For your reading pleasure: Jenna, the psycho-pyro sorceress

It’s been basically forever since I’ve bothered speaking of my original fictional works here. Most of that is because I figure that most people would not care. There’s also the bit that it still needs a lot of love and work to be fully matured and ready for display.

However, for today, I’m actually going to present a very major element of these fictional works, mainly due to the fact that Capcom Unity is currently holding a contest that asks for proof that my pawn is a look-alike. Well, I can’t quite prove that she was designed after something if I do not give proper proof of the design, no?

Anyway, let’s get cracking. This is going to be a lengthy post, so I’m going to provide you with a more. Feel free to click if you are interested in the information that is about to be divulged.

So, I shall start by the most simple of tasks. I present to you my main character for the Halcyon fiction that has been in production in my head for well over a decade. In fact, it all started around the time that I was eight to ten years old.

Now, yes, I did introduce her as the main character, not Seferia.  Most who read this blog are familiar with Seferia for obvious reasons; however, Seferia is actually, in video game terms, a mid-boss.  Jenna has always been the main character of my fictional work.  I only utilize Seferia’s name so much because it has a certain ring to it that sounds unique.

Anyway, as I stated, this character first was conceptualized many long years ago back when I was still in school.  I’ll admit, she started as a self-insert.  So, yes, she has certain aspects to her that resemble myself.  However, I’ve developed her a long way from those days.  At this point, only small physical aspects of her design reflect my own appearance.  Well, and her name, but I intend to one day go back and actually come up with a new name for her.  I am not happy with her name as is at the moment.

In fact, even her design has changed quite a bit over the years, in part because my ability to draw improved as well.  Some of my earliest drawings of her were extremely siding on the edge of disgustingly anime-syled.

To say the least, I’m more than glad that design died out quickly.  It was horrid and barely worthy of being shown even now.  However, aspects of that original design do somewhat remain, such as the gold cape and red eyes, but not much.  And I’m going to save myself the torture of putting up even more failed designs that this character suffered through during my teenage years.  They’re up in the scraps of my deviantart, so if you really want to see them, you’re free to check them out.  However, I do not suggest it.

Anyway, as time passed, the character also received several well-needed design tweaks to make her look at least standable and workable.  For a time, I thought I had found a design that did appeal to me.  It was rather simplistic, but it too had flaws, which I’ll go through soon enough.  So, for quite a few years, Jenna was spotted wearing this particular outfit.

Overall, this design was indeed a success.  It worked for several years and was liked enough by my close friend that she decided to make a custom plush for me of this design.

However, as I said, there were flaws to the design.  First, it did resemble certain animes too much, but most importantly, it had a functionality flaw with the pauldrons.  The easiest way for me to explain this flaw is to present the very image that I utilized to present the newest and latest design for Jenna’s armor.

As you can see, the design the current design has much smaller pauldrons, that permit for more arm movement.  Meanwhile, the older design was not a realistically intelligent piece of armor to fight in.  Unfortunately, the current design also is not finalized.  So, I am currently still at the “making do” stage for my character design.  Perhaps I will never be happy with the way my character looks.

Anyway, as to why I have brought about this topic to my blog for today.  I like to use my characters as my basis for designs in various game that permit me to create my own character.  In most cases, Seferia is used, because her look is more unique, and I feel like I might get away with saying I’m not that self-centered.  However, Jenna does regularly appear in these games as well.  To date, Jenna has appeared in Soul Calibur and Dragon’s Dogma, as well as an unused character in Portable 3rd.  In general, I prefer to use my own characters in part because I want to use those games to help me finalize the designs that are still foggy in my head.  I also find much more pleasure using my own creations over those that exist elsewhere.

So, permit me to show you what the psycho-pyro sorceress appears to be in those other medias.  First, the easiest one to spot a Jenna that looks mostly like what my drawn designs show.  Soul Calibur V’s create a character has been happily very diverse an gave me a lot of options to bring my characters to life.  Seferia also stars heavily in my custom characters there.

Jenna has also been shown in Soul Calibur V in a secondary form that I had not gone over quite yet.  This design was conceptionalized when I felt the need to make her not quite as clean of a protagonist.  Thus, my little tormented sorceress character gained more torment by earning a more psychotic and vicious side to her personality.

Thus, when I found that I could do it, I happily used this design to bring her to the fight as well.

Then, there’s the Jenna and Seferia duo that appear in Dragon’s Dogma.  To me, this is a rather humorous set because Jenna is the pawn in that game.  As I stated earlier, Jenna’s the main protagonist of my fiction, not Seferia.  In fact, Seferia is a subordinate to her faction.  While neither answers to the other, Jenna by no means should be a subordinate of Seferia.  However, Jenna is also willing to do things for the right price.  So, I suppose it can work for the two characters.

Sadly, outfit-wise, Jenna is by far not spot-on. I personally do not see the character ever wearing white outside of one circumstance which occurred in a RP scenario. However, the basic look of her is indeed matching with my designs. She does have her red eyes and tan skin. Though, it’s hard to find a game that would have properly unruly long hair, but I did my best to match there as well.

Anyway, enough of the design-talk. I suppose I should actually prove this is a character and actually explain her, no?

Well, Jenna is a discarded child of a dragon and a human that was raised in a land called Halcyon. Halcyon, a safe-haven for mystical creatures that was ruled by dragons, saw Jenna as the lowest denominator, and thus she was considered to be nothing short of a creature that needed protection. Also, Jenna did not originally have a name because she was not considered of any importance to those that raised her, and their traditions held to standards of finding names for their own and not being given ones.

As the child grew up, she became resentful of her status and desired to be more than just the charge of those that raised her. Thus, when she was given a chance to make a deal with an entity that she did not understand during her years of just barely being an adult, she took it. This deal was a chance at immortality that involved a pact that traded part of her soul with that of the “snake” that she bargained with. However, the creature turned against her and obliterated the civilization that she came from, leaving the sorceress with nothing.

Thus, Jenna is an immortal sorceress with a strong desire for revenge against the very thing that granted her immortality. She also has no love for humans, for she was burned at the stake by humanity when she used magic to save one of their kind.

Jenna still feels the need to gain more power in her magical abilities, so she regularly performs tasks such as assassinations and corporate espionage as long as she gains something that she wants in return. For the most part, she is willing to go to any lengths to gain her revenge against the being that betrayed her trust. However, she does at times show compassion to other beings.

There’s more to her, but I wanted to keep to the bits that I actually feel are stable and going to remain no matter how many times I bash my original universe into shape. I suppose one could look at my RP for more details on this character. However, that would involve reading about a decade’s worth of RP logs.

Anyway, I hope that this was in some ways an entertaining read. Please, keep in mind that while this character is developed, I still find it to be far from finalized. Perhaps, if people desire for it, I can explain my other characters with this sort of depth in the future.

One thought on “For your reading pleasure: Jenna, the psycho-pyro sorceress”

  1. Enjoyed reading the back story of Jenna. Sure wish I had been more creative with my own custom characters… But anyways, yeah I think this provides enough information for the contest. It was cool hearing the origins of both characters though. We do need to Soul Calibur again sometime. Best of luck on the contest!

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