Update 6 - Behind The Scenes (The Seven Realms)

Writing:

Well, this update had a lot of new information.

I appreciate that it was a lot. I tried to deliver it in a way that said enough of what needed to be described without getting too granular with every element. I'm sure there will be some people who think there was too much exposition and others who think I didn't describe things in enough detail. I hope that I was able to strike a good balance.

I wanted to show how much of a badass Naya was with how I introduced her, taking on a wolf without breaking a sweat. Then throughout the update, I wanted also to show off her cute side a little bit. Kali is interesting to write because I always have to balance her reactions not to be too bitchy lol. I have a good arc planned for Kali. Even if it takes a while for her to fully develop, please be patient. It's a long story ahead.

It would be easy to mistake Leyala and Kali as sisters, but they are the same person, split in two. We will look at how they are different throughout the story. Is it your DNA that defines who you are or the experiences that you went through? I always find the theme of nature vs nurture very interesting.

There were fewer choices within this update compared to the previous ones. I did this intentionally as I wanted to ensure we gave enough time to explain everything effectively, without the need for branching paths. Two of the choices made were very significant though:

• One determined if you will be developing Kali and Naya as Love Interests.
• The other is if you will try to kill Lucius.

What was your answer? Will you kill the King, or will you put your mates in danger to hear his side first?

If you want a condensed reminder of what was revealed, below is a recap of the key points:

• Leyala and Kali are two halves of the same soul, meaning they are the same person. The power of their soul was so overwhelming that it split into two and created two bodies.
• Atlas, therefore, shares a lesser bond with Kali and her bond mate, Naya. You can explore them as additional Love Interests, or they can be developed as friends.
• Leyala and Kali's father is Lucius, and their mother is Effie. Kerros and Solana are their grandparents.
• We also learnt Ley's species. She is a hybrid, 3/4 vampire and 1/4 sprite. This is the first time there have been any known hybrid species that wasn't a half and half. It's therefore created something of a new species.
• Effie faked her death and hid her pregnancy from Lucius, but due to miscalculations with spells that she cast, she has been in a coma-like state for 400 years. Kerros is supplementing her magic to keep her from dying, but he is slowly dying himself.
• In amongst all of this, we also met two Harem Members. Gina and Violette. Gina will play a role in future updates during Realm One. Violette, we won't see again until Realm Four.

Technical aspect:

This update was, unfortunately, another one where I needed to adapt my vision for the environment. I couldn't find assets that looked how I wanted Nym'Shiral (The Sprite Realm) to look. I am beginning to learn the program Blender with the hope of creating assets for the later realms. As Nym'Shiral is the final realm, I hope that by that point, I will be able to produce my vision for the realm.

Also, the assets were HEAVY AF. And if that wasn't enough, I decided to have like seven characters in some of the scenes at a time.

Some of the renders came out quite dark due to the settings that I used, so Jay played around in photoshop to light them up and enhance them a bit. If you feel like this update looked a lot brighter, that was likely why.

But aside from all of that, it was fun to pose some new characters, and I hope you liked how it looked :)

Where do you think it's going next? 

If you have any questions or want to chat about any of the events from this update, feel free to leave a comment on this post, or shoot a message to us in the Discord server.

Cheers,

Tae