"Oh, I forgot to ask, do you know which heroine you want for There's Two Of Them?"

"That being the extra-heroine flaw, I take it? I think I'll probably go with a bastard Poor Princess, since a Hero's Daughter would have to have lost a parent who probably would have loved her." 

"Fair enough. Next, the Animal Companion minion is some domesticated or tamed animal that you have bonded with and trained. In as magical a setting as yours, it will tend to have near human intelligence as a magical companion of some kind; in lower-magic settings it would simply be an implausibly well trained pet or steed. This can be anything from a pet cat to a pegasus mount. You can even have a dragon, but only a lesser sort, equivalent to a drake or tatzlwyrm or something like that."

"--I want my familiar back! Her name is Lulu, she's a cat--I think they got her when they got me--if she's okay somewhere I don't need her but--"

She checks. "Yes, we can get her for you. For completeness' sake, or if you pick the perk that gives you an extra minion, there's the Butler and the Construct. The Butler is not directly your servant, but is instead a much older person, usually employed by your father, who has taken a liking to you.Their actual job title could be Majordomo or Head Maid, or they might even just be an old friend and ally instead of holding a formal role. They are extremely skilled, but they are unlikely to ever intervene directly in your struggles. However, they instead can be an important source of grounded and wise advice, if you are willing to listen. The Construct is an artificial entity of human-level intelligence and personhood who, in addition to being a helper who never has to sleep or gets bored, is liable to have magical tricks in their repertoire that you would be less able to access."

"I'll keep that in mind." They both sound better than the Maid but not so appealing she's going to scramble to pick them up. 

"Oh, also, each heroine will have a downgraded version of a minion--the Extraordinary Commoner will have a Classmate, but only one and not a pair; the Poor Princess will have a Maid who is less talented than the version you could hypothetically have had, though no less loyal; and if you had picked the Hero's Daughter, a Butler-ish figure would have been a staff member at the Academy." 

"That makes sense...you've mentioned an Academy a few times, but I don't think you actually explained that part; I get the impression that the, uh, romance story, is intended to be set at some kind of school? For noble and/or rich people? Is it a magic school specifically like Absalom's Arcanimirium, or something else."

"Ah, sorry, yes. The 'plot' of 'Roses of Villarosa' takes place largely at the Villarosa Royal Academy, which serves mostly the elite of the realm but, as the Extraordinary Commoner implies, is open to commoners of sufficiently outstanding merit. What the place actually teaches is more malleable...in a High Magic setting, there would certainly be classes on magic by default, but it wouldn't only or even necessarily primarily be about magic; plenty of nobles end up as martials, even amongst the adventurers of your own world." 

"A school with that wide a mandate seems kind of weird but I don't actually know such a thing doesn't exist on Golarion already, even. Okay, thanks for clearing that up."

"Yeah, Golarion has...lots of stuff," the angel agrees, glancing at her interface again, mildly perturbed. "Anyway. The last things to go over are the perks and flaws. Besides the ones you get for free from other options, like 'Ohohoho!' you get four perks for free, and then after that if you want more you can take another perk for every flaw you pick." She offers Seshka a folded-up piece of paper plucked from apparently nowhere. "I absolutely can list all this out loud, but it turns out when I do that a lot of people have a hard time keeping track. A document you can refer back to has this problem less often, when my client is literate. With most of the options there aren't enough of them to have this problem, but there are a lot of perks and flaws. Each, not just together."

"...Thanks." Sesha unfolds the document and raises an eyebrow. "It's illustrated?"

"Studies have shown that for basically human-brained folks, having a picture to associate each option with makes it easier to keep them all straight and find them again for reference than just plain text." 

"Well, I can't argue with science." 

She skims the perks. 

"...What does 'Alfirinic Heroine' mean? Like, I see the description, but like. Alfirinic?"

"Unfortunately your dialect didn't have a good word for 'women who are attracted to other women' already. Alfirin was a wizard during the Shining Crusade who got cut out of the Acts of Iomedae because she was briefly Iomedae's lover and the church thought she was a bad example." 

"Huh. Neat." 

A lot of these perks are only remotely interesting if you intend to seriously compete for the attentions of a guy who otherwise sees no reason not to throw you over...by no means all of them, though. Magical Prodigy is a must-have, obviously. Early Start looks good...she should not be as tempted as she is by Goddess of Beauty. It's not that she was unaware that she was objectively kind of vain but the amount of tempted she is by Goddess of Beauty throws it into sharp relief. 

"Do I only get these perks once I actually reincarnate, or can I have them now? Unearthly Insight seems like it could be really useful for this process."

"Unfortunately you only get them once you reincarnate. I can't finalize anything until we're done, and you can't test-drive the mental perks."

"Mm. Had to ask."

She finishes her first pass of the sheet and sets it aside. 

"I think...I think what perks I want is going to depend on stuff we haven't filled in yet about the world," she says slowly. "You've used the phrase 'magic system' a couple of different times in a way I don't think I quite grasped all the connotations of; can you explain?"

"Right, so, the way magic works on Golarion--and the different ways it can work in other parts of Pharasma's Creation--are only one way that magic can work. Different worlds have completely different kinds of magic...and different cosmologies, too. Worlds without any magic at all either have no afterlife or can't access it, for example."

"...This is one of those things where if I decide to go ham Pharasma's going to tell me to fuck off, isn't she."

"Based on our acquaintance so far I absolutely believe in your ability to go ham hard enough to put Pharasma off."

"Th...anks?" 

She starts drumming her fingers against her leg again.

"What do you recommend? I--am really unsure of my ability to design a system from scratch without going ham. I assume just copying Golarion's would be fairly safe..."

"It would...and if you're not a witch, you won't get nearly as much use out of Ohohoho!..."

"I assume I can't give the place a totally different magic system and then also separately keep my own witchness." 

"With what patron?"