Rani Bio

Art by Henry

Rani Ibeshi is the daughter of legendary warrior and Imperial retainer Dokura Ibeshi, as such she was born into the high caste society and specifically spent her whole life around nobility.  Very early on it was decided she was be like her mother and be the retainer for Princess Aya, everyone expecting her to live up to the job and be great example of such an important and honorable role.  She was a little rough as a child but everyone assumed it was just natural energy from her father, but as she grew it became clear she was far from the perfect woman they expected.  She was violent, loud, foul mouthed, and all around thuggish.  She was nothing like her mother outside of both of them being skilled at fighting, and most people regarded her as yet another delinquent or hoodlum.  But she never does things that are overtly criminal, with most of her violence being directed towards other troublemakers and her high borne status and Imperial connections give her more leeway then the average citizen anyway. A lot of things get said about her, people on all levels of society speaking ill of her and even her mother is concerned with the person she became; but despite that there is one thing that is agreed on.  She is a great fighter and she always is there for the Princess when needed; she may not be the woman everyone wanted, but she is a good retainer and friend to Aya.

Rani Concept

For Rani I knew I needed someone that was one of the other Zhu races, to help show some of the diversity of the Empire. So an Ethera made the most sense for a bodyguard type character, a natural berserker with a notably different look from the others.  From that idea I merged the idea that each of the royals has a main retainer as well as wanting Dokura to have some more development so turned Rani into one of her children.  Taking elements from her initial storyline and my love of anime to create sort of a thuggish delinquent type character.  With all of that in mind the last thing was the design itself, which me and Henry tried to create something very different from the other characters to fit that if it wasn't for her bloodline she would be just another thug; the trouble making daughter of a well respected woman.  So taking inspiration from punk fashion and mixing it with a sort of anime bully look we got her outfit and hair.

Cutscene Test 2

 

A cutscene test. Music is random and not actually in it.  No sound effects yet this was just a new version of a test featuring some assets for an actual comic style cutscene within my stuff.  

Xerin (species)

Sketch by http://starduo.deviantart.com/

Native to the kingdom of Xerathis are the Zhu race known as Xerin. Outside of the Zhuni the Xerin are the most populous Zhu race within the Capital Kingdom. Appearance wise they look like Zhuni with fox ears and tails naturally growing on them, the tails ranging anywhere from 1 to 9 in number. With more tails being a sign of higher magic potential (3 Being the average 9 being very rare) and being one of the biggest status symbols among each other. Unlike the Zhuni who live as individuals and small family units, Xerin tend to be divided in much larger clans with all of their communities both in their own kingdom and within Zhu Shang Qiao being made up of people within the same or closely related clans. The clans that the royals come from is often a subject of heated debate among Xerin and can get ugly fast., and they will frequently go and try to speak to the Empress about how the certain clans shouldn't be allowed to.

Culturally they are very similar to Zhuni when it comes to how important Honor is to them but differ when it comes to their primary form of worship. Whereas for Zhuni it is discipline, for Xerin it is grace resulting in their major form of expression being not in the martial arts but in elaborate dances. Through these dances they activate their chi much how a Zhuni would with a stance, allowing them to manipulate their own and nearby energy as they do so. These dances range from forms of complex communication (Zhu Races can see more layers of the dance than other races) to ways of dueling, and when large numbers of them do certain dances they are known to directly alter the weather of their kingdom. This results in them mostly being support units in military situations, dancing from behind the front lines to aid the more directly combat minded Zhu in a battle. Their dances can easily be altered for battle though and many of the stronger ones are more than capable of channeling up waves of mystical energy and such. 

VN Menu update

Adjustment to the Menu UI. Still a draft version but I changed the color of the boxes and made it so when you mouse over when it changes more noticeably.  Obviously further adjustments will be done, just every now and then I go back and update the working version of them.