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Milord

A kingdom management RPG. I turned the writer’s court audiences into VSM data and wired each choice to the realm and the map.

Milord key art: a red-bearded king in a gold crown and fur-trimmed cloak beside a hilltop castle, with the Milord logo.
Role
Technical Narrative Designer
Team
4 people: writer, developer, technical artist and me
Studio
iBright Games
Format
Kingdom management RPG
Status
Early Access on Steam since 14 April 2025
Tools
Unity, VSM
Steam

Highlights

  • Turned the writer’s court audiences into VSM node graphs.
  • Chained audiences, news and map events into questlines.
  • Decided what each choice costs, and which costs stay hidden.
On this page
  1. I connected the writer’s court scenes to game state.
  2. I turned the writer’s draft into a working questline.
  3. These scenes show how the questline works in VSM.
  4. The petition starts the questline.
  5. The player chooses how to respond to the petition.
  6. The court decision leads to a follow-up audience.
  7. Sending soldiers starts a timed map event.

I connected the writer’s court scenes to game state.

The player runs a barony, and the story reaches them at court. Court audiences are storylets, pulled from an event pool when their conditions are met. This is one questline, from the first audience to its last effect.

StartA petition waits in the court queue.
CourtDay 1A procession is lost in the mist2 days to answer
Four signs: ask one of three advisors, or decide.
CourtHear the advisorseach one once
Four decision signs: Scour the roads, Find the goods, Weave the road, Maybe later.
CourtDecide4 choices
ATrust a factionThe story stays at court
The faction choice, showing a cost of 5 supply.
CourtTrust a faction with the roadcost shown: −5 supply
Tags after the choice: plus 1 faction, minus 2 approval, minus 5 supply.
Realmpaid at onceThe realm pays+1 faction−2 approval−5 supply
The royal advisor has news.
CourtDay 2next morningThe royal advisor has news
The king gives in: Ugh, fine. Bring them.
Courtturn them awayThey insist on an audience
EndGlobal state Open Roads added.
Realmchanges the realm permanentlyThe roads stay open+5 supply every turn
BSend soldiersThe story goes to the map
The soldier choice, showing minus 2 gold and a question mark.
CourtSend soldierscost shown: −2 gold ?
Tags after the choice: plus 1 faction, plus 2 approval, minus 2 gold, New Event Appeared.
Realmpaid at onceThe realm pays+1 faction+2 approval−2 gold
A map event on the road, Helping, 3 turns left.
MapDays 1–3opens a map eventSoldiers search the road−2 soldiers, 3 turns
The event reads Success.
MapDay 43 turns laterSuccesssoldiers return
Two signs: Give me the gold, showing plus 3 gold and a question mark, and Keep the gold.
Courtbrings the reportThe captain warns. Take the gold?cost shown: +3 gold ?
EndTags: plus 3 gold, and Global state Cursed Gold added.
Realmchanges the realm permanentlyThe gold is cursed+3 gold−2 gold every turn
The whole questline graph in VSM
The questline in VSM: the first audience with three ends. One runs into a map event with Success and Failed outputs. The other two lead to a news node and then a follow-up audience.
The questline in VSM. One end opens a map event, two return on Day 2 as news.

I turned the writer’s draft into a working questline.

Milord is by iBright Games, published by InEv Creative. On a team of four, the writer drafted the court audiences in Notion and I built them in VSM. Along the way I made revisions to the text.

VSM is our in-house node-based writing tool for Unity.

Writer → Notion → me → VSM. This is the draft of the questline above, as it reached me.

Writer’s Draft · Procession lost on the Wicklow Road

Father Callen, Reginald Holt, Captain Elric, and a Listener enter your court.

Player

Speak. What’s happened on the Wicklow road?

Father Callen

Milord… the procession to Wicklow… it never arrived. Four wagons of relics, priests, acolytes… all vanished. The mist swallowed them whole.

Reginald Holt

Relics or not, those wagons were worth a small fortune. Give us coin, milord, and we’ll follow the silver trail.

A Listener

These may not be ordinary roads, milord. Let us weave the roads anew.

Player choice
  1. Send Soldiers to Scour the Roads
Captain Elric

We’ll bring them back, milord. Mist or no mist.

Steelborn +, Approval +, Gold -, Soldiers -the writer’s note on the outcome

The draft says which way each number moves. The rest was mine to build:

These scenes show how the questline works in VSM.

The petition starts the questline.

A priest reports a procession lost in the mist. The three advisors each read it differently.

Appears when
Pulled from the event pool. Waits two days, then leaves.
What happens
Ask any advisor, each once.
What it changes
Nothing yet.
The petition, in the game and in VSM
  1. Four petitioners enter the court together and stand before the throne.

    1Four petitioners, one piece of news.

  2. Signs to ask the captain, the merchant or the mystic, or to decide.

    2Ask the advisors what happened.

  3. Four decision signs: Scour the roads, Find the goods, Weave the road, Maybe later.

    3Decide who to believe.

Day 1CounselHear the advisors
The court with four wooden signs on the right: ask the captain, the merchant or the mystic, or I decided.The same court after hearing the mystic: three signs remain.
The whole dialogue graph: an opening narration, a hub node with four outputs, a framed group for each advisor that ends back at the hub, and four decisions on the right.
  1. The hub: ask an advisor, or decide.
  2. Each advisor’s group returns to the hub.
  3. A heard advisor’s sign disappears.
  4. The decision is open at any time.

The player chooses how to respond to the petition.

Each answer trusts a different faction.

Appears when
Whenever the player says “I decided…”.
What happens
Trust one faction’s reading, or do nothing.
What it changes
Resources at once. It queues the next step.
Day 1DecisionTrust a faction with the road → The realm pays
Four decision signs. The cursor rests on Weave the road, a tag beside it reads minus 5 supply, and the king previews his line.Right after the choice, three tags slide in: plus 1 for the mystics’ faction, minus 2 approval, minus 5 supply. The top bar now shows 48% approval and 10 supply.
The decision part of the graph: four choices, each followed by a row of action nodes for its effects and the node that queues the next step. A Cant Afford entry leads to the royal advisor saying: We cannot afford that Milord.
  1. The sign reads its cost from the actions.
  2. +1 faction: each decision trusts one faction.
  3. −2 approval: hidden until after the choice.
  4. −5 supply: the cost the sign showed.
  5. Queues the royal advisor’s news for Day 2.
  6. Can’t pay: the royal advisor says so.

The court decision leads to a follow-up audience.

Trust the mystics, and their news comes back the next morning.

Appears when
Next morning as news, then as an audience.
What happens
Turn the mystics away, and they insist.
What it changes
A lasting state, Open Roads: +5 supply every turn.
Route A, in the game and in VSM
Day 2News → AudienceThe royal advisor has news → They insist on an audience
Day two at court: a red exclamation mark above the royal advisor beside the throne.Two signs: Another time, and Bring him in.After Another time, the king says: Ugh, fine. Bring them. Like I have another choice.
The news graph: two questions lead to the same answer, then a choice. Another time leads to the mystics insisting. Both paths end at the node that queues the audience.
  1. Day 1’s decision comes back as news.
  2. Two questions, one answer.
  3. Turn them away?
  4. They insist. The questline goes on.
  5. Both paths lead to the audience.
Day 2AfterThe roads stay open
The petition queue, with a tooltip over the mystics’ new portrait: Patience 4.Two mystics before the throne. One says: We blessed the roads Milord. A tag reads Global state Open Roads added, and supply income in the top bar reads plus 11.
The end of the return audience: a mystic says merchants can pass for a while, then the action that adds the Open Roads state, then We blessed the roads Milord.
  1. The audience waits 4 days in the queue.
  2. A lasting state is added.
  3. Supply income goes from +6 to +11.

Sending soldiers starts a timed map event.

Trust the captain, and his men become an event on the map.

Appears when
At once, as a map event.
What happens
Soldiers search the road. The captain returns with gold and a warning.
What it changes
Take the gold: +3 gold now, then −2 gold every turn.
Route B, in the game and in VSM
Days 1–4Send soldiers → Map → ReportSoldiers search the road → The gold is cursed
The map with a red exclamation mark on the road.The event popup reads Helping, 3 turns. Soldiers in the top bar drop from 5 to 3.Back at court, tags read plus 3 gold and Global state Cursed Gold added. Gold income in the top bar is now plus 1.
The questline in VSM: the first audience, an end that runs into a map event with Success and Failed outputs, and a follow-up audience on Success.
  1. The decision opens a map event at once.
  2. Help sends 2 soldiers away for 3 turns.
  3. Success brings the captain’s report.
  4. A global state takes 2 gold every turn. The “?” on the sign warned that something unexpected might follow. Income drops from +3 to +1.

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