Alora Fane

Here are four character designs for Divine Dreams, and a bit about the design process! Also, some clarification (again) about how I'm aiming to release Divine Dreams.

The MARDEK release has been the most important thing that's happened this week (∞ it's on Steam now ∞, if you're somehow reading this blog but don't know about that!), but I'll write a post specifically about that a week after release day, so next Wednesday.

Quite a few people have sent me really lovely messages, most of which I've not yet had the time/energy to reply to. Hopefully I'll be able to get around to some tomorrow!

The MARDEK release has been exhausting, though, and I spent the past couple of days retreating into drawing concept art for Divine Dreams. I want to talk about what I've drawn, but first, I want to explain (again) what Divine Dreams is intended to be, in a general sense.

The Plan

Back in 2015, I returned to MARDEK in the form of a reboot called Taming Dreams. I tried to avoid the biggest mistakes of MARDEK by planning the whole story very thoroughly before I started any production (my notes are literally the length of a novel). I built on a lot of the concepts MARDEK introduced to plan what I felt was a much more interesting story.

The main reasons that I gave that up were external to the work itself (struggles with mental illness, going to university), or were due to the stupid way I'd decided to build it (in the even-then-obsolete Flash, released as an Android app). In hindsight, though, a lot of its gameplay mechanics and the way it presented its themes were prohibitively esoteric.

Divine Dreams is another attempt at the same general story, with which I intend to avoid the mistakes of both MARDEK and Taming Dreams, and to release it in a more accessible and financially viable way.

At first, I was using the same characters - designs and all - from Taming Dreams, as I still felt quite happy with a lot of what I'd planned for that. There were some changes, but for the most part the majority of the major characters kept their names, general appearance, and personality traits largely unchanged.

As I've said in some previous posts, I've been thinking these past few weeks though about revising some of that. This is a step backwards, you could say, in that it'll delay development a bit more. But I do feel it's worth it, because I'm trying to establish a solid foundation here on which I can build for several years.

The game is structured as three Episodes, which would each be released on Steam as separate games.

Each of these Episodes would be made up of six Chapters, each of which would roughly revolve around one dungeon. If MARDEK 2 were in this format, for example, Lake Qur might be one chapter, the forest and Tainted Grotto might be another.

I've been planning to release one of these chapters (the third, set in the Dreamcave, which is Divine Dreams' equivalent to MARDEK's Gem Mine) as a free demo alongside a Kickstarter, but other than that I was expecting that I'd keep the others private until they were all done.

Recently, though, I've been wondering whether to make each of them available as they're created to members of a certain tier on ∞ my Patreon ∞. This should hopefully, ideally, allow me to have some kind of funding throughout the process rather than just in one very unreliable burst right at the end.

I'm still thinking about it, though; I'm unsure how this would work with a Kickstarter, and whether having both a Patreon and a Kickstarter would annoy people or lead to reduced support on both.

I know I've talked about much of this already, but maybe this post might be seen by some new eyes who've recently played MARDEK, so I thought I should give at least a little bit of an explanation of where I am at the moment with everything.

It's also why I see some of the revisions I've been talking about as valuable to do now rather than getting years in and regretting not making them. I don't want to build a village on sand!

Also, some of you have already seen the MARDEK notes in the Extras pack on Steam, and you've told me that you understand better now why I'm interested in revising the plot significantly. That's good to hear! Whenever I've thought about continuing MARDEK, that is the story that I've had in mind, and it leaves a lot to be desired.

Divine Dreams' story is based on events from MARDEK 1, 2, and 3, but the conclusion that follows is new. It's nice reusing this old plot skeleton just because it's easier than starting with nothing, and it's nice having the freedom to end it in a more satisfying way - and sooner! - too.

Character Designing

When I made MARDEK, I never concerned myself with character design, really. The characters just looked like whatever thing came to mind at the time I needed to add them; any thought or cleverness to designs was minimal. This is what I notice in a lot of other indie games too, as the developers are (understandably!) more concerned about other game aspects, like I was back then.

In the years since then, though, I've got much better at art, and I've specifically taken an interest in designing characters whose appearances are (hopefully) distinct, slightly silly, and which have layered meanings which convey aspects of their personality.

A lot of JRPGs - and modern games in general, really - have detailed, busy character designs which look COOOOL or ~sexy~ but say nothing beyond that. For example:

(I like both of those games - Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 and Star Ocean: The Last Hope - but I find these designs ridiculous. Also, deja vu; I feel I've used the first one as an example before, though it must have been ages ago. Also, I notice that the ∞ ludicrously busty scantily-clad woman ∞ is conspicously facing away from the camera in that screenshot.)

Can you imagine any of them waking up in the morning, and putting these costumes on? Sitting around in them eating a slice of toast on the toilet?? They're not exactly practical.

I mean, neither are most of the things you do in games, and they'd be far more boring if all the characters just wore jeans and T-shirts! But I like to think that there's a balance, where characters can be designed in such a way that, in their world, they'd sensibly choose to wear the clothes that define them.

Well, those drawings certainly look a lot worse when put right next to higher quality art! But whatever, they get the point across!

Divine Dreams has nine major playable characters, though one of them's based on Legion and such has the multiple-souls thing (though only three this time) so it's more like eleven. There are also a few others who join briefly but who I don't consider to be the Main Cast.

Last time, I talked about the design of the Dayvha character here, and how I was considering using him to replace MARDEK as the protagonist. It felt odd keeping everyone else in their Taming Dreams designs though, so reinventing them all seems like the best course of action. It's a good opportunity, as it allows me to build on what I had before rather than being stuck with old, rough concepts. I can build the story and characters together instead of having a set of solid rocks I have to try to build around.

These four are - obviously? - based on Emeela, Deugan, Mardek, and Elwyen from MARDEK/Taming Dreams. Let's look at them all individually.

Dayvha

I talked about Dayvha in more detail in ∞ a previous post ∞, though I wasn't yet sure what to do about him, or whether to even replace Mardek with him.

I feel more certain about making that replacement now, and I've refined the design to a point where I'm much happier with it than I ever was with Mardek! As a design, I feel it's silly on the surface, but it allows for depth and character exploration to be revealed in time.

(This concept art shows the idea development; only the three on the right with glasses are the final character, but even those are rough ideas rather than a final model sheet.)

His appearance from birth has been different to those around him due to his heritage (like in MARDEK, his father has alien blood, but unlike in MARDEK, that's physically obvious), but his upbringing has been positive and encouraging, so he keeps a cheery outlook despite it (his innate personality helps too). He copes with accusations of being a monster by styling his hair into horns, making light of it.

I like the flowery (sort-of-Hawaiian) shirt and shorts look because it's so casual, in contrast with the more typical tough, spunky, or brooding RPG protagonists.

Some of these earlier concepts looked like the sort of guy who'd do triathalons and drink protein shakes at the beach, or who'd try to sell you used cars, which didn't feel right; I was ready to just give up on the idea and just go back to using Mardek.

Mardek's Taming Dreams design incorporated the letter M heavily, for the sake of silliness:

I wasn't sure how to use Dayvha's D anywhere in his design... until I was hit by the idea to use it for the sunglasses. Now, I can't look at any of the drawings with these DD sunglasses without laughing because it's so stupid but feels so right!

It's D for Dayvha, but also DD for Divine Dreams, and it makes him look nerdy, cool, eccentric, enigmatic, idiosyncratic, and cheery all at once. I really like it! You'd recognise the character instantly.

He has glasses at all because I was wondering how I could adapt Mardek helmeted look from MARDEK 3. As I talked about in ∞ the previous post ∞, this design predates any of the story; he had it because he was originally based on a faceless clip art knight with a full helm. Later, though, as I developed plot ideas, I decided that the visor was to hide his Rohoph-glowing eyes so as to remain inconspicuous (and so it wasn't as obvious whether it was him or Rohoph speaking). I like that idea, and I feel that sunglasses could work well in a similar way. It's interesting to think that glasses designed to keep the sun out would actually be hiding a sun on the other side, you could say (that is, his glowing eyes).

I'm concerned that it might limit the range of expression when he emotes, but that might actually help the story rather than harming it.

Also, I still like the thought of characters calling him 'Dave' most of the time.

Nytsky

I like the story being driven by a character whose name and appearance are based around the concept of Day... though it seemed odd to think of him being paired with a character called Deugan who wore green and represented... fear, protectiveness?

Wouldn't it make more sense to pair him with a purple-clad character, who represented night and darkness to contrast his light and day? It'd be such a pleasing fit considering those themes and colours are so heavily tied to the game's story and gameplay.

I was wondering for ages what name I could possibly use as an alternative to Deugan though; nothing was coming to mind. Nitowl? Nitrus? Something involving 'dark' rather than 'night'?

But then it hit me: Nytsky. It's a name that makes me laugh almost as much as the DD glasses!

But how do you read that? I've been wondering how many people would get it. Maybe it just sounds Russian.

It's meant to be pronounced "Night Sky", which is kind of like the pretentious, ~cool~ names gothy teenagers might give their self-insert Mary Sue characters. I'm reminded of a character from Discworld called ∞ Agnes Nitt ∞, who imagined herself with the more-flattering pseudonym "Perdita X Dream", or that awful ∞ My Immortal Harry Potter fanfiction ∞ from a few years back whose protagonist was called Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. Nytsky even has the kool letterz thing a lot of these creators use in their names ("Vampyr").

But say that name a few times. Nytsky. Night sky. Nightsky. Nice guy!

The term 'simp' is in vogue to describe this 'beta male' archetype, which has been around probably as long as human civilisation has. I'm one of them, at least in contrast to the virile, confident, macho 'alpha chad' type who gets all the girls O woe how unfair. Deugan was one, too, though I suppose it was stressed more in Taming Dreams than in the original MARDEK (where the extent of his personality was largely "Mardek's Childhood Friend").

In addition to that, his character was defined by identity, specifically self-loathing about his own and a feeling that he needed to be someone else in order to be worthily courageous. He's of the Fear element, and his mother died when he was young. His father knew Dayvha's mother (Idalia) since they were children, but she chose Dayvha's father (Savitr) over him. This frustration - "if I were more like that guy, she'd have chosen me!" - spilled over to the child he raised alone, and so "Nytsky" grew up both idolising Savitr for his traits and resenting his own.

And so he becomes obsessed with masks, he adopts a cool name, to show how brave he is, to protect his friend, to show the girl he likes that he's worthy.

I did less design work for him than the others here, and should probably do more (hence the one crappy image there). One thing I'm uncertain about is the image on his tunic. I like the idea of including one as it allows a lot to be said about the character, and it fits with the 'angsty youth' aesthetic. In that ugly concept image, it's based on this monster design that I came up with a while back:

It's called an Anguist, and it has several layers: it looks like a skull, a spooky octopus, a tribal mask, there's a shocked/scared face in purple, and there's an additional hint of an exposed woman which was relevant to the character it was designed for but not so much anymore. I'll probably use it as some point in Divine Dreams as a Fear monster.

It fits with the mask motif for this character, but the other design I had is a wolf howling at the moon in the starry night sky, because of Deugan's eventual role as Lone Wolf (inspired by the infamous ∞ Three Wolf Moon shirt ∞, in connotations if not specifics). Alora Fane has no moon, though, and I don't know how well the wolf howling reads icon as such; maybe it just looks like a shapeless blob.

I probably need to do more work with this character, but I like the gist I have already.

Lavent

This next one didn't come to me quite as easily, so I'll walk you through the process.

This is the Emeela that I already had in the game:

The design is based on a whole bunch of concept art I did when I made Taming Dreams (the character design was elusive then too).

That seemed like a good enough place to start, though I'd been wondering for a while whether to change this character's hair colour to orange, as that's the most common colour for the Meek race that she is, and it shows 'differentness' more than the other colour she had, I feel. I also wanted to represent the dark blueness of her Sorrow element, but I also associate the colour Lavender with her and didn't want to lose that:

These are... fiiiine, but it still felt there was something missing. She looks like a sort of generic priestess or something; there's nothing about her appearance that really speaks about her personality. I mean, there's the sorrow teardrop motif there a few times, but nothing much more than that. Her hair was also largely formless, just 'long and untidy or something'. She's supposed to be depressed, but she looks too neat and presentable for that.

This doesn't though! I like the unshaven legs because it's not really something you seen in media - at least not this kind of media - but it's what someone who's both depressed and who's lived a sheltered life would do. But would she also show them? Maybe if it saved her the effort of putting on pants when everything is so difficult uggghhh what's the point anyway. I knew that feelings about it would be mixed (probably mostly negative), though, so I added what Americans call 'sweatpants', which are stereotypically associated with slumping around depressed. This looks way too bland though!

I liked this gradient, transparent dress, because it looks elegant, otherworldly, mystical, watery, plus just aesthetically more pleasing than something flat-coloured. But what would show underneath? Would underwear showing look like swimwear appropriate for her watery home, and like she didn't care enough - appropriate for the is depressed thing - or would it just be interpreted as pervy fetish fuel? I'm inclined to assume the latter, unfortunately. I mean, I'd be inclined to even have her nipples showing through her dress, but Western culture is so weirdly prudish and sexual about these things (only on women though, of course) that that wouldn't be an option without it making the game Mature Content and all that ugliness.

I could imagine the character choosing to wear something like this though. You could say it doesn't fit with her being shy and anxious, but it's more than she's too depressed to put on anything which takes effort (I know how that is), and - as previously mentioned - she's been isolated for most of her life so she's not as aware of social norms as other people.

Experimenting with colours. The pale skin makes the most sense for a Meek who's lived most of her life sealed in an underground temple. The darker blue fade seemed more Sorrow-appropriate than the more vibrant azure. Maybe the transparency stopping before the crotch could be a solution. I had the idea to use the teardrop motif for the design of the hairstyle.

More experimenting, notably with the teardrop hairstyle and hood (where I forgot to delete the hair behind her, though where would that go anyway?). The transparency revealing her underwear still felt wrong. Weird face!

(I forgot the ears in one of those, whoops!)

FINALLY, I felt like I had something that I liked! It combines that elegant transparent top with a pair of sloppy sweatpants which I find both endearing and hilarious because of the contrast. Like someone wearing a wedding dress with big clomping boots and a beer hat. I find the colours pleasing and appropriate, and I feel the design expresses the character well. It's not cool or sexy, but it's more... human, perhaps (even though she's not a human technically). And I like that. Perhaps it's likely to inspire empathy for the character? I wonder; it's hard to know what people who aren't me would feel.

She's playing her 'wand' like a flute there; I'll get to that in a minute.

This name was a difficult one too. A few ideas I considered: Lavend, Lavndr (from lavender, obviously), Melany, Melano (from melancholy), Ennuia (from ennui), Emosha, Emoena, Emoana, Emohna (from emotion, or 'emo' in particular, Emeela, moan), Requia, Elegie, Emourn, Elegee...

Ultimately I liked either ∞ Lament ∞ ("an expression of grief, suffering, or sadness" or "a song expressing grief"), or that combined with lavender - which the character was connected with in Taming Dreams - to give Lavent. I'm still on the fence about whether to stick with Lavent (it's unique) or Lament (it's familiar).

Sirena

When I started planning Divine Dreams in late 2019, I drew concepts of all of the (MARDEK/Taming Dreams) characters that I planned to include. Elwyen was one of them, though I think she's one who remained hidden behind a silhouette. Here's what I had for her:

I originally gave her the harp like in MARDEK, though I revised it a couple of months later to a ukulele, which felt more fitting for the character (harps are elegant; lots of perky young girls play ukuleles to express themselves, if YouTube is anything to go by). I also incorporated bird motifs while designing her 'Nightmare' (characters' personal demons given form as bosses), or more specifically a caged bird longing for freedom.

This was mostly just an adaptation of that design, with a few tweaks. The hair is more feathered, to go with the bird motif. The original primarily blue colour scheme has been accentuated with bold, brash, bright orange. The ribbon thing on her back (with a drawing from the back showing how I imagine it connects) is adorned with a chain pattern, and her... bandeau (I had to look that up) also has some horizontal lines that both break up the flat colour monotony and subtly hint at the bars of a jail across her heart. I also hinted at ribbons hanging from her bracelets, like manacles.

The drawing on the right was to clarify what she was wearing under the sarong thing (obviously nothing wouldn't be appropriate), though it came out looking creepy, I feel, probably largely because the breasts are way too high and the neck maybe too short? Weird, anyway. She's supposed to be a flirty character who dresses in a revealing way on purpose, though, so a tiny thong thing makes sense in a way it wouldn't for Lavent (unlike a cat girl character I see in the Star Ocean cast, who looks like a child, dresses like she's in porn, and - from what I recall - her actual characterisation was sexless; I dislike things like that a lot).

Experimenting with colour palettes. These are only subtly different, but I find the feel of the one I chose (the one on the left) significantly more pleasing than the one I started with (the middle one). I started with a dark blue because that was part of the original Elwyen design, though that's more Sorrow-related; the more sky-blue-like hue feels more appropriate for a bird-motif'd character, longing to soar. Notably, these two shades are directly opposite each other on the colour wheel (180 degree hue difference), for a bold, striking look. Her skin is the same hue as the orange on her clothes, but a different saturation and value.

I was also planning out exactly how her hair might fall; important for making a 3D model later, and keeping the character consistent. These legs are too short!

I like how this turned out. The original Elwyen had a flower in her hair, which morphed into a feather ∞ fascinator ∞, but that shape was already associated with sindrels' daemons, so it ended up like this instead. Looks kind of like a festive dancer, not inappropriately.

As for the name, I had less trouble with this one, thinking that "Sirena" - from "siren", which Elwyen was described as - seemed fine. Easier to pronounce, for sure!

Counterparts

I like the thought that Dayvha and Nytsky here both contrast and complement each other. Day and night, light and dark, bliss and fear, embracing an identity despite its differentness versus forging a false persona despite natural normality.

Both are nerds - fitting the gangling and chubby nerd stereotypes - who stick with one another because they don't feel they belong with others, and play fantasy games to bond and pass the time; the childhood imagination bit would be a D&D-like campaign in this, where Dayvha is a superpowered version of himself but Nytsky is pretending to be Savitr.

Traditionally Mardek used a sword, but I'm wondering whether to have Dayvha be a spellcaster instead. He's not exactly physically imposing, but he's intelligent and has alien blood, so it'd make more sense. Nytsky could be a bulky fighter and protector, another contrast.

An interesting idea occurred to me while designing Lavent: what if, like Sirena, she uses a musical instrument instead of a more generic magical wand?

In both MARDEK and Taming Dreams, and again in the plans for this, Elwyen/Sirena used to hang around the lake where Eme(e)la/Lavent lived, and she met this 'mermaid' who - in Taming Dreams at least - inspired her to adopt her blue colour scheme in order to be more beautiful. It established an interesting past connection between them, but wasn't a very solid motivation.

What if, though, Sirena overheard Lavent playing her instrument, and took up music herself because of the 'music of the lake' she was fond of listening to? That could be an interesting connection, especially if their personalities are so clashingly different. Lavent is passive, disengaged, emotionally flattened by despair; Sirena is extrovertedly neurotic, jealous, clingy, crazed, a ∞ Manic Pixie Dream Girl ∞ type (with a lot of trauma under the surface responsible for this).

Also, while Emela was meant as the love interest for both Mardek and Deugan in MARDEK's plans (one of the more cringeworthy aspects of the document you might have read), eventually she became more connected with Deugan, while Elwyen took the role as Mardek's love interest (of a sort). I intend to continue that here, with Nytsky trying to woo Lavent (who's just distant), and Sirena frantically flirting with Dayvha (who reacts with friendly sexlessness). Interesting angles to explore, and it's what I mean about borrowing old ideas - when it feels like they're worth borrowing! - but delving more deeply into them.

If both of these characters used music, perhaps it'd use some different mechanic. Maybe each tune would require inputting notes (shown, not memorised!) to a rhythm, or something; maybe six notes, a few seconds, in place of the typical reaction bar. I remember experimenting with that in an early build of MARDEK 3, for Elwyen, but scrapped it for some reason. Worth thinking about some more though. There's another character who could also have a musical mechanic, and I was unsure how to handle that if I already had the Elwyen character. It being an established way to stir up the miasma that multiple people use might work well.

Of course, Sirena would play light, major-mode music, while Lavent would play sorrowful, minor-mode music.

This is a very long post!! But I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you got something out of seeing my rough, quick, crude drawings and the thoughts and process and everything!

I barely draw these days, and my art hasn't really improved significantly since around 2013 or so. I should draw more! Having something to draw, as in this case, is wonderful because I can easily get lost in it for hours.

Some people expressed interest in getting art as a Patreon reward, so I could try drawing more so then I could have something to offer for that. I'm also interested in posting concept art like this to my Patreon as I do more of it! I've got some more characters to plan, which I'll likely spend next week on (though I'm already mostly happy with them so it shouldn't take as long), so I'll probably post my progress with that to patron-exclusive posts on Patreon. I'll have to figure something out!

Oh, and in case this is a concern: I've already got the plot largely written for all three chapters, though I need to do another pass to refine some things (new ideas arise as you write, so it's valuable to go back over everything again with those in mind). These character redesigns won't disrupt the overall narrative, since they're still filling essentially the same roles, but I'm going to plan them all thoroughly before doing another plot pass so then I can more fully integrate their traits into the details of the story.

(Hmm, I wonder whether making these things as videos might not be a bad idea... though social anxiety is an obstacle. Something to consider, though...)