Have you ever noticed that Rom has pupils?
Have you ever noticed that Rom has pupils?
I dunno if this is a thing everyone knows and I'm just slow, but I think it's a neat detail (second image brightened to make it more visible)
The whole anatomy of Rom is kinda interesting. She looks like a spider at first glance with her legs and spawns spiders to protect her, but at the same time she doesn't look like a spider at all because of the super huge body and head that don't really resemble spider anatomy. In "The Paleblood Hunt" Rom is compared to a caterpillar instead of a spider. Given her significance to the lore and the role she occupies, it makes sense.
ROM is not a spider. This is because of inaccurate translation + ambiguity of story telling. She is an arachnid, but if you look at her and her offspring she's very much so a type of Parasitiformes, which include ticks and lice. This makes more sense than a spider, because Parasitiformes are known for drinking the blood of hosts, and blood consumption is a theme of gaining the mutations in the setting. Hard ticks are an example of parasitiform that have a hard head, and soft body, which are also properties of Rom.
I imagine that this ticks or mite lived within the college on the heads of the students and possibly Willem himself, and drank their blood, causing the mutation to be of huge size and all the other benefits of drinking blood in the setting.
That works, sure. Interesting take!
Was Rom a woman? It's been years since I've played it and loved the lore but don't remember much about this character besides them wanting to be a great one really badly.
Not sure anymore if a woman but definitely female. I think Rom was like some scholar that tried to ascend to the level of a Great One and got to where she is in the game: not fully developed