Fulfilling that Legacy - 2024.11.14

"Art should inspire and transport us to another place."    ~ Arthur Rackham

After much discussion over the last few months about one of the key characters in the game, Aelrue, our amazing and angelic Elf, we decided that she isn't as amazing and angelic as the original design by Mobum [or you could say "as she possibly could be"]. 

Don't get us wrong; the two iterations that we have shown in supporter images here and on the Discord server (including our good morning/night commands) are just gorgeous and we are so grateful that our Artist, Steve, made them. They captured what we initially thought was needed in striving to depart from the original game [for both practical and plot reasons]. 

We needed a character design that was both devastatingly, heartbreakingly beautiful but having that sort of otherworldly, ageless grace. Everyone in our dev team grew up on Tolkein’s versions of Elves, as well as the different groups like the Eldar, Vanyar and Morquendi (before the Sundering) and all had a pretty common idea of what all Elves should look like. Jeff grew up on artists like Alan Lee and John Howe, and I grew up on Jeff C. Jones, Elmore, Frazetta, Vallejo and the Brothers Hildebrandt. And Arthur Rackham - always him.

How could we afford to not do the same?

All of the artists I mentioned in the previous paragraph shaped what we as developers think of regarding fantasy art and specifically towards the Tolkein-ian ideal of what elves should look like. So we went back to the drawing board, after a fashion. Using the feedback from others on our images of Aelrue we had presented thus far, we talked about this at our dev meeting a few weeks ago (we have one every two weeks, on Sunday afternoon/evening). All of us had weighed in on ideas about how Aelrue should look like, and Steve - a consummate professional - agreed that we could make her better. 

So we did. 

Long story short (great game that btw) we have remade her. I have to admit that her new appearance looks so much more beautiful than I even imagined she could be - even better than the original. I’m quite frankly blown away by the newest and final version of Aelrue  and I think that you will be as well. I think we do her honor. The game is primarily about her, after all.

Stay happy and stay healthy,

-Jack Oh.

PS - Here is a better view of Aelrue's evolution into, I guess, her .final form'. Enjoy!