do you see the bees on the horizon

Illuga

human, twin sun sign, favorite genus: aves

for both illuga and flins, when i was trying to redesign them for this au, their outfits were much closer to their versions in genshin before i decided i hated it and wanted them to be more different while trying to maintain their silhouettes + some of the parts i really like and didn't want to get rid of (cough cough illuga's sweater cough). admittedly they're both still kind of just simplified versions of their genshin outfits (illuga moreso than flins i’d say)

for illuga, i took some design cues from hamelin, the little we have of bellicosia/halcyon, xanadu/perdida a little bit, and very specifically alicia because she is technically from that northern autumnia region

not lucien specifically because he's a knight and not a traveler, and when he does start traveling it's when he's entered his emo phase which. doesn't really fit Illuga

he also carries his lamp, a spear that's basically just the prospecter's shovel, and a bottomless bag (or not-quite-bottomless bag, it has expanded capacity internally but it isn't infinite) (i didn't draw it but he has one)

his backstory i'd say is basically adjacent to the one from genshin, just a few details changed to fit the world of nnk/my au

Illuga's familiars

familiars are named after greek mythological figures

Aedon - Firebyrde, sun sign, and also illuga's first familiar!

though extremely technically aedon isn't Illuga's familiar, he hasn't 'tamed' him and aedon lives in the lamp rather than in illuga's heart/the creature cage (i have my own headcanons abt how familiars work lmao), but like. he's basically illuga's familiar.

firebyrde felt fitting for aedon, and i also love the fact the he's just Huge. Illuga wears a falconry brace specifically so his arm doesn't get torn to shreds whenever aedon wants to perch on him

Tyche - Supercogductor, twin sun sign, illuga's second familiar. Met it somewhere in Autumnia as a sprog cog, for the sake of this au (also why it's a sun sign instead of star, naturally-spawning supercogductors are star signs but if you metamorph a sprog cog into a supercogductor it stays sun sign)

chose this because of flavor text from the supercogductor in the creature compendium, "This bright spark can generate electricity, and there is no machine it can't get working," and the sprog cog from the wizard's companion, "Cog-shaped creatures that are capable of slotting into broken machines, bringing them back to life." idk, Illuga just feels like such an important part of the lightkeepers, and the supercogductor i think highlights this pretty well. also its vibes just feel piramida yknow

its name is from Tyche, the greek goddess of luck

Phaisyle - Sea Naiad (to metamorph into a greater naiad), sun sign, Illuga's third familiar. Met as a lagoon naiad in that archipelago area near castaway cove

from the wizard's companion and creature compendium, their gems are said to carry purifying powers, and are said to disappear alongside them when they die. They also get a lot of healing spells.

i kind of fixated on the gem disappearing thing (because. because flins collects gems. and when illuga dies. yeah), but also the purifying part works out really well. I also think illuga would have a familiar that's good with healing, and the naiad line are the strongest healers in nnk im pretty sure

Phaisyle is apparently the name of one of the hyades (nymphs who bring rain), and specifically means 'filtered light', which i think fits both the naiads and illuga pretty well. take this with a grain of salt tho i'm getting most of my information from wikipedia lmao (i've seen it spelled phaisyle, phaesyle, and aesyle bruh i just picked one)

Flins

fae (NOT FAIRY) and wizard, moon sign, favorite genus: arcana

(i always thought it was a shame none of the nnk characters' favorite genus is arcana bc it has some really cool familiars and sadly my brain screams at me really loud if i do something i perceive as suboptimal)

for the sake of this au, fae and fairies are different species. fairies are born from the fairy godmother, while fae are born from the light of the sun/moon/stars

his backstory is similar to in-game, but i imagine he was asleep for much longer. I have 10,000 years between nazcaa and the present day to work with okay i can't just cram all of my made-up fae lore into the last like. 500-1000 years

For his design, i took design cues from the great sages. I actually really struggled trying to maintain his silhouette without just defaulting to what he has in-game/something similar (i was really set on not just giving him a big dramatic coat for some reason) but im pretty happy with what i have now

(the reason i was so intent on maintaining his silhouette is because. 1:i think his collar is cutieful, 2: without the long drapey bits/cloak he just looks naked. i tried stripping it all away for one design [sort of a la oliver's outfit] and it weirded me out so bad)

ive also redesigned his staff like a hundred times and might redesign it again. It was originally just a smaller version of bloodsoaked ruins, but i changed it bc i didn't like that, and then kept changing it because each version was too smooth/rounded or just really didn't feel like a staff (i think i kept making the head too bulky tbh)

carries his lantern, staff (which can transform/extend into a spear that is just bloodsoaked ruins), a locket, and a spellbook/journal

locket is shaped like a stella fortuna

for his spellbook, i like the idea that he collects spells/is very into magic and spellcasting in this au; i've been having fun bullshitting a magic system around what we have in nnk lmao. they showed like, the teeny tiniest bit of depth with Unleash

also, his spellbook is Extremely magical; it can hold more pages than it physically should be able to, and some of the pages are enchanted to essentially lead to a pocket space, which he uses to store things while on the road. he can also take out/add pages as he wishes; it essentially functions as his wizard's companion, bag, and journal all at once

oh also about the chain on his cloak. not super important but i imagine it used to be symmetrical but the right part got torn off so instead of getting a new one or something he just. slapped a chain on it to rebalance it and called it a day. idk

oo as for fae features, i imagine he has longer pointed ears, fangs, and claws with blackened fingertips. His wings i think would be like dragonfly wings. He usually hides these, though

he generally hides that he's supernatural/fae; illuga know's he's not human but doesn't know precisely what he is, and most other people just see him as a regular wizard (HOWEVER i do think itd be funny if people constantly mistook him as a witch or something. he has the vibes)

Flins' familiars

familiars are named after gemstones; all of them were obtained/tamed after he woke up from his nap

Phenakite - Wayward Sun, moon sign, flins' first familiar, and obtained using Form Familiar.

genuinely a slam dunk for a familiar and im pretty sure one of the first ideas i had when i got the idea for this au. Like, it's a false sun, and generally associated with the night sky in flavor text from the creature compendium/wizard's companion. It is So Flins

also it looks like it ragebaits people for fun. low cortisol core

phenakite is a mineral that's apparently often mistaken for quartz. plus apparently its name is derived from the greek word 'phenax,' which means 'deciever'

Quartz - Dualynx, moon sign, Flins' second familiar. Met as an Auroralynx in autumnia/around the billy goat's bluff

partially chosen bc the auroralynx line is one of my favorite lines in the game lmao, i basically get it as soon as i can and slap it on oliver as a healer

but i also think the whole duality thing it has going for it fits Flins pretty well, whole creature of the night who lives among humans thing, and the dualynx is specifically associated with the union of night and day

as for the name, i don't really have any specific reason for it beyond "it sounds good shrug" (i was Struggling trying to figure out names for his familiars tbh). I could probably draw something between quartz being one of the most common minerals on the planet and Flins trying to blend in/fit in to human society tho

Spinel - Midnight Flutterby, star sign, flins' third familiar. Met in the deep dark woods as a flutterby, since the line doesn't naturally spawn anywhere i thought it fit

it's a moth. he's a lamp. need i say more

more seriously, i was really struggling to figure out what his third familiar would be; i think i was waffling between the midnight flutterby, manglerfish, maybe the ice maiden line?? (i'm saving her for someone else though lol), the wisp, and possibly the kipper line. I ended up choosing the flutterby over wisp because i didn't really feel like either of the wisp's final metamorphoses fit Flins very well

it's a shame that the flutterby is Genuine Asscheeks because i really like it (why do insect designs in games slap so hard. i hate bugs)

anyway she's probably the youngest of all their familiars. shes like. their daughhter. baby. yeah

the word spinel is apparently comes from a diminutive of 'spine', in reference to the pointed shape of its crystals (i think??), but i actually chose this name because spinel exhibits asterism (basically, refracts light in a star shape) when shaped and polished rather than faceted, and the flutterby is a star sign

nonspecific rambling

fun fact i actually didn't intentionally make all of Illuga's familiars sun signs at first, but it happened to work out. he is suncoded sunpilled sunmaxxing

had to add a bunch of cities, mainly because i'm lowkey baffled by the extreme lack of ports in the world of nnk (which is a completely different tangent lmao). Piramida is located where Nevermore is/is basically built on top of it. as an extension of this, the miasma marshes also have another thing going on

within the context of my nnk au, these two are the only ones that got three familiars, because i realized a bit late that trying to manage 2-3 familiars for Every Single Character i'm including would be just an absolute fucking nightmare. everyone else will probably get one/none. two if i'm feeling generous

the spell flins has drawn in the first img is mimic! It was a bit of a tossup between mimic, veil, and second self tbh. And fireball

if one (1) ☝️ 1️⃣ person says they’re interested i'll post their old designs and rant about why i didnt like them

might play revenant kingdom one day. no familiars but the us president basically being isekai'd is really funny to me. i think i saw the first episode of someones playthrough and i swear 9/11 or something was happening in the opening cutscene

also i do not put nearly as much effort into naming my familiars when i play nnk myself. i think i've named at least three purrloiners purrcy. in my first playthrough i named my mite TBLOBNOERN

also also i have a love hate relationship with the sprog cog. in my first playthrough it took me like an hour (probably more tbh) to tame one for the commission, and by that point i was so mad i named if something like 'fuckhead'. and also was wildly overleveled because i didn't know the joys of savescumming yet. but i think they're cute now so i'll let them slide

the reason theyre talking like that is bc the fairies in nnk have welsh accents in the english dub and i kind of just ripped some of the dialogue wholesale so. Yeah

anyway hi. If you dont know what ni no kuni is you should play it ooooo you wanna play it soo bad oooooo (or at least look up the comedy routine its actually pretty good)

im just a liiittle bit obsessed with nnk ive replayed it like five times i KNOW its technically a childrens game but its genuinely so fun hashtag i love spellslinging and magic and familiars/pokemon esque creature capture systems

(i compare it to Pokemon but its really not that similar in gameplay at least. Maybe its comparable to z-a? my point is theyre both vaguely creature-capture focused with Little Guys I Really Like)

revenant kingdom ive kind of ignored though the gameplay is just too different :( also they got rid of the familiars afaik like whyyy (from what i know it’s like kingdom management slash beat-em-up real time combat? which is cool but just not what i’m looking for, i want to scroll through a list of thirty spells and blow up all of my enemies with the light of a thousand blazing suns and also my pet cat)

uhh the doodle of him tripping and falling on his face is from this just. dogshit screenshot i took of the new trailer. Yeah

chuuya lohen is also specifically inspired by this tweet:

Just. Imagine lohen with corruption. I cant tell if itd be the funniest thing in the world or the most terrifying (probably the latter for his enemies atvl lmao)

hugo zzz lohen is because i really like his attack animations and they fit lohen pretty well. I am Objectively Right about this. (Also i like his legs he should show them off more) (cough who said that)

the weird patches on shirtless lohen are supposed to be ice burn scars? I imagine he probably has a lot of them from like, overusing his vision. The one over his chest specifically i like to imagine is because he got severely injured in that area and completely iced it over to keep fighting (like a gaping wound over his heart filled with ice)

ANYWAY. the lohmika demons got me. 1) i am in fact 100% convinced the book in lohen’s idle is mika’s surveying device, 2) theyre just CUTE. Outsider pov, you see the vice captain of the fifth company with a terrifying reputation become inexplicably soft around the knights’ Soft Boy TM

based on what we know abt lohen rn he Definitely has a deeply tragic backstory but it also feels like he definitely has a lot of love and kindness, he just doesn’t express it traditionally/typically. Sit with me. Lohen and mika. Lohen is definitely pretty intense, and i dont think it’d be toned down for a lover (like he’s pretty openly intense/chaotic in game; he can definitely put on a princely/noble facade (maybe not even a facade, just another facet of his personality but probably not his truest self?) but he doesnt do so just for the sake of fitting in/being more acceptable, it feels more like another tool in his kit to get him where he wants). Someone like mika, pretty shy and meek, being confronted with the full force of lohen’s affection and baggage, and still accepting all that he is with open arms. And then lohen in turn accommodating his shyness, not drawing attention to him/them, but also taking care to celebrate and lift him up in private (and also literally lift him up cough). Lohen being calmer/more relaxed around mika. Mika being more open about his interests and accomplishments around lohen

also really like the idea of lohen and mika going on surveying expeditions together. Lohen gradually gaining mika’s intricate understanding of every ridge and surface of mondstadt. And obviously mika is perfectly capable of fending for himself, but fighting with lohen is almost fun; he doesn’t need to worry (too much) about lohen, can support him from afar with his crossbow or fight together with him close-ranged with his polearm, heal him if he gets injured (forever disappointed that mika is pretty solidly a physical dmg support because atk spd is fun and their kits lowkey synergize pretty well besides the phys dmg)

also also lohen teasing mika by constantly stealing his shit (but maybe 👉👈 its also a quiet promise from lohen that he’ll come back because at the end of the day he always returns mika’s things) (also the angst potential. Lohen nabs mika’s surveying device and he’s like >:[ hmph but also “he’ll return it by the end of the day (like always)” but then. A day passes. A few more. Mika still doesnt have it back. (Pick your poison lohen is severely injured and mika only finds his surveying device when he goes to visit him or lohen is just Dead, and either the device is damaged OR its in perfect condition :)))))

in one of lohen’s idle animations he just. Straight up pulls out mika’s book. Like

tell me these aren’t the same thing (1 they look the same, 2 from mika’s character story it sounds like he’s basically the only person that uses it so like. That’s definitely mika’s book/surveying device right. Im not delusional right). Lohen why are you stealing his stuff stop being mean to him

anyway does anyone fw lohmika. I think theyre cute

lohen is extremely pretty and mika is giving me a frankly ridiculous amount of cuteness aggression (his in-game model scares me though his head is So Big it somehow looks a lot worse than the other older models with similar proportions)

random headcanon i like to think mika is actually pretty damn good with math and physics specifically, based on some of the flavor text abt his mapping device