What made you choose the empires you did for the starters? Like, why The Undergrove over Gilded Helanthia or The Overgrown?
(This isn’t to judge your choices, I love them, I just want more insight into the creative process)
Before any of the starters were made each Empires character was assigned a pokemon type, as each of them is going to be a gym leader. We wanted the starters to match whoever also ended up with that type so that, for example, Pearl didn’t end up with a fungal pokemon.
As everyone assumed, Lizzie was assigned water-type. I don’t think anyone was going to argue anything differently.
Joey was given fire-type for various reasons; the fire temple, overall color scheme, and his relationship with Xornoth being the main influence. It was also the last one we assigned so there were only a few we could chose from.
And Shrub got grass-type. We knew from the beginning that Katherine was going to get the fairy-typing because while she is a plant lady, it was the typing that fit both her aesthetic and story best. Pearl actually got given fighting-type. Shrub got grass-type because of how important her relationship to plants are in her story (we also had many ideas about the starter already).
And then we made the starters from there!