Mara and Ying-Ying - The Dynamic Duo

This is the link to the official public Cryopod Art Repo: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1j8TrqSDRSB5dpzkKxPxZGsNDShcvRxsL 

This is the link to the Patron-only Art Repo, with unreleased art pieces which will come out to the public in future parts: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hey-everyone-art-29727436 

...............................

Today's characters first appear in Parts 208 and 209. Mara, the Baron of Games, and Ying-Ying, a high-level Warper, are two sisters who present a minor obstacle to Jason and Kar as they travel to Hell Harbor with the intent to bargain with demonkind's leaders.

As with all named characters in Cryopod Refresh, I only introduce characters if I plan to use them again in the future. In Cryopod Classic, I would often invent a character just for the fun of it, and then promptly forget their existence later in the story. Not so, for Refresh! Mara and Ying-Ying were actually invented on a spur-of-the-moment whim, but I quickly fashioned interesting personalities, backstories, and cultural heritages for them.

Mara, the Baron of Games, is also the head of the 'Tarot Sect.' What is this sect, one might wonder? Well, since Mara is a Baron, she's quite a high-ranking demoness. She has an entire sect of demonic acolytes, all of whom are trained to craft cards for her, along with a few other characters we may meet in the future. These 'Tarot Sect' members all possess oddly similar abilities, allowing them to wield magical cards that exhibit a range of powerful and unique effects. As an example, we witness Mara using her cards to divine the future, but this is hardly their only use.

Tarot cards, in Cryopod, are a lot like Orias's gems. They allow a demon to perform external magic via the use of an assistive device. I will not say what other abilities these Tarot cards might involve, but I will say they vary depending on which member of the sect uses them.

Meanwhile, Ying-Ying is Mara's sister. In Cryopod, I denote brothers and sisters among demons by whether or not they have a shared broodmother. Technically, any pair of demons born from the same rump will be brothers or sisters, however, the distinction is personal, based upon their histories.

Ying-Ying was born around the same time as Mara. The two of them are nearly identical in age, and have lived their lives all but attached at the hip. Sadly, while mara may have become a Baron, Ying-Ying found herself stuck as a mere Demon Grunt, someone stuck at the bottom echelons of demon society. On the plus side, her evolution into a Warper made her an invaluable strategic asset, allowing her to have only a bit less political clout than her Baron sister.

Still, Ying-Ying suffers from feelings of inadequacy. She wishes she could evolve into a higher form, but despite being a pureblood like her sister, she knows that Demon Grunts have only the most minuscule chances to evolve into Unique beings.

(Worth mentioning: I plan to make a post in the future addressing demonic evolutions, and how they're somewhat inconsistent. Perhaps I'll be able to fix the problems surrounding them by then.)

The next batch of characters Raul is going to draw will be Neil Adams, Hans Wagner, and Makoto Ueda.

Stay tuned!