Expanding on the Mercy traits
Currently, the Merciful and Merciless traits don’t affect much beyond vanity for Vitality builds and a few story moments, and I think they could be expanded upon to affect more avenues of the game in a roleplay capacity.
Basic Changes
Depending on your Mercy trait, simple things could be changed, like NPC reactions after being defeated alluding to you only having knocked them out if you are Merciful, and generally being less dour and serious. Or if you are Merciless, they react as if they have been killed.
Poster feats could also be mildly tweaked to allude to the players mercy trait, like say as Merciful Criminal has a leaderboard feat against a Monarch of the Sea, instead of saying “Assassinated Monarch of the Sea”, it would say “Defeated Monarch of the Sea”. And conversely, a Merciless Hero’s feats might say “Killed Emperor of the Sea” instead.
Articles written in The Agora would take your mercy trait into account, like an article written about a Merciless Hero killing pirates would allude to them being slaughtered, and conversely a Merciful Criminal defeating Marines would allude to the crews being defeated but surviving.
Additionally, with the new Town NPC’s that are planned, their reactions would take your Mercy trait into account, like NPC’s reactions being mixed between fear and admiration for a Merciful Criminal or Merciless Hero
Reason to add/change
In the world it isn’t uncommon to come across a Pirate who isn’t a bad guy (Ruby Roger), and conversely it’s not uncommon to see a corrupt and or brutal hero (Commodore Kai / Evander), so it feels a little odd that as a player we don’t have that option ourselves.
