faelight ni no kuni AU: the fairy and light
i got the idea for this bc i was rambling to a friend about my faelight howl's moving castle au and accidentally swapped howl's moving castle with ni no kuni in my brain and then had to sit down because i was like "wait a goddamn minute"
anyway ni no kuni is genuinely one of my favorite games of all time and ive been working on this AU for Way Too Long. yes i did make character sheets for them. will also eventually post a fic, i'm like. almost done but it's been fighting me.
very long rambling below, i talk abt their designs/familiars mainly, but there's some misc stuff too
Illuga
human, twin sun sign, favorite genus: aves
for both illuga and flins, when i was trying to redesign them for this au, their outfits were much closer to their versions in genshin before i decided i hated it and wanted them to be more different while trying to maintain their silhouettes + some of the parts i really like and didn't want to get rid of (cough cough illuga's sweater cough). admittedly they're both still kind of just simplified versions of their genshin outfits (illuga moreso than flins i’d say)
for illuga, i took some design cues from hamelin, the little we have of bellicosia/halcyon, xanadu/perdida a little bit, and very specifically alicia because she is technically from that northern autumnia region
not lucien specifically because he's a knight and not a traveler, and when he does start traveling it's when he's entered his emo phase which. doesn't really fit Illuga
he also carries his lamp, a spear that's basically just the prospecter's shovel, and a bottomless bag (or not-quite-bottomless bag, it has expanded capacity internally but it isn't infinite) (i didn't draw it but he has one)
his backstory i'd say is basically adjacent to the one from genshin, just a few details changed to fit the world of nnk/my au
Illuga's familiars
familiars are named after greek mythological figures
Aedon - Firebyrde, sun sign, and also illuga's first familiar!
though extremely technically aedon isn't Illuga's familiar, he hasn't 'tamed' him and aedon lives in the lamp rather than in illuga's heart/the creature cage (i have my own headcanons abt how familiars work lmao), but like. he's basically illuga's familiar.
firebyrde felt fitting for aedon, and i also love the fact the he's just Huge. Illuga wears a falconry brace specifically so his arm doesn't get torn to shreds whenever aedon wants to perch on him
Tyche - Supercogductor, twin sun sign, illuga's second familiar. Met it somewhere in Autumnia as a sprog cog, for the sake of this au (also why it's a sun sign instead of star, naturally-spawning supercogductors are star signs but if you metamorph a sprog cog into a supercogductor it stays sun sign)
chose this because of flavor text from the supercogductor in the creature compendium, "This bright spark can generate electricity, and there is no machine it can't get working," and the sprog cog from the wizard's companion, "Cog-shaped creatures that are capable of slotting into broken machines, bringing them back to life." idk, Illuga just feels like such an important part of the lightkeepers, and the supercogductor i think highlights this pretty well. also its vibes just feel piramida yknow
its name is from Tyche, the greek goddess of luck
Phaisyle - Sea Naiad (to metamorph into a greater naiad), sun sign, Illuga's third familiar. Met as a lagoon naiad in that archipelago area near castaway cove
from the wizard's companion and creature compendium, their gems are said to carry purifying powers, and are said to disappear alongside them when they die. They also get a lot of healing spells.
i kind of fixated on the gem disappearing thing (because. because flins collects gems. and when illuga dies. yeah), but also the purifying part works out really well. I also think illuga would have a familiar that's good with healing, and the naiad line are the strongest healers in nnk im pretty sure
Phaisyle is apparently the name of one of the hyades (nymphs who bring rain), and specifically means 'filtered light', which i think fits both the naiads and illuga pretty well. take this with a grain of salt tho i'm getting most of my information from wikipedia lmao (i've seen it spelled phaisyle, phaesyle, and aesyle bruh i just picked one)
Flins
fae (NOT FAIRY) and wizard, moon sign, favorite genus: arcana
(i always thought it was a shame none of the nnk characters' favorite genus is arcana bc it has some really cool familiars and sadly my brain screams at me really loud if i do something i perceive as suboptimal)
for the sake of this au, fae and fairies are different species. fairies are born from the fairy godmother, while fae are born from the light of the sun/moon/stars
his backstory is similar to in-game, but i imagine he was asleep for much longer. I have 10,000 years between nazcaa and the present day to work with okay i can't just cram all of my made-up fae lore into the last like. 500-1000 years
For his design, i took design cues from the great sages. I actually really struggled trying to maintain his silhouette without just defaulting to what he has in-game/something similar (i was really set on not just giving him a big dramatic coat for some reason) but im pretty happy with what i have now
(the reason i was so intent on maintaining his silhouette is because. 1:i think his collar is cutieful, 2: without the long drapey bits/cloak he just looks naked. i tried stripping it all away for one design [sort of a la oliver's outfit] and it weirded me out so bad)
ive also redesigned his staff like a hundred times and might redesign it again. It was originally just a smaller version of bloodsoaked ruins, but i changed it bc i didn't like that, and then kept changing it because each version was too smooth/rounded or just really didn't feel like a staff (i think i kept making the head too bulky tbh)
carries his lantern, staff (which can transform/extend into a spear that is just bloodsoaked ruins), a locket, and a spellbook/journal
locket is shaped like a stella fortuna
for his spellbook, i like the idea that he collects spells/is very into magic and spellcasting in this au; i've been having fun bullshitting a magic system around what we have in nnk lmao. they showed like, the teeny tiniest bit of depth with Unleash
also, his spellbook is Extremely magical; it can hold more pages than it physically should be able to, and some of the pages are enchanted to essentially lead to a pocket space, which he uses to store things while on the road. he can also take out/add pages as he wishes; it essentially functions as his wizard's companion, bag, and journal all at once
oh also about the chain on his cloak. not super important but i imagine it used to be symmetrical but the right part got torn off so instead of getting a new one or something he just. slapped a chain on it to rebalance it and called it a day. idk
oo as for fae features, i imagine he has longer pointed ears, fangs, and claws with blackened fingertips. His wings i think would be like dragonfly wings. He usually hides these, though
he generally hides that he's supernatural/fae; illuga know's he's not human but doesn't know precisely what he is, and most other people just see him as a regular wizard (HOWEVER i do think itd be funny if people constantly mistook him as a witch or something. he has the vibes)
Flins' familiars
familiars are named after gemstones; all of them were obtained/tamed after he woke up from his nap
Phenakite - Wayward Sun, moon sign, flins' first familiar, and obtained using Form Familiar.
genuinely a slam dunk for a familiar and im pretty sure one of the first ideas i had when i got the idea for this au. Like, it's a false sun, and generally associated with the night sky in flavor text from the creature compendium/wizard's companion. It is So Flins
also it looks like it ragebaits people for fun. low cortisol core
phenakite is a mineral that's apparently often mistaken for quartz. plus apparently its name is derived from the greek word 'phenax,' which means 'deciever'
Quartz - Dualynx, moon sign, Flins' second familiar. Met as an Auroralynx in autumnia/around the billy goat's bluff
partially chosen bc the auroralynx line is one of my favorite lines in the game lmao, i basically get it as soon as i can and slap it on oliver as a healer
but i also think the whole duality thing it has going for it fits Flins pretty well, whole creature of the night who lives among humans thing, and the dualynx is specifically associated with the union of night and day
as for the name, i don't really have any specific reason for it beyond "it sounds good shrug" (i was Struggling trying to figure out names for his familiars tbh). I could probably draw something between quartz being one of the most common minerals on the planet and Flins trying to blend in/fit in to human society tho
Spinel - Midnight Flutterby, star sign, flins' third familiar. Met in the deep dark woods as a flutterby, since the line doesn't naturally spawn anywhere i thought it fit
it's a moth. he's a lamp. need i say more
more seriously, i was really struggling to figure out what his third familiar would be; i think i was waffling between the midnight flutterby, manglerfish, maybe the ice maiden line?? (i'm saving her for someone else though lol), the wisp, and possibly the kipper line. I ended up choosing the flutterby over wisp because i didn't really feel like either of the wisp's final metamorphoses fit Flins very well
it's a shame that the flutterby is Genuine Asscheeks because i really like it (why do insect designs in games slap so hard. i hate bugs)
anyway she's probably the youngest of all their familiars. shes like. their daughhter. baby. yeah
the word spinel is apparently comes from a diminutive of 'spine', in reference to the pointed shape of its crystals (i think??), but i actually chose this name because spinel exhibits asterism (basically, refracts light in a star shape) when shaped and polished rather than faceted, and the flutterby is a star sign
nonspecific rambling
fun fact i actually didn't intentionally make all of Illuga's familiars sun signs at first, but it happened to work out. he is suncoded sunpilled sunmaxxing
had to add a bunch of cities, mainly because i'm lowkey baffled by the extreme lack of ports in the world of nnk (which is a completely different tangent lmao). Piramida is located where Nevermore is/is basically built on top of it. as an extension of this, the miasma marshes also have another thing going on
within the context of my nnk au, these two are the only ones that got three familiars, because i realized a bit late that trying to manage 2-3 familiars for Every Single Character i'm including would be just an absolute fucking nightmare. everyone else will probably get one/none. two if i'm feeling generous
the spell flins has drawn in the first img is mimic! It was a bit of a tossup between mimic, veil, and second self tbh. And fireball
if one (1) ☝️ 1️⃣ person says they’re interested i'll post their old designs and rant about why i didnt like them
might play revenant kingdom one day. no familiars but the us president basically being isekai'd is really funny to me. i think i saw the first episode of someones playthrough and i swear 9/11 or something was happening in the opening cutscene
also i do not put nearly as much effort into naming my familiars when i play nnk myself. i think i've named at least three purrloiners purrcy. in my first playthrough i named my mite TBLOBNOERN
also also i have a love hate relationship with the sprog cog. in my first playthrough it took me like an hour (probably more tbh) to tame one for the commission, and by that point i was so mad i named if something like 'fuckhead'. and also was wildly overleveled because i didn't know the joys of savescumming yet. but i think they're cute now so i'll let them slide
next on the agenda: my fic, then bloodquill