Playable female characters

Gameplay
#182

Actually there WERE female knights in medieval times. There were two ways anyone could be a knight: by holding land under a knight’s fee, or by being made a knight or inducted into an order of knighthood. There are examples of both cases for women. The Order of the Hatchet(1149) and Order of the glorious Saint Mary(1233) were both order of Female knights.

Besides Jeanne d’Arc 's (or Joan of Arc) family was made noble, with nobility transmissible through women, which was quite unusual. She did ride a horse and dress up in armor, but she did not wield a sword and never killed anyone, but rather grasped her banner pretty tightly.

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#183

Stop complain for the love of god stop complaining.
It suits the story to have a male protagonist the only way the blacksmiths son has a chance of being made a knight is as from the livestream his father seemed to be rather respected by the lord.
A woman would not receive the same treatment, you are all saying O ID DRESS IN FULL PLATE, well ok
Firstly: HOW ARE YOU GOING TO AFFORD IT?
Secondly: How are you as a woman going to go and order said armour from a blacksmith to be made to you ?

At the end of the day the only role a female character could play would be a spy and an assassin

EDITed
Watch your language, please
//MadSmejki

1 Like
#184

I’m a late addition to Kingdoms, so forgive me opening old threads (especially as it seems female playable character was an achieved 600k stretch goal - if only for the prologue) …
My history is at times muddled with fiction, but my understanding is that up until the patriachy of the Christian faith, Norse women had an important part in the warrior culture, including combat (shield maidens), owning property and holding titles in thier own right, some by deeds. While I acknowledge that women’s rights continued to slide in the centuries that followed, it is circumstance that forges heros, and what is described for this game is a crucible. Anything is possible if the need is great enough.

A smith has a young daughter and no sons, his wife is taken by plague, so he has little choice but to put her to work in the forge. She shows aptitude and the smith cannot deny his young daughter the only thing he can offer, his smithing skills. The villagers think its a bit odd, but she seems a nice sort and good at her work. One day the village is attacked by bandits and she picks up the nearest weapon, a smithy hammer and wields it like she is striking an anvil. The bandits are driven off and the village accepts the odd smith’s daughter a little more.
And so its starts …

Historically inspired fiction is still fiction.

Arc

#185

No it would be unlikely she would he would take a relative on possibly as his apprentice etc

#186

It is still fiction. From the limited reading I’ve done, the Devs have stated the desire to tell an immersive storyline, for which time and resources would not allow for what would need to be two storylines …

This is not about feminism.

I disagree on the only female role possible being spy and assassin, even for a lowborn. But I do agree they were sexist times and it would be much more difficult to be a female warrior, hence I agree it would need to be two seperate storylines. Maybe sometime later, as the “hard” setting, rather than the “casual/normal” setting for playing a male :smile:

As to your point about armour, depending on when in the era and where, militia could be lucky to get much more than a wooden pitchfork, let alone something from a smith. But BEING the smith, means you could make your own stuff and not have to “order it” from a blacksmith, but even ore costs something.

Deeds could grab the attention of a lord. Noting the female warrior would likely need to be quite plain to avoid getting the “wrong” attention, (unless it was say, an aging lord) and possible trouble from the Church, known women haters of the era (original sin and all that). A female bard however, could have been chosen and apprenticed because of her looks and smarts. She could inspire the local lordlings with tales of heroics, broker marriages and alliances and thus change the course of “history”. All just different play styles.

#187

That would depend on the size of the village, how isolated, the number of young boys available for apprentices … times of war, the boys could have all been taken away to fight, the smith was left in the village, but the lord still wants his 14 pikes and a sword by the end of the month.

Necessity in a small village, things just need to get done. It could have started by merely fetching/carrying/setting the fire, old enough to be useful, too young to send away.

The key when writing fiction is to make it believable, if the reader/watcher thinks that’s plausible, I can see how it went from A to B to C, then mission accomplished. You may need to spell out more story line for a female character to be plausible/believable, but that doesn’t make it an impossible task.

**edit cause I reached my post as new user limit, so in reply to following thread.
any number of story threads could get around that, easiest being a not smart lord …
But I’d prefer something like … His older apprentice died of the same plague as his wife, and new apprentices are only taken on in the spring, by which time either she’s earnt her place at the forge, or he gets another (who’s not as good as she is - so he doesn’t get rid of her) or as previously said, he doesn’t want to get rid of her, she’s his only child.

#188

Yes but a smart lord make sure his blacksmith has an apprentice. Women where married off into other familys and thus would not be in direct household with the forge

#189

If this were the case, we’d have no written evidence for important female figures like Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan d’Arc, Queen Melisende of Jerusalem or Queen Joanna of Naples, to name a few. Writers, whether men like William of Tyre or women like Christine de Pizan, wrote about events that were considered interesting, and strong women were figures of interest to be written about as much as any king or knight - which is one of the many reasons why we can be quite certain that there were not “thousands” of untold female warriors during the period, because someone would have made note of it as a phenomenon of interest. Were that the case, then Joan d’Arc would have not at all been unique and would never have warranted the attention she got in contemporary chronicles because it would have been an everyday occurrence. Let’s not let wishful thinking obscure the historical truth that the era was quite different from our own, whether we like it or not.

#190

The thing to remember though is that both of those Orders were created to meet highly unusual circumstances, the first as an honorary reward of titles and pensions for some women involved in the siege of Tortosa and the latter as a failed attempt to create a body to aid in “subduing civil discord” in 13th century Italy. There is no reason to think that either engaged in military training ala the full Knightly Orders or served in combat.

#191

problem with the vikings, is that our main source for most of what we know about they way of life… is from the sagas. And they where not put to “paper” until the 13th century… over 250+years after the period they describe.
And written by Christians…
The rest of it, is from text written by they “targets” so highly critical of the vikings… So we really don’t know that much… and much of what we say we know… is actually based on rather problematic sources.

But yes, some females warriors properly did exist… but since we are talking many hundreds of years before this game and in a culture that was not christian or European… you can’t use it to say anything about how it was in 1403 in Bohemia.

1 Like
#192

I don’t see any reason to put playable women character in the game. Has witcher any women character? Also prince of Persia is male char, or Tomb raider you have just female character. GTA has also only mail characters, the newest version has 3 specific characters. All these games are enjoyable aldo you can not change gender. If you wanna play as female there are many other games some moded to hell like skyrim.

#193

There should be no problem if you choose your character as female, exactly in the history records it wasn’t too many female warriors but what if the men doesn’t want to correlate those female warrior so other woman not encourage to become warrior, but at least we don’t know anything 100% accuracy from history so if you don’t want a female character don’t be one, but is great to have the choice and woman have at least more practical skills to lure men as they please and then assassinate as like the Japanese use woman warrior to act as Geisha and approach to an important man and kill them, woman can reach some places as a normal man can’t, and they will look defenseless in that era and that will be an advantage that the enemy will underestimate you and for example here in the post are you saying that “woman should not will be as playable character”, that exactly can be that happen in that era,” we don’t want woman should be in your book” or “in this army wasn’t any woman”, its seems that in 600 years the man haven’t change at all.

#194

the Devs have already made it clear what will be possible and what will not.
(and stop bringing totally irrelevant stuff from japan into the debate)

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#195

No the reason is precisely that we are getting a historically accurate representation of the medieval world of 1403 by historical texts.

Unless you have a way to travel through time get used to it

#196

i got your point @Potter thanks and @ThomasAagaard it was an example of assasins.

#197

LOL that’s so awesome lol. I to take on the role of a female character from time to time, very much depends on what game Im playing but for pretty much the exact same reason. The only times I actually play a male character is when its a game that really pulls me in as being the main character of the story like game such as Mass Effect Grand Theft Auto 5 things like that. My wife asked me one time why I always play as a female character using skyrim as a reference my response … “because I would rather stare at this girls perfect ass for the next 100 plus hours then a guys and since the stats male vs female don’t matter…” She laughed said good point fare enough and that she indeed had an incredible ass lol… Love my wife lol.

#198

fiction=/=fantasy or myth. just want to post this since people seem to have conflated the two concepts.

2 Likes
#199

I believe the devs already said the main character will always be male, but a section of female playable missions will be added now since we reached that goal. The main character will always be the son of the dead blacksmith though, unless that’s changed.

1 Like
#200

Nowadays he could change that but in the middle ages he would probably be butchered or just emasculated in the process of trying such endeavor if you know what I mean. :smiley:

#201

You have not heard of Liegh Ann Hester? Not Fallujah, but still very Badass!

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