The Legendary Prerarts: Buridamer and Kemidamer

These siblings are the newest of the legends. They lived with the Agwilikans and Akelikans and took up residence in the forest city of Priagros, the city with the highest mix of Prerart-Agwilikan-Akelikan demographics.

Buridamer became deeply interested in the music his cousins were producing and tried his hand in making songs. Over the years, his compositions became quite popular and respected. Musicians started to play his songs regularly, including full symphonic performances in the capital city of Cresselecapera and the military headquarters of Agwilcress.

His sister Kemidamer was also interested in music, though in her case she would contribute to the art using her singing voice. Buridamer mostly worked in instrumental pieces, but Kemidamer convinced him to collaborate on lyrical songs that she could perform. As her brother’s recognition grew, so did hers. However, if someone wanted to experience her singing, they would have to visit Priagros, as the two siblings rarely ventured outside their home city. And visit they did; people would travel from far and wide for an opportunity to experience a concert of the Prerart siblings.

At the height of their careers, the Second War commenced. The two were mostly uninvolved in the fighting, except for one key event. A division of Akelikan Army soldiers were pinned down but unwilling to surrender or attempt escape. The siblings arrived and led a performance of their most emotionally charged songs. The sweeping music and Kemidamer’s sublime voice impacted the demoralized soldiers so much that they surrendered moments after the completion of the music. A majority of the soldiers defected, and the remaining were allowed to return to their homes after being disarmed. This event became the famous feat that propelled the two to become the legendary songwriter and singer of the Prerarts.

When the Lucan Hill Theater of Agwilcress was built, the architects included statues of Buridamer and Kemidamer overlooking the stage.

Council Lord Lunark

Lunark is one of the Council Lords of Sha Rephart. Like the other two Lords, they are an immortal native of the Voidplane. Lunark’s race, the Lurin, are shapeshifting beings able to develop alternate body forms. Lurins cannot change form on a whim, however. The ball Lunark is sitting on in the picture is their “nest”, and they must enter it in order to metamorphose into another form. With study and practice, Lurins can develop forms convincing enough to fool others into believing they are a member of a non-native race. Pictured in the above image is Lunark’s “natural” form.

Lunark was responsible for developing a magic technology known as Tokens – objects that can be used to manifest tools, creatures, magical attacks, and more. This made utilizing magic easier to use and portable between users. Control of this technology also brought Sha Rephart to prominence in its corner of the Voidplane. The most popular Token format by far is a piece of paper, allowing for the creation of Token spell books. Lunark continues to be one of the best “Dreamers”, the people who design Tokens.

Lunark’s 3D model has slowly been in development. Here’s how Lunark looked previously in 2D from about nine years ago:

Yezukai’ay

Yezukai’ay is a character I came up with about six years ago, but she was hard to place so I had yet to post anything about her here. She came from a standalone story that I haven’t pursued and will likely end up wherever abandoned story ideas go. However, I just couldn’t forget such a cute character! Maybe she and other elements of that story will wind up somewhere else, most likely in the Elehura universe.

The item strapped to her back is a scribe’s case. I completed the 3d model for that part just a few days ago. In her original story, she was the personal assistant of the protagonist and handled writing things down and delivering messages as needed on their behalf.

She is a member of the ‘Suyen’ race. They’re closely related to the Gwil, but have some differing traits. They have dark gray skin and… whatever color those eyes are. Did I make her dress the same color on purpose? They are also quite short. Yezukai’ay is about 135cm or 4 foot 5 inches not counting the horns. Just in the last few days I also added the drooping ears and shorter paddle-shaped tail to differentiate them more from Gwils.

Sheshai, continuing

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Sheshai lately. I just completed another cycle of reading through my novel with her as the titular protagonist. A good number of corrections, adjustments, and additions came up, so it looks like I am going to go through yet another reading. How far will I get through this time before tripping over a typo or being inspired for improvements? Will it ever end?!

Speaking of improvements, my work on Sheshai’s 3D model continues ever on. Adding more polygons here and there for a smoother shape, trying different texturing techniques, just added eyelids yesterday, and slowly improving on making her more animated. Some things take so much work and I wonder if I’ll ever get it to where I am fully satisfied with it; I have occasionally reminded myself of the sheer number of names in the credits of mainstream animated movies and be proud of what I have accomplished on my own.

The Legendary Prerarts: Raralara the Sleeper

Yes, the Prerarts are the kind of people who remember someone for sleeping. Well, someone being known to sleep for days in a row is a bit more to memorable than someone who really liked naps. His peers noted that he certainly did put a bit of art and passion into his sleeping and the rituals of preparing for it.

One time, his village was performing a periodic migration. Despite his attempts to discipline himself to be ready for this event, when the time to depart arrived, Raralara was fast asleep again, in a particularly long session. Irritated by his continued behavior, his village left him behind. Eight days later, he caught up to them. He told them he had slept for another day past the departure. After waking, he desperately searched for the others, apparently going those seven days of searching without any sleep. He had a few misadventures during his separation, and his telling of them endeared the others so much that he wound up becoming the village’s lead storyteller later on.

Though that is his most famous story, it was not really Raralara’s famous feat. There was a surprising side effect of his lengthy sleeping. It was hypothesized that he did not age while in deep slumber, as he wound up living nearly four full Prerart lifetimes. This went very well with his new role, so though in his legend he’s primarily called the “Sleeper”, he’s also known as Raralara the Storyteller.

Nostalgia – Myrian, Miryin, and the Felcae Race

A little personal retrospective of a character that has evolved a lot over the years: Myrian/Miryin of the Felcae race.

Yep, the Felcae started as humans with wings over 20 years ago. This was back when I was a big fan of Super Nintendo RPGs. The cast of playable characters from one my stories each had a signature weapon type and a magic alignment. Myrian… or it might have been Marian or Miriam back then… used a bow and wind magic. Around this time I also established the Grepir race, which are birds, so this winged near-Human race came off to me as redundant and a lame concept. Side note: the bird character was a master of earth magic just to mess with assumptions.

At some point I came up with a new design for the Felcae, with inspiration from herbivore mammals.

For a while, I went with an idea to differentiate the Felcae from the other races by having them be a centaur-style being. During this time I also added on horns, which took inspiration from gazelles.

I wound up scrapping the centaur thing. I recall that decision came about when I was playing around with ideas for Sharpheart and decided if all the main races were playable, I would make them all bipedal to simplify game mechanics. The centaur design also just plain lost favor with me.

I wound up porting Myrian to Sharpheart, though I never put much into developing the character. I guess she operated more as an example of a Felcae character existing in that universe. I ported a number of characters experimentally to Sharpheart, now that I think of it.

As I got into 3D modeling, Myrian was one of the early characters I tried out. I didn’t work with this model for a long time after the initial setup, as you can see by the rougher quality.

A few years later I made an update to the character for Sharpheart. I renamed them Miryin, which I did not realize I had done all the way back in 2012 until I looked back on older posts here, so now I’m revising this post to append the timeline! Actually, looking further back in my archives I found out the character was named “Suyeen Myryn” at one point around 2007. Sometimes it’s so surprising to read the fragmented history and realize how far back some things go and wondering how my train of thought went back then.

I altered the tail design to be short and fluffy. Another concept I hit on here is that the Felcae are pseudo-mammals. In other words, the women of this race don’t have boobs.

I finally revisited the 3D Felcae design this year when I started writing my novel, adapting the character into Miryin of the House of the Shield. Despite the universe, gender, and uniform color change, the character is still depicted as an expert archer, calling back across the decades. For the time being I have scrapped the Human-like hair and the horns aren’t so thin and gazelle-like. I don’t know if those are permanent changes yet.

I’m not 100% sure on the spelling of Felcae. I pronounce it “fell-say” but I don’t know if other people will correctly derive that from that spelling.

Nostalgia: The Seraphelines

I had a story line for a while called the “Seraphelines” (Seraph-Felines, the Angel Cats, basically) about a crew of Pritar soldiers that fought undead hordes in a somewhat modern world setting. It’s pretty much a dead project now. So why am I bringing it up now? Well, I did some repurposing of items in that story line for my new novel. The leftmost character in the picture? That is Sheshai Gilms. I liked the name enough to reapply it to the titular Gwil character. The three males, Mars, Azel, and Silfred, are also characters in the novel. Unlike Sheshai, they stayed as Pritar and basically kept the same appearance. Who knows, Yoseka and Katherine might appear somewhere else.

The other name borrowed from the Seraphelines is the location called Lukaudalin. In that story, it was a Human empire that the team’s nation fought as a side antagonist to the undead.

Sheshai the Purifier

I have completed the first draft of my novel “Sheshai the Purifier”. I feel pretty accomplished; I have written many stories in the past but never completed a start-to-finish novel-length endeavor. Well, I think it is novel length, it’s currently at about a 67,000 word count. I’ve gone through a few proofreading sweeps already. I read it to my wife over a number of sessions and it’s surprising how many typos show up when you read it out loud as opposed to reading it to yourself. Next up I’m going to re-read it cover to virtual cover and decide if I want to make any revisions or additions.

The story follows Sheshai, a Gwil healer in the organization called the House of the Hand, as she gets recruited by a crew from the House of the Shield to help defeat an evil force that has overtaken a subcontinent island. Though she’s on the small side and appears timid to many, she has a strong spirit and a secret ally, as you can see in the picture. I’ll leave it to the novel itself to lay out those details.

Sheshai’s story is actually going to take place in the same world as Elehura, only in its past. Some of the items I put in the story are going to carry over and change elements of Elehura, including the addition of the Great Houses.

So uhhhhhhh, yeah. It’s not a story I can share with all audiences. I would be embarrassed to admit my writing accomplishment to my parents though I’d love to brag on how I wrote a dang novel. Honestly, this started as one of those kinds of fantasy stories that expanded out into a full-fledged adventure. So if someone might be interested in reading it they better know what they’re getting in to. It’s been a struggle, I’ve kept CSD mostly “family friendly” (come on, look at those wholesome Legendary Prerarts posts!) but you might guess at my level of interest in anthropomorphic characters reading between the lines.

The Legendary Prerarts: Pabam the Listener

Pabam hatched with unusually large ears. Early on he would often be teased about them, but his peers started to realize that those ears could let him hear distant sounds they could not perceive. He would sometimes accidentally overhear private conversations and pick up on potential threats, giving advance warning to the others.

His famous feat came about when one member of the village disappeared during a migration. A long search was unsuccessful and most feared the worst. However, Pabam caught faint cries in the quiet of the night. He left the village to track the sounds. It took all night, but he did find the lost villager, trapped with a broken leg. He was able to free her, and then cared for her until she was healed up enough to walk on her own again.

The two eventually found their way back to the village’s new location, though they weren’t alone upon their arrival – they had a son riding along with them.

The Legendary Prerarts: Bisuwiki the Runner

Bisuwiki hatched with an illness that left her skinny and frail. Her family expected the worst and had doubts she would live long enough to reach adulthood. She languished for a few years until a friend encouraged her to move around and took her on walks and eventually running sessions. To her family’s surprise, her health started to improve and for the first time they were hopeful for her future.

Due to the effects of the illness, she kept a wiry frame that contrasted to the rounder build of most Prerarts. This helped her run faster and further than the others, and she would regularly be seen tearing through the village.

One day, a baby strayed from her mother at a fateful moment and a large bird swooped in and flew off with it. The entire village cried out in despair as the raptor flew away… except for Bisuwiki. She pursued the bird for a great distance, keeping an eye on it through the rapidly passing treetops. When the bird was forced to briefly land and deal with its struggling cargo, a green projectile slammed into it and forced it to retreat without its prey. Bisuwiki returned home with the injured child and earned her place as a Legendary Prerart.

Prerarts hold an annual Bisuwiki’s Run event to commemorate her story. A run is held at Agwilcress Garden every year, utilizing its perimeter track. The participants certainly don’t attain the speed of the legend, but she would probably find great joy seeing them celebrate her passion.