Damascus St. Alugard Ryuuzaki’s theme
…61 years of freedom, while America celebrates 250 under the rule of a tyrant. Some…pretty interesting celebrating happening…
ANYWAYS, Damascus St. Alugard Ryuuzaki III. He’s our Co-MC, but what you didn’t know is that he wasn’t always the main character. His father was. Kori Ryuuzaki, in fact the Ryuuzaki name came from Magic Knights Ray Earth.
“Okay, but like everyone knows that, so why is his name Damascus.”
First of all, thank you inner writing voice for that wonderful question. I’m not sure how the inner monologue is happening here, but okay…
Like I said before, ORIGINALLY, this whole story was going to be about Kori and Vinis, and then transfer to his children, then his children, ect. I however got bored with Kori…A lot of what I was focusing on was a different version of a war, that I lost interest in. Kori, really started out as a male version of Umi. Kori Ryuuzaki is just Ice Dragon Blossom, Umi is Sea of the Dragon blossom. Not very original. When I reset everything and decided to go in a different direction; I’d had the comic under the title Dreamers Dynasty. I pulled that one from Final Fantasy… Look I was in my early teens at this point.
That being said, I wanted to give my characters names with meaning, at least the main characters. So the hunt for a name began. I was playing a lot of video games at this time. Final Fantasy, Castlevania, Megaman, Strider…we’re still in the PS1 era. I’m also in high school, and reading so many amazing comics. Battle Chasers comes to mind here, and I read an interview from a young Joe Madureira, and he listed off all of the games he’d played, and he’d mentioned anime. Life changing stuff. In addition to this my world history teach had put me on to this small little place called Damascus. THE oldest city in human history a city so rich in history that it’s existed for 9,000 years.
The more I learned about it, the more I loved the name. It’s just an amazingly resilient place. Even the characters of Final Fantasy take on names of weather and elements. I wanted to match that energy. I wanted something unique to a hero. So Damascus was the first candidate. College game around, and then this guy was shown to us for the first time…
This fuckin’ guy. His trailer, along with Kingdom Hearts II, changed my entire want/need to change what I wanted to create. I was shook. He was cool, powerful, and at the same time, lost and afraid. His abilities were mind blowing, and I wanted my character to show that kind of battle prowess. Finding out his name Noctis Lucius Caelum, the night sky prince… Mind Blown. So I restarted everything, yet again, and chose to stick with the name Damascus Alugard Ryuuzaki.
Like Noctis, I wanted to give him abilities that would allow him to make him cool, and deadly. Enter my boy…
Sonic Jermaine Hedgehog. Fastest thing alive. NO MATTER what death battle keeps saying. VIDEO GAME SONIC is SLOWER AND LESS LEATHAL THAN COMIC SONIC, and can out run ALL OF THE FLASHES except Wally West. Rant aside, I wanted to have Damascus to have to slow down to attach his enemies because using his top speed would in fact damage him more. So Damascus does in fact have super speed that he does not or has not used to its fullest potential. These abilities would granted to him, genetically, by his mother. But wait there’s more.
His being half Draconian I’d decided to enable a ranking system for the strength of his Dragon abilities that would apply to all Draconian. The enemy faction would use it as a means for propaganda, and the protags and their followers would use it correctly.
Tier 1: Salamander.
Considered the weakest. Draconians in this class are no different than magic wielding humans. Usually are untrained and have very little need to use abilities. Very domesticated.
Tier 2: Leviathan
Elevated strength, speed and defensive abilities. Above average abilities and limited magical education. Mild threats approach with caution.
Tier 3: Komodo
Vastly elevated strength. Lowered speed high defense. No capability to use magic. Extremely dangerous in combat situations. Easy to tire out. Elevated threat. Do not engage unless weakened first.
Tier 4: Bahamut
Extremely DANGEROUS. Capable of taking down an entire platoon. Such actions result in extreme exhaustion. Can be overwhelmed but may result in net zero results. Superior strenght, speed, lacking in endurance. Magical abilities are near village level destruction. Leaves very few survivors.
Tier 5: Neo Bahamut
Very rare. Do not approach or provoke under any circumstances unless accompanied by a hunter. Your safety is NOT guaranteed, and in fact you are expected to die if encountered. High level of adaptability. High levels of speed, strength, and endurance. Hunters dispatched to deal with issues are to ensure to juice up before engaging.
Tier 6: Bahamut-Shin
-no data-
Damascus from birth was classified as a salamander, however via actin an deed he meets the qualifications of a Bahamut/Neo with his summoning sickness. We’ll see what happens moving forward now that he’s getting treatment for his summoning sickness.
Ah-Reum’s theme song
I’m going to be honest…Remy as a character…I did not want to exist. I can not state this enough. I, ME, did not want her to exist. I personally felt that having a reminder of rape running around was a lot. I’d spoken to a number of women regarding that aspect of Hanu-els story, and while I felt like I was torturing her a little too much. I was reminded that there a millions of women who make a difficult choice to keep a child that is a product of rape. Taking the choice to give birth away from her seemed like character assassination.
My original intention was to make her a plant. A know it all mary sue plant that would cause a great deal of destruction and damage to the party before betraying them. She…grew on me. As she grows I’m finding more fun ways to have her interact with Damascus and Hanu-el as a family. She’s become a lot of fun to draw for me, and do enjoy putting her in situations where Hanu-el has to be a mother to her child, and I look forward to writing Damascus as a father. Her recent manifestation is the start of that.
I gave her and Damascus the same birthday because for Hanu-el it was supposed to be a day of extreme sorrow. When Ah-Reum was born, Hanu-el had been 2 weeks from captivity, so it would harmed her psychologically on two fronts. The loss of the man she loved, and the birth of a child by the man she was raped and tortured by. Hours of labor only to be told your child was still born and then 4 years later learn she was kidnapped. I was feeling super dark. I was going use this to delve into drug and alcohol abuse, maybe suicide. I scrapped these ideas because, for one, they were very shitty ideas, and cheap. I was asked to give the kid a chance, and I admit I’m glad I did.
She’s evolved very quickly, story wise. She can’t read yet, but I’m sure that may change now that they know she’s dyslexic. She’s going to have her struggles and she’ll go through some personality shifts and clash with her parents, but I’m sure she’ll learn that she’s loved. I’ve a few plans for her future…after all we just met her Great-grandmother, so there’s going to be some family dramz.
Please look forward to it.
