Dev diary - Cliona's design (Patreon)

When designing a cast of characters for a game like this, I've always tried to include some real contrasts and obvious points of difference between the different ladies, to help heighten their individual appeal and give a nice sense of variety. It's also good for story telling to have very distinct characters who can bounce off one another in interesting ways.

Therefore, it made sense to make Cliona tall, strong, naive and rough-mannered to contrast the brainy and worldly Delia, well-bred and pious Beth and the selfish and preening Az'ea. She's also a classic choice for an adventuring party.

"Scottish Red Sonya"

The first thing that inspired this character was Red Sonya - kind of a female equivalent to Conan the Barbarian, if you're not familiar with her. So we were going for that classic, scantily-clad barbarian warrior maiden type of character. The name "Cliona" is specifically a female Celtic name that sounds a bit like "Conan".

She also was inspired a bit by the wildlings in Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. Those were, themselves, clearly inspired by the Scots, so we went back to that inspiration and tried to combine elements of the pulp barbarian with a bit of a Celtic vibe.

Hence, you'll see that along with being a redhead, we made her pale with freckles - a commonly associated skin type. She's also got a bit of blue war-paint.

Maid outfit

When designing her maid uniform, LittleHeroes added in a nice little touches of having her outfit fraying at the edges from lack of care, and of her being barefoot when she goes about the castle.

My favourite touch, though, and one he also used for Delia, is to have the arms of the maid uniform kind of slipping off her shoulders - like the outfit doesn't quite fit and could slip down off her breasts at any time. I think that says a lot about the characters, while also being sexy.

We had a couple of different ideas for what we were going for in her general look, but we ultimately wanted a character that would still have a nice femininity to her, even while being a powerful presence.

I think I was a real nightmare for LH during this process because I had so many little notes and corrections... sorry! (That goes for all the characters, really.) At least I've got to a stage now where I don't pester the artists as much.

Barbarian outfit

For the barbarian look, I pretty much just gave LH free reign. I might have mentioned animal hides or something, but he pretty much figured out that whole look by himself - and I'm sure you'll agree that she looks incredible in it!

What do you think of the design? What kind of outfits would you like to see her wearing in the future? Let me know in the comments below!