There are many. Not as many as men, but there are still a lot of women who led raids, great defensive stands and some that led entire armies. I listed some above, but seriously a simple Google search has more than a few examples.
I can’t speak for female assassins in Middle Age Europe, but in the middle and Far East, women were used as assassins quite often. There are also many tales of female assassins during the reign of Rome, BUT whether they were true assassins or opportunists is up for debate.
cant seem to find an online version of the story from my university text book, but the story essentially goes that a king or prince went to visit a castle. He was greated by a group of women, pretending to be there for his pleasure. However he was then stabbed by multiple of the women with poisoned daggers. If i am remebering correctly this was actually ordered by the queen that lived at the castle. I cant seem to find more specific information about this event online (mind you that time period is also an absolute mess, that entire book was essential, this guy was killed and this guy took over, or this person had this child). examples for this exact time period are difficult to find (mainly because we don’t actually know who the majority of the actual assassins were in this time period, we only know at times who order the assassination, and some assassin groups). That being said there are examples of female assassins both earlier and later. If you are curious, one of te earlier ones was a jewish assassin (it can be read baout on the wiki article about assassinations), there is also a list of the 7 deadliest female assassins, along eith articles about female assassins in Japan. When it comes to information about actual assassins in this time period very little is really known, there is one famous assassin group, though there isnt a ton known about them (wouldnt be very successful if we knew who they were). Many assassinations are also not much of an assassination, they are just groups of soldiers killing someone, or nobles/priests ganging up with knives (though this was also fairly rare, using soldiers was more common).
Though the fact that we do have some names of some female assassins in time periods around this one, along with some names from other countries in the same time period as this game, would at the very least suggest very strongly that they could be found in this area in this time period as well.
And what would you do as a female character in KCD?
Cook? Clean? Beg? Do what your husband says? Hope the cumans dont rape you because youre not a character that can do anything to help Skalitz?
Play as a wanna be joan d’arch and be burned at the stake at the age of 19?
Here is an article that i found that lists not only female warroors but also bandits/pirates. It is true people like shield maids are over glorified, but this doenst change the fact that there were at least some female fighters in and around this time, and they were feared.
You can then try to argue “well those are extraordinary cases” and you would be right. However henry is also an extraordinary case. A peasant would not be treated nearly as well as he has been treated, not to mention he get incredibly lucky, many times, and has been born with some kind of natural talent for almost everything. One cannot just ignore that fact that at least some artistic liberties have been taken, in regards to henry’s story.
True she could be more spy than assassin, but i am not sure how pleased people would be with no combat at all. Perhaps this could be an interesting idea for a different game, but this one has made a fairly big deal about its fighting system, and being able to fight in different ways.
But that is the thing, assassin is just a kind of title for what the combat stule would more so be. An assassin doesnt just kill people, they basically do all the same things as things like spies as well. Thisis also not to say they couldnt take on odd jobs/ requests, or just go on personal missions for what ever they might like (maybe just gathering some genral information).
When i am refering to them being an assassin i just mean the story and interactions would be geared a bit more towards using non open combat methods. It would be a kind of contrast to henry, even though henry can do a lot of sneaky around and such, his storyline and many of his possible actions are geared far more towards open combat.
I mean just loke being a knight isnonly one part of what henry can and does do, beig an assassin would be only one facet of the female character. Mind you this is just spit balling ideas, what actually ends up being done may be very, very different. If there ends up being a female character at all.
Normally everyone discusses that women are extremely rarely able to fight alongside men, that is true. In circumstances of actual women warriors they are placed in unconventional circumstances (Joan of Arc having saintly communication to god and given tasks to lead armies for example). There are women who do engage in military combat, here is a one source that I’ve found about a woman winning a jousting match against a knight.
I’m certainly not for women that are added for the sake of inclusivity, that would definitely kill the belivability of Historical immersion. HOWEVER, the setting of KCD is interesting enough that it doesnt take place as a standard military soldier. Henry is designed as a ‘right-hand’ man for Sir Radzig. He is not part of an offical army or militia group, operates independantly from everyone else. In that manner, it is very possible to include a woman in service.
However there is the need of explanation of how a woman can be much more capable compared to the scores of men that Sir Radzig have in his disposal. And considering that Henry is on his own most of the time, its highly unfesaible for a woman to be alone in her investigations infiltrating military camps and fighting scores of bandits, considering the effort she took to join in service of a lord(In my opinion, men are much more likely to take on extremely dangerous tasks)
Suppose that we DO get a female character, there are many ways to get a female character to be in the premise without breaking immersion:
Garments or plate armours that covers the body fully will hardly distinguish women from men
Changing of hairstyles to look less feminine
The advantage of a woman that can infiltrate places easily(dressed as a bathouse maid)
It’s doable, but I think it will take a genius that can balance out historical belivability with game playability.
The only thing I see there is legendary figures that may have not existed along with queens/duchesses/countesses that led and may have commanded battles. The only woman who is said to have fought is the last one that beat a man in a joust (tournament). And once again, the feminist site you linked me… provides zero sources and seems to have simply taken everything from Wikipedia. Looking at the Wikipedia articles themselves, we see that most, if not all of the named women (the European ones) simply sat in the back commanding/overseeing the troops. As for the pirates during the “Viking” era… let’s not discuss that at all.
Here is a sight which is basically one big discussion about medieval women fighting in this general time period. It is also aksing about them being knights (but as is mentioned throughout the responses knights themselves were not exactly common).
Though this can cause issues with trying to find exact names, just as a common soldiers name would not be recorded, any female common soldiers would not have likely been recorded. Knights are really the only ones to have their names recorded for the most part.
I guess it kind of depends on your idea of what a soldier is. Women most definitly faught particularly when a city was under seige, but at the same time pretty much any peasant could be forced to be a soldier.
Technically a female character becoming a knight would be a massive stretch, but one being a regular fighter due to different circumstances would be more plausible.
There I see a problem.
Most rulers wouldn’t openly tell that they used a assassine to kill a person who they think it would be a advantage to silence. And if they would have written down something it would be likely in a secret book as a reminder for them and not something that would be copied a few times.
And from since then there were other wars, city fire etc. in Europe.
This is a other case. I belive that those events would be mentioned more often since it would be a rare event at this time in Europe and it has nothing to do with shadow operations.
this is not necessary first bugs need to be fixed and need to find a solution for save and lockpick.after the devs should grow map or add new maps with new stories.
