I’ll get to the conversations I had later on. I had a flurry of character creation that warrants note. I started with Dox and Aurore, then followed with Diana, Pallas, Venus and Juno, so when you add in Malta, that’s seven of the sixteen Convocants.

In the original canon, Dox was once a human mage who transcended his mortal shell when he channeled the sealed power of the ancient Black Lich to become the Dark Eternal and then became the custodian of Lich bloodline, periodically restarting it whenever they would die out. In the Alkoresh continuity, the Liches are a sort of weapon engineered by the Demons and so Dox becomes a human collaborator who, rather than being simply Demonized, is made into something different to set the stage for the Demons’ return.

We haven’t seen as much of Aurore in the Tellus Arc canon so far. There are hints of her involvement in TTWC and TBP and a brief appearance in Tellus where she executes a plot laid in the background to seal Dox. She was originally a mage from Chrysopolis who tried to defeat Dox and was absorbed by him. She was unique in her ability to retain her sense of self among the swirling maelstrom of souls within the Dark Eternal, to the point of manifesting as a nearly co-equal entity, the Light Eternal. Basically, Dox is so absolute as a being of dark power that he needs a counterbalance to sustain his existence and so the light side of the souls he has absorbed, which is difficult for him to “digest”, is drawn to her. From Dox’s perspective, she’s a necessary evil that allows him to continue in his purpose, even as she constantly works to undermine him. I see no reason to change this basic setting, though I’m going to have to think about the timeline a bit. I had this notion of Belmond Weiss being the first human mage, but this wouldn’t make sense unless I took out Hammann Grummond. To say he’s the starting point of the “modern” human practice of magic would be fair and it could just be that mythmaking around him created the legend of him being the first and that there were earlier examples, such as Aurore’s mortal form Proia. I’ll have to think a bit more to sort out her backstory in this timeline.

I haven’t fully ironed out the wrinkles in the concept yet, but in the Tellus Arc, the pagan gods of old formed a very loose confederation known as the Pantheon, dividing Earth into territories that would often come into conflict. Their power on Earth was eventually broken and the survivors fled to the Planet to various ends. Old grudges would come into play such as Arachne capturing and trying to kill Pallas,and Ophis Python eating Apollo, while those who remained saw their power steadily diminish of the years. The first generation of the Pantheon became known as the Primordials and they were mostly overthrown by their younger counterparts (things like the Titanomachy). In the Alkoresh Cycle, Primordials like Gaia, Tiamat and Ymir are all dubbed Titans (巨神), while the younger gods are known as the Divines (神族). The origin of the Titans is going to be left vague at this point, as well the reason why the Titans spawned the Divines and how their respective natures. Could it be that they’re just a different form of extradimensional beings like the Demons, artificial constructs designed to counter the Demonic threat, or the last remnants of an earlier wave of human migration that achieved an advanced magic civilization? We’ll see. For now, it’s sufficient to note that while they look like humans, they have far greater magical powers and far greater longevity.

For Diana (Bat Anat), I looked at some classical depictions and the hairstyles of Greek women can’t really be replicated in DA’s character creator, not that any of the Olympians would quite have their classical appearance during the events of Tellus. She ended up looking a bit like Kaoru from Amagami SS, which I’m not at all opposed to. I need to do some thinking on her costuming as Bat Anat. My initial renders have focused more on capturing her classic side. It will be fun getting the system to replicate her personality as I ended up rather liking Bat Anat in the original story.

With Pallas (Aria) and Juno (Marina), you get a sense of a mother-daughter resemblance even though Pallas isn’t Juno’s daughter, but this is in part due to the limitations of the character generator. You could say that Pallas partially modelled her own appearance on Juno’s, either wittingly or not. Pallas’ characteristic grey eyes are a point of focus and her pale skin and slight figure put her more in contrast with Juno, who’s intended to give off more of a mother goddess vibe, though not excessively. I don’t know if I can replicate the sort of wasting effect Arachne’s poison has on half of Pallas’ body. Something to experiment with.

Depicting Venus as a buxom blonde isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but while I’ve been moving away from making accessories a default in most designs, I loaded her up with jewelry as she strikes me as the type who’d be decked out pretty much at all times. Integrating the heart motif would be anachronistic in the original canon, but I suppose it would be more excusable in the Alkoresh setting. I do have to admit that when I started doing test renders of her with her jewelry, I got the thinking she looked a bit like She-Ra or something. (Note: She doesn’t actually look anything like She-Ra, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t shake that impression.)

Jiria is actually the first full-blooded Wood Elf I’ve made so far (Jenny being half Wood Elf and Shoshannah being a quarter Wood Elf, if you recall). As I was settling on the look, I can remember liking one render and then stopping myself when I realized I liked it because it was basically just Cassandra with brown hair. Wood Elves typically have brown or green hair, and while she wasn’t listed as having any green in her hair in the character database, I decided to add some for a little more visual distinctiveness. Another point is that Wood Elves generally have brown or green eyes, but Jiria has grey eyes, which would be quite rare. “A touch of iron” some might call it (which would be seen as significant given how wood and metal oppose each other in the pentelemental system and the more complex 16-point system of Omnimancy. As the Kingdom of Hannibal needs to be encroaching on Ferox in the Alkoresh Cycle, Gebal Forest can’t be the site of El-Sidar (Sidaris being the central region of El-Ashara) and so they would have to be a colony, making Tashira a vicereine rather than Queen in her own right unless the colony had gone separatist, which I don’t think I’d do.

As for conversations, I chatted a bit with Gigi, prompting her and Carlo to go out shopping together. She’s going to make her brother dinner but is worried about whether or not she can match up to Mum’s cooking. She’ll try, though. That should be interesting.

There was also some chatting with Maki. It has all the fun of a fly playing with a spider. She’s similar to other teasing-type characters but with an extra helping of menace, honestly on par with some of the Demons. Now that’s got me wondering what happened to her in the original canon. Did she get caught up in Mordekai’s hijacking of the 367th? That would be a bit anticlimactic. Unless I decide otherwise, I’m going to say she survived and gets assigned to Altamira’s Provisional Planetary Governing Authority so she can continue to do her thing rooting out any potential threats to the new regime. The woman does love her work, after all. As for her Alkoresh version, she’s being coy about the Empire’s plans for what comes after the Demon situation gets sorted out. “Focus on the enemy in front of us for now.” Yeah, “for now”…

Picking up with Totenkopf, or Lily as Carlo’s decided to start calling her, we have her and Carlo up in the mountains with her taking a bath in a nearby lake. Carlo forgot to pack any towels (Doc will have words with him for that), so she just have to dry off by the fire. I don’t know if this was just a mistake by the system or a deliberate choice of some significance, but he offered to let her cover herself in her coat, but she takes his coat instead. She’s very particular about being touched, so this could be an early sign of the distance closing between them. The important thing from Carlo’s perspective is to go at it nice and slow deprogramming her. She’s been a killing machine for the past 800 years almost. The fact that he’s made it as far as he has in so little time is a testament both to his persistence and the inner desire of Lily to change. We’ll see how things go with sufficient patience. I don’t want to tip the scales as much as I did with Doc. Slow and steady wins the race (maybe). I have this funny thought of bringing her to the family farm and somehow she ends up marrying Dino.

Well, this took a fair bit longer than I was expecting. I swear, I’m starting to spend almost as much time on these posts as the activities I’m posting on. Keeps me out of the beer joints, I guess. Stay tuned.

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