Creator Commentary Seawings Adventurer Guild
Personal Comments
Things just got out of hand. But rewind. I was a big Final Fantasy buff, back in the day. Not so much anymore, as Square’s priorities have hella changed from 15-20 years ago. Anyway, I played basically every one released for Playstation and PS2. Including FFX and FFX-2. The Gullwings kind of ruled, from a storytelling standpoint. Spira is a relatively unexplored world. They’ve got their own transporation, skilled combatants to deal with monsters, and an inciting incident to go searching though said world having adventures. Also I loved the dynamic between Yuna, Rikku, and Paine. So naturally I filed the serial numbers off the girls and their airship dwelling teammates and shoved them into the Phoenixverse. I mean, Lara Croft meets Charlie’s Angels? Sign me right the fuck up. I knew I wasn’t getting away with taking the dressphere system, and honestly I didn’t want to. Too complicated and versatile outside of video game limitations. So the new Yasmine Sakaguchi (seriously, I even took Hironobu’s surname for her how has nobody noticed before?) kept her default Gunner abilities combined with her original curative White Magic. Rebecca Heskett (I have a book with an author named Heskett, or at least I did at the time; I’ve moved twice it could’ve disappeared) got Rikku’s Thief abilities combined with her original engineering bent plus a lil bit of speed because yanno rogues be quick. And the Dark Sword Portia was stuck with just being a Warrior. But just a weapon master would’ve been boring and they would’ve lacked a big hitter, so she got a demonic atavism (I was reading something at the time that was using a genetic atavism to explain a character’s powers, and boy that sounded cool so you know STOLEN) that made her physically superhuman and a sword she couldn’t lose. With my trio of knockoffs assembled, and a name given to them (Gullwings, Seagull, Seawings) it was time to go adventuring. After a while I was like yeah okay let’s give Yas back her summoning, starting with the big bad dragon because Bahamut is always awesome. I mean, I had a dragon king in mothballs in my notes ready to go. And they should probably finish up their FFX-2 adventures so they can go on new ones. So Tidus-I mean, Tobias showed up with Coyote. Now Coyote was something new and definitely not FF related. My knowledge of Native American mythology is still kind of piecemeal today and it was worse then. But even I had heard of the great trickster and honestly I just thought it’d be cool and fun to have Coyote of all beings over in East Asia/Oceania just hangin’ out. You know, banging Portia and fighting monsters with the girls.
. . But we’ve reached that point. You know the one by now. I lost all my notes, and they entered stasis. Until I decided to do the big update and uh, things just got out of hand. Yas & Friends was easy enough, just bring in the rest of the FFX main cast why not, and hand Rikki her own boyfriend finally in a character at loose ends in The Desert (now Pacific) Stranger. The Truman Home is uh, where things started getting out of hand. There was supposed to be 12 builds total. It ended up being 16. Rumble Hearts was supposed to be somewhere from 5 to 8. There’s 10. Even the NuGen were supposed to be only 5…but they ended with 7, and specifically because I put my foot down with myself. It was, uh, a very long project to say the least. Fortunately, I was watching Black Clover at the time, and it gave me plenty of motivation. And no, I didn’t steal anyone from it.
. . No, the actual idea behind the update was basically turning the Seawings as they were into the Fairy Tail guild from the eponymous manga and anime. Fairy Tail isn’t what I’d call unequivocally good, but what it does well it does very well. The spark for this was an old idea, as I’ll get into in Truman Home entries. Before this, I didn’t know what to do with the Seawings at all. Quite empty of ideas, in fact. Initially I thought of a more moderate expansion, like NPC Investigations. But that 1) sounded boring because I just did that and 2) I’m gonna cram a half dozen more people on that airship? No. So I reached for ideas and remember that Nathaniel Truman and his not really named (I couldn’t remember after the loss of my notes, not that it ended up mattering) Soulblade wielding ward weren’t doing anything. And that was the start of everything getting out of hand. I mean, hell, originally Team Rumble Hearts wasn’t even separate from the Truman Home. But concepts finalized, and they didn’t fit anymore. So the numbers had to be made up, and I kept having cool build ideas. Everything just got out of hand. But ultimately it worked out, I think. Eventually.
Individual Build Commentary: Yas & Friends
Yasmine “Yas” Sakaguchi: Normally I’d explain how she came to be here, but I already did that. So I’ll skip to the update portion. I knew the Seawings couldn’t continue forever the way they were. Yas as I knew her wouldn’t want to, not with Tobias back. She’d want to settle down sooner rather than later. And you take one leg off a stool it’s not fit for use anymore. Without the consistent presence of Yas, the Seawings would sputter to a stop. So I decided that was how it was gonna be, and then I decided the biggest reason was that Yas and Tobias had their first kid, a daughter, and I also figured out how to get the gang back together again by creating and using the Truman Home. The only thing left to do was update Yas’s build. White Magic is Life Control and summoning, plus her upgraded guns. So it was really just slapping in more points and balancing caps again. Generally speaking she’s the support player of the OG Seawing trio. She has the guns, but her most powerful abilities are arguably healing allies and summoning a bigass dragon to stomp on the problem until it goes away.
Rebecca “Rikki” Heskett: Again, I’ve already explained how she came to be and what her build was supposed to represent. And like Yas above, her update was just updating her build, really. And let me tell you, an extra 75 points is useful as hell for finally filling out someone with as broad a skill set (tech specialist, sneak thief, and some social skills) as hers. She may be a full PL below her teammates, but hopefully the Gadgets (especially her Heavy Combat Gear) can make up for it, as well as having Inventor on call. She’s a PL 11 and not a 12 for the same reason Penny Nihara is. Rikki just isn’t big enough to justify being stronger to me. She’s tiny, and yet has the same strength score as grown men twice her size. Rikki functions as the skill monkey of the OG Seawings trio. She’s an excellent goon sweeper, and can solve just about any problem with her Gadgets or Inventor.
“The Dark Sword” Portia Rousseau: One more time, I’ve already explained how she came to be and what her build was supposed to represent. And like both Yas and Rikki, her update was just updating her build. And finding something to fill out the extra points I allocated. More skils, more feats, more powers, gotta burn up those points. The exact opposite problem from Rikki, heh. There is one thing I didn’t discuss above, though. The Dark Sword itself. There was this book series I read a few copies of in the public library I was living near at the time. A woman receives the strange power of summon Joan of Arc’s sword, and it saves her life from some bad dudes. All she has to do is reach out and concentrate, and she can feel the sword’s handle in her hand. Easiest draw in the world. Having a sword you can pull out of nowhere is handy like that, even if you’re like an archaeologist or something and not any kind of warrior. Think I only read like three of them. You know the type. Thin novels, like 200 pages or so. Maybe less, I really don’t remember. It was the sword trick that stuck with me, and when I wanted to give Portia her Dark Sword, that was the idea I picked. So she can do the early JRPG thing where she’s clearly unarmed until a fight scene starts and she suddenly is. Side note: It was the update where she finally got a surname. I justify it as part of the “she was technically absent without leave” thing. Portia functions as the hitter and tank of the OG Seawings team. Neither of the other two can reach the +14 damage of the Dark Sword, (though Yas can get close with Power Attack), and both of their Toughness bonuses are far lower (especially without Defensive Roll) with no Impervious whatsoever. When Raheed is summoned they split the duty, however, as the Dragon King was just as strong and tough and is now actually a little stronger and tougher.
Raheed The Dragon King: Raheed is not Bahamut. At least, not anymore. He actually goes way, way back. To the very beginning of my notes (now sadly lost). I was deeply, deeply into JRPGs at the time, and so the very first things I ever wrote down were what my own would look like. Actually came up with a FFX style summoning system on the first friggin’ go, half a decade before that game came out. Mine didn’t kick the rest of the party out, either, just the summoner. And in every iteration of that series of mine (got up to…X, I think, before my notes were lost), the second best summon was Raheed. So yes, he was kind of Bahamut in that he was in the same role as a summon, but all later iterations of him have been the greenscale Western dragon. And when Yas needed a summon emblematic of the power she had sacrificed, I pulled the dragon king out of mothballs. And he is a beast in the update. Bigger, stronger, faster, tougher, and more intimidating. In the open he’s arguably a superior version of Portia. But his downsides are that he doesn’t fit inside buildings or on narrow city streets, Yas can’t do other magic while he’s out, and there is absolutely nothing subtle about the appearance of a dragon bigger than most buildings.
Tobias: He’s boring as hell. I dunno, man. He’s just a weaponmaster with a few extra tricks. I brought him in because a Yuna without her Tidus is unthinkable to me. He can be very effective, but ultimately he’s just a guy with a sword. Next to the OG Seawings trio and friggin’ Raheed, he’s dull and boring. Goonsweeps like a champ, though, and those who underestimate him because of his mundane nature typically regret the hell out of it. He’s PL 11 specifically because that while he shoulcn’t feel out of place next to his wife during combat, he also shouldn’t be able to outdo any of the OG Seawings, which chained him to 11 like Rikki.
The Pacific Stranger: The Stranger goes back to Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers. Specifically, the opening issue where Vigilante gathered an interesting if offbeat crew but was one short so they all died. The concept was interesting, though, so I copied it. Seven in the Wild West era, and seven in the present. The Desert Stranger was a only shared member of each squad. He did not have the sword or grenade launcher in the Wild West era, and it took one of the pre-eminent wizards of the era to get him his revolvers and poncho/bandanna. I actually gave him the sword in this update. A former Crusader should have a sword. He was also a member of Texas’s superteam, the Wild West Marshals along with Dallas Austin and her father. Just a small connection, I suppose, but it counts. His name has always been Oliver, but a little researched showed last names weren’t exact a thing yet in the era he was born in, so LaRouche or however I spelled it was dropped. This was the first time I’d actually ever built him, so a lot of thing needed figuring out. He may seem a little…meh, for having 9 centuries of combat experience, but really he wasn’t fighting the entire time. Much of his life has been relatively quiet, too. He’s had plenty of romances, raised a legion of children of every conceivable ethnicity, and spent years at a time in isolated solitude and sorrow. And he is only a man. Not some prodigy or anything. He was not PL 12 in World War 2 and very much not in the Wild West era.
Coyote: How do I explain Coyote more than I’ve already done? All I really did was expand and elaborate on him. He’s a canine totem who’s overloaded on Charisma, social skill points, and the feats that go with them. Basically he’s Dragon Age’s Varric. If you let him start talking, he’s already won. That’s just the kind of guy and build he is. Not that he can’t fight, but whew lads is his tongue dangerous.
Ladies. I mean, have you ever met one of those people who just seems to glide through life on sheer charisma alone? Yeah. Oh, right. Multiexistence. Stole that from Justice Squad. Liam Smith. If you know, you know. If you don’t, bummer. His scripts were fun. Capeman, Ultrawoman, Cosmic Weasel, and the whole gang.
Lucy Hasegawa: Like with the OG Seawings trio, I filed the serial numbers of FFX’s Lulu and adjusted to fit with the established Phoenixverse canon. She’s a blaster who can power stunt other stuff if she needs to, and has a device to boost her up to caps. Why Lulu and not new original Seawings? Well, first I was already gonna do that with all the other groups. Second, completely original characters are cool and all, but also a lot of work. Adapting is so much easier. And third, it would have felt weird as hell to just…leave the rest of the FFX cast out there, unnamed and doing nothing much. Of course Yas is going to call on her own friends for her new thing. It just doesn’t make sense to me otherwise.
Willie Teriong: Yeah this is Wakka. A decade older, with a mess of kids via being married to Lucy. Should probably decide how many there are, but meh, screw it. Later. Wakka’s fighting style is a special kind of physics defying bullshit. I have yet to hear of anyone killed by rubber ball impact. So, had to explain that one. And yeah, magic maybe, but I kind of liked it better if he was this highly skilled martial artist using the power of Chi. And because Blitzball doesn’t exist, I had to pick a different ball using sport. The obvious choice was soccer/football, but I don’t make a habit of going for the obvious. So beach volleyball. And then because you know, sports hero and strong sense of morals, I thought it be fun to make him a member of Palau’s government. Google was probably very confused as why I was looking how Palau’s government worked up, heh. And yes, Palau is a real country in Oceania. It’s small, mostly sparsely populated and almost uniformly Polynesian, but has a decent sized capital in Koror City. So, martial artist with a Chi channeling volleyball. Part time adventurer. Dad. And politician. My, but Willie’s a busy guy.
Kaikoa: He’s Kimahri. Or rather, the Hawaiian human being version of the guy. Because giant blue furry people don’t exist in the real world. Spear, old school Blue Magic. Like, FFV old school. A little thing to represent his badass warrior training. He’s arguably more useful than the “here, have another of the characters you already have” of Kimahri. Other than that he’s extremely freaking boring as a build and a character, but to leave him out would’ve been just mean. Because I’m the sort of softhearted wretch who cares about characters I have neither named nor fleshed out in the slighted. Ay.
Laki Sigrah, Herman Heskett, & Sione Sigrah: The Gullwings support crew. You know, that smart kid, Rikku’s brother, and the navigator dude. I hesitate to even call this stealing, as I only took the basic ideas of them. One person on the ship smarter than Rikku, the pilot who’s both Rikku’s brother and in love with Yuna, and the other guy nobody remembers (I kid, I’m sure somebody’s a huge fan.) They’re supporting cast, don’t worry about them too much.