The_Scoutman Fulminato Fair enough, I guess it will come down to how dependant Rodak was on the Lustlord, and how much Simon is willing to invest on Rodak. Given that the Lustlord prepared a self-destruction mechanism for his palace, I have my doubts he bothered much with making sure Rodak could prosper without him, if his magic was the source of Rodak's economy and it was also keeping the weather in check, unless Simon is capable of replacing both of those things either with his own power or a lot of economical favors (import routes won't really help with anything if Rodak's economy was only being held together by the Lustlord's magical Sx printer), I don't see a way of sustaining Rodak as a thriving kingdom and since the population is mostly succubi, might as well make use of the free-travel the pan-succubus council arranged. Also I don't know if it would make much sense to push Rodak to after a open-world section since those usually take weeks or months of ingame time and we end the second gathering with princess Vunne Organa basically pleading us to come help her and the harem, so I don't know if postponing it makes too much sense.
but the lustlord never do anything in the day-to-day managment of his country, so a lot of social and economic structure must be in place to handle the need of rodak as whole. we don't realy know how he keep is coffer full. perhaps something like wendis' crystal in the tower mine, with his tower-orcs smashing them full time and recover the sellable items. in this case simon can keep the process running. it's only an example, but LL mastery about the tower was high, but he wasn't the sharper tool in the box, so to speak, don't think he was to much immaginative or clever in his money-making process.
i think the open world segment don't include rodak because simon say "So along with everything else, let's begin planning a trip to Rodak..." and vunne message end with "Everything is stable in Rodak for now, but... based on what the Lustlord told me, I think every winter will be worse than the last.". i think iris will be in the teleportation room asking when start the trip for rodak after doing a couple of errand in renthnor .
The_Scoutman This is a completely different can of worms, but what the hell was that Lustlord fight? Maybe it will make more sense once I replay it, but so many things just felt so odd and suspicious about it.
the lustlord form the start show an unprecedented aggressivity toward everyone, at first I was thinking his ego had take enough blow and he need a show of force to regain his place as prince among kings, but in the end seem the unknow tower force had change reality to make him attack the other IKs (similay the try tanurak made to force aka and yarra fight) and after the start of the fight he will never backed down so was him or simon/esthera to die.
First, how easily the Lustlord just dispatched Esthera, up to this point they were basically even on power and it is not like he hadn't been pushed to his limit before, during the Erosian War him and Esthera were locked in a battle to the death with a juiced up Ginasta and he still didn't really display any ammount of overwhelming power, and then now he easily knocks out the Empress with his new shadow powers to the point where he isn't even weakened before fighting us. Just feels like he got a power-up of some kind and we don't know the source. Maybe he had it in him the whole time and was just too cowardly, but it still feels like there could be more to it.
SL Patreon comment:
"I don't know if more dialogue about the Lustlord would help, but you have the right idea. He's very dangerous when pushed, but reluctant to go that far because he's conservative by nature. So long as he's holding back he feels safe. I actually tried to set this up by having his previous fights always in situations where he's worried about others ganging up on him."
and a couple of months pass from the dialogue in the DK palace and the start of the gathering. i suspect he used this time to enhanced himslef at the best he can, with a lot of store energy in safe place he can draw at will or other similar backup, thing he doesn't have in the two confrontation before.
and i don't think he was uninjuried from the confrontation with esthera, after all he said: "It's been such a long time since I was truly injured... letting you live was a mistake." and i don't think the little damage simon's party manage to do was the source of the injury.
Second, Simon being able to manipulate other people's shards mid-battle was a pretty sick revelation, shame we are probably not gonna get to use this absurd power ever again since the Lustlord was the last strong "standard" Incubus King, the Anak will probably not rely on his IK powers so even if we fight him trying to manipulate his shard wouldn't do much. I'm still a bit confused about the exact mechanics of it though, but my interpretation from the fight was that it "unbalances" the shard's power, the Lustlord's normal form had strong regeneration and defensive capabilities, but Simon "unbalanced" that and turned him into a shadow monster where he only had his offensive capabilities.
i think you misunderstanding. LL words "Gah! Twisting your shard? I refuse to allow it!" so i think he shift his form to the "final form" for max dmg output or something like it (or perhaps is his original form and the other a mere shapeshifting) . and simon used his twist of the shard to full heal the women tied to him.
the LL regenarive ability was suppressed by xestris and the power of the his shard bind by simon. but "But it already has. It's taking everything you have just to bind my power, but I can still fight." so the fight was against a "non-shardholder non-regenerative" lustlord.