Ikons

Dammit, I was going to do some sketches today and post those up, but I got sidetracked by a bunch of tasks... like doing laundry, cooking, and watching Nanoha. So I guess I'll settle with a little rant about Ikons instead.

Ikons are what make White Currents fun. They're the mystical, magical items that govern the destinies of many of the principle characters in the stories. The idea for Ikons originated from the True Runes in the Suikoden RPG series. In Suikoden, the True Runes are said to be the elemental forces of the world, which were born when the universe itself was created. The True Runes are, for the most part, innert, but they exhibit a form of will. They weave fates so that others will be guided to them, and the Runes will impart their wills on the individuals they pick.

In Saphiel's story, I wanted the stories to be explorative of the world of the series, Sharidia. Meaning that I wanted each episode to focus on a region of the world, or the culture of a civilization, and have Saphiel explore them for the viewers. The influence came from Kino's Journey, an anime series I dearly love. The only thing was... it wouldn't have been as dynamic if Saphiel were to explore these locales by herself. In Kino's Journey, Kino travels with her motorrad, a talking motorcycle. No, the motorrad isn't some kind of goofy cartoon character. It was rendered as a solid piece of machinery... but it projected a voice and conversed with Kino, and other characters. It's kind of stranged, and it worked like a charm. What I needed for Saphiel was a travelling partner.

Originally I was going to give Saphiel a small wyvern like creature as a sort of pet and companion, for her travels through the skies. She still has that pet, although it's now something of a bird instead, named Eos. The only problem was... did I want this animal to talk? I mean, it could be intelligent and all, and I have no problems with that. I wanted it to be more of a friend to Saphiel than a pet, and I still do. But... a talking animal? I wasn't too comfortable with that idea for my story world. For the most part, I want it to be a believable world, not a storybook or fantasy world. I know, having a world composed entirely of floating islands, mystical artifacts, heavier than air skyships that can float indefinately isn't really doing anything for believability. But dammit, I can believe it! And that's what matters! But where I draw the lines is in talking animals. I absolutely cannot stand talking animals in stories that try to take itself seriously. One reason I refuse to watch Chronicles of Narnia. It was handled correctly in Lord of the Rings, where the animals are intelligent and friendly, and they may even understand spoken language, but they don't talk back. They can communicate in other ways, but talking wouldn't be one of them. Anyway, I digress...

So in comes the Ikon. The particular Ikon for Saphiel is named Solumn, or Sol for short. It's a small brooch that Saphiel uses to clip her cloak together, but it's no ordinary piece of ornament. It's actually an intelligent and magical jewelry, that grants Saphiel certain powers to keep her safe. And of course, it's a trusty (if oftentimes annoying) travelling companion for Saphiel.

That was the original motivation for creating an Ikon, but I realized what I could do with the concept and greatly expanded upon it immediately, with Suikoden being a major influence. Ikons can represent the primal forces at work in the world, which in my case would be Ether. Actually, what I originally wanted the Ikons to do aside from being a companion to Saphiel was to be a barrier against the Ashir, the malicious, vampiric race of beings in White Currents. Of course, how they were used as a barrier was something I had to tackle, which was further compounded by the fact that I didn't really know what made the Ashir a threat, really. All I knew was that eventually, Saphiel would run into an Ashir, and Solumn would be the one to save her. How to tie the pieces together, though? Hmmm.

Well, the Ether concept came to the rescue. I guess I'll talk more about Ether in another post, but essentially I made both Ikons and Ashir creatures of Ether. Ashir require Ether for sustenance, and about the only way to extract them is to use a human as a conduit. Ikons require a human host to draw Ether for their abilities. The Ikons were created specifically to fight the Ashir, since about the only way to counter Ether attacks is with Ether. So, with this in mind, I began to construct the methods for how Ikons function, and began developing an entire backstory for them.

Well, it's kind of late, and I think this qualifies for my daily contribution for White Currents for today, so I'm going to retire. I'll go more indepth with Ikons later.