Reija from Agwilika Rhe is one my longest lasting characters. I’ve been coming up with video game ideas since second grade, but it was some time in the late 90’s in high school when I came up with characters and other elements that have managed to hang around even to this day. Those earlier pre-high school ideas were really cheesy, with titles like “Happy Ghost” and “Potion Ocean” which for some reason I can still remember. Reija was one of those characters that came from that high school era.

The left image is the very first drawing I made of the character and one of the earliest examples of the Gwil/Agwilikan race. I have this vague memory of drawing it during English class… I was such a slacker at times. Reija has always been one of the main characters of Agwilika Rhe, though I did change the name of the story to “The Heart of Dragons” for a while until naming it back.

In that original drawing, she was accompanying Nesa Kylal, a young princess-type character. Reija was then the personal guardian of Nesa. However, at some point I grew disdainful of a having this little kid character and wrote Nesa out of the story, leaving the main characters as warrior guardian Reija, the sorcerer Anjil, and Crinos Kylal, adult daughter of the current Kylal leader. Remnants of Nesa did live on: the first Agwilikan’s name is Dominesa Kylal and nesa is the word for stars in the Agwilikan language.

I don’t know exactly when I started it, but Reija may have been the first 3D character model I created. It first came to be in an old application called Milkshape and was imported into the Unreal engine (Unreal Tournament ’99 I think). Over time she developed into what you see in the image on the right. Looking back at early images, I think I’ve been using a variation of the same clunky hand mesh from the Milkshape model on all of my characters, only just recently having attempted to model a better hand.

May 24th 2021 update: After all these years I decided to update the romanized spelling of her name, to Reija instead of Raeja. I did this to more closely match the name Reina, which is rather close to my heart. The native spelling of her name remains the same.

Most Prerarts enjoy a good bath and paddling around the lake, but you would be hard pressed to find one that likes to dive. One of those few was Miridyr, known to be a great swimmer and able to hold her breath for astonishing amounts of time.

Her famous feat was diving to the bottom of the lake and bringing back beautiful stones to decorate portions of her village. That location still exists with the pretty rocks still on display, and it remains a popular meeting spot.

In recognition of her legend, the Agwilikans use the word “Mirdal” for rivers, including the Prymirdal (great river) and Antalle Mirdal (named after the son of Dominesa Kylal, the first Agwilikan) that flows through Agwilcress.

Salmandano is the oldest of the Legendary Prerarts and is the most likely to be a complete myth. According to the story, he was born with striking red markings on his body and discovered he was immune to injury from fire.

His famous feat was finding a magical burning orb, bringing it to his village, and proceeding to dance with the artifact. He entertained everyone for many weeks until the orb’s power faded.

Salmandano was adopted as the mascot of the Mother Dragon Foundry where most of the structural components of Agwilcress were made. The primary material used for the construction is known as stormstone which is baked in the two large furnaces in the complex.

Tatur was famed for his love of food. His eating philosophy emphasized variety over volume and he went on numerous tours to find new things to try out. Like Tama-Tameree, he also brought seeds back to increase his village’s culinary diversity.

His famous feat involved a fire berry tree in his village, and one berry in particular. It was an especially large one and was at its peak ripeness. He told his sister that it was the best berry he had ever seen and was determined to eat it. She berated him, as it was far up on the highest branch of the tree, no place for a Prerart. Was he planning to sit there for days to wait until it fell, or do something even more brash? She turned to give him a chiding glare, but was surprised to find him gone, already to the trunk of the tree and starting his ascent. He ignored her protests and carefully made his way up the tree. He eventually got all the way up to the berry. Hanging upside down, He carefully plucked it from its stem with his teeth, then slowly and delicately consumed it. Once he managed to get back down to the ground, he declared that berry the most delicious thing he ever tasted.

In recognition of this legend, the most famous restaurant of Agwilcress is called Tatur’s Eatery. Its signature dish is a fire berry pie.

According to the legend, Tama-Tameree was a Prerart that had wings and could fly. Though quite a fantastical character at first glance, the fact that the Prerarts are closely related to the Agwil, a race that also has wings and can fly, lends some possibility to her being more than a myth.

According to one of the most ancient of legends, a group of arrogant Agwil were turned into Prerarts as divine punishment. Though they anguished over their new bodies, many began to get used to their fate and their children embraced their small and flightless existence. Perhaps a genetic glitch brought back a few Agwil traits to Tama-Tameree.

Her famous feat was to go on a long journey up one of the river valleys that flow into Basu Lake. Far up along a distant mountain tributary, she discovered a new species of tree with red berries. She carefully tested them and found them delicious. They had a pleasant sweetness and a hint of spiciness that remained on the tongue afterwards. She liked them so much that she ate her fill of them and decided to declare this her trip’s destination. She then returned to her village at Basu Lake, but when she did she spit out a gift for them – a mouthful of seeds from those wonderful berries. The village successfully cultivated trees from them and these became the favorite food of the Prerarts. The fruit would eventually be named bakromock, or fire berry, and also became a favorite of the Agwilikans and Akelikans.

Meta fact time: The image as well as the one for Pamar are based on drawings I made in Flash back in the day. I no longer have the original Flash files, only exported images, so I’ve been retracing these in Inkscape. Most of the Legendary Prerart pictures were also from a time where Prerarts and Agwilikans had vestigial wings, but after a great deal of internal debate I decided to scrap that idea. Tama-Tameree happens to be the one character that keeps the wings. Then all I needed to do was recolor the eyes.

Well…. I haven’t touched on these characters save for a few brief references since at least 2011 when I rebooted this site into WordPress. By a random whim to update an old picture, I thought “how about a reintroduction?”

The Prerarts that live in the same region as the Agwilicans and Akelikans have a number of legendary people they tell stories of. Being legends, some may be complete myths and those that were actual historical figures likely had their stories embellished. Their tales have been passed down through oral tradition, and only with the introduction of their humanoid cousins did these stories get written down. Each has a signature talent or feature, and a story of a famous feat showcasing that trait.

Pamar was an especially intelligent Prerart, particularly being interested in mathematics, something most Prerarts don’t get involved with much. In her time, Agwils generally considered Prerarts dumb animals. That changed when one met Pamar, learned to communicate with her, and became quite impressed by her mental acuity as they engaged in academic challenges. Her famous feat was creating a written number system that she used to show off her smarts to the Agwil. The numerals she came up with (shown in the bottom of the picture) were eventually adopted by the Agwilikans and Akelikans.

At the opening of Agwilika Rhe, there are ten Legendary Prerarts:
Salmandano the Firedancer
Tama-Tameree the Flier
Pabam the Listener
Miridyr the Swimmer
Tatur the Eater
Bisuwiki the Runner
Raralara the Sleeper
Pamar the Thinker
Buridamer the Songmaker
Kemidamer the Singer