DevLog #7: Yamervas

Yamervas are based on my Chicken-Witch OC - at least the one I always wanted, but never even started to create in two years since first idea came in... so there is nothing to show about her.

Yamerva Final Sketch:

I had some ideas about specific important characters in the world and their personalities, thus initial Yamerva sketches and lore were based on these ideas more than on original Chicken-Witch. Yet, visual development of this tribe was long and messy, results never satisfying. At some point I decided include many other birds for coloration (mostly predators, like owls, hawks, etc.), but when I was changing their face (again) I got an idea to combine all popular night creatures - Owls, Bats, Moths; elements of each you can discern, and some of these elements turned Yamervas into supreme predators.

As you can see, plumage design variation I really liked in the end was "top-heavy but bottom-clean", though wings and feathers still were questionable in their style, and in some variants arms were heavily haired (not even feathered) like of moths. However, after seeing Chimera Falin from Dungeon Meshi, I got an insight on what to draw... and so you can witness a final version today.

Personality changes were minimal. You see Yamervas what they are always meant to be, it is just they were much more egoistic at some point: cared only about themselves and maybe some family, but never about own tribe and especially about Meority in general. However it didn't fit with other traits, thus I replaced Egoism with mere Arrogance.

I don't remember why I decided for Yamervas to have low female demographic. I think I wanted to expand on the fact that females are bigger and stronger than futales (which was an idea from the start).

Choices around clothing design are arising from lore this time: Yamervas believe themselves to be deserved only the most exquisite and opulent stuff, including what they wear: fine silk and a lot of gold, especially gold, very gold - because it is a rare noble metal directly from the body of Allmother (twice noble indeed). Hence they also don't wear trophies of the Serpent's creatures like other militant tribes (Tofar for example) - these are cursed and not of holy origin. I also fancied idea Black Tape Project to be used for Yamervas, because... its hot... and oozing with elitism.

Yamervas are great example how I incorporate some real words in a world where they wouldn't exists even if people there speak all Earth languages - because these words are related to mythology, folklore or religion; words that exist to describe a specific events, characters or concepts which might not exist on Meorenell. Two of such words were "Harpy" and "Valkyrie".

I was thinking to use "Harpy" specifically for married Yamerva futales, but this use was not meaningful enough, so I chose "Valkyrie" after researching: overall representation is close, especially in poems where they would serve and bodily satisfy and bring mead with food to their chosen heroes - which is everything married Yamerva futales would do for their beloved Wifes, when not participating in a war or hunt.

Find proper use for "Harpy" was more problematic for some time; I understood that in some places/times Harpies were considered violent bringers of punishment, serving directly to Zeus - which indeed close to personality of Yamervas who see violence and revenge against enemies of Meora (and her children) as a life purpose, but it was not enough to find proper use of this word. However, while researching Valkyries and reading about Old Norse language I found a word "Heri", which translates to "army" - a word which perfectly describes main purpose of Yamerva clans - to breed army. Thus I combined words "Harpy" and "Heri", giving a name to Herpi-Clans.

Even title "Jarl" was re-used for a chief wife of Herpi-Clan (but now it is called Yarl to keep in line with tribe's name).