BEHOLD A MERE GLIMPSE INTO THE CHARMING TALES OF A R V A L E
No idea what you just saw? Fret not! I went into a disgusting amount of detail explaining everything here.
Fair warning though, if you are the type of person who wants to avoid spoilers, then I have some questions for you first...
Do you like RPGs? Especially the old ones? Want to experience more instead of just a glimpse?
Well... for some of Arvale's Tales, that is sadly no longer possible. But this is not the case for the first and the second.
Something that stuck out to me when I play through Arvale 2 Ocean of Time is how the Konija and the Mazulens are treated as their own fantasy races separate from humans, like dwarves and elves, yet... they look like humans in the game. Which is probably just a limitation of art assets... and that's nothing new. In Arvale Journey of Illusion some elves in Invyl had human sprites as well even though they were very clearly elves.
So I tried to imagine how these two could differentiate from humans and look like their own thing, since they are very much, thier own thing already.
But I also very much want to avoid actually inventing something completely new that has no proper reason to be like that in Arvale. Not inventing completely new lore, but rather elaborating on already existing lore in a way that is respectful to the source material while making it clear none of this is official. Do I make sense?? I hope so!
Anyway, as you can see, I took inspiration from two particular animals when it comes to the Mazulens and the Konija.
For the Mazulen's it's the parrot. 🦜️
In their temples they are depicting, what could be, themselves. Humanoids with feathers instead of hair. There's also one bird that gets repeatedly depicted on their carpets as well, so I decided the inspiration/ refrence for their design should be something bird related. But what type of bird? A smart one. A really smart one. The Mazulen's were/are a highly technologically advanced race and the persuit of knowledge is a big part of their way of life. So either it was gonna be a parrot, or a corvid. I chose the parrot because their art/artifacts are rather colourful, (and their aesthetics are Aztec inspired on top of that and parrots can be found in that region) and the place they (used to) live is warmer and more colourful than the enviroments and looks of a corvid.
And uh, that's kinda it really... they are bird people basically, and how do they have (facial) hair? It's actually those fluffy downy feathers ducklings and other birds have.
There's also another reason why I chose a bird, but I'll talk about that later.
The Konija. So... why did I chose cats? 🐈
Well, there's many reasons for that.
1). IT WOULD BE FUNNY. See, the thing is, DeMenchev dislikes cats. And pinning him against what would be Arvale's version of cat people, tickles me. And it would also nicely work thematically.
2). These ninjas are notorious for being insanely stealthy. Like cats. So much so in fact, that a large portion of Arvale think they are extinct.
3). Out of all the timegods, they seem to favour The Panther, God of The Past the most, considering it is always that one they end up seeking out every time they get their hands on the timepieces. In fact, everytime Cervantes, ruler of the Konija, gets his hands on the timepieces, he always picks the Panther Eye to travel to The Past every time.
4) They also reflect the things The Panther stands for:
[DeMenchev]: »Panther… some sort of overseer or God of the past, symbolizing the darkness or lack of knoweledge and the overall need for surivial by physical strength… etc. etc.«
Sneaky Konija hiding in the shadows/darkness + The Konija's society is quite militaristic due to their power hungry rulers, which makes them value strength a lot + the entire war they have going on is them preying (like cats preying on birds! heh. That's the additional reason for choosing a bird) on the Mazulens due to their lack of knowledge. The Mazulens have/ know things they don't (Time travel and stuff). The Konija are the ones hunting and attacking the Mazulens in the story, and the Mazulens in return hide/ defend themselves.
5) They got lion statues.
6) Tabys, a human who has spent many years among the Konija, and is named after a cat breed, hates dogs. Maybe he got it from them? Maybe they don’t like them? In contrast, DeMenchev likes dogs a lot, so this could also be a nice thematic parallel haha.
7) A lot of towns and villages in Arvale 2 Ocean of Time have a dog or a cat roaming around, but not the Konija. For some reason they have giant pet rats instead. (Or, at least one can be found). (And if you have pet rats, you can’t have pet cats, so that checks out as well). And it’s not placed there in order to somehow convey the place they live in is somehow unkept, far from it. Their towns look quite gorgeous, and the rat you can meet is explicitly referred to as a pet. And that just feels like a cat people thing to do. My guess is that it was just put there to make them seem more unique/ interesting. And probably because there’s not many other animal sprites to choose from if you don’t want to go with a dog or cat… other than those, there’s only a wolf, shark, seagull, monkey, a giant bug, and finally, the giant rat. And the rat feels like the only pet friendly option here.
8) In Arvale Short Tales Tabys unlocks his climbing ability by aquiring a tool used by the Konija that are called „Cat Claws.“
9) Quite often they are depicted with markings that resemble... stripes. That could also be cat-ish.
And that’s why I chose cats as a design inspiration for them.
Despite the feline influences, I tried to keep them relatively loosely human looking so they can blend into Arvale' society more easily and not stand out too much.
Let me explicitly state that this isn’t a theory post.
This isn’t a theory about what they actually look like, I’m just playing around with design ideas that are in tune with the lore, but none of this is canon. They could very well just look straight up like normal humans, just the way they are represented in the game.
"Il mio portafortuna è nero 🖤 come la liquirizia,ha occhi 👀 di polvere di stelle ✨ e fusa come una caffettiera sul fuoco 🔥" 🐱🐈🐾❤️ #Tabys #gatto #gattonero #salviamoigatti #adottanoncomprare #amoianimali ❤️
