Continuing from the previous post, here's the entry for the concepts of Flowerlings from the art book!
I'll be showing closeups again, but for the clarity here's the bottom text:
"At first, the concept was for all the Flowerlings to be old people. Flowerlings 2 and 3 were selected, and the female one became younger in that chapter. I was thinking of other flower motifs, like the cyclamen that appear to be looking down or cattleya with their frills that look like orchids. However, the shape and colors of the fuhcsia flowers that I saw around town left an impression on me, so I also incorporated them into the designs. (Ikeda)"
So like mentioned, Nao Ikeda made these three concepts based off the cyclamen, the fuchsia, and the cattleya. What we got in game were the "fuchsia," the male design, and the "cattleya," who became the females, though as Ikeda mentioned, they became younger in game and look more like young women.
By the by, Nao Ikeda has a wonderful eye for incorporating plant imagery and symbolisms into her characters - if I ever post the Dawn of Mana art, she explains what plant symbolism she gave each main character. In general, she's just really good at creative characters who follow a core imagery.
The "Cyclamen" design, also named 'Scarlet Salmon," didn't make it into the game, and as with the Sproutlings the original concept for the Flowerlings also seemed much different than we got. Here's the note:
"The 'Flowerling Village, where various clans congregate and live together, is a true flower garden. However, everyone there is old. One of them, 'Scarlet Salmon,' is nor an old man with a hunched posture, but he was really handsome when he was younger...
By the way, when they hold still they looks like flowers, so when they start moving they startle the main characters."
Some of these concepts also mention where the races would have been first introduced, and it seems like they were originally set in the "Giant Swamp," but it seems to have been a location that is cut out of the story, I can't think of any place in-game that resembles a swamp.
So, according to these concept notes the Flowerlings seem to be a harmonious sort in whose village the different clans live together, but there's not much beyond that, so if I had to guess any questline they were supposed to have were cut and they became NPCs that were connected to Sproutlings, and like them sort of just pop up in a lot of places. It's a shame though, I think the scenario of Shiloh/Serafina being startled by what they thought were flowers is a neat one. Hmm, I do wonder if the concept of "living together harmoniously in their own village" was given to the Lilipeas, given what we see in "Catchin' Lilipeas."
So for comparison, here's the in-game Flowerlings:
One last note, in-game Flowerlings have minor roles in a couple fo quests, helping out the students collect reagents in "The Field Trip"...
And probably being a big source of headache for players in "Teatime of Danger" haha. Though...we just kinda accept Flowerlings have psychic powers, don't we?
One also pops up in "Niccolo's Businesss Unusual 3" as a poor target for our favorite swindler.
