*Sigh*

Sometimes I have to keep in mind that there are bits of the culture that are just so deeply embedded that they're not going away short of a full reboot.

The intro of Age of Conan takes place on the island of Tortage¹, and mostly in the city of Tortage itself.  The island is volcanic, but the volcano's spirit is prevented from getting ticked off (and therefore causing an eruption) by a ritual performed every few days by one of the bad guys.  One of the components of the ritual is the blood of a virgin--a rather small amount, which is nice since finding a virgin to kill every few days wouldn't be easy in Hyboria.  As part of a quest, you're required to swap out the blood to piss off the volcano-spirit, causing the mountain to erupt and destroy the Evil Army the bad guys are keeping up there.  The city's protected by a wall, so the lava doesn't destroy it, too.

All fine so far.  It's the getting of the quest that bugs me.

First of all, "virgin" is defined by the quest giver as "a woman who has never known the touch of man".  Apparently, boys are born having had sex and lesbian sex doesn't count.  I did find it cool that there was an option for my character, who is female, to offer the use of her blood, but the quest giver says, in effect, "You don't remember your past so there's no way of knowing if you're a virgin or not"--true, since things other than sex can break the hymen--"and we have to be sure".  Which is fine, except...if we have to be that sure, why can't we use, say, his blood?  Not only is he not a virgin, he's not even a woman!  For that matter, why can't we find some noble's prize stallion: not a virgin, not female, and not even human.  Can the evil sorceress who's casting tell if it's human female blood?  If so, why can't she tell if it's from a virgin?

But no, instead you get sent to get blood from the chick whose rescue is the first serious quest of the game.  She's a prostitute, and seems to be bi because she came on to Valeria² as heavily as one would expect her to do to a man.   It was nice to see the storyline tie up that way, since her innuendo-laden offers of "payment" just sort of dropped when she got to Tortage City, but still.

I suppose it's too much to ask that the devs get rid of every bit of sexist bullshit in the game, given that we're discussing something based on 1930s-era Big Men With Swords stories.  It's just that this was so central, and so impossible to avoid, it kind of bugged me. 

1: One of the Barachan Isles, which are off the west coast of the continent, south of the Styx.

2: I have now met the NPC Valeria, who is a pirate.  My character is named after the movie Valeria, who drew her inspiration from the character the NPC is based on.  I find it funny. 

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