Heya!

I don’t really have much of an introduction for this one, but I thought I’d share another character that I am pretty sure I have mentioned in previous posts. She’s one of the oldest characters, so she’s decently developed.

She doesn’t have much of a backstory as Eclara, but that’s mostly because her events are more shrouded in mystery that you’d hopefully figure out in game. I’m not sharing everything! No spoilers!

Without letting myself ramble on and on, we can get right into it!

Backstory

“Through her steps, the withered tethers shall hum anew, and the breath of magic return to waking roots.” - Liturgy of Dreams, Verse 3:12

Fate rarely announces itself. For Alata, it was evident the moment she took her first breath. Born as the second child of the preservation family, the bloodline entrusted with maintaining the planet Hetara, Alata was delegated the role of Seedbearer. This sacred role was responsible in maintaining the infamous World Tree with aid of the Tree Keepers.

It is difficult to express to non-Osworn populace just how influential and important this role was. Magic flows through the World Tree like a conduit, the canopy acting like a satellite dish for not only the planet’s magic, but the whole sector. It aids each Osworn in their own unique interaction with magic. The Sylvorians future sense, the Echomoths enchantments - none would work without the aid of the World Tree. This gave Alata an immediate importance; something she took with grace.

What was unknown to her for her first few acting decades was that the Tree’s power was waning. Roots withered miles underground, unbeknownst to anyone. That is, until Alatas dreams were encased by nightmares, the Tree calling out to her in despair. A panic occurred within the Tree Keepers as they all theorized the cause and solutions. Alata merely did her best to hamper the spreading decay.

In mutual interest to conserve the dying World Tree, Alata began spending more and more time with a Tree Keeper named Loano. Even under the threat of a crumbling society, a connection sparked, and Alata found herself enamoured by the Tree Keeper. She took to finding the positive in the glaring negativity - and that postive was Loano.

However, Alata’s brother Aelo took notice of her growing distraction. The emperor’s erratic and paranoid personality led way to a motion to exile Loano. The move was unprecedented, seeding a rift in the Cerfawn culture that tore Tree Keeper’s focus away from the root issue. Alata, however, drowned out her sorrow through work, tirelessly trying to mend the withering roots.

Kit

Of course, all of these kits are developmental, but this will give you a general idea of what I want Alata to play like!

Alata is a powerful caster who relies on skills and cast time/ephemeral turns to do very impressive feats. Unlike other characters, she has a lot of options but every single one of those options are slow to enact. She can act as a designated healer or damage dealer, perhaps even status afflictor if you build her for that. The main thing is that her magic revolves around dreams and nature.

Passive (Dreamstate):

All of Alata’s turns and actions are ephemeral. This means that Alata can never be turn broken. Additionally, Alata cannot use any off-turn actions, but her turn actions are restored on turn start regardless of turn type.

Alata is the only character capable of applying the Dream status condition. This status condition removes a character’s Move action and Follow action. Note: An upgrade idea is that each time an enemy afflicted with Dream casts a spell, Alata gains mana and deals damage to them.

Basic Actions:

Comatose:

Apply Dream to an ally. Restore all of that ally’s mana. If they don’t have mana (In the case of Covenant, Lyscander, or Late-stage Lattice), full heal that character instead.

Follow Feature:

If Comatose is used as a Follow Action, it only restores 25% of the respective resource.

Daydream:

Apply Dream to an enemy. That enemy heals allies in a 3-tile radius around them.

Follow Feature:

Apply Dream to an enemy.

Murmuring Meadow

Apply Dream to a target area for 3 turns or until they move out of the area. Allies within that area are healed and restore mana.

Dreameater

Steal an enemy’s mana proportional to the amount of damage this spell deals. If the enemy has the Dream condition, additionally steal the target’s health.

Hallucinate

Temporary gain 30% increased MATK. If applied to an ally, this bonus is reduced to 10%.

Special (Base Action + Follow Action):

Sever

Target an enemy afflicted with Dream. Permanetly bar them from using spells. If they are a boss enemy, this condition only lasts three of their turns.

Follow Actions:

Somnial Garden:

Heal an ally of a status condition.

Lucid Dream:

Heal an ally a percentage amount.

Development

As I mentioned, Alata, along with Covenant, was one of the first characters I developed. In fact, him and her are the only two first-generation characters (or whatever I denoted the term as). Her concept hasn’t really changed much, but her motivations have shifted. In the first iteration, the World Tree didn’t even exist - she was actually meant to be in service to a Lepherous named Ylth’ar (they’re a whole other species). Then the Cerfawn moved to the Osworn, which was then built out more to be a small magic-focused nation.

The World Tree came later - I kind of forget why originally. Regardless, it was always meant to be a conduit for communication from the Celestial Plane. It came to additionally interact with the Astral Film (which I’ll explain when I go over Lattice - I promise!) when it cropped up later.

Aelo and Loano became her main conflict around the same time. Of course, the reasoning of the happening changed.

Anywho, before I continue rambling more about uninteresting things, let me share Alata’s current concept art: