Piercings in SotA?...

After posting in a tattoo thread, I figured I'd create another thread discussing the other common form of body modification: body piercings. Now I figure that basic ear piercings are a given to be added to character fashion, but the question is rather other forms of pierced jewelry should be added. As far as my research goes, piercings of any sort were uncommon in Europe during the middle ages (the standard place/time that SotA is based on), up until the later part of the time-frame, and even then it was usually just sailors with one earring. Of course, there are large numbers of other cultures existing before, during, and after this period that had piercings of various sorts, so the sight of such things isn't entirely out of place. That, and one can argue that the avatars can be quite influential with their odd outworlder habits. So to fit with the crowd-sourcing of ideas, I made a poll. My first reply contains my idea of how it could be implemented.

 

I'd rather not see them. The historical reasons around the age the game is modelled on, as you've already covered, is my main reason.

 

I'm very much for the game having diverse cultures.

If everyone has these things, it's boring. But having this exist for 1-2 groups in interesting.

 

Since implementing jewelry of any sort can be tricky, and the devs already mentioned a limited number of "slots" for accessories, I decided to narrow down the possibilities here.

Firstly, the jewelry needs to purchased or crafted (which can either be spread out depending on material, or simply lumped in with tailoring). There are a few basic types:

• Ring, made out of steel, silver, or gold
• Loop with a metal pendent (such as an ankh), made of steel, silver, or gold
• Loop with a jewel pendent, made out of steel, silver, or gold with a gemstone or pearl
• Solid Plug, made out of steel, silver, gold, stone, wood, or bone
• Hollow Plug (tunnel), made out of steel, silver, gold, wood, or bone
• Curved crescent shape (pincher), made out of steel, silver, gold, stone, wood, or bone

Once you have the jewelry, you need to go to a "New You Salon" (or whatever they end up calling it) to pierce the spot of your choice and insert the jewelry. Rather or not you can have piercings at character creation is open to debate (I'd vote no, as such an act would cost money and having them at the start would avoid this). At this point there is a timer that lasts a few in-game days. If you take the jewelry out, the piercing will disappear. If you leave it in, you can then change jewelry at the spot at will from then on (there should even be a small mark to indicate the hole, probably made with the same system as tattoos/scars). Healing spells would not work for this (the idea being that if you healed a fresh piercing, the jewelry would fall out {after all, if healing spells didn't work that way, you character would be filled with shrapnel and arrow heads real quick}). You can get multiple piercings at once, but this would increase the healing time. Here are the basic locations (at least somewhat fitting with historical cultures, and the visual design of the jewelry should be based as such):

• Earlobe (left and right)
• Nose - Nostril (left and right)
• Nose - Septum (center)
• Lip - Labret (center)
• Nipples (left and right)

Earlobes can have all types, Septum is restricted to a ring or crescent/pincher, Labret restricted to ring or plug, and nipples can only have rings. All jewelry can be worn by both sexes, but obviously the nipple rings are not visible on females (you can argue that certain other piercings are not visible either, but I doubt the game would acknowledge them). All piercings start with 14 gauge jewelry (based on historical design), and you can insert larger gauges once the piercing is healed, but only one more size at a time, and there is a new healing period to wait out. For the sake of simplicity, the sizes are as such: 14 gauge, 10 gauge, 6 gauge, 0 gauge, 1/2 a inch, 1 inch, 1 and 1/2 an inch, 2 inch. Obviously this can change for technical restrictions. Only plugs can be higher than 6 gauge (except maybe larger crescents/pinchers for the nose), it only goes up to 1/2 an inch for a labret, ears can go to the maximum, and the rest are restricted to 6 gauge. The larger ear piercings would probably require changing the character models so the larger earlobes don't look weird (I have yet to see a game that did this correctly). Since there are numerous cultures that have gauged ears, I figure this is important to add, but admittedly it might be too much work to be worth it. But if the devs ran with this idea to add to different sub-cultures throughout New Britania, it could be a good resource.

 

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Histo...ient-and-Fascinating-Around-the-World&id=2948

 

I kinda think it'd be neat if guilds could employ an NPC artisan (for a hefty fee) to provide a small menu of unique to guild body modifications(including piercings and tattoos) unique to their membership, also at a size able per-person fee...some hidden, others broadly visible to broadcast affiliation.

 

I see that you also used the first item to show up in a Google search as your primarily resource.

 

Not sure it matters, since it doesn't talk much about Medieval culture :/

Just so people know, there's some questionable info in there, at least exaggerated, and doesn't present the facts in the most truthful manner.

But anyway, I don't think there isn't any room for it in the game. If not human cultures, orcs have often had piercings in fantasy settings. And I could imagine this bleeding into the pirate / underground culture in the world.

 

Have people pierced themselves before in history? Yes. Your article shows that there have been occurrences of it, although I think it's written with its own agenda and tries to make the practice seem as common as breathing when I think the reality is that body piercing hasn't been super common, particularly in some cultures and time periods. Redfish points out it also doesn't cover medieval times so well, and I certainly don't have much memory of it in those times, either.

So is the first thing I expect to see in SotA, a knight with both eyebrows pierced, and one through his lip for good measure like he's about to serve coffee in an episode of Portlandia? No way! I'd find that absurd.