The origins of Sir Caligo are somewhat unusual. During my first playthrough of Ogre Battle 64, I didn’t know a thing about the Chaos Frame or how to act to set your alignment. (The fact that your Chaos Frame data is hidden from you until after the end of the game doesn’t help.) As a result, I simply stormed my way through the missions and was completely blindsided when everyone started turning on me in the end. The heroes from the original game fought me and the leader of the resistance who owed his position to my efforts denounced me. It was a complete and utter betrayal. Add that to the typical civilian grumbling you get in Japanese fiction and I became wrathful, wanting an add-on campaign where I would march my army from one corner of the land to the next and raze the villages of all those bloody ingrates. (I later learned that you have to march on villages with units of matching alignment to “liberate” rather than “conquer” territory and so my second run was a much happier one.) Anyway, I decided to use this scenario in one of my stories and so Sir Caligo was born.

Narkissos of Karas was a young soldier who served with distinction in the Herakles War, where a colony of the Herakles threatened to overrun Euros. Later, when King Euromakhos’ twin sons Castor and Pollux refused to rule jointly as per their father’s dying wishes, the Gemini War broke out. Narkissos served in the cause of King Pollux, who was favored by the aristocracy, and with his elite Companions at the core of his army, he handily crushed the plebeian forces supporting King Castor. When his victory was complete, Narkissos found himself bitterly hated by the people and in a bid to appease them, King Pollux stripped Narkissos of his honors and exiled him while his Companions were thrown into prison.

Stewing in his anger in exile in the Eurean colony of Thessalonica (whose short-lived bid for independence was ended by none other than Narkissos himself, so there were no friends to be found in the city), he saw an opportunity when the Thessalonians suffered the predations of an ancient vampire they called the Miastor Prince. As you know from Caligo’s prologue, Narkissos challenged the Miastor Prince, was defeated and turned into a vampire himself. However, he succeeded in killing the Miastor Prince shortly after being turned and by drinking the ancient vampire’s heart’s blood, he received a power boost much greater than any newborn vampire, even one sired by an ancient, should have. With this new power, he was able to return to Euros, free his Companions and exact his revenge on the people who betrayed him.

While revenge sounds sweet, one of the themes I tend to reinforce in my stories is that however cathartic revenge might be at first, it’s ultimately empty or at very least it takes more than it gives. When Narkissos’ campaign of revenge was over, the rich nation of Euros was in ruins, its people all dead or fled, and there were no plans to build anything in the wake of this destruction. His Companions stuck faithfully by his side, desiring a share in his immortality to take on the world, but Narkissos didn’t share that ambition and quickly came to realize the true nature of his curse. He refused to grant his loyal followers their wish and so they grew old and died, then the ruined Kingdom of Euros was visited by the Black Dragon Xargos and cursed to become the Darklands.

Lacking ambition, Narkissos’ talents could only be used in service of a superior and so he became Sir Caligo the Knight of Chaos. He served Xargos and then the Dark Elf king Zanil who followed him. Were it not for a vampire’s inability to cross open water (without some trickery as demonstrated by Dracula in Bram Stoker’s novel), the invasion of Notos would’ve likely gone quite differently, but being left in the Darklands, Caligo could do little as Zanil’s hubristic overreach led to his downfall and the collapse of the Chaos Dominion.

Caligo may well have spent the rest of eternity in hibernation were it not for the Dark Eternal raising him to serve the Monarch Lich. While there was some joy to be had in fighting once more, it was a fairly hollow thing conquering the various monsters and fell races of the Darklands. The prospect of fighting the Zephyrians stirred a little of the old passion, though, and while he found Duke Cronos to be a disappointing opponent, he was intrigued by Ionathas and started playing the game that ultimately ended in his self-engineered demise.

I definitely wanted to play up the parallels between Caligo and Ionathas. It wouldn’t have taken much of a push for Ionathas to go down the same path and there may well be an If Arc story in the future that explores that possibility. Anyway, even with Caligo seeking his own death, there’s no way an ordinary human could stand a chance against an ancient vampire of Caligo’s power, so I contrived the revival of Caligo’s Companions, their destruction at his hands and the Monarch Lich’s punishment for his disobedience. Being brought down to the level of a newborn vampire, Ionathas wasn’t quite so ridiculously outmatched but still didn’t stand much chance if Caligo wasn’t intent on dying by Ionathas’ hand. The one condition was that Ionathas could not surrender no matter how hopeless the fight seemed. Ionathas passed the test and so Caligo handed over Soul Drinker bring about his destruction.

As evidenced by the fact that his section is the longest, Caligo is my favorite character in TTWC2. I may well explore his past in greater depth in as of yet undeveloped stories. Next time we’ll be looking into the tragic figure of King Orguz. Stay tuned.

Before I shipped out, the recruiters hosted an event where DEPers were taken to Fort Hood to get a bit of a glimpse of Army life. (Some of the soldiers on post urged us to reconsider our decision, but we’d already signed on the dotted line.) At the end of the day, we were taken to a sports bar on post where my recruiter happened to see an old battle buddy of his. After catching up a bit, he commented on how small a world the military is. That idea stuck in my head and I’ve applied it to the Tico series. I’ve got a rather long list different points of convergence with various characters (even if they never realized it). I allude to the long history between Admiral Mfume and Admiral Xenopoulos and thought I’d give you the details here as a commentary post.

It all began in 098 when a Lieutenant Xenopoulos was assigned to the cruiser Galahad as Assistant Operations Officer. Commander Mfume was XO and later captain. The met again when Xenopoulos was assigned to the Leonidas as First Lieutenant where Captain Mfume, fresh out of the College of Naval Staff and Command, was assigned as XO and later captain. Commander Xenopoulos moved on to the Memnon as Assistant Operations Officer and Mfume followed in 107 to take the billet of captain. After War College, Mfume became the Assistant Staff Operations Officer and later the full-fledged Staff Operations Officer of CVBG43 while Xenopoulos served as Operations Officer, XO and ultimately captain of the Lysander (the battle group’s flagship). (Mfume was with the battle group from 111 to 117 and Xenopoulos was with the Lysander from 113 to 118.) Captain Xenopoulos narrowly avoided the Lysander‘s destruction when he was transferred to CVBG28 to serve as Staff Operations Officer while Admiral Mfume was the battle group commander. In 120, Xenopoulos served as Chief of Staff for CVBG27 while Mfume was deputy commander of 6th Fleet and then you already know about Admiral Xenopoulos as commander of CVBG28 joining the Ticonderoga in Operation Orpheus and the Battle of Mars in 122. As you can see, that’s a good chunk of their respective careers that have overlapped. That’s a lot of history to have tied up when Marshal Van Daan gave Xenopoulos the order to hunt down the Tico.

These two are a rather extreme case of the small world effect, but it’s precisely why there’s a lot of emotion simmering beneath the surface. Hopefully you found this interesting. We’ll see what sort of commentary post I come up with next. Stay tuned.

We continue our look at the leads of TTWC2 with the Spider Queen Arachne. I know there are some people out there who don’t like raiders of the public domain, but that’s precisely what it exists for. Besides, I’ve had a passion for Greek mythology ever since I was 8, so it’s little wonder that I’d want to integrate a lot of Greek mythology into my own mythos, with a bit of my own spin, of course.

When I first added Arachne to the cast, she was little more than the giant spider boss with shades of Shelob, but with a little more working on her character, her personality started to come out. Her grudge against the Olympians, particularly Athena, was a given, but that didn’t have much play after the prologue, except as common ground for establishing her friendship with Medusa. I’ll talk about those two more in a moment, but first I want to cover her relationship with the Monarch Lich.

Although I set her up as the Monarch Lich’s consort from her first entry in the story, there really wasn’t much going on there until I added Basilissa into the story. The Monarch Lich and Arachne paired off in a simple bid for power. Arachne wanted a share of the Monarch Lich’s power for her own increase and however grudging the Monarch Lich was to sacrifice his power to perpetuate his line, she was the most powerful female in the Darklands and the most likely candidate to produce a stronger offspring. You may not think jealousy is a particularly interesting motivator, but the introduction of a rival helped rekindle Arachne’s more human emotions and gave something to drive her. Her rivalry with Basilissa and the detriment it caused to the overall war effort ties into one of the key themes of Volume II, that being the chaotic nature of the Dominion. (The name was no accident, after all.) For all the faults and failings you can find on the Zephyrian side, they’re much better at being united in a common purpose. Yes, the many allied factions in the Dominion fight against Zephyr, but there is no real bond connecting them and their competing individual interests largely serve to negate the great power they represent.

One of the more redeeming aspects of Arachne is her friendship with Medusa. Yes, they’re both monsters, but theirs is the truest bond you’ll find in all the Darklands. Almost every other relationship you’ll find in Volume II is tainted in one way or another, but Arachne and Medusa’s friendship is the closest thing you’ll find to anything pure. Orguz is perhaps the most upright morally, but we’ll get into the failings of his relationships when the time comes. Back to Arachne and Medusa, it started as little more than kinship based on their shared hatred of the ones responsible for their cursed fate, but over the years, they developed an almost sororal bond. It really is quite sweet.

Giving Arachne a more humanoid form was a relatively new development. Besides serving as a way to gain an advantage over Basilissa for the Monarch Lich’s affections (or whatever passes for such with him), it also gave her a way try tempting Ionathas during their encounter (somewhat in parallel to Simona the Dark Elf’s attempt during the Battle of Kalonis). Unfortunately for her, Ionathas likes his girls scaly. ^o^

I think that’ll do it for now. I’m looking forward to the next entry, though it’ll be a few weeks yet. I’ve got quite a bit to say on the subject of Sir Caligo, so look forward to that. Stay tuned.

We kick off our coverage of the leads of TTWC2 with the big man himself. First, let me talk about Liches in my canon. I was initially inspired by the Dark Lich of Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2), but it wasn’t until years later that I came to understand the conventional concept of what a Lich is in fantasy fiction. For the uninitiated, conventionally a Lich is a powerful mage who becomes undead as a means of immortality (usually by means of a phylactery, much like Voldemort’s Horcruxes). I would later apply this concept to what I term Demi-Liches. In my canon, a Lich is a male-only race of generative undead with great magical power. They are so powerful, in fact, that their power eventually consumes their physical bodies, so before that happens, they much transfer that power to a new generation. Liches will mate with a number of different species in an effort to give rise to a hybrid offspring with a physical form strong enough to contain the Lich’s great and growing power. Occasionally you’ll get a Lich who has a stronger sense of himself as an individual rather than as part of a continuum, which leads to problems. For instance, the ancient Black Lich caused the Lich line to go extinct for nearly five thousand years because he thought himself to be the perfection of the Dark Race. He did, however, realize his folly at the end and managed to seal up his power so that his line could be revived at some point in the future. The Monarch Lich very nearly terminated the second line for much the same reason.

Originally, the Monarch Lich had little motivation, particularly after Solon’s death. Much like Magnus Lee in Vampire Hunter D, a bored villain is rather, well, boring and so I knew something had to change. As I established the idea of the Copy Golem (think along the lines of the revived Kikyou from Inuyasha), I realized that death was no obstacle at all to the Monarch Lich’s torment of Solon and so his obsession is preserved. I found myself moving farther and farther away from the aloof overlord concept to making him much more hot-blooded, even petulant. One of the key themes with him is the conflict between his Lich and human natures. His ego and ambition are his undoing, but ultimately he does sacrifice the greater part of himself to continue his line.

I’d actually consider doing a prequel chronicling his conquest of the Darklands. It might be interesting to see him when he was young and brash, with all this power but little control. Perhaps I could even show his rise and Solon’s in parallel. That could be interesting. Anyway, that does it for now. Next time, we’ll give Arachne the Spider Queen some attention. Stay tuned.

We wrap up our coverage of the lead characters of TTWC1 with a look back on Corona the White Dragon.

I like writing nonhuman characters because it affords me the opportunity to think outside the box. I don’t take it too far because there needs to be some measure of relatability for the audience. Corona is not so recent an addition as Xenomachos, but she wasn’t in the early drafts of the story either. I honestly think her relationship with Ionathas blossomed as I wrote her.

There is no small irony in playing with the knight and lady dynamic when the lady in question happens to also be a Dragon. Elves and Dragons both have quite a bit of aloofness to them as a general rule, but Dragons also carry a great power and menace even when they masquerade as humans. Part of developing Coronas character was taking this strong, intimidating presence and softening it. It’s not like she becomes jelly or anything, but there’s a nice juxtaposition of these moments of vulnerability that I really like.

If you thought that her pursuing her revenge on Xorgoth was a poor decision on her part, I think you’ll find her bleeding and alone in a cave agreeing with you. Unfortunately, she never really thought out her rebellion and paid for it. The White Dragons were too beaten down after centuries of subjugation and too few in number to make a difference even if she could rally the entire race to her cause. It would’ve been better for her if she stuck with Ionathas (better for Ionathas too), but it’s just one more thread in the grand tapestry of tragedy that is the Trident War.

Well, I guess that’ll do it for now. I may consider doing a few of these for significant members of the supporting cast or perhaps cover characters from previous works (though a few of them have future appearances, so I may refrain and I may simply opt to do multi-parters). I’d like to get back to doing weekly commentary posts, so I’ll weigh my options. Stay tuned.

Lord Xenomachos stands out as one of the more recent additions to the story. He was invented solely for the purpose of balancing the chessboard with another rook, but I think I was able to do some interesting things with him.

Had Xenomachos simply been a loyal legate, he wouldn’t have been that much different from Lord Aristides and if his primary thing was his former exploits, he’d be much like Duke Cronos, minus the burden of contending with the Promethean Alliance. When I was thinking of his hook, I came up with a great idea to set him apart from the others. Because one of the primary conflicts within Zephyr was between Solon and the Church, why not have a character trapped in the middle? I didn’t want Xenomachos to be a calculating schemer like the Archbishop but rather a simple pious man who takes his devotion to God and King quite seriously. In fact, his simple steadfastness is the main reason the Archbishop couldn’t exploit him to the fullest.

I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy. He’s not dumb by any means, just simple and rather innocent. He hasn’t got a head for intrigue at all. Such an earnest and forthright character is really appealing to me in a story filled with so much political machination.

I feel it’s a bit of a shame I could only devote a single chapter to his love of Queen Xanthe. When I was thinking about when Xanthe psychically shared her entire heart and soul with the whole of the Zephyrian forces, it didn’t take much of a leap to realize that if you opened yourself up so fully to a person as pure-hearted as Xenomachos, he couldn’t help but love you. This is an important step for his character because while he showed all due deference to her station as Queen, he held a rather strong prejudice against the Elves. This prejudice was, of course, common throughout Zephyr, encouraged by sources sacred and secular alike, but the fact remains that he was predisposed against her just for what she was and then transcended that. Now, I’m not naive enough to say that all prejudice can be overcome through mutual understanding (and, strictly speaking, not all prejudice is a bad thing, but that’s a long and convoluted discussion for another venue), but a lot of harmful and baseless prejudice has a hard time standing if both sides open up in good faith. Xenomachos is an example that shows that Solon’s dream wasn’t entirely a vain one, just outmaneuvered and outgunned.

It was a bit of a mercy on my part to give him a heroic last stand in the Darklands because it’d be far too cruel to put him in the middle of Gamaliel’s coup against Daphne. I believe he would’ve stood with Daphne, but the conflict within him would’ve destroyed him. I know I tend to give my characters rather miserable and tragic ends, but sometimes I show a little kindness.

Because it’ll be a while before Corona’s section ends, I may consider spotlighting a character outside TTWC1. Stay tuned.

In one of my more standard quest-type stories, Ionathas would likely be the main character. Indeed, there are a lot of his exploits that don’t get chronicled in the story proper that would probably be part of the central plot otherwise. Whether the current setup is a good thing or not, I’ll leave that to the reader.

Besides being the typical hero, Ionathas is important as a representative of Notians sympathetic with the Zephyrians. It’d obviously be a different story if he wasn’t brought up from nothing by the Duke’s patronage, but it was important for him to have a foot in both worlds, as it were. He makes a good counterpoint to Prince Carpos, who betrayed Zephyr to join the Promethean Alliance for his own selfish ends. Also, making him a free knight gives him greater flexibility that a regular member of the legions would have, which is one of the keys to his success when he takes up the Duke’s mantle.

While Prince Carpos is more of an antitype, Sir Caligo is more of a direct analogue. They’re both lowborn men raised to prominence by their military exploits with an elite cadre of close followers who are ultimately betrayed by the very people they fought for. Too bad (or not) for Ionathas not getting the chance to turn into a vampire to exact his revenge. Honestly, I don’t think Ionathas would’ve done what Caligo did even given the opportunity. Therein lies the key difference between the two men. As wrathful as Ionathas was toward the Church for turning on the Crown, he didn’t surrender himself to that wrath, but as a result he was killed for it.

Regarding Ionathas’ relationship with Corona, I think I’ll save that discussion for Corona’s entry. And I believe that’ll do it for now. Ionathas is a fairly straightforward character, so there really aren’t many twists and turns to his characterization. Next up is Lord Xenomachos (once his section is complete). Stay tuned.

In the earliest stage of conception of what would become The Trident Chronicles, I didn’t have much to Daphne’s character besides a princess who could communicate with angels and fairies. I believe it had some relation to the Princess character class in Ogre Battle (which at the time I hadn’t played but only read Nintendo Power articles about). She may have been called Daphne at that point. If so, that’s about the only aspect of her original character profile that survived.

When the story was revived in its current incarnation, Daphne began to take shape as we know her now, the sheltered Half Elf daughter of Solon and Xanthe thrust into the role of regent in her parents’ absence due to her brother’s treachery. Her character arc is all about going from the bird in the gilded cage to a proper leader of her people. I like to think that her development really comes through when you compare her encounter with Carpos in her prologue with the one in Chapter 3, then on to her negotiations with Rowland in Chapter 5.

Of course, we can’t talk about Daphne without bringing up Uriel. Pairing the princess and the rogue is a classic trope, but I think we all know that I’m not one to shy away from playing with well-worn tropes. I should probably have a spotlight for Uriel himself, but perhaps I should save that one for a later date. Anyway, focusing on the relationship with Uriel from Daphne’s perspective, there are a lot of elements at work. The element of gratitude for saving her life comes first, then there’s a bit of a girlish crush that forms that later blossoms into a deeper form of companionship. Part of it is to replace her brother and another part is romantic bond. (I’m going to note that Carpos’ incestuous ways are almost entirely one-sided, so there’s not really much cross-pollination going on here with Daphne.) Uriel’s presence goes a long way to building her into the stronger person she becomes, but it’s also no small part of what leads to her downfall. He becomes a blindspot for her. It’s not that she’s unaware of how his presence is compromising to her, but she doesn’t go far enough to keep her distance because she can’t. She needs him too much and it’s used as ammunition against her.

I like playing with the dilemma of balancing the desires of your heart with the duties of your station and I certainly wouldn’t mind exploring that more with Daphne. There may be a short or two in the future for it. Anyway, next up is Ionathas. Stay tuned.

Have I mentioned that I patterned the leads of The Trident War Chronicles after chess pieces? I only bring it up because it seems that, originally at least, the characterization of my “king” and “queen” characters were among the weakest. Just as I didn’t have much to work with in the case of Solon, so too was Xanthe a fairly shallow and incidental sort of character until the more recent version. However, because she had more to do anyway, I didn’t seem to have to work quite as hard to expand her role.

During production, I did some shuffling of the overall Tellus Arc timeline to make certain events fit in better with the overall chronology. In doing so, I made Xanthe a few hundred years younger than she once was. Being over 400 years old may sound like a lot, but for a Light Elf like Xanthe, that’s about the equivalent of being around 25. The fact that she became Queen of Goldleaf before she even turned 200 was quite unprecedented. Her relative youth made for a good combination with Solon’s idealism.

Just as Solon had to deal with significant opposition to his vision, so too did Xanthe and I play this up more with the Law-speaker Sidarazel emerging as her chief adversary. I don’t delve too deeply into Elven society, though, as a large part of Xanthe’s character is that she’s spent most of her time trying to integrate into human society, returning to El-Alar chiefly for important festivals and ceremonies and having little day-to-day involvement with her own domain. Even if Xanthe wasn’t a telepath of decent ability, she’d be all too aware of how she was regarded by the humans around her. Indeed, even the closest human to her besides Solon, Lord Aristides, serves her almost entirely out of his loyalty to her husband and doesn’t have any particularly warm sentiment for her. She loses touch with her identity as an Elf but can’t become human either. It’s a sad, lonely existence. Her one refuge was her children, but Carpos became distant in the years leading up to his betrayal, leaving Daphne alone as her only other support.

Xanthe at least has the strength to suffer for her part in making Solon’s dream a reality, even though she becomes more disillusioned as time goes on. Perhaps her being a touch more on the cynical side is how she developed the savvy to do pretty much whatever it took to give the Darklands campaign the fighting chance it needed. Using the illusionist Gulmengoel to impersonate Solon after his death was a new addition, as I realized there was no way they could just pretend to have him tucked away for two years. Underhanded, yes, but the venture would’ve broken apart otherwise.

It might’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened if Xanthe survived the Darklands campaign. I don’t think she would’ve abdicated the throne as easily as Daphne, but she probably wouldn’t have been able to rally enough loyalty to put up much of a fight. Hard to say. Maybe there’s an If Arc story to be had.

Next up is Daphne. Stay tuned.

During last week’s retrospective on Archbishop Gamaliel, I said I would consider going back and giving the other leads of TTWC1 a second look. I’ve decided to make this a semi-regular feature, hence the new “Character Spotlight” title. We kick things off with the first lead of TTWC1, King Solon.

When I was designing the prototype for what would become The Trident Chronicles, I didn’t have much of an idea for the character beyond “wise old king”, hence his original name of Solomon. (I used to have impeccable subtlety, you see.) Honestly, he didn’t really have much development beyond that original concept until the current version of the story.

You may recall that in the previous version of the story, I didn’t give each lead an equal number of chapters. Their sections were as long as the stories I had to tell and Solon’s was one of the shortest because, frankly, there wasn’t much there and seeing as how he dies before the fleet even reaches Notos, he only served to kick off the plot. By forcing myself to give each of the leads equal screentime (at least in terms of the number of chapters), I had no choice but to shore up shallow characterization and so Solon developed into the person he is now.

When I thought of his inauspicious birth, I realized that isn’t something that you can just walk away from. (I realize that the details haven’t been revealed yet, but you already should know from Xanthe’s epilogue that Solon and the Monarch Lich are “twins” of a sort.) Solon grew up surrounded by whispers and rumors and was completely despised by his father. When the King remarried (to a woman just five years Solon’s senior) and had a second son, Solon ceded his birthright and entered into the seminary. There he studied with future Archbishop Ieremias (the “reformer” so despised by Gamaliel in his prologue). Solon would have entered the priesthood were it not for his brother Carpos’ untimely death. While it was possible for Solon’s nephew by his half-sister Antigone to claim the throne with his father acting as regent until he reached the age of majority, Solon instead chose to reclaim his birthright with the intention of reforming Zephyr (with Ieremias’ encouragement as the two idealists sought to work both inside and outside the Church to achieve change).

While there had been relatively few all-out wars between Zephyr and her non-human neighbors, there was certainly no love between them and the Church’s teachings about them certainly didn’t help matters any. Solon took a chance by extending an olive branch and at least in the Elves’ case, he was lucky to find a young (by Elven standards) queen just as idealistic as he was. In the Dwarves’ case, their natural suspicions of the humans erupted into the disastrous Nanoi Campaigns, which ultimately resulted in the forced removal from Zephyr of the surviving Dwarven community. This seems rather cruel in light of the picture I’ve been painting of Solon, but it was the lesser of two evils as prevailing opinion was that the Dwarves should have been exterminated completely.

I would say Solon’s greatest weakness was that he was so committed to his ideals and his principles that he was blind to the world around him. Not completely blind, mind you, but he never truly appreciated how great the opposition to his policies was, leaving a situation where no one but a cunning and brutal tyrant could have held on to the kingdom in his wake. Daphne grew into her role as a leader rather well, but she could never be ruthless enough to fight tooth and nail to hold on to the throne (but that’s a subject of a future entry).

In the end, I find him to be a rather tragic figure who dreamed a dream too big for his world to contain. To call him too good for this sinful earth would be an exaggeration, but his high-minded principles were a two-edged sword that I fear cut him more deeply.

Next time, we’ll take a look at Queen Xanthe. Stay tuned.