be adjusted by you fulfilling your breeding duties and being well-behaved while in his harem. Alucard In time immemorial, the legendary vampire Dracula was overthrown. Eight heroes, backed by the clergies of the western pantheon, assailed his castle, defeated Dracula, and sent the vampiric tyrant to his final rest. But millennia have passed since then, and Dracula's curse all but forgotten; the people grow complacent, and the churches corrupt. In the wake of a sudden, massive famine and widespread poverty, vampires emerged from the shadows — stemming from a myriad of races and peoples, but all united in their thirst for sapient blood. At their head was Alucard, self-proclaimed successor of Dracula, borne of an affair between the legendary vampire and a village witch. For an eternity after the death of their master, the vampires had lain in wait, subverting and undermining every societal institution until the rot was firmly entrenched. Only then did they show their hand, using the engineered famine and economic hardship to seize power. With near-complete control over every aspect of society, the takeover was swift and surprisingly peaceful. A new order was established — or more correctly, an ancient one was revived. The monetary system was abolished, and in its place Alucard imposed the blood tax of his sire: coinage backed by sapient blood, to which all healthy adults of all races were obligated to regularly contribute to. In this way, the unending thirst of the vampires would never again go unslaked. Alucard's rule is surprisingly light: he prefers domination over destruction, corruption over violence. The people have had enough of chaos and accept anyone who promises order and a full belly; some even remark that taxes levied in blood are less crushing than those paid in coin. Now with his ancestral lands in his deathly grip, Alucard seeks to expand his tax base, as he wryly — and almost affectionately — calls them. His disdain for violence means he prefers corruption, subversion and exploitation as means of conquest, leaving shells and puppets in his wake — but is not above sending out his armies of the living and dead alike should it come to that. Scenario Modifiers: *If there is one thing Alucard does not lack, it is wealth. The effects of palace amenities are amplified. If the amenity has an easily quantifiable effect, that is simple enough; if it doesn't, the increased effect is up to you to decide (within reason, of course) *Alucard will demand that members of his harem pay the blood tax directly to him. While this is a duty shared amongst the entire harem, you nevertheless have to suffer it often enough that it impacts your physique. *If you are a human, you have the misfortune of being a direct descendant of the Belstein family, progenitor of which led the heroes instrumental in Dracula's defeat. Alucard has it out for you: while you will not be physically harmed, he will torment you with the best mind-games his vampiric deviousness can come up with — and with his millennia of experience, he will always win. Alucard's goal is to break your spirit completely and utterly; he will not enthrall you, but will take great pleasure in having the last remnant of the Belstein bloodline genuinely love him of your own will. He will invert the pain and suffering of your pregnancies into intense pleasure, conditioning your mind to associate him and his seed with ecstasy beyond compare. He will continually feed you false hope, perhaps even allow you to "escape" — yet in the end, he will reveal how his hand has been guiding all your actions from the outset. Your doom as the bloodline that almost ended Dracula's is to spread it through your womb, and perhaps if you impress him enough, he may ascend you through the rites of blood into being a vampire yourself. Drakar the Ravager The few true dragons still living all keep close tabs on each other; from where Drakar came, none of them can say for sure. Some claim a burning star fell from the heavens, and that was the egg that bore him; others say he was first glimpsed crawling out of a volcano in the first moments of his rampage across the land. Whatever his origin, this newcomer adapted to the world quickly, easily learning to speak myriad languages — for the sole purpose of addressing his new slaves. Generations of existence with other races have tempered the true dragons in their dealings, but Drakar embodies every single stereotype of his kind on the old legends: unrepentantly avaricious, possessive and proud. And above all of that, an unshakable certainty that only dragons, most of all him, are fit to rule and hence deserve to own everything they behold. However, since the existing dragons want nothing to do with this dangerous upstart, he has come across an interim solution that his racial supremacism can stomach: forcibly breeding draconic halfbreeds from the former rulers of his conquered lands and setting them up as governors. Producing such underlings is to be the fate of you and all of the women he has gathered in his "hoard", with no end in sight. Scenario Modifiers: *All trust gains with Drakar are reduced by (%). *True to his draconic nature, Drakar is immensely possessive of his hoard. He demands absolute fidelity of his harem, which is run by eunuchs stripped of sexual desire by magics of his own making. Males and futanari are strictly forbidden from the harem grounds on pain of death. Thankfully, he does not see the inner workings of his hoard as a threat, since he owns you all; seeking solace from other members of the breeding harem will not anger him. *If you are a dragon-girl, Drakar will claim you as the prize jewel of his hoard. As one of the few remaining members of the only species his supremacist ideology deems fit to rule and the mother-to-be of his own dragonflight, you will enjoy considerable privileges, freedoms and even authority. The full-blooded dragonlings you spawn will be fast-tracked (by draconic standards) to high office in the apparatus of his dark rule; you will never have to fear for their welfare. Life may not be that much different from what you were used to — at the cost of being the subject of his intense draconic possessiveness to a far greater degree than the other members of his harem. Although escape is impossible, Drakar fears to lose you in other ways: he will insist that you accompany him everywhere he goes regardless of your physical condition; unlike the rest of his harem, you will enjoy the pleasures of the outside world, albeit with him at your side. If you have to leave his presence, you will be chaperoned by one of his unwaveringly loyal eunuchs, and your every move reported. He will be absolutely paranoid about potential infidelity on your part, and the slightest hint of such may well send him into a murderous rage. On the other hand, you know these impulses far too well yourself; they are just as much a part of your own nature. And should you, in time, come to see him the same way he sees you… who knows? He might even be able to trust you. Feats These are traits you had before entering the dark's lord's harem. Generally, these may not be bought and are part of your race's physiology. However, boons and banes may mimic some feats' effects. Litter-Bearer Your body is adapted to bear multiple children like some kind of beast. Every rank of this trait adds one child to every pregnancy you conceive: for example, if you bought two ranks of this trait, a twin pregnancy would become quadruplets. Since this is a natural inclination of your body, the additional children from this trait will not cause the pregnancy to be harder on you. Oviparous You lay eggs instead of giving live birth. One-third of your pregnancy duration will be spent gestating an egg, which is then laid and incubated for the remainder of the duration. This has both advantages and disadvantages: obviously, you will not be encumbered for the entirety of the duration from conception to hatching, and can even get started on another egg if you can take it. On the other hand, all the nutrition your child will need for the entire time must be accumulated in one-third the time, suitable incubation conditions for the egg arranged (especially if you are a dragon-girl), it may be easier for a rival to sabotage the eggs, and so forth. Heat When you aren't pregnant, you enter a state of animalistic heat in which your fertility and libido spike for half a week every month. Your instincts will nag at you to conceive and your thoughts will fog, making it hard to think of anything but mating. Signs of your receptiveness will be outwardly visible; some examples could be flushed skin, elevated body temperature, muscle cramps, a fertile scent (especially for wolfkin), reddened and swollen vaginal lips, and so forth. Additional ranks of this feat will increase the duration and intensity of your heat manifold. A deep enough heat could reduce you to a panting, needy, emotionally unstable wreck until impregnated. Womb Brand Upon being inducted into the harem, each woman receives a womb brand on her lower belly. Its primary purpose is to mark you as the dark lord's property and serve as your chains; it suppresses any unauthorised use of magical and spiritual power, and can channel debilitating pleasure into your body if you misbehave. That is not all, though. Your womb brand may have additional effects or channel other powers… Boons The power of the womb brands is not an exact science — each one is individualised, and unforeseen side-effects can manifest for many reasons. By some small mercy of the gods or sheer luck, some of these appear to be beneficial and generally under your command. Unless the dark lord directs you otherwise, you may turn on and off a boon's effects at will. Of course, nothing is ever purely an upside — that would be too easy for this fallen life you now lead. Bountiful Milk Requires: breasts (medium) Your breastmilk is able to slightly boost the fertility and advance the pregnancies of those who drink it. Two liters of your milk will rapidly grow a pregnancy by about a week, and increase conception and multiples chances. More developed breasts will boost the effectiveness of this boon. While you cannot benefit from drinking your own milk, expect to receive requests for any excess you may have, possibly direct from the tap. This ability will certainly make you friends amongst the harem, even if only for selfish reasons. Conception Sense You are able to sense the exact moments of ovulation, conception, and implantation as bursts of erotic pleasure. In addition, you instantly know how many children you are carrying, and their sex. A stronger, more developed womb will increase the pleasure you receive from this boon. All this information will also be prominently displayed on your womb brand in some fashion, making it impossible to hide. Fusion Ritual Requires: womb (large), hips (large) This ritual must be performed in the short window after conception yet before implantation. If you conceived multiples, you may channel the dark power of your womb brand and fuse any number of fertilised eggs into one — for example, after conceiving quadruplets, you may choose to fuse two of them to bear triplets instead. The more lives are melded in this ritual, the stronger your resulting child will be, not necessarily in the physical sense, but perhaps in other dimensions like the mental or spiritual. Children resulting from such fusions will grow huge in your womb, as large as many lives went into their making; outwardly, no one will know if you're carrying multiples or a giant singleton formed from their merging. The sex of the child will be whatever sex was predominant in the fusion; if an equal number of the eggs were male and female, the resulting child will be a futanari. Unless you like surprises, taking conception sense is recommended. For obvious reasons, powerful fertility aspects are needed to even begin considering such a thing… but this dark ritual allows you to take a quality-over-quantity approach, bringing forth from your womb powerful champions instead of rampaging hordes for the dark lord's service. Acceleration This boon is simple enough: every time the dark lord creampies you while you're already pregnant, your pregnancy advances a week in a growth spurt. This would seem mostly beneficial, but it does require the dark lord's cooperation to breed you regularly. Such unequal attention and favour will surely foment resentment… not to mention the stresses the growth spurts place on your body will discourage you from using this boon too often. Metabolism You can rapidly funnel excess calories in your body into advancing a pregnancy or producing breast milk. If you are neither pregnant nor lactating, this boon cannot be used; all that extra mass can't just disappear. The conversion is swift but not instant, usually taking several days depending on how much weight you'd like to lose. This boon cannot bring you below a healthy weight range. At the very least, you won't have to worry about putting on weight from repeated child-bearing. Banes Conditions that the dark lord or someone with his authority may impose on you through your womb brand. These may be used as punishment for misbehaviour, part of a fetish, some kind of twisted test, simply a desire to see you suffer, or whatever whim the dark lord has. These are not under your control; they are entirely at the dark lord's pleasure and may only be invoked or dispelled at his whim. If a bane conflicts with a boon, it will always take precedence: for example, if you decide to turn off your fertility with a boon and the dark lord decides to enact a bane to turn it on, his desires will always overrule yours. There is one upside: willingly taking on banes and surrendering control over yourself to the dark lord is a good way to earn his trust. Paradoxically, the more chains you put on yourself, the freer you may eventually be. If you can convince him that enacting and removing these banes in accordance with your desires is to his advantage, they may even become beneficial. Fertility Control You have no control over your own fertility; the dark lord may turn it on and off at his whim, and even decide how fertile you are at any moment (up to what your aspects can support). Since amenities, boons and other effects may have conditions as to whether and how pregnant you are when used, this may be quite troublesome. Heat Trigger (Requires fertility control) The dark lord's control over your fertile periods is absolute: he can send you into heat at his desire. When activated, this bane will send you into heat at two additional ranks over your base, so if you do not naturally have a heat cycle you will be under the effects of heat 2. Ovi Control The dark lord can control what kind of pregnancies you undergo. If you are an elf, he may make you lay eggs, if you are a dragon-girl, he may make you give live birth. Sex Control The dark lord can determine the sex of any children he fathers on you at the moment of conception. Progress Denial Any pregnancy you are carrying is paused indefinitely until the dark lord deems otherwise. You may be saddled with a late-term pregnancy with all its discomforts, or be made to take a break to let your rivals in the harem catch up with their breeding. A particularly cruel move would be to pause your pregnancy mid-labour, forcing you to endure the pains and contractions until the dark lord is satisfied. Birth Denial You are unable to give birth until the dark lord releases you; your pregnancy will continue to grow past the point when you should have given birth, but labour will just not start. This is not life-threatening, but the longer this drags on, the greater strain it will place on your womb as it swells well overdue, and the wider your hips will need to be for when the dark lord does release you from this bane and allows you to finally bear his child. That being said, the longer you "hold in" the pregnancy, the stronger (not necessarily physically so) the resulting child will be: if your fertility aspects can bear the brunt of massively overdue pregnancies, you may well become valued as a mother of champions. Overdue pregnancies will not unduly age the child in your womb, so you will still birth babies as opposed to toddlers or more, however huge they may have grown while in you. Progress Transfer Through the dark magics that form the womb brands, progress from one of the harem members' pregnancies may be transferred to another. This ritual only works under the supervision of the dark lord or someone he appoints; as two mothers-to-be touch their womb brands, one pregnancy rapidly grows while the other reverts by the same duration. A pregnancy may not be outright removed or transferred this way, but being set back to a rival's benefit can be embittering. This transfer skips many of the ill effects that artificially quickening pregnancies inflicts upon the mother, and so is considered valuable. Depending on the circumstances, you may be required to give or receive pregnancy progress; for example, if your children are particularly valuable to the dark lord's purposes at this time, he may require several other harem members advance your pregnancy at the expense of their own. Fast-breeding races like orcs and wolf-girls will be more likely asked to "donate", while slower ones "receive". Superfetation The dark lord may choose to have you conceive while already pregnant. This creates another pregnancy in you that grows separately from the one you already have; when you go into labour, only pregnancies that have come to term will be birthed. Your effective pregnancy size will be the sum of all concurrent pregnancies you're carrying. While this may allow you to rapidly and constantly produce progeny, being perpetually pregnant without any time to allow your body to recover is a surefire way to wreck your health and mental state. Surely the dark lord trusts you enough to grant you the occasional reprieve, right? Palace Amenities You may now live in the shadow of the dark lord, but a palace is still a palace. While you remain in this gilded cage, you may as well make use of its comforts and the spoils of war the dark lord has plundered. Note that these amenities do not just work for you, but are open to everyone in the palace as well, friend and foe alike. Family Quarters You may purchase this multiple times. While the expectation is that your progeny will be parted from you once weaned, to be fostered by tutors, each purchase of this amenity will allow you to keep one of your children by your side until his or her majority. Your child may not necessarily live in the harem with you if that is inconvenient for either you or the dark lord, but may reside in another wing of the palace. You will be able to freely visit your child, take part in his or her raising, and generally try to be a good mother (or not). Having someone to care for and about in these trying times may make them more bearable… but having someone you love also means a chink in your armour for those who hate you. And of course, the knowledge that your child will eventually faithfully enter his or her father's service may leave a black mark on happy memories… Personal Maids You will receive a trio of maids who will answer to you and wait on you hand and foot. They are aware of the stresses you are expected to undergo in your duties, and have some specialised knowledge in their efforts to make you as comfortable as possible through your constant, repeated pregnancies. While they are friendly to you, and may even get to the point where you can confide in them, they are ultimately just maids and their loyalties lie with the dark lord; they have permission to refuse to do anything that falls too far beyond the scope of their duties in helping you remain healthy and fecund. Palace Plaza The dark lord's home is so huge, it is akin to a city on its own; the palace's outer plaza is filled with merchants, entertainers, and all kinds of hopefuls willing to brave the risk for a bit of the dark lord's wealth. It may not sound great or glamorous, but having permission to visit the plaza and enjoy the small comforts that the transients bring with them can do a great deal to stave off stress both physical and mental. Meeting new people and hearing news from beyond the capital is a privilege you will be glad to have, if only to break up the wild swings between crushing monotony and perilous intrigue of life in the harem. Motherwort Grove A grove of rare blossoms in the harem gardens, spoils of war from a druid enclave. The soft floral fragrance will stimulate your femininity, resulting in very gradual and random increases to your aspects over time. Since it is a hormonal effect, the effectiveness of motherwort fragrance increases with greater ovarian aspect. It is also doubly as effective when you're not already pregnant, making the decision to take some time and build your capabilities a valid one, if at the risk of falling behind. Gymnasium The dark lord's harem needs strong bodies to bear strong children, and thus has been given leave to use the palace gymnasium when the palace guard is not training. Equipment for just about every conceivable exercise may be found in this gym; it even has dulled weapons for the purposes of martial training, just to drive home the fact that the dark lord has nothing to fear from you. You may train in your free time and slowly gain physique. However, these gains will be reduced the more pregnant you are up to the point of training being impossible should the pregnancy be overdue, so some planning will be required. Vitality Spring A relaxing hot spring much favoured by the palace's residents, certified by the dark lord's physicians to promote good health and speed the recovery of illness and injury. Several private baths are reserved for the dark lord and his inner circle, which includes his harem. Steeping yourself in these life-infused waters will take a good amount of your free time, but it will alleviate the stresses of pregnancy both physical and emotional, as well as slightly increase your gestation speed. People The dark lord's harem is an ecosystem unto itself; it's comprised of not just its members, but all kinds of other people as well. Friends and enemies are shifting roles in these halls — someone useful today may be a liability tomorrow, and you are not exempt. The Dowager The dark lord's mother. She may be a kindly old woman who is confused about her son's actions, yet confident he means well — or her devious mind may be the true power behind the throne, puppeting the dark lord in his conquest. Whatever the case, your addition to the harem means you're going to be bearing her grandchildren, and hence will come under her scrutiny. Depending on her disposition, she may be helpful and encouraging during your pregnancies and child-raising, or insist that things be done her way. The more trust you gain with the dark lord, the more likely the dowager is to see you as a potential daughter-in-law, and will start treating you accordingly. Endings Dark Empress (Requires very high trust and devotion) Having earned the dark lord's trust and through the service of your womb secured his favour, the dark lord elevates you to first amongst all women in his realm. As his empress, you've been given the chance to further his cause not just with your womb and the armies that pour forth from it, but in other ways as his right hand. You spend your time refining his schemes while cradling your hugely pregnant belly, plotting how this particular fruit of your womb will grow and further the dark lord's interests. It is not exactly love as you might once have imagined — it's even better, as your needy, broody body will attest to. While your husband is away on conquest, you manage the realm like one giant estate, keeping things neat and tidy in his absence. The people regard you with a mixture of wonder and fear — that one such as you could have fallen so completely for the dark lord. Empress (Requires very high trust, but lower devotion than what dark empress needs) Having earned the dark lord's trust and through the service of your womb secured his favour, the dark lord elevates you to first amongst all women in his realm. As his empress, you do not always see eye-to-eye with him on issues and he always has the final say, but he does believe in you enough to take your opinions seriously. Your relationship may not be a whirlwind of erotic love, but you are one of the few people he believes genuinely has his best interests at heart. Life under the dark lord's rule is still harsh, but not as much as it could have been thanks to your influence. The people prefer petitioning you than seeking audiences directly with the dark lord, and your perpetually large, life-swollen belly is seen as a symbol of hope, no matter how faint. Barren (Requires negative physique) Your neglect for your body and its fundamentals produces consequences in light of all the demands placed on it. Unable to keep up with constant pregnancy and childbirth altered by the dark magic of the brand, your womb exhausts itself, and you become barren. Unable to fill your primary purpose, you are no longer fit for the breeding harem; if you have earned the dark lord's trust, he may decide to put you out to pasture and return you to your home in recognition of your service. Otherwise… your fate is a lot more uncertain. Knife in the Dark (Requires very high envy) You've done it. The resentment the rest of the dark lord's harem harbours for you and how much you hold yourself over them has boiled over into outright hatred, strong enough that the impossible has happened. Every single one of them agrees that you are a threat and must go, and their loathing is so deep as to supersede their fear of the dark lord, if just for long enough to strike. Whether it's a knife in the dark, poison, an unfortunate accident or some other means, the other women of the harem remove you from the picture. It's certain that the conspirators will be caught by the dark lord and dealt with, but from hell's heart they stab at you.