Cassandra and Edmond come from the same original property, Rhianna’s short story Spectral Tides.  If I had to classify Cassandra as something particular, it would fall somewhere between a scholar, a tinkerer, and a scientist.  She’s definitely one of those people who loves to know how the world works, even at great hazard to herself.  Luckily, she’s got Edmond to keep her head on straight and help her keep out of danger.  Right now, one of the characters that Cassandra interacted with is a supporting character in Adelia Kreegan’s Wild Magic, so there’s almost a cyclical interaction within those two groups, as Adelia’s brother Luca is the leading character in Relic.

If we were going to make a game out of this content, I’m sure that Cassandra would be the most eclectic one of the bunch.  She’s not really combinative, but if we were building a brawler, there would likely have to be some things we would have to be open to.  I could see her being a very slapstick character, thunking people with the spyglass, or some other objects she might have on her person.

Once again, we’re closing with a card version of our hero.  As I mentioned before, this is the last hero character that we’ve teamed up with to do with Serathus.  We do have one last sprite that he made for us for one of the “enemy” characters you would run into in a would-be game, but I get a sense that it might be our last collaboration with him because of how busy he’s become over these last few months.

In any case, we get to cheer for the fact that all eight heroes were finished in this style.  I can’t wait to bring them even further to life in the book that inspired them, and if I’m lucky enough later, a game that ties everything together.

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Edmond’s first two stories were holiday tales written by Rhianna.  He first showed up in an April Fools tale that ended with a bit of a rick roll.  Then, Edmond showed up alongside his debut tale’s partner Cassandra in a Halloween tale with some ghostly elements.  Edmond would ultimately show up in another story with Cassandra with the upcoming Relic story, which means you’ll get to see her in pixel form soon enough.

Edmond has the power to somewhat control the weather.  He can’t quite make lightning in his hand or anything, but he is able to perform some minor manipulations, like creating a strong breeze, or adjusting where clouds would be.  With some clever thinking, he can do a lot more than what it sounds, and this makes him an invaluable member of whatever group he’s in.

And finally, here’s our card version of Edmond.  If Relic would be a beat-em-up game like Double Dragon or Castle Crashers, Edmond would have some interesting combat mechanics because of his weather manipulation.  I’m very pleased with the way he turned out, as this is the first time we’ve ever seen him.  To have him brought to life in this way was great, and I’d like to thank Serathus for helping make it a reality!

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Today, we’re looking at the second half of our piratey pair that we began in December.  Basta is a captain’s first mate, but what about the captain herself?  In steps Catelyn Angmar.

Catelyn Angmar is a storied captain who is living in a couple of shadows.  First, she’s got the legacy of her father hanging over her.  He’s a famous sailor who had ownership of a legendary ship called the Cutlass.  Interestingly, the Cutlass is supposedly now a tavern just outside of Viscosa, the ship allegedly having been brought upriver from the south seas.

Catelyn also has to contend, as a pirate captain, with the expectations of other people.  While she’s the captain of the ship, she is often conducting business from her cabin, as respect is not afforded much in her line of work to a woman.  It’s easier to handle things in a clandestine manner until it’s time to spring her trap, and by that time, she’s proven that her gender doesn’t matter much.

Together, she and Basta manage to handle a lot of the ins and outs of whatever kind of pirate or mercantile business they have that they’re going through.  While they are pirates, they’re perfectly fine people, and their allies are better for having known them.  Catelyn has her own quests that she wishes to fulfill, but she’s just as happy making sure her crew is well-paid, as long as they’re sailing in the salty sea air.

We have one more pixelated couple coming your way in this pseudo series, so be on the lookout over the next few weeks!

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Now, while we haven’t seen the literary introduction for Basta yet, we have seen him illustrated by another artist, Barnswallow.  Serathus does a great job capturing his essence in this pixel art, and fits a lot of character into so few pixels!  When Basta does appear, it will be in at least two books—the first Relic book, as well as the second book in The Ranger series, Heart of the Sea.  Basta is one of the good guys, along with his paramour, who we will see at the beginning of next year.

Basta is the first mate of the ship he’s on, typically, meaning he’s got a lot of work to do, keeping the rest of the crew in check.  In a lot of ways, he’s the face of the ship.  On the other hand, he keeps some secrets of his own, and they’ll be interested to unveil as time goes on.

As always, we close with a card version of our hero.  We’ve finally pushed into the second half of the hero characters, and while we left off with somewhat sad news last time around, I’ve got some other hopeful news instead going forward.  Serathus and I have partnered on additional sprites in this series, and he will be tackling some would-be enemies that the heroes might run into along their journey.  Again, his busy schedule may affect how quickly we can structure some of those for the website, but in any case, it’s interesting to think about.  On the other hand, we’ll see Basta’s love, Catelyn, in just a few weeks, so stay tuned!

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So far, we’ve seen the oldest heroes of the book series (Kaos, Dirk and Steel Tip), and we’ve traveled to Atalatha to see their champions (Alicia, Zachariah and David).  Today, we’re rounding out the biggest heroes from the second half of The Bindings of Fate.

Here, you can see the characters that we were introduced to once Westwick was discovered in the book series.  Christopher and Holklund were specifically found in that town, while Kaos and his companions happened upon Anson and Adelia on their way to stop Blacklehn from destroying Atalatha.  They’re all featured from top to bottom in the order they appeared in the book.

There’s a couple of interesting things to note here, too.  I made two versions of Holklund – one with pupils, and one without, to denote his power to see through other people’s eyes.  Anson is the only character besides Dirk not to be presented without a weapon or a spell.  And Adelia took me 16 different tries before I was finally happy with the version of her I ended up with.

So, that’s it for Tellest Pixels.  It was a fun little side project, but I mostly wanted to focus on the young heroes of the stories.  That isn’t to say there aren’t more that we could do.  You’ve got the Knights of Virtue, the antagonists, and everything from the rest of trilogy and the series to follow.  If I get a lot of positive feedback on these, perhaps I’ll consider adding more to the list!

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Last time, we showed you a couple of our earliest heroes (Kaos, Steel Tip and Dirk).  But we wanted to focus on a locale this week.  Atalatha is a huge part of the story for Tellest, and with that in mind, we worked on three heroes from the glorious city.

From top to bottom there, you have Zachariah, Alicia Mane, and David Garus.  These ones are a couple of the ones that took the most work, because we were outfitting them so specifically, and we gave Alicia, for instance, some magical abilities.  David’s just a smidge taller than all the other characters, too, to account for his size.

Stay tuned for our final feature on Tellest Pixels in the next couple of weeks!

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