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mangosundae · 2 months

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Greetings, Ni No Kuni fandom! I’ve seen a couple people on here post their NNK ocs on here so I thought I’d add my own blorbo to the collection. Now presenting: Penelope Homebrew of the Land of Nod! She’s from WotWW and has a whole DLC post game mission, which ends with Penelope becoming a playable character. I’ll write out how her story goes under the cut, but basically she’s a potion saleswoman who helps the gang close the Nightmare Rifts (name in progress) that have taken over Castaway Cove, Yule, and Perdida.

***GIANT infodump under the cut!!***

The Land of Nod: Where Dreaming is Doing.

- Okay so Nod is a kingdom located on the Spindle, a small island near Autumnia. I’m pretty sure spindle is a reference to mining, but we’ll say it references the spindle from Sleeping Beauty.

- The Land of Nod is all about dreaming. Its inhabitants, called Nodlanders, have the ability to bring whatever they dream of to life. This ability is called Manifesting. Manifesting requires the user to both come up with the item they desire, dream it, AND remember it when they wake up. Nodlanders grow up practicing how to lucid dream, and how to remember their dreams in the waking world. It’s a hard skill to master, which is why so few can actually make a career out of it.

- But since Nodlanders who do master this skill are very powerful, Shadar saw them as a threat, which is why he put all of Nod to sleep with a spell. That’s also why Nod doesn’t show up on the map in the main game, because it’s hidden from sight. And also he made everyone have nightmares, which is important later.

- Since Nod is a postgame area, the items you can buy here are very powerful, but also very pricey. They can only be found in Nod because the Nodlanders literally dreamed them up. Most Nodlanders have a specific kind of item they focus on, like weapons or armor. It’s a HUGE tourist trap.

- Also you might be asking, why isn’t Nod the richest place in the world? Why can’t they just dream up infinite money and food? I thought of that. You can’t really read or write in dreams, so any dreamed currency is obviously fake. And Nodlanders CAN dream up food, but it can’t inwardly be food. So basically dream food can look and taste a certain way, but doesn’t contain substance or calories, so you can’t survive off it. Snack stands and buffets are very popular in Nod for this reason, as you’ll never get stuffed.

Penelope Homebrew: Saleswoman Extraordinaire (?)

- Penelope lives in Nod but has no dream powers. She’s a disappointment to her parents because of this, and spends the whole story trying to prove herself, before eventually realizing she doesn’t have to prove herself to anyone. Also I want her and Swaine to be besties so they bond over being non-magicals from magical families.

- Since she has no dreaming abilities of her own, Penelope runs the Homebrew Apothecary, where she sells potions made from the Dream Energy of other Nodlanders. They look down on her for not having powers of her own, which makes her feel bad. The apothecary got very little business before Shadar, since tourists were more interested in real dream-based products, but Penelope sees traveling with Oliver as a chance to get her brand out there. There are several cutscenes where she’s just advertising to anyone who’ll listen, and she uses the fights to show off her potions.

- Penelope comes with several potions to use in battle and in the overworld. Each of them has a silly little name because you can’t have NNK without some silly little names.

- Nightcap: This potion induces the sleep status on an opponent for 20 seconds.

- Seeing Stars: A potion that induces the confusion status on an opponent.

- A Dream is a Wish: This drinkable potion will, at random, increase the user’s MP or HP, or take away their status condition (the third option only applies if a status condition is present).

- Beauty Sleep: A drinkable potion that completely heals the user’s HP and MP, in return for making them immobile/asleep for thirty seconds. This also almost completely drain’s the user’s MP, so it should be used sparingly.

- Knock Out: A potion that inflicts physical damage on an opponent.

- Shut Eye: An overworld spray potion that gives your party two minutes of invisibility. It works the same as Oliver’s Veil spell.

- Night Light: Ingesting this potion gives the user night vision.

- Basically, all her potions are either thrown, ingested, or sprayed. She starts off with a slingshot, but eventually Swaine makes her the Shooting Star, a steampunk looking bow and arrow that can shoot out any offensive potion Penelope currently has in her roster. The “arrows” are syringes full of potions. This makes her a ranged attacker. I imagine she can replace Swaine in battle, similar to how you can replace Esther with Marcassin.

- Oh also, to make the gang trust her, Penelope pretends she was a famous and successful potioneer before Shadar cast his sleep curse. Swaine suspects her from the start because one con artist recognizes another, but eventually everyone learns she’s been lying and conflict happens. Oooooooo.

The Plot: Nightmare Magic-Induced Therapy

- As I mentioned, Shadar put all the Nodlanders to sleep and gave them nightmares, which they kept having until Cassiopeia woke them up. When they woke up their Dream Energy exploded across the world and caused Nightmare Rifts to appear in Castaway Cove, Yule, and Perdida. Why? It’s like when the printer isn’t working so you keep pressing print, and then it starts working again and shoves out a million papers at once. The Nodlanders had dreamed so much during the sleep curse that when they woke up they couldn’t contain all the energy that had built up.

- Because of this, these three areas are now dungeons with a boss at the end, which are nightmarish manifestations of each town’s Vibe. Each dungeon is also based on a commonly-hated video game mechanic (these being water physics, ice physics, and moving levels). And, also, each dungeon reflects one of the main three’s fears in some way, both literal and metaphorical. In going through these dungeons and defeating the bosses, Oliver, Esther, and Swaine work through their fears with the help of Penelope.

- Also, the reason Penelope starts traveling with them (other than the opportunity to sell more potions) is because the other Nodlanders are too tired from their nightmares to be helpful. Since Penelope doesn’t have dream magic, she feels fine (if a little traumatized after years and years of nightmares).

- Castaway Cove is a water level where the town is completely flooded and sea monsters lurk in the depths. The boss is a sunken ship monster called Ship Wrecker, who has a mouth and teeth made of jagged wooden planks. Its big move is Anchors Away, where it releases a large anchor that damages the whole party. When it’s close to dying it does a new move called Wreckage, where its whole body becomes a mouth to bite the party with. Its normal move is just chasing someone around and biting them. Also there’s a water bubble around the battle arena because it would be a pain in the ass if not.

- This is Oliver’s level, since he almost drowned and is therefore afraid of water. He tries to swim to prove he’s not afraid anymore, but starts having a panic attack. He admits to Penelope (because they split into groups) that he feels guilty that his mom died swimming out to rescue him, and wants to prove that he can take care of himself now like she wants him to. Penelope gives him a pep talk, since she relates to feeling the need to prove herself and doesn’t want him to feel that way. It doesn’t totally fix the problem, but Oliver is able to get through the dungeon without issue.

- Yule is an ice and snow level where the whole place is caved in, and they have to parkour down to the bottom. It kind of sucks because ice physics lol. The little monsters you encounter are scary versions of the Tomte, and the boss is an igloo-abominable snowman fusion called the Bombinable Snowman. It’s a giant spherical igloo with a face and hairy limbs, which it tucks inside itself for certain attacks. Because of the ice blocks, it has really high defense, which only lowers when it does a move called Bumbles Bounce. For this move, it pulls its limbs into itself and throws itself to the ground like a bomb. This does physical damage to anyone not defending. You trigger Bumbles Bounce by attacking it enough, so it’s a very stamina-based fight. It also has an area attack called Avalanche, and a single attack called Stalag-Might, where it slashes with an ice spear.

- This is Esther’s level. She and Penelope get cornered by one of the Tomte monsters, which doesn’t respond to Esther’s attempts to soothe it. Esther gets upset, and says something like “This [monster taming] is what I’m supposed to be good at!” She explains that she’s a sage’s daughter but not a sage herself, so she has to be powerful in her own way so her dad will be proud of her. Penelope’s like “Wow these kids have issues” but assures Esther that if Rashad loves her, he’ll be proud of her no matter what she does. It’s in this moment that Penelope realizes how similar her situation is to Esther’s, and starts feeling less beholden to her parents’ opinions of her.

- Perdida is a moving level where the player has to keep up with the moving camera and dodge constantly changing obstacles. For this one the dungeon is also the boss, as the town’s multi-headed snake statues have come to life and morphed into a giant snake in the sky. It works like the snake boss from Puppeteer, or the Rayquaza balloon from Poke Park. Basically you run across the back of the snake. The heads of the snake attack when you get to the front, but then one of them swallows you and you fight from the inside. Unfortunately I don’t have names for this boss and its moves just yet, but just assume they’re snakey.

- This is Swaine’s level, and also kind of Marcassin’s. Obviously Swaine’s afraid of snakes, but for the whole DLC story he’s also been trying to prove he can be a good brother to Marcassin. Marcassin ends up getting captured by the snake because it was attacking Hamelin, and he wants to prove he can be a good ruler. Basically Swaine wants to be like Marcassin, and Marcassin wants to be like Swaine (in that Swaine is more of a physical attacker and strategist), and they have to work together to stop the snake. In the end both brothers realize they’re good as they are, and Penelope finally comes to the same conclusion.

- With all the rifts taken care of, the group goes back to Nod, where they invite Penelope to travel with them. Penelope thinks about how the Nodlanders and her parents never appreciated her, but how these new people do, so she packs up the apothecary and becomes a traveling saleswoman with the gang. The themes are a little hamfisted, but to be fair the themes of the main game aren’t super subtle.

Conclusion

Holy shit this was way longer than I intended it to be. I don’t expect anyone to read this far but if you did, thanks very much for reading my infodump about a game nobody likes! (Lol.) It’s been super fun coming up with the level designs and stuff, and Penelope is just really fun to draw. Also yeah I know she looks a bit like Moon from FNAF but shhhhh it’s fine.

#ni no kuni #ni no kuni wrath of the white witch #original character #autism won today LMAO #sorry for the massive infodump but I’ve had Penelope’s story in my head for a while #basically I want extra WotWW content #and if they won’t give it to me I’ll make it my damn self

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