Hello!!

Welcome to my first character introduction! I must say, I am super anxious to share my more creative side of things since I am not too much of a novelist, but I am quite eager to start getting character ideas out there so I can track their evolution - and so you can too! Since this is the first character post, I want to go over a bit about how I am going to and how I wish to structure these.

Basically, the idea is that the entries will follow an in-world journal entry written post-game. Of course, there will be no spoilers! But I think this way you will get a better idea of the character’s motives, goals, and overall personality. I will also include the rough kit design as well as their class for you guys.

As goes with most things in development, everything is up for discussion and has the potential to change. I can’t promise that your favorite feature of the character will stay in place let alone the character even be in the final product - especially this far out!

Entry

“They were quite literal. She’s the moon, Radielle was the sun. Unfortunately, eclipses can only last so long. They both knew that.” - Lyscander on Starlite Tonight with Jaxon Nova, GY 4325 - 5th of Nera”

Born as an only child of a noble family, Eclara never strayed far from her roots. She had little cause to distance herself. Her natural affinity for magic landed her prestigious opportunities within her local sect, one devoted to Kage - the dragoness of the Night. She, at first, aggressively pursued roles of higher status, hopeful that she could aid in the growing Tainlong Cruscade war. At the time, she was distressed that her age and lack of experience barred her from entry. Retrospectively, she is known to express discomfort and regret for her zealousness for bloodshed. Regardless of our perceptions on the past, her repeated attempts gained her notorious disobedience, relinquishing her to the Huashan capital of Shaita.

As Eclara aged, her temperament noticeably improved. As the waning war drained invigoration for fear, she managed crumbling communities with astounding care and foresight. She didn’t brave this alone, as she worked with the other Shenzǐ of her sister sect. This is where she had first met Radielle, and even early analysis shows their fondness for each other. They, in fact, hid it so poorly, the Língsu disciplined them. If the Língsu were not called to their death at the battle of Lampart’s Gorge, the two may have very well been barred from seeing each other ever again.

After the fall of the Tainlong Union and the emergence of the Huashan, Eclara and Radielle separated. The emergence of the Seven Scions overhauled the formerly dominant presence of religion within the culture to act as mere tools useful for manipulation. Both Eclara and Radielle were ignorant to this push, clinging onto a past that once was.

However, Eclara was promoted as a Maiden under the Grand Scion, the Minshan Cooperation. This led her to meeting the heir at the time, Fàng, and the forsaken fallen dragon he protected. Aiding Fàng with not only hiding but the caretaking of the dragon, she gained invaluable favors that came into play when the head priest of her sect died. Without much contention, the emperor of the Minshan appointed her as his head priestess, a role that positioned her at the right hand of the emperor.

Only a few years later, Radielle was appointed head priestess of the Yushang scion. Reunited, their bond grew over the next 5 years. During this time, they performed an intimate ritual that was commonplace in Huashan culture: Astral Merging. The only known consequence was that theyd be magically linked, hence what made it commonplace for marriages.

However, their hidden relationship cascaded into disaster in mere moments. Minshan developed a ceremony to promote unity throughout each scion, denoted as the Parade of Unity. Forgoing the explanation of the method, a symbolic gesture of this was for each head Priestess to interweave their magic streams to power the acient affix: the heart of Tainlong. An unintentended consequence of this ritual came about due to the duo’s aforementioned Astral Merge, causing Radielle’s soul to be ripped from her body and placed inside Eclara’s, along with her own.

The horrifying scene of a priestess dropping dead at the start of what was supposed to be a celebration set the attitude for what was to be a brutal investigation, one where Eclara was not initially suspect. Eclara did not know what had happened herself, nor had any idea why her magic was growing unstable. She sought answers that were not there, eventually seeking the wisdom of Ilya. Initially, Eclara at first despised Ilya for revealing the truth, but the eccentric phoenix granted her the knowledge on how to communicate with Eclara through the Film. While their relationship remains rocky to this day, even Ilya herself stated that neither of them would be standing if it wasnt for each other.

Regardless, various magical scholars eventually came to the same conclusion that Ilya did. When the priests briefly interwove their streams to activate the Heart of Tainlong, Eclara and Radielle’s stream instead began the process of merging, snapping Radielles connection, effectively killing her physical form in the process. The public forged the tragedy into a murder, causing massive backlash against Eclara. The Minshan quickly moved to execute her through trial, but Eclara took a plea deal to exile herself instead. She believed she could fix everything, just given enough time and faith.

She believed that the Traveler was the answer to that, latching onto their journey to the Celestial Plane as desperate hope that Kage would answer her prayers and save her lover.

…

Overall, Eclara has been said to be a motherly and protective figure, commonly a voice of reason. Lyscander referred to her as the most surprisingly sane person on the journey, even when her ire was drawn. Yet, beneath her maternal warmth, lay a lethal proficiency. One which, when stirred, was as awe-inspiring as it was terrifying

Kit

Eclara is a magic melee bruiser, in short. The basic idea is that Eclara alternates damage and attempts to stack as much Eclipse on an enemy as quickly as possible. The main advantage is that she has a lot of burst because she can combo with herself extremely well but, due to high mana usage, can only go for so long.

For reference, Eclipse occurs when an enemy is afflicted with both dark and light. The amount of eclipse stacks is equal to the min of the two. Eclipse is useful because it lowers an enemy’s overall elemental resistance logarithmically (upper limit being by 50%).

Here are the current skills planned for her:

Passive (Syzygy):

Whenever Eclara kills an enemy, her projected Turn Order is boosted based off of how many stacks of Eclipse the enemy was afflicted with. This does not count for ally kills. Eclara can dual attack without dual wielding.

Basic Actions:

Umbral Dash:

Dash behind an enemy, slashing through them and applying dark. Charge increases ability damage.

Sunlit Grave:

Strike down on a rectangular area in front of you, dealing Light damage to all enemies caught.

Follow Feature:

If Sunlit Grave is used as a Follow Action, it only attacks the enemy in front of Eclara

The Heretic’s Blade

Empower your weapon to gain +2 Dark on Base Action and +2 Light on Follow Action hit.

Special (Base Action + Follow Action):

Dawnfall

Eclipse switches to the max of Dark/Light applied to an enemy. Eclara then attacks the enemy that many times. During this, she cannot apply any status and removes a stack of eclipse each strike.

Follow Actions:

Light and Shadow:

The target gets +3 Dark to +3 Light depending on their Light Level (Basically how bright the tile is that they’re standing in).

Reaping Cleave:

Eclara deals dark damage to all enemies around her.

Reactions:

Crescent Divide:

If an enemy afflicted with eclipse attacks Eclara, Eclara can strike them back.

Development

I actually made Eclara and Radielle as a unit, and haven’t strayed away from their original idea almost at all. In fact, next to Covenant, Eclara and Radielle are the most static characters within the main story. However, Eclara is a third-revision character. This basically means that she emerged when I revamped the main cast for the third time (It’s been five times, I really need to stop). Her story is inspired by a mix of Cyberpunk’s whole deal with Johnny Silverhand and my sadistic desire to torture lesbians (it’s true).

A main motivation to develop Eclara was to expand on the Huashan which, as a fun fact, is a nation that one of my friends had helped develop. He made most of the thematic and historical elements inspired by his Chinese origin, and I made Eclara and Radielle were made in order to showcase his history and lore. Of course, I tweaked it a bit, but you can see the obvious remnants of East Asian culture in the foundations of the nation.

I will like to additionally apologize for the world-adjacent jargon that the passage is overloaded with. It is my hope that I will soon be able to explain all of it for you - the Huashan is very complicated!

Originally, Eclara and Radielle were heavily intertwined with a character that was mentioned in their backstory. Fàng used to be a playable character, but regressed to an important side character in the fifth character iteration. This did also mean I had to rewrite their story, but the general motif stayed the same. The original catalyst for their merger was actually from necessity due to an attack, but I changed it since it made little sense for any aggression against the Huashan at the moment.

Concept art

As a disclaimer, I do not do their art! Concept art is also decently limited for the time being since I just started to get into it, but there is a rough line-sketch of Eclara and Radielle I currently have! You can see their makeup as well as how their species looks.

Generally, the idea is that they’re furret-like creatures that are fairly large. You can see that they’re digitgrade as well, so they can walk on all fours as well as stand on their hind legs. I really like the current design direction since it allows Eclara to be sort of an imposing character while also allowing for the softness and lightness that I am looking for.

Of course, that’s the theory anyway!