LYNXXXXXX for the ask game..... 1 for sonderbar and 3, 6 and 14 for pebble 🥹🥹? I heart him fuckkk also. 20 for voel pretty please.....
What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?
I wish I could say more, but I just went "what if a replika thought they were a different unit" and from there I thought going from a really low ranking/common unit to one of AEON's top dogs would be really fun to explore!
3. How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)
OKAY I actually have the exact time and date of her conception for you: July 22nd in the year of our lord 2024
^ This was the original thought that led to her, but I didn't make her intro post until August 3rd, which is definitely when she became the Sonderbar we know today, I remember spending a solid chunk of time trying to name her and work out some of the more fun details about her that night, like her arm defect! Also I think I have mentioned it before but she was originally very different character wise, she was a lot more of a real threat and not at sierpinski, and even had gotten a destabilized adler unit to be by her side in that version of her which I did think was a really neat idea!! However I am very happy with the beautiful girl I have today, idk something about her being much less able to become a falke in the setting she's in really gets me and feels more realistic to the setting of sierpinski/signalis to me.
3. What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?
Appearance! And he's changed a bit since then! I went through and dug up his first ever art pieces for you for fun! The first pic was his birth into the world... 4 years ago... shortly shortly followed by his first ref... looking at my old art of him is wilddd but here's his progression from 2021 -> 2022 -> 2024
6. What was the thought process behind their appearance? Did you go mostly for the aesthetic or are there other reasons they look the way they do?
Tbh he was just made for the aesthetic at first, I originally tried to make him look more like many types of river rocks but settled on the stone and moss look. He's also originally from wings of fire so I also took into account what type of dragon he'd be: a mud/sea hybrid! He gets his fins and glow spots from the seawing side, and his chunky solid build from the mud :)
14. Do you have any quotes tied to the character, either from the story itself or from another source that fit them?
Idk if song lyrics count but I'm counting them, Karma by AJR is THE Pebble song and if I had the skill and patience the animatic I'd make would be legendary... these lines especially I think are really defining for his character:
Time, I know we're out of time
But what if sad thoughts come and I can't stop it
Bye, I don't wanna say bye
If only I could keep you in my pocket...
^ I say it's very character defining mostly because although he's sort of in sotry/lore limbo right now (the amount of retcons and rewrites he's gotten... I might yap abt those one day) Pebble's always managed to have this core theme of moving on from grief funnily enough. He does lose someone important to him (again kind of old lore, originally he lost a partner -> changed to child -> partner again -> in limbo again but I think it might become a loss of a best friend and/or partner. This is up in the air rn mostly because at the time I wasn't happy with how those other versions of the character existed solely around Pebble and weren't really characters in their own right. Perhaps this is hell). I really have to work on my wof worldbuilding and Pebb's story again tbh, he deserves it and now you've got me thinking about him again... I actually also might put him into Voel so that leads into a nice transition lmao!!
20. Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about
aw fuck this is gonna be such a long post I don't think I've done a true yap sesh abt Voel yet... I'm gonna try to keep it to the bare bones but THERES SO MUCH I WANNA YAP ABT AND WORK OUTTT AUGHHH a lot of this text is copied from random discord places where I've already done some talking so I'll put that stuff in quotes
Also just for fun but I think it does better at giving the vibes for everything is my eternally in progress pinterest board for Voel + the lands and races here
"So the background for how this world was formed into what u see on the map is that originally, the world was a barren and dry wasteland inhabited by one single being, Arvellis (names are being workshopped rn). They only knew the world they were born into but fell in love with it despite it being incredibly harsh to live in. They spent their entire life exploring the wasteland hoping to find someone, anyone to share it with, but eventually they realized and accepted that they were completely alone. Their heart couldn’t take the grief, and they died (rip lonely guy 😔). Their body was full of a lot of potent magic though, and so as it rotted and as its blood seeped into the ground, it became the catalyst for life on Voel! There was also a small explosion of that potent magic caused by the heart upon dying, which is why there’s the lake where it is. Arvellis was HUGE so parts of their body are still easily recognizable as landmarks present day, notable the ribs in the desert, and south Quara's islands are made up of skull fragments"
Okay so that's how everything is created and from there I've got those 4 main regions with their respective races:
Thros is the primarily rocky desert region (formerly grassy plains, scrapped that though). The Throsians inhabit it, they're inspired by a mix of real life animals (long distance running plain mammals, wasps, pangolins, etc) as well as buggy type aliens and the draenei race from warcraft. Here's some old ass sketches from when I finally solidified a lot of their features, I think the bottom headshot and the headshot next to the big YES are the most accurate to what they look like. Originally I considered making them mammals but idk about that... I might still keep them mammalian but get rid of the small sexual dimorphisms they had. They've got weird ass sturdy feet that are built for both running on rocky and rough desert terrain, and along with their long legs they're also very long jumpers. These guys can run for ages at a steady pace because of gill-like structures on their torsos that help them take in more air as they're in motion, and they've also got their tails for balance!
Culturally I'm still figuring a LOT out for these guys but Throsian cities are kind of cool in that they're inspired by paper and potter wasps in terms of how organic they look. This was a super rough sketch from a while ago kinda showing that. All Throsian cities apart from their "capitol" one (which is essentially just the crossroads city so it's big bc there's a lot of Throsian commerce happening as well as travel) are nestled into the ribs of Arvellis. Yeah the dead giant guy. His ribs over time turned into stone and fragments + whole bits are scattered across the entire desert. The cities being nestled in and on there is also practical since it keeps them in a cool location with less sun beating down on them. Also it's cool as fuck to live right on the bones of a dead god.
Quara is a little weird in that it's kind of spread out, and the Quarans as a people are also generally split into three groups based on their region + regional culture divides. They're essentially fish folk/mermaids with legs lmao. Here's some ancient ass brainstorming from early last year, they were originally ALL called Tideborn before I swapped to the general name of Quaran for the race so sorry if it's a bit confusing.
"For a long time the tideborn as we know them today were united under one leader and they were a very strong unified nation across Voel, with lots of underwater highways of a sort connecting the different islands. Slowly over time though cultural and physical differences grew and they sort of just naturally drifted apart into individual little groups. The southern tideborn and northern tideborn are often in disagreement over how to best worship the tidemother and tend to not get along present day as a whole in terms of culture (there are lots of individual exceptions of course, and city dwellers intermingle much more). It’s not a hostile relationship, they keep up a business relationship and trade often, but each thinks the other has the wrong idea. Southern tideborn really stick to the idea of the tidemother as a wanderer first and then protector. And they tend to have much smaller but more frequent villages, with many of them passing through the villages and acting like wanderer knights of a sort (I love knights. Fish knights. Let me have this)
Whereas the tropical tideborn think more along the lines of, protector over wanderer. They have strong, large fortified cities that are connected to each other and from there they protect people much more locally (and if needed they can send their people in huge groups to assist during like. Natural disasters, disease spreading, etc on a more global scale)
The temperate water Tideborn are kind of a weird middle ground? They’re not wanderers in the sense that their southern cousins are, but they tend to be traveling merchants and entertainers and such instead (they see that as a way of helping people too. Not just saving them from danger but providing goods and stories) and their influence on both of their brother groups has led to this odd little coalition that serves as a loosely united leadership for the tideborn as a whole."
This is all hella old and some things have changed but most of it is still true. The Tidemother is the deity that all of the Quaran cultures revere regardless of their differences!! Also I made it a lil confusing but Northern Quarans are the tropical fish variant, Southern are the arctic fish variant, and the temperate Quarans are a mix of tropical, arctic, and freshwater/river fish variant. Northern Quarans tend to physically be shorter,more slender and naturally have lots of bright colors and patterns, Southern Quarans on the other hand tend to be very large size wise. They're both taller and usually more heavyset since their bodies adapted to storing more fat for the colder enviroment. Again the temperate Quarans aren't as fleshed out but they have a lot more variety in terms of body shape, but color wise they're never as eye catching as their northern cousins.
Culture wise something that has changed is Southern Quarans do also have a few small fortress type cities, nowhere near the scale of the north though. I really struggled figuring out the general architecture style for both south and north Quara, but I think these rough sketches do a decent job of showing what I want. Sorry abt my handwriting but yeah! Northern Quarans tend to have very organic and round strucutres with lots of open space due to the tropical climate. A lot of their structures are inspired by conch shells and underwater organics, and their cities also tend to be very busy visually, with a lot of buildings intertwined/ stacked which can almost make it feel like the city is crawling on itself. Although the building layout is super busy, Northern cities do always have a clear and wide main highway going in and through. Southern Cities on the other hand are very bare bones at first glance. They can come off as very cold and rigid and that's bc Southern Quarans love their inorganic structures. They use a lot of hard straight edges for their structures, with really tall ceilings and neat square or rectangle layouts. It's not that they don't like incorporating organics, but they like them contained and orderly. If you go up to any South Quaran city wall it's guaranteed to be intricately carved, either with artistic depictions of historic figures, animals, etc or just patterns.
OH also fun detail since I will be talking about the skeleton of a magic system that I have rn, but Southern Tideborn have a tradition of getting magical tattoos as a sort of coming of age ritual.
So next up is Dekthros and its draconic citizens, the Dekthrians! I'm currently in the process of reworking them to try and make them fit a little better into the world/not be just generic dragons/dragonfolk because I worry that they are (Ultimately I'm creating all of this for myself BUT that's exactly why I want to change things). So the fun thing about the Dekthrians is that they all mostly live in the mountain region of Voel, but they live underground since that region has a lot of naturally sprawling caverns. Think of like how expansive and huge the new minecraft cave enviroments are and how sometimes they don't even feel closed in, that's basically what it's like. The big thing the Dekthrians have going for them is that they're generally known for their skill when it comes to crafting and forging weapons, armor, and jewelry, and their cities aren't called Forge Cities for nothing. At the center of each city is a giant forge and crafting center, inspired by Ironforge and dwarf architecture from warcraft (all of their aesthetic is generally warcraft dwarf inspired. There is a theme here of me taking a lot of inspo from warcraft aesthetics lmao). Another thing I think is really awesome is that the Forge Cities aren't isolated, but there's a lot of different smaller settlements in pockets of the underground all connected by major underground tunnels. An easy and safe way to travel through the otherwise very harsh mountain range is by just traveling the cave system, it's well lit and easy to go on foot or via other transportation modes, and there's plenty of points where someone could stop and spend a night resting. I've done almost no art when it comes to Dekthros or its inhabitants but here's a really fast concept scribble I did a while ago for a tunnel/forge city. They tend to have a lot of bridges built across for accessibility, and Dekthrians tend to layer their homes vertically since the caves allow for that. They literally just dig into that rock and live there!
Physically I don't have too much to say about the Dekthrians other than they're mostly built like the typical western dragon... but I'm planning on fleshing them out at somepoint to allow for variation from their chunky bulky builds (I have to work it out, but I'm planning on potentially a variant that lives on the coast, mostly as an excuse to put Pebble into Voel lol, but also a more serpentine/cloud serpent inspired high altitude variant...). The cool things that I do have about them though are some of their cultural bits, mostly their visage crafting and their funerals. The visage crafting is partially in limbo right now as well due to figuring out what the limitations should be and if it should even exist as it is right now, but essentially a coming of age thing that most Dekthrians participate in is designing and crafting their own tool/weapon/accessory of choice that the also enchant to give them a smaller form more similar to the size of the other Voelian races as a way to integrate better (Dekthrians are the largest of all the main races, with Quarans and Throsians being in a similar range and Teelans varying more... I'll get to them later tho). Again I do have to workshop it but I really like the idea of it being a big deal in their society to spend a long time designing something that's just right for you!! Whatever a Dekthrian makes/chooses is pretty permanent in that making another visage is incredibly difficult due to the magic system I'm also still working on!!
Anyway the other thing I think is really neat about them is their funerals because they go all out. Some more copied text coming up
"it ties into the idea of their primary god being The Mourner... The Dekthrians build off of this and their traditional funerals are basically these very beautiful parties. Everyone is invited regardless of whether they knew the person that died, because this is a chance to get to know them now. The entire thing lasts several days, with the first day being the cremation (burial also happens but is less common. Each family member contributes to the lighting of the fire in cremation) and families tend to have a place where their visage tool is stored afterwards. Not much else happens the first day apart from a quiet moment for personal mourning. The next day is when festivities are expected to start, and these differ from group to group on length and what they do during them. Some parties last a couple days, some last up to a month (tends to happen with popular figures or leaders). The common things in all of them are stories, incredible food, and lots of games. Most Dekthrians try to do activities that the dead person would’ve enjoyed, so maybe poetry reading would happen at one, or there would be a concert at another, etc. It’s a lot of fun and they do a really good job of not just partying but also remembering that person. The last day, whenever it is, usually has a big send off to the deceased, where everyone gathers and a nighttime fire display with lots of colors (magical fireworks basically) marks the end of the ceremony."
Theyr'e the only race whose funeral/death rites I've fleshed out, I do want to get around to everyone else eventually.
Okay last of the races are my favorite children, the Teelans! Aesthetically they're heavily inspired by both the brokers from warcraft and a lot of cool pottery and mesoamerican art and architecture! Here are the brokers for fun because I think they deserve more love (#1 broker fan here they were the best thing to come from shadowlands and I'm dying on that hill)
Teelans are a funny race in that they are technically constructs (animated beings that are usually crafted/sculpted/grown etc) but they're fully sentient and intelligent, where true constructs might have some personality they're ultimately made for a purpose and aren't sentient. The super fun thing about the Teelans is that they're essentially living clay dolls, and a huge part of their culture is self expression and body modification. The variety you can get in size and shape in these guys is one of my favorite things about them, here's some old arts of them.
The blue "flame" is what separates them from true constructs and it's kinda like their soul/consciousness. They're really hard to fully kill because of that, you'd have to completely pulverize their body and leave it unsalvageable. Also a fun thing is that the way Teelans are "born" is via an enchanted mud pit that they emerge out of all goopy -> they then dry out into a very basic humanoid shape and from there they start making adjustments and modifications themselves as they progress through life. They also can't die from old age! I feel like I don't have as much I want to say about them but another thing I think is neat and that transitions semi nicely into other stuff is that Teelan homes are true constructs. Teelan cities technically CAN just get up and move anywhere anytime because most buildings are animated constructs!!
I also don't have a lot to say about constructs apart from what I've already said, but I do want to point out a notable one called the City Colossus. No one really knows who animated it or why they did it (it's theorized that it woke up/was "born" due to a high saturation of god blood in that region...) but the Colossus is always traveling around Voel, and it's become a weird mobile trade hub of sorts. There's again, still a lot I'm working out like whether all of the races inahbit the city -> or if I want to make someone new OR I have considered leaving it abandoned and I do like that a lot. Anyway, the Colossus is completely harmless and just completes its route every year and I love it a lot.
The last thing I really wanna talk about is the magic system which is undergoing some serious reworking, what I can definitely say about it is that everything in this world does have magical properties of varying degrees, with organic creatures having more typically (an exception is the Teelans but they're weird). There's two primary types of magic that can be performed, enchantments and wards. Enchantments are usually assumed to be "temporary magic" and while that is true a lot of the time, the main difference between an enchantment and a ward is where the magic comes from. Wards come from a magic user drawing on their own magic, which is a lot more taxing and typically reserved for bigger permanent spells (for example, Quaran tattoos or Dekthrian weapons) where enchantments make use of other magic sources (so this would be like using animal and mineral ingredients or potion brewing to give temporary effects usually). It's mostly undergoing some reworking because I like it when magic is a little more grounded and has hard set rules, and I felt like earlier on Voel didn't have that! I'm currently trying to figure out the consequences of someone overusing ward magic, it's probably gonna involve just dying from being so drained buttt I'm also playing around with the concept of draining yourself of magic leading to something worse... idk as you can tell a lot of this is still very much being developed!!! That's basically all the big stuff but for fun and as a treat if you made it to the bottom of this, here's some different rough creature concepts for this silly world
turnnoffyourmind
yousharknotpass
dededos
andulkaphoto
origamiaround
