About Kentra
Once again breaking from the mold, Kentra is not playable. In fact she never speaks directly with the group, at least not for a long while. In Welgaea 1 there are two mysterious people you encounter from time to time, Kentra and a male dressed similarly. Kentra seems to be working for good, destroying monsters and such, while the male seems to be causing trouble, summoning monsters and attacking people. She's a story-important character in Welgaea 1, but will not be appearing in Welgaea 2 or 3. If she did appear in 3 she would still be on the floating island of Welgaea 1.
design
Unlike the other characters thus far she's not gone through numerous redesigns. She's changed a bit from her initial sketch, but her first design has remained. In fact, in looking at her original design, only her hat/hair has changed notably since the original sketch.
I was actually intentionally going for a Touhou-like design with much of her. Probably because I'd intended from the beginning for her to be Touhou-like, or at least doujin-game-like. Her outfit is a mix of doujin-inspired and Chinese-inspired. You see, the classical elements, fire, water, earth, and air, (and metal and wood in place of air in Chinese), are often accompanied by another element, one that transcends above the four, or connects the four. In Japanese this is "void" or "heaven", while in Greek there's "aether". There's also an analogy to the "four symbols" in Chinese mythology, where there is a different creature representing each of the four directions of the compass, alongside a fifth, the yellow dragon of the center. An amount of the mythos behind Welgaea 1 comes from these elements, and the idea of a fifth one in the center to connect them all. Kentra's name comes from the Greek word "κέντρο", or Kentro, which means "center".
Since the idea of "center" came from Chinese, I took that as inspiration for her outfit, alongside more doujin-like qualities. Her top is actually inspired by traditional Chinese male shirts, with the buttons going down the front and the collar up and close. The large sleeves were inspired by Hsien-Ko, a Chinese vampire from Darkstalkers. Kentra's sleeves were going to be much larger, and perhaps clawed originally, but it just didn't look right, so they were shrunk down a bit. Her shoes as well, were inspired by Hsien-Ko, though not taken as strictly to their Chinese roots. The skirt and bare legs were inspired by Shikieiki, from Touhou, who is occasionally said to have very pretty long legs. In turn, one of the focuses for Kentra was giving her very pretty, long legs. The symbol on her sleeves is the eight trigrams of Chinese cosmology/philosophy, a symbol of the eight fundamental principles of reality, which once again happen to have a relation to the five elements. The symbol is sometimes shown with a yin-yang in the center, and I originally had one here, but we decided to mute the design a little and removed it.
I'm not sure what, if anything, inspired her actual hair. From the beginning I wanted it short and simple. The focus instead would be on hair decorations, a Touhou trope. At first I'd given her a kind of cloth hat, tied around her head similar to Maribel or Remilia. To elaborate it, there were wooden planks in it on either side similar to what Shikieiki carries around, only shorter, with the Chinese symbol for "earth" written on them (As the yellow dragon of the center paired with the element of earth). And then a loop and ribbon of fabric coming off the back. This whole thing was deemed too gaudy and elaborate, especially for someone like her, and was muted a bit to what it is now. The "hat" was removed completely. The ribbon loops in back were replaced with hair loops, inspired by Jam from Guity Gear. The ribbons were replaced by... bigger ribbons, inspired by Elena from Grandia 2. I still felt something needed put in her hair, and so a small ribbon was placed there, inspired by Youmu of Touhou. The only other aspect of note is the marks under her eyes. The colors aren't significant, other than that they looked good, but I wanted them to represent her elemental nature. They were put there in the first place because I felt something more needed done to make her feel less like a normal person, and because I seem to have a thing for putting marks on characters' faces.
Personality and actions
To be honest not a lot to say. Especially nothing that wouldn't spoil the plot of the game. I suppose I'll start with her "high elemental" nature though. Much like Kharon, she's not just a person with a job, or an elemental with a job. She is the embodiment of the elements. More than that, really. She's like all the elements' boss. She is a force of nature, if not nature itself, not an actual living being. In turn her personality is very no nonsense, very matter-of-fact. She's not there to make a fuss, she's there to get a job done, as she is her job. Or more accurately, her job is her. She is very mature and wise, though, having existed since nature began. She's not completely cold though. She's just mostly cold. Having cared for the world and taken care of it for so long she has an amount of care in her. I'm undecided if she's the high elemental governing the entire planet or only the floating island.
Much said about Kharon can also be said about Kentra, as far as her age and origins go. However, where Kharon was bored of her job and wanted to explore and see something new, which perhaps made her evolve and act a bit more human, Kentra did not. She never grew to be something more than her job. This is why she's asexual. She takes a female form, but it's mostly for convenience that she takes a human form at all. That the form is female is perhaps an amount of personal preference, but mostly happenstance. Being asexual, she has no attraction whatsoever to anyone of any form. Given who she is, it would be like a rock, or a puddle of water finding someone attractive.
