For the second sneak peek: We have Hyun. He's a reliable, yet slightly dim, older brother figure.

We had to put in a lot of effort to avoid his character overlapping with Keito's because they fill similar roles in the party. However, I feel like if we portray him as more earnest and straightforward, he could end up interacting well with the other characters. Baek Yuseol from Academy's Blinker and Crow from Trails of Cold Steel were the biggest inspirations for this character.

To make him more interesting from a gameplay perspective, he is physically unable to hold mana. For fairness' sake, though, we've given him one of the highest attack stats in the game. He also has access to "Blink (Modified)," which greatly increases his evasion at the cost of attack damage. This differs from a regular "Blink" spell in a few ways. The regular "Blink" spell has a 60% success rate and an MP cost, while the modified version uses TP instead and has a 100% success rate. It's his only real "spell," which is where the Blinker inspiration came from, along with his design, of course.

His personality was inspired by Crow's appearance in Cold Steel 1. He's the reliable older brother and goofball. After all this time, it's refreshing to write such an earnest and chill character. Especially compared to the rest of the high-energy cast!

As for his backstory, he is the youngest son of traveling mages who left him behind at a young age after he sustained a debilitating head injury that permanently damaged his ability to replenish and store mana. He wandered with a band of thieves and failed so spectacularly at his job that he was given a role in the local guard. Hopefully, his straightforward personality and sense of justice will be a breath of fresh air in a mostly morally gray cast!

Still on hiatus btw

- Quasi