Hi everyone.
Wow, it has been a long time I posted a journal, hasn't it, eh?
I know that it has been awhile that I have posted any pictures here, aside from these recently...
... but I have been working behind the scenes on a new project called "Life Stones Mobius". What makes this project different from "Morbid Gems" and "Sonic Wave" is that I will not be doing this project alone. This idea came about when I met
LeydenTheWolf777 in June of last year. He made up the concept of Mobian-like created beings called "Aetheric Beasts" for the Sonic Universe, and... let's just say it needed a little work.
LeydenTheWolf777 first came to me for information about the Omni form I made for Sonic so he could borrow the concept for an RP that he was working on with his friend
scarnic14. As I was talking to him, I felt pretty happy. He's a pretty good listener. I was able to spit out concept after concept for "Sonic Wave" and he always had a good question, comment, and even funny reaction to the things that I told him. When he was coming up with 3 forms for his Omni form, I noticed that they were borrowed concepts from DBZ and
Nobody's Harmonic Sonic.
I told him, "I know of Hamonic Sonic. I have been to that page more than once, even before I met you.
I think that we can make an original armor form that would be Kaira's and Kaira's alone... with its own power source. We can be creative with it since Excalibur Sonic's power sources were mystical swords.
<<
>>
I may have a few power sources laying around that I am not using... but you could. I even have sprites of them. The Crystals of Light and the Spectrum Crystal aren't the only power sources I made up."
Thus the Life Stones were dusted off from my ol' scraped ideas pile.
I grew a little curious of the Cyberwolf main character he mentioned, so I took a look in his gallery. When I looked at his bio, my bro and I had a good chuckle. The bio was that basically Kaira the Cyberwolf was made by the Luminmoths from "Metroid Prime 2" on the Planet Aether to be a great protector of the universe, and he was sent to the planetary system where the "Star Wars" was taken place to train with the Jedi and witness Order 66 being carried out. I also learned that the RPs had things from "Transformers", "Mortal Kombat", "Powerpuff Girls", "Kingdom Hearts" and "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic"... for a "Sonic" character.
Yeah... a real
Massive Multiplayer Crossover.
I told him, "Well... Maybe we can work on Kaira. I read the bio and... well... it may needs some work. A few things made me scratch my head. With the time I have designing characters, I know a few tricks that may help. I hope that you can hear me out."
"Sure thing. It's best you do draw Kaira in his normal form before his Omni version so you have the idea. And yeah I can hear you out. Plus I'm a patient man, 'cuz I have a lot of time on my hands on things, even if I don't have stuff to do around the house. :3 So what's your plan?" he replied.
I asked
LeydenTheWolf777 questions that helped centralize the ideas. I was always a fan of
TV Tropes, so the questions I asked broke down the themes of the series that he liked into new ideas for this project. While talking, the ideas of Aether's Light, Dark Aetheric Beast, the Order of Aether emerged, the Swordsmen of Harmony. Aether's Light is a stabilizer for Kaira to prevent the Aetheric Beast from turning into Dark Kaira, a destructive form that takes over his mind. We tried to figure out where this story would take place with Kaira and his creators, the Order of Aether, so we went with Blaze's World, "since Sonic Team shown that Mobians (Sonic characters) have natural elemental abilities there." The 7 Swordsmen of Harmony, or the "Heroes of Harmony", would replace the Jedi for Kaira's training.
A prototype premise went:
In a faraway land in the world of the Sol Emeralds, there were the Order of Aether. This group of powerful Mobians was practitioners of the union of science and the mystic arts. With their knowledge and power, they created two of their greatest creations: an artifact called Aether's Light and its guardian, Kaira the Cyberwolf.After we got that, I asked him questions to start world building and we came up with Cloud Sanctuary, a dimensional equivalent to Angel Island. The name came from Sanctuary Fortress and Cloud City, not Sky Sanctuary
. Then, I started to think, the Life Stones had more of a purpose in my old story other than to make a form, so I said, "I think that I should tell a little secret about the Life Stones. What gives them their power are artificial souls of great beasts that correspond to the elements, and with the crystals they can form weapons. However, since I retconned the Life Stones out of existence in my series, each of the stones can combine with Aether's Light to make corresponding weapons."
The Life Stones started to provide a more of a role. Later on, we thought of a different way that the weapons would be called out; after completing trails of the soul to prove that Kaira would handle the power of the Stones wisely, he would call upon the name of the Elemental Spirit Beast, "Thunderbird of the Electric Stone, Lend me your Power!"
During the development process,
LeydenTheWolf777 informed me that there wouldn't be just one of them, Kaira, but a race of them. I had a dilemma on my hands. I was only thinking that there was only one, so I made him a central character. How am I going to make a reason why the Order of Aether made more than one Aetheric Beast?
I said, "If you want an original alien design, I can do that. I made up the Faunsians and Planet Quelik.
guardianmobius.deviantart.com/…With a design to call your own, you wouldn't need to play by the rules because you'll be making them. I thought that we were making up full-fledged Sonic characters here, so I was playing by the rules that Sonic Team set up to make him fit. Through the instant that you have characters, places, and event from a per-existing series, that is mostly out the window."
"What do you mean by that? Just wondering. And yes, we're still trying to make Sonic characters. Sorry if this Aetheric Beast thing is messing everything up with the character stuff. ><" he replied.
"I think to clear it up and to help with the situation, I think the term "Aetheric Beast" should be for the beast souls in the Life Stones and the weapons/armor/beast forms would happen when these Aetheric Beasts are released."
""sigh" I'm not offended. I know I'm trying to learn, but the race thing, I was inspired by
's and
's ideas for their races. Not ripping them off, I said inspired. I mean, what you said can work, but now it's starting to get harder and harder to explain this whole thing right. NRGH! I really hate this kind of pressure. >< I'm not mad at you, I just....agh. >< i'm sorry. <8("
"Okay... There is actually a way that a Sonic character could be called an Aetheric Beast. What if that was the name the Order of Aether came up with to call their creations? "Aetheric" could describe who made it and the "Beast" part could be describing that these created beings could draw their power from the Beasts in the Life Stones.
Wake: That... that is actually clever. Kaira the Cyberwolf, you are an Aetheric Beast, but one a race don't make. Could have been more that were created by the Order of Aether?"
"If you put it what way, I think I now have an idea that might work. Hear me out.
What if...the very first Aetheric Beast was created (before Kaira) a very long time ago, and he/she learned that the innocents in the other dimension needed desperate help, so after a few more beasts were created, the first Aetheric Beast took 3 of them with him/her to that dimension to help those innocents. But then those 4, after some time, were able to find a new life on a certain planet, and was very peaceful. So the first Aetheric Beast talked it over with his creators, and seeing things are going well in Blaze's dimension, the Order of Aether probably decided to let them live in that dimension to protect the helpless people of the galaxy there, and the beasts that are in Blaze's world can fulfill their jobs there. And that would be how the Aetheric Beasts became a race in Sonic's dimension. Does that make sense?"
"I think that there shouldn't be a lot of the Aetheric Beasts, because creating artificial life, a.k.a. playing god, would be very taxing for the Order of Aether. Also, having a whole bunch of them pop out of nowhere in Sonic's world would be very suspicious. Just having Blaze and Eggman Nega there with the Sol Emeralds caused a space time distortion, and each and every Aetheric Beast draw their power from the Life Stones, so it'll be like carrying a Sol Emerald everywhere they go, causing space time disturbances everywhere they go. The big threats are covered by Sonic and his friends, so they wouldn't need the Aetheric Beasts help. I suggest thinking smaller, like one Aetheric Beast for each Life Stone that is 11. However, if you insist on making an army of these things, the number could increase to 55 Aetheric Beasts if the Order of Aether used two Stones for each of them, but that's it. Each one of these things is an army on its own. This is what it looks like:
{Fire,Water} {Fire,Air} {Fire,Earth} {Fire,Harmony} {Fire,Metal} {Fire,Electricity} {Fire,Light} {Fire,Dark} {Fire,Life} {Fire,Death} {Water,Air} {Water,Earth} {Water,Harmony} {Water,Metal} {Water,Electricity} {Water,Light} {Water,Dark} {Water,Life} {Water,Death} {Air,Earth} {Air,Harmony} {Air,Metal} {Air,Electricity} {Air,Light} {Air,Dark} {Air,Life} {Air,Death} {Earth,Harmony} {Earth,Metal} {Earth,Electricity} {Earth,Light} {Earth,Dark} {Earth,Life} {Earth,Death} {Harmony,Metal} {Harmony,Electricity} {Harmony,Light} {Harmony,Dark} {Harmony,Life} {Harmony,Death} {Metal,Electricity} {Metal,Light} {Metal,Dark} {Metal,Life} {Metal,Death} {Electricity,Light} {Electricity,Dark} {Electricity,Life} {Electricity,Death} {Light,Dark} {Light,Life} {Light,Death} {Dark,Life} {Dark,Death} {Life,Death}"
Later on, I replaced the Stone of Life and the Harmony Stone with the Nature Stone and the Heart Stone. The list of Elemental Pairs came from just inputting this:
Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Metal, Electric, Nature, Light, Dark, Heart, Death
into here:
Combinations & Permutations CalculatorSetting:
Types to choose from? 11
Number Chosen? 2
I was feeling that it would be a bigger project than I thought. To make it work out, I thought:
"Anyway, if this story of yours took place in a version of Mobius (this is what we are calling Sonic's world, and Blaze and Tija have versions of, for now), Kaira would be the big shot hero and the Life Stones are the power sources that set this universe apart. Cloud Sanctuary could be this version's Angel Island, ever looking over the world below for dangers that could crop up."
I revised the premise to accommodate the changes:
In a dimension different from Sonic's, the world of Mobius is governed by great controllers of the elements christened the Life Stones. With these eleven stones, order and peace reigns, but without them chaos and darkness befall the planet. For protection, the great stones reside in mysterious temples on the floating city of Cloud Sanctuary. There, practitioners of the union of science and the mystic arts, who call themselves the Order of Aether, used the power of the stones to create their greatest guardians and warriors: the Aetheric Beasts. Each these life forms were crafted with the power of two stones for an army of 55 warriors. However, not all of these beings were willing comply with their mortal deities. The very action that was supposed to protect them led to the fall of Cloud Sanctuary and the Life Stones to scatter to the reaches of the world. When the elements of life return to the temples of the sky, light return to the land as order reigns...After we came up with this,
LeydenTheWolf777 told me:
"Well, devKenshi-Wolf: said that these were the things that he did not like, what made him frustrated about me:
Super forms that have no real reason or simply do not have a reason to be turned off
Fusions
Bland villains who can ONLY be defeated by your characters
Characters with immense powers
Characters with powers from other series, that are not heavily in your own otherwise.
Those are the things. Cuz Kaira has these forms: Super, Hyper, True Super, SSJ, SSJ2, SSJ3, SSJ4, Dark, Holy, Harmonic (credit
for the idea of the form), Aethero, and Luminothian (it's a special form for an Aetheric Beast like Kaira or Xalon, so you know.). What do you think for all that?"
"I see. Let's address this piece by piece.
Kaira would only need two forms, Dark Kaira and Lifeforce Kaira. The reasons why they would need to "turn off" is the former is uncontrollable and highly destructive, while the latter, the Life Stones need to be where they belong, so Kaira wouldn't use them for too long. It would be good if Lifeforce Kaira is actually difficult to achieve. Kaira would need to collect the 11 Life Stones and channel the power using the Aether's Light Diamond. This could risk the Diamond itself, so he wouldn't use that form unless there is no other options. If there is a Kaira and Wake crossover, Kaira could use the Crystals of Light to make Omni Kaira, playing on the yin yang of the two forms.
Does he mean two characters making a form or the fact that Kaira is a Cyberwolf?
What things do you want in a villain? I can provide villains. Mwahahahaaa! *cough* Have other Aetheric Beasts as the villains so they will be on equal footing. Also have some friends like the swordsmen that can help Kaira get out of a jam time to time. A good analogy is the normal human Batman helping Superman.
Focus on a small list of abilities. One I imagine is him having electrical abilities, and he could have combative and practical uses for it. An example of a practical use is charging up a piece of iron to make an electromagnet. Another is being able to control plants, like having vines come down for him to climb on. Also, focus on weaknesses that villains can exploit.
I can provide some characters to flesh out Kaira's world so you wouldn't need the characters from other series. I made way too many characters to manage so I can give you some.
As for that list, dump them. That is way too many to have. Sonic has only six forms, so having 3 possible forms is good enough. Also, sorry to say, dump the previous form Sora, too. "
Since then, 3 forms were added to the list of forms I made, Aetheric Angel, Duality, and Wrath. I'll get into these later. Only Lifeforce and Wrath are Kaira only forms, the Aetheric Angel, Dark, and Duality forms are open to all Aetheric Beasts and maybe some mobians. The concept of the Aetheric Beasts turned from what would make the Mary Sue Litmus Test light up the warning signs to a sound idea.
The final draft is a lot different from what we had in the past. While working on Kaira, we were also working on another character who would serve as Kaira's personal antagonist: Ariak. During concept work on villains,
LeydenTheWolf777 told me this:
"I already have an alternative look for him. And maybe we can have his elements be {Dark, Death}, meaning he's the evilest of the Aetheric Beasts that was made in an experiment to counteract Kaira. The experiment then went out of control and absorbed the power of the Dark and Death Stones to become deathly powerful. And I think you can tweek that look a bit too. And his name can be Ariak, that's Kaira in reverse."
"The funny thing is that, currently, the Order of Aether made Ariak, since he is an Aetheric Beast... so... they made Ariak... to defeat Ariak? Paradoxical, aint it? Think that either Ariak isn't a (Dark) Aetheric Beast or there is a greater evil than him that they were preparing for. It doesn't mean that Ariak is a good guy. He can still be the big bad either way, but one is the Order was preparing for, while the other was unforeseen.
I think that is right.
As for the evil, it could be an Eldritch Abomination from space or from the darkest depths of hell or Planet Eater. Or a mixture of both. Or a creature that consumes life energy and the Life Stones aren't effected because they have the shells protecting them and the Aetheric Beasts inherent that protection from the Stones...
...
What if Ariak or his creators made a pact with this ultimate evil to delay assembling the Aetheric Beasts for battle, so they will be ill prepared when it comes?!
I have a scarier thing in mind... If Ariak isn't an Aetheric Beast, he isn't bound by the rules of their creation. What if the defecting member of the Order of Aether stole tiny pieces of each Life Stone sample that was used to create the Aetheric Beasts to use in his creation for Tartarus... A Tartaric Beast, the complete opposite of Kaira and the Aetheric Beasts.
Instead of two elemental powers, he could have all, though a bit weakened to start out with, and he can only call upon 2 at a time, since he has only two arms. Also, since Tartarus could call upon minions, he could give the defecting member all the help he needs to give Ariak more than one signature power. However, only one Tartaric Beast can exist because of all that power. As for why targeting Kaira... he poses as a threat to Tartarus's plans, not because of his power, but his ability to bring the Aetheric Beasts together for something greater than themselves."
Whenever
LeydenTheWolf777 and I came up with a concept, I ask the all-important questions: why, how, what, who, when? We put a lot of thought into this project, and then, when I got to Skype, I got to meet Kaira's friends.
Now the group for the project grew.
I would be sharing details of the finalized back story later on.
That would be it for now.