hello! i was really curious about your depiction of peri (yes im a kham simp don't judge meeeee) especially since usually they're just beuatiful women with wings from what i remember reading in children's books as a kid, and i wondered how you arrived at the idea to make them more nature-oriented (which i love btw)? and if there's anything you could tell us about their origins in the world of your game, like how are they born for example. thank you!
I'm familiar with the same exact depiction you mention from children's books and (Turkish) fairy tales that I used to read as a child, so that kind of nostalgia made me gravitate towards including peris to begin with!
But I also wanted to give my own interpretation of them while fitting in with the setting of AToC, and since spirits are abundant and created from the magic inherent in nature, it made sense to be to depict peris as a form of naturally-born spirits as well. Since you have the four elemental spirits born from fire, water, earth and air, it made sense to me to have peris as a form of spirits that was much more complex than that.
Their physical form as a peri also reflects from what/how they were born. Kham, as you can tell by her form, was a peri that was born from a tree (an oak tree to be specific), which in turn was created by a seed grown from her mother, Queen Nis. Many of the peris in the forest of Anshan are born from such flora, but there are also peris that are born from other parts of nature: rocks, minerals, gemstones, lakes and rivers, mountains and volcanos, desert sands, etc.
I also wanted to still include a nod to the real life myth of peris that usually depicts them as beautiful women, hence, the first peri you meet in the story is a princess who also has a beautiful human form, if you get to that point in the relationship 💖 it's also why Kham has wings, albeit only in her peri-form haha.
