I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

For as much as she adores herself as a subject, details of Colette's past are notably difficult to solicit from her. The earliest point in her life she has ever disclosed was her arrival in Freeland about eighty years ago, where she arranged for her singular transport to the Gorish colonies of the Vaul Viveras.

At first, she flitted around the desert dealing cards, admired for her exotic nature and supposed fairness. After opening an ordinary in Silverstone and losing it to a fraudulent lover — whom she later killed — she would eventually settle in New Ahzurdin. Undeterred by the city's strict theocratic regulation, she settled comfortably into its black market by opening "the Wayward Widow," an inn that hosts a secret bordello at night. Besides supplying Colette's usual repertoire of vices, the club also sold suppressed literature and news, enabling free discussion of otherwise taboo subjects.

Though profitable, the city gradually proved to be a dangerous setting for her business. With the threat of arrest drawing ever closer, she eventually found the help she dearly needed from your godfather, Thaddeus.

Upon learning that a celebrity (and philanderer) such as he was visiting the city, Colette extended Thaddeus an invitation to her parlor that he eagerly accepted. While there, he witnessed other patrons practicing open debate, and his initial motivations gave way to an epiphany. The demonstration would motivate him to found his own oratory society with his friends, a group that went on to draft the Revelation of Deliverance.

Grateful for Colette's intimate company and, admittedly, unintentional inspiration, Thaddeus contributed to Colette's stock of banned books and gave her his most essential gift: evidence of heresy committed by New Ahzurdin's Imperial Vicar. Through his lending library, he had traced the Vicar's borrowing of Hvaldist scripture by means of an emissary. He passed this information to Colette, who immediately threatened the Vicar with it, and from that point on, the authorities left the Widow alone.   

With your arrival, Colette has taken a strong interest in you being Thaddeus's adopted daughter. She has offered her protection on your travels, declaring it as repayment of old debt to him for rescuing her business.

(I truly don't wish to doubt your judgment of character, but a Niami of her stature can only pretend to be subordinate for so long.)

Sketched out Colette's design revamp. Colette was originally an old OC of mine that was completely detached from Freeland at first. However, I wanted to have another race in Freeland's world to act as a foil to the Utico in the same manner as the Gore to the Hren. I came up with the Niami because it allowed me to fold Colette into the story, and because for a number of Southwestern and Plains Native American tribes, spiders are important cultural symbols. For some, like the Hopi, there are stories of wise spider goddesses acting as benefactors to their people, while for others, like the Sioux and the Cheyenne, they are tricksters.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

In a village of Yunwi Tsunsdi, within Freeland's Blueglade region, there once resided a couple, Vero and Ana. The two deeply longed for a child of their own, and thus, they partook in a strange ritual to conjure forth a daughter. The odd magic that made her, however, left a roaring fire in place of her heart.

Elizabeth was a child possessed by wrath. Though her infernal rage terrorized her parents, they yet saw their daughter beneath her malevolent veil. While concealing her from the village, they nurtured her through creative outlets such as music and cooking, allowing her ire to slowly give way to compassion.

Despite his daughter's growth, an intense, unspoken agony lingered within Vero, a pain that would suddenly claim his life one day. The village's suspicions fell to the unusual girl he'd so fiercely guarded, and Elizabeth could only suffer the same impression no matter how dearly Ana consoled her.

Stricken with maddening guilt, an ominous voice arose within Elizabeth's mind, beckoning her into the nearby woods. It compelled her to enact a dark sacrament to bring her father back to life, but her focus was soon broken by an abrupt scream — Ana had followed her. Her lapse in attention wrought a catastrophic arcane explosion, killing her mother and transforming Elizabeth's dress into a monster.

In her hysteria, Elizabeth neither noticed her now-animated clothing nor the villagers that had come to investigate the blast until they drove her away in horror. She fled west, hiding in the Hrenish town of Fulton, where her frightful nocturnal scavenging birthed rumors of a demon haunting the streets.

A local occult exhibition, the Fulton Festival of Fascinating Phenomena, placed a bounty on the capture of the reputed demon. Elizabeth reveled in the chase, but she would ultimately find her match in you. Upon discovering her true identity, you pledged not to turn her in, and she agreed to travel with you in return for smuggling her out of town — though she clearly needs much more help than that.

(I’ve transcribed everything she’s spoken about, but I greatly sense that her perspective only presents a small portion of the full story.)

Sketched out Elizabeth's design revamp. My main goals for this were to better style her dress based on fashion from the 18th century, and to make it less tedious to draw in the first place. I know there's still a lot of detail, but I feel like the overall structure of her outfit here is much more conducive for replication than before. Rosy (her dress) is still capable of transforming itself, so I'll have opportunities to revamp her combat stance as well, though I don't think it'll be changing as much as her civilian stance did. I'm also probably not going to make her any smaller than this because she's supposed to be the second-fastest compatriot and I think it would look silly for that to be the case if she were too stubby.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

Beneath that scaly, grotesque visage, Phineas is simply a Hren haunted by the call of a faceless god. Born on the island of Hrei to a low shipyard caste, he longed for the freedom of the open sea. He indentured himself to a merchant vessel for a sailing apprenticeship, but the advent of Freeland's colonization saw it converted into a slave ferry. As soon as the ship arrived in the New World, Phineas abandoned it in disgust.

Left as a fugitive, Phineas turned to privateering, selling his plunder from Hrenish vessels to fencers in the Gorish colonies. Though preferable to slaving, the bloody business still weighed on his heart, but in New Ahzurdin's underbelly, he found relief in a Fehlman named Marietta. Her apothecary relied on smugglers for heavily taxed ingredients, and in their dealings, they fell in love. Phineas began hoarding his wealth hoping to afford a safe future with her, but his piratical operations became suffocated through the Ascendancy's passage of the Maritime Supremacy Acts.

He would become enthralled by whispers of a forsaken Gorish colony, "Ichto Alexias," said to hold immense treasure beneath its charred remains. It was strikingly absent from official Church records, but he would eventually deduce its location by speaking to darker circles. Upon his arrival, he was alarmed to see the town still inhabited by settlers, albeit ones bloated and clammy in appearance. They told him of how the Church razed the hamlet upon discovering their faith, "The Kingdom of the Void." When they promised him the power to secure his and Marietta's future, Phineas blindly agreed to their ritual. A sigil was carved into his back while he knelt before a blackened idol, and as an alien voice ordered him to stand, a golden obelisk then appeared in his outstretched hands — more than enough for their new life.

However, on the voyage back to New Ahzurdin, Phineas was dismayed to observe his body hideously transforming, the voice still plaguing his mind. Terrified of harm coming to Marietta, he would keep the obelisk and write her a letter proclaiming itself to only be delivered in the event of his death, granting her his fortune. Since then, his metamorphasis has only worsened, that dark presence thwarting every attempt he's made at his own life. You found him investigating an attack from the cult aboard the ruins of the Benedict Caertes, and he would agree to join you provided your assistance in destroying the Kingdom for good.

(He still has the heart of a sailor despite his affliction. His regrets are numerous, but he doesn't at all appreciate being handled delicately, either.)

Sketched out Phineas's revamped design. I'm glad I finally got around to doing him because in previous iterations, It kind of felt like he stuck out too much from the rest of the cast, like his story or concept was kind of a hangnail that existed just because.

I wanted to take Phineas's background more seriously than that first iteration, so I ended up writing a ton more for him than I could fit into the established optical limit, so much of the time on this one was just spent trying to trim it all down to size. At this point, I'm not sure what I could possibly omit without losing some important context or making the passage sound completely utilitarian. There might be more ways of shortening it that I come across when I give him his render pass, but I'm not sure.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

Hatched and bred in the Vaul Viveras — the Valley of Blood — Lucius is a shag-feathered Vaulidonic rascal with a surprisingly extensive criminal history for his age.

His father died before he was born, a deserved fate according to his mother, Ida. In his absence, she worked tirelessly to support the family, ensuring Lucius received a Church education. As stress eroded her health, Lucius took up a rifle to protect their home and resorted to petty thievery to support her. In time, Ida passed from illness when Lucius was only an adolescent.

Ida had arranged for Lucius to enter a Church orphanage in New Ahzurdin, but he was forced into labor like all Vaulidon. Less than a year later, he stole a horse and fled the city, becoming a wanted criminal — a status ironically better suited for the Vaul Viveras.

Lucius survived to adulthood through various felonious jobs, eventually becoming a hired gun in a region-wide freight war. This lucrative conflict, capitalizing on Gorish colonization, sees the Augur Trading Company and Caudex Conveyance vying for dominance of resource transport in the desert. Years of covert sabotage escalated their rivalry to open mercenary combat, with Lucius fighting for Caudex.

Despite his youth, Caudex highly values Lucius's speed and firearms powess. Even so, he would lose his entire team in a deadly engagement with an Augur squad. Soon after, he witnessed these same Augur men ambushing your party for supplies, spurring him to your defense. Impressed by your strength, he offered his knowledge of the Vaul in exchange for safe passage to Firebrim, a mutual reliance that has since extended far beyond the initial agreement.

(Truthfully, the Vaul Viveras belongs to people like Lucius, not you. If you hope to leave only dusty, not dead, he's a valuable ally — just remember what he's done for his experience.)

Sketched out Lucius's revamped design (i.e. I finished Doom TDA). Huge change from his original, Clint Eastwood-esque look, I wanted him to look much scrappier and more coltish. This was also an opportunity to reiterate on the Vaulidons' appearance in general, leaning even heavier into the humanoid velociraptor / horny toad hybrid look with prominent feathers, long necks, and wide, flat heads.

I also wanted the clothing to reflect their mesothermic cardiovascular system and their habitat, so I based it on layered fabrics. That way, the Vaulidonic wearer can quickly put on and take off layers of warmth depending on the ambient temperature.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

Quill is what the powdered-up dandies across the sea envision when they think of a Freelander. His parents both worked as slaves on a Geolithe plantation, but his father capitalized on his skill as a blacksmith to purchase his and his wife's freedom.

The two of them established a hardscrabble homestead in the wetlands near Port Hopeful, bearing seven children, including Quill. Disease sadly took two of his sisters, and his brother was drowned by a tie-snake, so he was left to work for other homesteaders and hunt at this young age to support his family.

Frustrated by the Ascendancy's retaliatory suffocation of Port Hopeful and the growing presence of slavery in the Helsilt region, Quill took to the frontier along with a group of other free-Fehl to find a new home. They journeyed northwest to the forested base of the Laneth mountains, founding the town of Ewetop as a sanctuary for free-Fehl like them.

The town surprisingly endured the location due to the aid of the Hushen Dryad tribe. Quill himself, the settlers' lead hunter, received a dog named Koda as a gift from the tribe, fostering in him a deep respect for them and a desire for stronger ties.

While Ewetop slowly grew, it found difficulty attaining anything greater. Fearing abandonment from the Hushen in the wake of diminishing resources, Quill turned to a family tradition and sold his survival skills to wealthy clients in need of passage across Freeland. He and his current patron, Cyrus, met you and Wisp on their way to Fulton and have remained with you since.

(It's odd to be pitied rather than envied for having a S.T.A.R., but I suppose I understand his sentiment. He's crafted nearly everything he owns by himself... with help from adorable little Koda, of course.)

Sketched out Quill's and Koda's revamped designs. I thought I'd end up changing him a bit more visually, but I ended up liking his original face enough to not leave it totally behind. I've absolutely made him more buff/wide than he was before, though.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

A curiously-behaved scholar specializing in electric cosmic substrate. She was born well-off as the daughter of a Nocrothian deacon, but what especially defined her childhood was her love for the machines in her mother's textile mill.

Her father had wanted her to become a Siva, or a Daughter of Thorns. Even so, he supported her education at the Academy of Consul Axius, provided that she served as a Siva during her schooling as well as on a twenty-year mission afterward. 

After graduating, she travelled with her convent to the Uticon where she voraciously studied Uticonese cosmo-electric technology during her mission. She later found good work in a Uticonese engineering firm, but her interest would soon shift to the Hren due to their deeper knowledge of cosmic electricity.

Vivian used her fortune from the Uticon to immigrate to Centurion here in Freeland, suppressing her Nocrothian faith to blend into Hrenish society. Her lack of business acumen and sociability, as well her being a Fehlman, still caused many in her field to overlook her private research, but a Hrenish inventor named Emil Gray would eventually take interest in her work.

Gray was similarly transfixed by electricity, and so he hired Vivian to work for his research firm. Though she initially admired his ambition, she came to loathe his managerial ego. She ultimately left the company after he dismissed her discovery of zehrisite dioxide, a form of cosmic glass which can simultaneously create and store a static charge, because it threatened his own model of capacitor.

Now facing defamation from Gray and her own dwindling funds, Vivian has agreed to assist you on your travels while developing her zehrisite dioxide-based devices and gathering data, starting with her "Shock Saber Mk. 1." She intends to found her own company, but her long-term ability to manage one remains in question.

(Quite the strange brain she has. She maintains some personal habits almost disturbingly well, but some customs are seemingly impossible for her to grasp — like good posture and eye contact.)

Sketched out Vivian's revamped design. Vivian as a companion is meant to showcase the game's invention system wherein she will develop better prototypes for her Shock Saber as the player progresses her storyline. The mechanism on Mk. 1 is inspired by Thaddeus Cunningham's static electricity generator, but later models omit the hand crank in favor of less obtrusive implements.

Also, a mock-up of the shock saber's design. The gauntlet that covers the forearm is made of porcelain, as it acts as an insulator (rubber has not been invented yet)

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

Cyrus serves as a Justice of the Peace in his misty hometown of Blackwridge, but he's easily mistaken for an actor. Indeed, his very identity seems to be a patchwork woven from a multitude of his childhood heroes. 

Born the youngest son of a lawyer in the city of Blackwridge, Cyrus' boyhood was filled with grand reenactments of his favorite literature with his older sister Cynthia. These recesses complemented his passion for truth-seeking, inspired greatly by his father's work.

He became a full-time watchman as soon as he was able, patrolling Blackwridge with a dandyish shoulder-cape and cocked hat. His Hrenish peers would belittle him as a foolish colonial, but the way the common folk smiled for his service readily silenced their scorn.

A few months ago, Cynthia went to visit the city of Fulton to see its esteemed "Festival of Fascinating Phenomena." While she wrote once to him confirming her safe arrival, far too much time would pass in silence, and every traveler from Fulton he spoke to had little to no recollection of her. Suspecting foul play, Cyrus hired Quill, a Fehlmanic frontiersman, to help lead him to the city.  

After you and Wisp helped him and Quill track down the ogre Caddaja close to the Drowning Bayou, your two parties travelled together to Fulton. There, Cyrus learned of a stranger whom his sister had left the city with shortly after arriving. Suspicions inflamed, he now continues his search in your company.

(I admire his gallant sense of justice, especially considering how well that zeal has endured through the hardship we've faced... That mustache is dreadfully old-fashioned, though.)

Sketched out Cyrus' revamped design. Finally, I've got him out of that plague doctor's mask, that was just incompatible with the setting. I was worried his appearance would not stand out as much without it, but I feel like this should do a good job, especially with how much more dramatic I've made him. I also took this as an opportunity to tune the design of the Hren in general, with more deer-like facial proportions, antlers that blend into the brow like the other primordial races have with their horns, and a distinctly longer, cervine neck.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

She has been through a great deal, that much is certain. You and Wisp met each other when were both adolescents — you a lanky, well-dressed girl hiding behind her adoptive godfather, and she a lone runaway slave in the street, dusted with snow.

She escaped from a plantation in the Blueglade region with her younger brother, Chance, but while the stress caused him to surrender to the slave-catchers, she fought against the elements until she found Whitelocke. She was strained by the effects of a childhood head injury, a punishment from the master for preventing him from hurting her mother. Even now, she suffers from a stutter, impaired vision, and painful, uncontrollable convulsions.

Your godfather, Thaddeus, was unable to formally adopt her, but he would still provide her with shelter, education, and a pair of spectacles to better her eyesight. Although she was grateful for these opportunities, Chance's fate still haunted Wisp, so she gathered information about the old plantation and returned there alone to rescue him. 

Drawing upon her resourcefulness from her time as a slave, she crept inside the master's house under cover of night. While searching for any record of Chance's location, she sadly discovered that he had since been executed for attempting to escape. Driven to a solemn frenzy, she infiltrated the master's bedroom and killed him, fleeing into the nearby woods before his family could identify her.

Wisp would seek solace in the Hvaldist church, but her state of mind has only further deteriorated. She has professed to you that she receives visions from the Brother-God Qu'in, claiming to have been ordained by Him to liberate the slaves. She remains determined to fulfill this mandate despite her worsening lucidity, aided in secret by Thaddeus so that she may refine her skills and resources. To repay him for this kindness, she warned him of the Ascendant watchmen coming to raid his library and volunteered to join you on your adventure.

(Her eyes are filled with a disturbing intensity as she clutches that crystal branch and stares at the clouds, shivering. I cannot imagine how it would feel if I were tethered to her soul instead of yours — I apologize, was that mean?)

Sketched out Wisp's revamped design. It's kind of crazy to me that there are some parts of her original iteration that are still apparent here (at least in my eyes), but I'm much happier with her characterization now compared to before.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal. This line of pieces is going to take a while before everything is done...

Baltimore stands — rather tall — as a Gore peculiarly assimilated into Hrenish society. Known as 'the Muscle of the Mountain,' he works in the Sierra Voth quarry, shattering cosmic geodes and extracting veins of cosmic ore with ease.

To answer why a Gore would find himself amongst the Hren, one must first understand that he is a Loganite. In summary, the Loganites are a Hvaldist denomination who promote friendship and cooperation. Of course, any faith outside of Nothrothianism is forbidden by the Church of the Suffering Grace, thus the Loganites were branded as heretics and purged from Rethgil.

His family indentured themselves to escape persecution, but even though his contract has since been fulfilled, Baltimore still chooses to work in the quarry. He claims with great merriment to find the effort satisfying and that it enables him to protect the slaves and servants he labors alongside.

While he has so far been able to leverage his strength to bargain with the stakeholders of the quarry, the promises of mechanization worry him. With the advent of soul-tethering technology, it has been found that Tinihowi like myself can animate machines and, if programmed like STAR units, can potentially be made into automatons. 

Such technology is a tantalizing prospect to the stakeholders, but Baltimore knows the risks. While he realizes the ways in which the automata could help the workers, he asserts that as they are now, the hulking machines would further threaten their safety and drive up the usage of slaves to maintain them. To form a fairer integration model for the automata, he has decided to travel to the city of Centurion so that he can learn as much as possible about them — and in exchange for your help, he has happily lent his services to you.

(He's a gigantic man, both in physique and heart. As long as you treat your other friends well, then you'll have an easy friend in him, too. Don't take that to mean he doesn't have his own needs, though — simple men aren't simple in all ways.)

This is a sketch of Baltimore's revamped design. His backstory was a bit difficult to get working with Freeland's new history, but I'm pretty happy with how I've got it here. I even figured out how to work in proto NOVA :)

Also, to give some more detail on the Loganites, they belong to a Hvaldist denomination informed by the lectures of the Hrenish missionary named Logan Aiseth.

Logan spoke of free will as not just a gift from the brother-god Qu’in, but as a direct link to divinity that is shared by all individuals. As such, the Loganites believe that mortals exercise their godliness through friendship and cooperation, for the act of creation, of constructing something tangible or intangible and placing it into the world, forthrightly mirrors the gods’ abilities to do the same.

Logan had inanely hoped that these beliefs would inspire reform within the Church, but the Nocrothians would not take kindly to the notion that the Restitution of Knowing could be paid through any means outside their own glorious grief, much less that mortals were divine in any way.

The Church would declare the Loganites to be heretics and persecute them, forcing the survivors to flee the continent. Most would settle with the Niami in the Leilamani Archipelago, but Baltimore and his family were among the few to indenture themselves and escape to Freeland.

I’m currently working on revamping the designs for all the characters in Armada’s party. I’ll be uploading my WIPs through my news section because I only want to submit the complete illustrations to the Art Portal.

A Dryad from the nomadic Kiinolth tribe. She's a sweet and reserved young lady who holds a deep affection for wildlife — especially that persistant little follower of hers, a robin strangely named Cricket. However, there exists a tinge of melancholy permeating her every gesture, and it's easy to see why that is: up until now, she's only ever known captivity.

Long ago, she was kidnapped during a raid on her people conducted by another Dryadic tribe called the Quonam. The attack left her family too weak to pursue her, so she would remain a prisoner for decades afterwards. To suit the needs of their tribe, the only Kiinolth customs her captors permitted to her were medicine and tailoring, skills which later piqued the interest of a certain wandering merchant.

The trader, a Hren named Otto Madron, would agree to give the Quonam his complete stock of firearms in exchange for the girl's compulsory companionship. When she couldn't remember her original Kiinolth name, he became the first to refer to her as "Willow," likening her appearance to a weeping willow tree. He then made her his seamstress and his physician, teaching her Hrenish medical techniques while profiting from her work. Despite her situation, she found solace in an injured baby robin she nursed back to health. She later named it "Cricket" when it refused to leave her side.

For the next decade or so, Willow honed herself in private, hoping to eventually escape and find her way home. She secretly absorbed the lay of the land, memorized any new languages she came across, and learned to negotiate from watching Otto engage in business. Eventually, you came along and broke her free, promising her that you would help return her to her people. Stay aware that Otto might seek retaliation, but even worse consequences may follow if you break Willow's trust.

(She may try to keep herself as small as possible, but don't mistake her reservedness for submission. I sense she's amassed a potent fury somewhere within her heart over a lifetime in bondage; the last thing she needs is yet another person treating her like a delicate flower.)

Here is a sketch of Willow's revamped design. I ended up changing her a little more than I initially planned to, and I've updated her backstory to give her more agency and another layer to her character.