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The beautiful land of Ellsaya is home to three unique races, that once lived in harmony. The Mantalis, the creatures of the sea, with their strong sturdy hand, shaped Ellsaya's vast oceans. The Skaigle, the feathered creatures of the sky and mountains, that soar above the land. And the Epsopods the wise creatures of the land and forests, with their butterfly-like wings and insectoid figures.

Three childhood friends are at the center of this story, Emiline, Altro, and Dargla. The children of elders of each race, they are at the center of the conflict to come.

In the middle of the vast land stands an aging tower; impassable by any mortal. While the tower has laid dormant for an age, something begins to stir and will shape the future of Ellsaya.

The Elders of each tribe become terrotorial; who owns the tower? The Mantalis, because it stands by the mightest ocean? The Epsopods, because the tower stands upon the strongest of foundations? Or the Skaigle, as the tower reaches up into the most magnificent of clouds? And why is the tower the key to all life and power? The tower contains the most powerful element known to the Ellsayans: The Tears of Ellsaya.

In the prosperous times, each area of Ellsaya was filled with tears, their bounteous life energy flowing forth. But, over time, the tears become fewer and fewer as they were harvested and placed in the tower to generate the life force. Fierce wars broke out: the elders accusing each other of hoarding tears for themselves.

You, the player, will answer a series of questions about your lifestyle, personality and morality, which will define the race fit for you. Upon deciding your race, you can watch your story unfold before you in a tale of conflict, friendship and war. Will you bestow peace upon the land of Ellsaya, retaining the bonds of your childhood friends? Or will you smash the enemy into oblivion and take the tower and the tears for your tribe? Let this be your decision.

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Designer Notes

This is an ambitious project, but one I want to see flourish. I'm working with an amazing artist, Tchuk, and we hope to produce something unique and memorable. We want to touch on themes of friendship, war and morality. Moreover, we love the steampunk style and want to create something beautiful but also something that makes sense in the setting we've described.

We only have a month, so it'll be crazy to see this develop so quickly! We really hope you enjoy our artwork and story and we'll continue to update this thread with our progress. Thanks for checking us out!

Just thought I'd post and say hi to everyone. I'm Tchuk, the artist working on this project and I'll be throwing some WiP's your guys way every now and then. For now though I'll give you a taste of what I've managed to wind down to the final character designs.



Even though it's only been a day so far, each race has been pretty carefully thought out and a great deal of sketches were made, a total of 76! So I'll see you guys in a couple days, maybe fewer with more detailed work!

For now if you'd like to see the kind of stuff I'm used to producing feel free to check out the following:

http://tchukart.blogspot.co.uk/
http://tchukart.deviantart.com/

Not many VN's, or games for that matter, have completely non-human races, so that's really cool to see.

Thank you very much! We are hoping to do something different with the non-human characters.

Hey everyone, thought I'd give you an update with what's been designed so far, a lot more sketches have been done but here's what I'm ready to show so far, what I think is the final design for the Aqautic race, the Mantalis. But we'll see if it fits with the others before we make any final decisions.

I thought I'd post more sketches of the main characters, I'm leaving one off here for design reasons but here's what I think we're rolling with. Some tweaks may occur but I hope you like

The art looks fantastic, great creature designs. IMO, the aquatic race should have a longer tail so that they look less slug-like and more like eels or snakes, unless that's what you were going for - but it probably wouldn't be very maneuverable underwater. Also, I prefer the four-armed variant of the bug race, two-armed just clashes with the bug aesthetic.

Normally, underwater races tend to be floaty, light, are often portrayed as wise and are usually the clerics/healers. So we wanted to so something else and instead made them bulky, strong and powerful. But, we still want them to be aesthetically realistic of course, so the suggestion is definitely welcome! What do you think, Tchuk?

From a design/writing perspective, I've started on the Childhood Branch of the Mantalis story. Slow progress, but it's getting there! I'm pleased with how the story is shaping up now that I've firmly pushed myself out of my comfort zone.

I took it on board, and sketches it up, hence me having these ideas for clothes with the longer tails included

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a275/ ... 405fee.png

Another update, All the main characters have been sketched now I think. Story may require more but for now these are the big ones. Let me know what you guys think!








Size comparison.

I think the naga-like appearance would make it a lot easier to move around, on land and in the water (Not that it would matter much anyway, from a visual novel view the upper body would be the most visible) Looks really good so far.

Testing colours out.

(If you're wondering why their faces are missing, I'm going to redraw a set on later for the expressions )

I can't wait to play this.
I love a good fantasy.. I've also been getting into and covering the steam punk theme lately so I'm sure I can learn a lot from this .
The art is amazing and to be honest, I would actually love to have a stuff toy that looks like the Skaigle design

All in all, good luck and I'm looking forward to this .

Awesome art you have there! I love the style you used there.
And the story really seems interesting. Story about conflict in friendship caught me there.
I hope you good luck and I will play this when this is done!

Oooo, the creature designs look awesome! Great to see something original like that. The story looks pretty powerful too, I'm looking forward to seeing how the themes play out.