@kara_dreamer Y'know, that's a good question, and I think it speaks to kind of... the storybook nature of Undertale as a work. A royal guard exists, despite there being nothing in the universe for it to guard against, right?

I think I like the thought of "amorphous blob shadows that periodically show up" more than anything. Other monsters? Infighting? Then suddenly you've introduced Game of Thrones politics, and that feels... more than just wrong to me. Like violating something sacred.

Course, that's just my take.

@Dauntless That's very true. Undertale is quite consciously a storybook universe, a world that literally lives by the rules of adventure games, so of course the underground kingdom would have its fearless warrior. I'll go in for fighting shoggoths or whatever :p

I've been tempted to hypothesize though that the monsters could get rough on each other sometimes. maybe nothing too serious, but heck, we've seen drunk and unhappy monsters, maybe fights break out sometimes.

@Dauntless Incidentally one of my main goals when I resume #Undertale writing in earnest again is to develop Undyne more fully. I feel that she would face unique challenges adapting to a new life in a settlement on the Surface, her old purpose in life now gone. I want her to become a tough and capable assistant to her love. <3

@kara_dreamer Yeah, that's a good point. Something like an idealized police force or a teacher, to come break up misunderstandings before they get too rough. And let's be real... Would Undyne really be happy somewhere without the chance to spar, if only against a stove? I don't think so. 😄

@Dauntless Oh, I have it! Maybe the reason for friction is sort of like the problem that Simon Pegg has with the well-meaning but sleepy cops in Sandford. For them policework is chasing after geese and maybe dealing with the occasional tippler. I like to think that it's been so long since the last human fell (kinda makes sense, hardly anybodyseems to know a human on sight) that the Royal Guard's become kind of a joke, and then in charges determined young fish warrior who takes her mission to save the Underground from humanity seriously. Maybe Gerson told her a tale or two that she took to heart...