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'THE CHANGING OF FIRE'
Dust Devils has a collection of different moments between characters that expose a more meaningful side to who they are, allowing you to get a deeper look into who they are. This is one of them.
In the development of my work I wanted to try using an actual games writing program in order to try my hand at a project that I could properly present, and found myself at the program Articy.
Articy is a narrative tool for games, which I initially discovered through ZA/UM, since they used the full version when writing Disco Elysium, which was initially one of the larger inspirations for Dust Devils.
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I initially used it as a fun exercise, before realising the potential of it, and how I could actually create a properly written piece within the program, which is what I set out to do.
Choosing a Character
Dust Devils is a project that houses a lot of different characters, but the ones that see the most 'screen-time' are the companions that you travel along with.
There are eight companions in total, each with their own motivations and their own set of morals that they abide by and clash with. You would meet each of them in the starting area of the game, able to pick them up and add them to your party, but only to a maximum of four, sending the others to your 'main camp' which you could return to at any time.
The companions that you can recruit and travel with are as follows:
Brooke, a human mercenary and a widow, attempting to leave behind a rough past through increasingly strenuous and dangerous jobs.
1V4NB513 'Ivan', a circuit (in-universe name for a robot) who was previously a war machine, now a bounty hunter, but is now one of the last of his kind, searching for a modification to help him feel, while donning a western style of gunslinging.
Ryia, a Saturnite (term for a being from Saturn) who works as a travelling monk in an attempt to find spiritual enlightenment, instead of wandering the wasteland aimlessly.
Atu, a human scout-for-hire, with a background as a bandit, but is now working towards aligning himself with a future route once and for all.
Vera, a seemingly innocent small girl with a cold exterior, but is in fact a shapeshifter searching for the warmth of a community - something which they have never felt before.
Taurus, a Martian (term for a being from Mars) trader whose jovial and humourous attitude conceals a side of him with more violent motivations concerned with getting revenge for his previous group.
Fei, a human scholar sent out as a scout by a Saturnite community, dedicating her life to the recording of history and acquisition of knowledge, lest she do anything else.
Morgan, a human convict who was badly burnt as a form of federal punishment who's sole goal is now to only survive while being hunted for his bounty reward.
After some concepting, I decided that if I did want to do a piece about one of the companions, I would want to focus on Morgan, with a piece centered around a moment of potential vulnerability when changing his bandages.
THE SCORCHED CONVICT - MORGAN CADMAN
Most of the companions have something that they're actively looking for, whether it be an actual item or a personal fulfillment.
Morgan is different in this, because he's a character that is focused only on survival, no matter the cost - as long as he survives.
To briefly summerise Morgan's backstory before you meet him within the game, he was raised by his mother whom showed him compassion and care in a very hostile world. He was without a father.
In his adult years, he visited his mother, only to find out that she was publicly executed a month prior. When looking into what her crimes were, the government official who ordered her hanging stated that 'he needed to meet a quota' and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In retaliation and anger, Morgan killed them.
After this, he was imprisoned and was given the punishment of becoming a 'marked convict' in which the culprit is covered in turpentine, then burnt within an inch of their life before being extinguished and sent out into the wasteland with a bounty on their head that anyone can claim.
Morgan was served this punishment, and at the time of meeting him, he has been a marked convict for ten months, having endured a heavy amount of punishment on him during his time being so.
The most scarring incident which is integral to his character is during a night where he was kidnapped by a group of bounty hunters, who then sexually assaulted him before attempting to behead him, but failed because the blade was too dull. Morgan managed to break free and slaughtered the group without mercy, though the damage had already been done.
Morgan is a character who is incredibly dangerous, though seems weak or sick to anyone at first-glance. He is defensive, highly-strung and always on edge, though overtime, will begin to trust the player enough to travel with them and rest at their camp.
Visually, he is covered in bandages due to his burns and wears loose fitting robes in order to accommodate his injuries with visibly charred and flaking skin beneath. Within the game, horror stories are told about him, but he isn't aware of them when you meet him.
DECIDING THE SCENE
I wanted to show Morgan in a much rawer light than which the player had seen him before, both physically and emotionally, and decided upon a 'high-affinity' scene with him and the player, in which he asks you to help change his bandages.
In other CRPGs that involve companion relationships, there are multiple instances where the companion will have a more heartfelt conversation with the player in which they are thankful for their existence, opening up to them about their past and getting a better picture of who they really are.
This example would be no different, as the player would have seen Morgan in situations where he fights, uses intimidation, and is constantly on guard, and so this scene would be a change from that, displaying a moment where he lets his guard down because he trusts the player character.
There is the typical trope within media of where one character changes another characters bandages, with an intimidate tension between them, and while I was aware of it, I wanted to convey a different message than what was typically seen.
Morgan's wounds are mostly third-degree (teetering on the edge of fourth-degree) burns, that has left him tragically disformed, which is shown within the scene, giving grotesque descriptions of what lays beneath the bandages once they are taken off. This is not supposed to be a typical 'changing bandages' scene with intimacy, but a look into the personality of a broken man.
Depending on what the player says, they can also learn more about Morgan's backstory, to the point where he shows a rare moment of weakness, breaking down, exhausted, and mentions how he feels like his body has been stripped away from him, in more ways than one.
Considering these things, I decided to start concepting ideas together in Articy, though I had multiple things to set in place before I could start the actual writing of the piece.
SETTING THE SCENE
There were a variety of things that I had to consider before beginning to properly write, some considering Articy and some considering other factors. These things were:
- Research
- Creation of characters and 'characters'
- Variables
- Learning Articy
Research was something that I was going to be dealing with throughout the piece, but one that still required a large portion of time dedicated to it.
My research was focused primarily on the medical side of things, as Morgan is a burn victim and I wanted to be as accurate as possible when it came to his wounds. Here, I learnt the proper treatments of serious burn victims, but also what those burns would look like and how they would react. It is here where I also learnt the existence of fourth, fifth and sixth degree burns, but decided that Morgan would only have third-degree burns, concluding that the damage there was already enough for players to know of the pain he would be in.
The creation of characters within Articy is an in-built feature that allows you to create profiles for characters for later assigning of dialogue nodes, showing who is speaking including a small portrait and colour to distinguish who is who.
The only two characters who would be appearing would be the player character - the Negotiator - (though I would simply be referring to them as 'PC' for this project) and Morgan. However, I did have a collection of other 'characters' to consider.
With Dust Devils, the skills that you would pick and level up over the course of the game's runtime would interact with you in dialogue, almost like characters themselves. This was heavily inspired by Disco Elysium's skill system, in which the skills seem to have their own personalities and will advise you on what they think is best, even if it's not the correct option.
For Dust Devils, I wanted to dull this down a little bit and make the skills slightly less expressive in order to give a more measured air to them instead of the often-displayed exaggeration of Disco Elysium's skills.
I split the skills in three separate sections in order to differentiate there use: Mind, Matter and Mask.
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Mind would contain skills relating to book-smarts and general intelligence, having a larger effect on moments of downtime and exploration more than anything else.
The individual skills are:
Investigation: Understand and examine the environment around you.
Library: Understand lore, history and general knowledge.
Machinery: Understand mechanics, old-world technology and how you might repair them.
Medical: Understand medical procedures, treatments, wounds and their severities.
Tech: Understand new-world technology, electric systems and how to bypass them.
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Matter would contain skills relating to physical abilities and combat skills and would have more of an active role within the actual 'numbers' side of things, determining likeliness of multiple factors such as hit chance, sneak chance, etc. This is not to say that these skills wouldn't show up during dialogue, and they may occasional be relevant within that field.
The individual skills are:
Ranged: Proficiency with ranged weapons such as guns, bows and crossbows. Determines how likely you are to hit with these weapons. This skill is split into 3 separate sub-skills - Archery, Firearms and Unconventional (e.g. slings, slingshots, boomerangs).
Dexterity: Proficiency with movement, including sprinting, vaulting and dodging. Determines your movement speed in combat, how likely you are to dodge attacks and how likely you are to hit with dexterity-based weapons.
Muscle: Proficiency with strength, including shoving, melee and grappling. Determines your damage with melee weapons, how likely you are to hit with them, how easily you can break down doors, and your chances of success with strength-based combat actions (e.g. push, wrestle, disarm).
Sleuth: Proficiency with sneaking around, pickpocketing, lockpicking and keeping quiet. Determines your likeliness of being spotted when in stealth and your chances of success when picking peoples pockets and lockpicking doors.
Vitality: Proficiency with staying alive, resisting damage and disease alike. Determines your maximum hitpoints and how well you are able to resist certain negative conditions such as being poisoned, stunned or crippled.
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Mask would contain skills relating to social-intelligence and charisma, having a large effect while in dialogue when speaking and while observing others who are speaking.
The individual skills are:
Coax: Ability to get what you want through mistruths and lies, while also being able to catch them out should someone try it on you.
Empathy: Ability to understand another person's feelings, measuring your knowledge of how people work.
Menace: Ability to get what you want through threats and violence, whether it be verbal or physical.
Reason: Ability to negotiate through peaceful logic and using solid points in order to communicate with an opposing party.
Trade: Ability to negotiate prices, measuring how well you can barter the exchanging of goods or funds.
With all skills considered and set up, I went about thinking about which skills within this conversation with Morgan would be used the most, considering the context and the situation.
Medical was an obvious choice, due to the nature of this visit being the act of changing his bandages, with both a lot of passive checks and an active check in which you have to roll for your outcome.
Vitality was one that made a less frequent appearance, but due to Morgan's unrelenting endurance, it would often quip in with remarks about it, stating how impressive of a feat it is that Morgan is still alive.
Empathy and Menace were other ones, due to Morgan being a very closed off person, showing very little emotion other than irritation or hostility, so including these two a lot was important to aid players in knowing the true intention of what Morgan was saying.
Variables within Articy were something that I needed to consider, as it would measure things such as how high a certain skill was, that would then allow an additional dialogue to show because of it.
Keeping track of your relationship with Morgan was also important, as certain things you could say could positively and negatively impact things between you two.
Learning Articy was the final thing that I needed to consider, though I was expecting it all the same. By 'learning' I mean more the side of going through certain menus and knowing the terminology of things like hubs, conditions and knowing the difference between dialogue segments and dialogue fragments.
This would happen over the course of the project, and would be something I would be willing to challenge myself with.
After the initial 'settling in' period of learning how to use Articy and the consideration of the different characters and scenarios, I could finally begin the writing up process of the scene.
This next section will include a run-through of most routes, alongside additional notes here and there if explanations are needed.
LAYOUT AND EXECUTION
For this conversation, the main focus would be split into two activities: talking to Morgan and changing his bandages. Depending on the options chosen, I had multiple endings to this conversation in mind, reliant on the choices the player would make, represented by the chart below.
I know that I wanted to work on the route in which everything goes 'well', which involved the success of the two active medical checks, and the other prompts by Empathy which encourages Morgan to talk more about his past, causing him to break down due to exhaustion, in which you can then comfort him.
I began with the opening to the piece, in which you enter Morgan's tent, with the context that he asked you to come to his tent before the camp rested for the night. This 'intro' included the brief moment in which Morgan aims his firearm at you, before easing up.
In development, this was a good time to experiment with Articy's tools, which included the chiming in of passive skills, which would rely on a integer variable that measured how many points had been put into the selected skill.
I measured the passive checks in 3 seperate difficulties:
Low: 2 or above - Almost common knowledge.
Medium: 5 or above - Pretty good understanding of the subject and your abilities in them.
High: 10 or above - Properly practiced proficiency in the skill.
LOW
MEDIUM
HIGH
After the brief intro confrontation, Morgan asks if you can help change his bandages, which is the focus of this entire piece.
While most of the dialogue options going forward are ones where your character is willing to help change their bandages, there is also the option to opt out of the choice altogether, in which Morgan will be understanding, but will then also insist on changing them alone without the player character in the tent
After some brief small-talk, mainly concerning how to go about the process of taking off the bandages, the player will then be faced with an ACTIVE Medical check. While the passive checks that have been triggered before this moment have happened in the background, Active checks are ones in which the player needs to roll a dice to determine an outcome.
This feature was inspired by other CRPGs such as Baldur's Gate 3 or Disco Elysium, in which a dice or multiple dice are rolled in order to determine the outcome of a certain scenario (which the possibility of added modifiers to your roll).
Screenshots taken from Disco Elysium (2019) and Baldur's Gate 3 (2024), displaying the active dice roll mechanic of each game.
Dust Devils was no different, though I initially couldn't decide upon whether the dice rolled should be 2D6 or 1D12 (due to my own personal appreciation for the D12). I decided that 1D12 would be the preferred method for this project, so it could be differentiated from other CRPGs while still retaining the familiarity of them.
This active check would be reliant on the character's Medical skill, with modifiers to the roll relating to the skill, but also relating to dialogue beforehand, in which the player asks Morgan for advice before beginning (shown below).
Then, the player makes their roll, with the outcome of whether they succeed or fail being displayed within the game.
If the player succeeds and passes the check, they will take off the bandages without causing any harm to Morgan (other than the usual lingering pain from his pre-existing burns).
If the player fails they will work too quickly, hurting Morgan. He will be understanding that it was an accident, though will then change his bandages himself, though doesn't kick you out of the tent.
While I wondered whether or not the full visual reveal of how Morgan looked underneath his wrappings should be displayed now, I decided to wait until later, when he was fully uncovered, to give the full effect of his disfigurement.
After his upper half is unwrapped, Morgan would then comment on how he can do his lower half, due to the embarrassment (but also distrust) of essentially being 'undressed' by the player.
It was at this point that I first considered the option of undressing Morgan's lower half to be impossible to the player, and he would insist upon it no matter what, but I decided against it, due to my implementation of the Companion Affinity system.
Affinity with companions within CRPGs is nothing new, in which the choices you make and the things you say will influence what your companions think of you and how much they trust you.
With Morgan, I imagined that this entire scene would take place when you've earned some trust in him already, so depending on your previous actions before this conversation, your affinity with him could be higher than usual.
I had thought about this already, and made a note of it in the Companion Document (which can be read on the Dust Devils main page), showing what Morgan approved and disapproved of (also shown below).
With this, I then offered the option for the player to insist upon unwrapping the rest of him, with a different outcome depending on your pre-established affinity with Morgan (shown below).
If your affinity isn't high enough, he will refuse your offer, but you will still gain affinity with him just by offering to help.
If you affinity is high enough, he will be vary wary and frightened, but will except your offer to help unwrap the rest of him, trusting you enough to do so, something which your skills will comment on (shown below).
From there, I started to write in the variable of 'IsMorganChangingBandagesAlone' which would alter small bits of dialogue depending on whether or not Morgan is changing his bandages with or without your help.
Even though the changes in dialogue would be minor, they would still be essential for narrative coherency, so I implemented it, being careful to format the dialogue separately (when it was relevant).
It is at this time that I also decided that I wanted to incorporate skills that might not see much usage outside of dialogue, depending on the context of aforementioned dialogue. I think this would then allow players to get a balanced experience and deeper insight on multiple playthroughs, if they decided to build their character differently.
The example below was using Sleuth, a skill that determines how good you are at sneaking around and doing things quietly, but I used it while Morgan being unwrapped, in which it would comment on how Morgan is able to stay so quiet during a time like this (shown below).
During this moment of quiet, you can ask a few questions about Morgan's condition, with one of them being how he even got his burns in the first place.
This uses the affinity system that was previously brought up, with Morgan lying about how he really got them (which your Coax skill will point out) if your affinity isn't high enough, but if it is high enough, he will talk about where he got them from.
With high enough affinity, Morgan will reveal that he got his burns as a form of capital punishment for the murder of an New World Government official that executed his mother in order to meet an unknown quota while Morgan was out of town.
Your Library skill would comment on this, outlining the name of the punishment, including the nature of it. Afterwards, you can make a comment about the punishment, calling it barbaric or an 'effective deterrent', though Morgan will only agree with the former opinion.
After this section, the rest of Morgan's bandages would finally be unwrapped, in which the player would then finally see what Morgan looks like underneath, accompanied with written descriptions.
I wanted to aim for this section to almost be uncomfortable for the player to experience, showing the full effect of what third and fourth degree burns look like and the disfigurement that they can cause.
For visual reference, I looked at several medical examples, but also looked at the real life example of a burn survivor named Zaid Carrillo, who was inflicted with severe burns as a child. While Morgan's damage was not as severe, Zaid's look and experience was an extremely useful insight into how I should go about designing this character.
WARNING
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THE PICTURE ON THE NEXT TAB SHOWS VISUAL MEDICAL INJURY DETAIL/GORE OF SEVERE FOURTH DEGREE BURNS.
THIS IS IN ORDER TO PROPERLY DISPLAY THE REFERENCE AND EXAMPLE I USED WHEN DESCRIBING MORGAN'S VISUAL LOOK.
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VIEW AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION
In Dust Devils, I wanted skills to have a slight personality to them (another inspiration from Disco Elysium), which I expressed in the internal dialogue after Morgan's look is fully revealed, in which multiple skills express their surprise to how Morgan is still alive, while also giving possible explanations as to why.
Medical was a lot more logical skill, and so it was fun to write dialogue between them and Empathy - a much more emotionally driven skill, as the two seemed to internally bicker with one another on what the right solution was (several examples shown below).
With Morgan fully unwrapped, the player could then start the process of putting fresh bandages on, which would require another Active Medical check like the one before, with similar repercussions for succeeding/failing.
During this time, (also similar to before) your character spots a particular divot at the back of his neck, which they can ask Morgan about, in which he will explain that a group of hunters attempting to decapitate him, but were unsuccessful because the blade was too dull and the process was interrupted.
WARNING
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THE PICTURE ON THE NEXT TAB SHOWS VISUAL INJURY DETAIL OF THE SURVIVOR OF AN ATTEMPTED BEHEADING.
WHILE THERE IS NO BLOOD OR GORE, THE IMAGE MAY STILL BE OFF PUTTING TO SOME.
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VIEW AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION
This visual look once again required real-life research to see if someone could 'survive' a failed beheading, and yes, they could.
Cheng Suy was a Filipino survivor of the 1945 Manila massacre, that had pictures taken of him that showed what his neck looked like after a Japanese soldier tried to behead him.
Again, I wanted to make the details of Morgan's injuries uncomfortable to look at, I wanted to make his suffering and his role as a tortured character evidently displayed, not only through visuals, but through the following dialogue too.
The player can then inquire about the events of that time, with the amount that you learn depending on how much affinity you already have with Morgan.
To note: the remaining screen caps do not include the 'condition' box of checking the variable of a player's level in a certain skill (as seen before) for the reason of improving readability for these upcoming sections
As shown, lower affinity has Morgan giving a much shorter answer, even though your skills comment on how they know Morgan is choosing not to tell you the details.
With high affinity, Morgan will reveal what happened that night.
While it is not explicitly said out loud, it is heavily implicated that Morgan was raped before his attempted beheading, as shown by the line 'a violation of the flesh'.
Morgan then briefly speaks on how he feels about his own body, about those who have made him this way, saying that he hates them for taking his body from him, in both the physical manner (fourth degree burns, visual disfigurements) and the psychological/mental manner (loss of identity, feeling of sexual assault removing a chunk out of someone's psyche).
I didn't want to stray from Morgan swearing, as to fully communicate the exhaustion that he feels on the subject, but also in general - Morgan is a character who has not rested for a long, long time.
After his small monologue, the player (or Morgan) continues to finish dressing himself with new bandages, apologizing for his 'outburst', though your skills will comment on how he's clearly not used to talking about this. One skill in particular (if high enough) will open up a unique path of dialogue for the player to follow should they choose (as shown below).
Again, the affinity you already have with Morgan determines whether or not he accepts, but if he does, you will hold him in your lap, in which he will stay there, eventually breaking down to silently cry within your embrace.
This is the payoff, this is what the scene has been building up to; a moment of vulnerability and tenderness from a character who has suffered so much, yet in this moment, they are allowed a moment of respite within your character's comforting embrace.
This is the first break that Morgan shows is this outward facade of scaring off anyone that tries to hurt him or use him - an understandable exterior given what he's gone through. I really wanted to try and communicate that this is who he really is underneath it - someone who needs to be comforted, someone who at the end of the day is the result of a loving mother, and is merely looking for rest amidst the turbulent life they have already suffered through.
After this climax, Morgan will apologize for showing his emotions so freely, before the scene begins to wrap up, with differentiating dialogue depending on your success with the Active Medical checks, but also whether or not you held him during the latter parts of the scene.
Afterwards, your character would then leave the tent, where the scene would then end.
REFLECTION
Now that I have finished the scene, I feel as if I have a much stronger idea of Morgan's character than I did at the beginning of it.
I believe that I successfully managed to communicate that Morgan is a character that represents humanity's unending tenacity and the ability to survive through the worst of events and still come out on the other end. While this is represented in the events that happen to him, I also wanted to make it apparent with Morgan's visual design, showing the variety and range of what the human body can physically go through without dying.
I also wanted to explore the theme of sexual assault within a character and how I've learnt recently that it can have all manner of psychological effects within a person. One challenge in particular was the thought of would a person who has been sexually assaulted be comforted by physical touch (as displayed in this piece)? Victims of sexual assault might not want to receive physical comfort, (such as a hug) but I also researched and wanted to highlight the fact that they can recover and still be comforted physically, though not without asking them first (hence why the option to comfort Morgan is not accessible without a high Empathy check).
I also feel a lot more proficient in Articy, as well as much more understanding of just how much work goes into writing within the context of video games. It is much, much more than just writing descriptions or dialogue, as considering variables, characters and conditions all come into play, in which I believe to have successfully incorporated into this piece.
Going forward, I believe that practicing Articy more would help get my foot in the door of many different writing-focused career roles within the games industry, as I have shown not only an understanding of the types of programs used, but also a proficiency in writing dialogue, conveying character and a general sense of narrative coherency too.
Writing Morgan was a challenging but much-needed experience, and he has quickly grown to become my favourite out of the eight companions that you can choose from.
I hope to write more pieces involving him, but also the rest of the cast of Dust Devils, in the future.
This is an example taken from RASASC's 'How to support a survivor' webpage, which can be found here: https://www.rasasc.org/how-to-support-a-survivor
Concept art of Morgan, illustrated by Xander Abbott
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