Greetings, travelers! We’re getting into some interesting unexplored territory these days. When we knew we were going to put some more focus on TowerSphere-themed items, like the teams and arenas, we also knew that in order to properly represent the top five members of our most famous teams, we were going to have to invent some more characters. Atalatha is an easy one, since it’s long been the hub of our experiences within Tellest. And Carthis isn’t too far off, because we were able to turn a lot of our previous villains into champions for TowerSphere up there. Even then, we did have a new character there with Mookina, though I was at least a little familiar with a character that I knew was going to be in that region, and in Viscosa we had Evelyn, but she’s been in my mind for probably 13 years now, and just hasn’t had her debut yet. But beyond that, we didn’t have anyone who fit the bill for Viscosa. Members of Divine Intervention are too young, and Laika, the Golem-maker, is too young.
Enter Roderick. This character is a complete from-the-ground-up character that we’ve made with Wern Szuen Lee. We knew that we wanted to get someone who could stand alongside the other two we’d already revealed, but he’s a far bit older than the two of them. Perhaps a seasoned veteran could offer different insights than the young cub. At first, we had him representing Viscosa with the big lion shield, but we thought we would dial that back a little bit, and have him represent Animus, the god of life, so he’s got the shield with the tree that you see below instead. He was giving Simon Belmont vibes, so it felt like a good fit.
As we continued to iterate forward, you could see Wern’s vision for the character start to come to life. We wanted to make sure that he wasn’t just a design for TowerSphere, but that he had a pretty big presence within the world of Tellest as well, so we developed a pretty big backstory for him too, as well as a way to integrate him into greater stories around his part of the world. He’s got a friendship with one of the aristocrats of Viscosa, which could be one of the reasons that he’s on the team, though it certainly helps for him to have insane amounts of talent on the battlefield (or playing field) as well.
Below, you’ll see the finished version of the character. Note all the intricate little nuances that Wern added to things like the shield and the claw at the end of the chain. Even the designs on the shirt and the boots really breathe new life into Roderick’s design. Creating something from nothing with Wern was a lot of fun, and it was a lot different than the way that I usually brought characters out from the aether. You can bet that before we were done with the TowerSphere prep, we did it a few more times.
That will be it for today’s post, but we’ll be back in just a short while more with additional TowerSphere competitors. See you soon!
Michael DeAngelo
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