#project OCtopath

[selfdiagnosedeyemotif]

and with Praem's story coming to a close soon, the time to start another traveler's story swiftly approaches! however, we've reached the point where i have ideas for most all of the remaining travelers, save for one. regardless, YOU are going to choose the next story that gets written. yes, you, the person reading this, and nobody else.

[beantothemax]

Chapter One:

Opens with a montage Praem wandering through the Peaklands, sometimes encountering a fight or resting at an inn but mostly just walking

Eventually cuts to a gameplay segment after she gets hired to take care of some bandits in a nearby town

Introduction to Praem’s psychic abilities: she’s seen taking on a few of the bandits at a time and at one point there’s a timestop segment where the bandit’s next actions play out as translucent purple silhouettes (think of Temenos’s mystery solving segments) before she acts accordingly and kicks some ass

Bandit captain serves as the Challenge tutorial

While leaving Praem makes an offhand comment about how “it hasn’t happened lately”, this is framed as a good thing

Praem gets her cash from the people that hired her, goes to sleep at the local inn, when, just as she enters her rented room…

The world goes black. All of a sudden, images begin to rapidly appear of a village ablaze, bandits running amok.

She sees herself, rushing to the village; the sun low in the sky in front of her.

She reaches out a hand to someone in a long dark coat wearing gloves; there is a burning crossbar in between them; they are yelling something out

And then it stops. Praem is standing alone in the room once more.

A light purple mist has been pouring from out of Praem, it dissipates fairly quickly but momentarily it was positively filling the room

Praem murmurs a “not again” to herself before rushing out of her room

She asks the innkeeper if there’s a village west of here; naturally, there is

The sun is just about to set. She needs to move fast.

You don’t actually travel to this separate town in a gameplay sense it’s a cutscene

Arrive, town in flame, beat up some bandits, yadda yadda yadda

Eventually Praem is able to evacuate all the townsfolk, but the vision hasn’t come true yet

Who was the person under the crossbar?

Ask the townsfolk a bit and everyone realises that a traveller that had been passing through town was still missing

Search the town for a bit, nada

There is one avenue of search available, though: several of the bandits have been rounded up and questioning might yield some results

This is the Unmask tutorial. Praem beats the shit (mentally) out of one of the bandits and they reveal that “the boss” has grabbed a few hostages, started holing up in the community larder, and will have sent a ransom note any time soon

Lore-wise, Unmask is a deeply unpleasant experience. It is very much a magical thing and basically involves Praem psychically peeling back the lies and facades of the target until they either crack and tell the truth or she can just perceive it outright

“Peeling” is exactly how it’s described. Might wanna be a little lighter on using it on random townsfolk.

Anyways the path had previously been blocked off by scorched timbers but with some help from the townsfolk Praem clears the path and heads for the larder

Stations multiple of the strongest-looking folks at the entrance in case the leader tries to make a break for it

With the plan set, Praem makes her way into…

The First Dungeon: The Community Larder

A series of rooms dug into the mountainside supported by wooden beams, shelves that once held food lining the walls

Broken jars and the remnants of the shelves line the floor

Enemies are infrequent (you should have gotten plenty of exp and jp from the numerous enemy encounters beforehand), but it’s like. Bats and shit.

Eventually you come to the final room (it was barricaded but doors can be cut by swords. fun fact.)

Inside is “the boss”, alongside a trussed-like-a-turkey stranger in a long dark coat up against one of the support pillars

A wood fire is in the centre of the room

Hash it out for a bit with the bandit leader before he does an entire “you’ll never take me alive” thing, throws some of the burning logs from the fire towards the supports, and attempts to make the larder collapse

Unsurprisingly, this kicks off…

The First Boss: The Boss

I’m not kidding about that name it’s just what he’s called

If I’m being honest tho this is a Gaston (Olberic chapter one) clone

Hits worryingly hard for a chapter one boss, forces you to play with tools besides the typical “hit stuff hard” warrior strats

Hope you took Stout Wall or Predictive Parry cuz you’re gonna need it

The one saving grace is that Second Sight still applies here. He’ll have enough skills to prevent all of them from being affected but it’ll cut down on some of them

How one would work in a tutorial for Oracular Apogee into this is beyond me. Might not do anything cool with that tutorial

After the fight is over, Praem rushes to go grab the person tied to the beam

Mistake. The boss takes that opportunity to (in spite of not realistically having enough time to do so) toss the burning logs from the fire in the centre towards a pile of fabric at the base of a support beam

This causes the room to immediately catch fire. Too fast to be realistic, again, but this is video gaming and I make the rules

He flees the cave – directly into the people stationed at the exit – but there’s a much more immediate problem now

Praem cuts the stranger loose, and a burning beam falls between them moments after they get up

As Praem reaches for their hand, the vision comes true: a stranger with a coat and gloves, a burning beam, a yell that gets cut short

Just as Praem realises this, the screen goes dark. She is surrounded by blackness.

A vision starts. Hasty footsteps splashing in the water. A waterfall in front of a stone tablet. A pained look from the stranger. An unfamiliar dagger in Praem’s hand.

The blade of the dagger sheathed into the stranger’s chest.

The stranger speaks her name. Asks her why.

And then Praem wakes up. The lilac fog clears from the area as the same colour drains from her eyes

She is surrounded by people. The townsfolk that she saved. She’s in an inn.

The stranger is standing over her, eyes full of worry

Her name is Ekaterina Raszio, she is a quote unquote “professional wanderer and swordswoman”, and she’s been wandering the continent making do with mercenary work

Very similar to Praem all things considered

At her behest, Praem fills Ekaterina in on her whole precognition deal, explains the change in it that has recently happened

Does NOT mention what happened in the most recent vision

Ekaterina offers to join her in her search; the two of them seem similar, and she’s been going nowhere in particular anyway so might as well join up with someone’s

Praem hesitates but realises that she can’t really deny her without explaining the vision she had, so she accepts the offer

The two ask around the village a bit, and eventually hear of a lord in the Fjordlands, who keeps in his employment a powerful seer

There’s a possibility that this seer may very well have some insight into the nature of Praem’s ability

Having a lead for the first time in ages, Praem and her new travelling companion Ekaterina set off for the Fjordlands…

IRIS IM GONNA EXPLODE EIGHT THOUSAND TIMES!!!!!!! PRAEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE’S SO COOL I ADORE HER!!!!!!!

call praem ameno-sagiri the way she emits mist randomly….. jokes aside tho that is very cool and also just a little creepy. somethin’s not completely right with her I think.

AND UNMASK SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!! the word ‘peeling’ paints a very unpleasant mental image and that fits perfectly I think. love how thouroughly strange praem is

AND. THE WHOLE END FLASHBACK??? UNFAMILIAR DAGGER??? WATERFALL??? HUH??? iris what are you plotting

ive known praem for exactly twelve minutes and I already want to give her a hug she’s so.

[schelofthesea]

some headshots of faves from some of my favorite medias

[fulgurbugs]

alright i’m done take it off my hands

[smilepebble]

they dont call him cyrus "single glass of red wine" albright for nothing

[starkittnd93]

(Bonus animation!)

[Video ID: Digital animation of Osvald lifting Hikari off of the ground from behind. Hikari looks back at Osvald, visibly annoyed, while a red X symbol and text saying “Why would you even consider this correct?!” appears to the left of both of them. /.End ID]

[linderosse]

Character 112 — Erhardt (Wrath)

Loved being a part of this! Project Path Action is such a cool idea and I was very glad to contribute the three pieces I did :). This one’s the first!

[mrpuripurin]

more parti/hikari/s!hikari scribbles..😈🤠

[ashdoodle-s]

Silly little thing I saw on twt (by __ksgi)

[sebritz]

for fun i put as many characters as i could that i headcanon as it/its users on a canvas ^_^

[viridiave]

sketchbook lore i tried drawing again but digital this time

EVENTUALLY i will know how to draw hands correctly

[selfdiagnosedeyemotif]

little height chart for the octopath OCs

[blazlngblade]

My countdown drawing for Project Path Action on Bluesky!

I chose to do something for Castti because intially she didn't have any one doing anything for her. In the end, she ended up with two last minute entries (mine included!)

I enjoyed drawing Castti here. And it was nice to include the Eir's Apothecaries as well.

[loregoddess]

As promised, the theory heights of the Octo2 crew based on my best guess from the official arts. These are not canon heights (or headcanon heights), they're my best theory for the general heights the art team was using based on recurring heights in official arts.

I used several official arts, but this was the main art I used for ref:

This is (currently) the only official art where all the characters are standing more or less on the same plane, without being too far in front of or behind others. Also they're spaced out nicely, which made sketching mockups of their proportions much easier.

I also went ahead and threw my lineup onto an actual height chart (US system, sorry) to try and guess at their heights, and got...these:

Again, these are super not canon (or headcanon), and even for theory territory this falls more into the wild speculation side of things. But this was my best guess, since placing Osvald in the 6' range made Agnea and Hikari way too short. Ochette is a beastling, and as far as I can tell they have a different set of proportions as well as anatomy, so I'm assuming her smallness (which is very consistent in official arts) is intentional on the art team's part.

(I also didn't include Ochette's ears in her height estimate, but it should be noted that while I used the concept arts from the artbook bc they provided the most consistent "character is standing in an upright pose" artwork, Ochette's ears are actually a bit larger in all official non-concept artwork).

Anyhow, I also included my entire process for how I extrapolated under the cut. As a treat.

So I started with the main art I showed above and drew out quick mockups measuring each character from the top of their head to bottom of heel, not counting heels on shoes. For characters in dynamic poses, I sketched out a quick "puppet" using major anatomical points (head, torso, hips, knees, heel) as guidepoints, which I then "straightened out" separately to figure out the "height" (as seen with Ochette, Partitio, Hikari, and Throne; I forgot to save a copy of my Osvald sketchover but since his stance was so wide I knew he was going to loose a bit of height if I didn't sketch a puppet).

Agnea is mostly upright, but she's leaned forward a bit, and I wasn't going to be able to figure out how tall she was if she wasn't leaning forward with a puppet, so I gave her a bit of height in her mockup using my best guess as an artist for where the top of her head would be if she wasn't leaning forward. I took the same liberty with Hikari after straghtening out his sketch-puppet, since he's also leaning a bit forward. I couldn't actually see the bottom of either of Partitio's heels, so I went with my best "I'm an artist how would I have drawn this" educated guess.

Then I grabbed images of the concept artwork from the artbook scans (special thanks to @octopathartbooker for the scans) and adjusted each character to the mockup, and then put all the mockups so that the bottom "heel-line" was level for every character, getting this:

Note that Throne is in a wide stance for her concept art but that I still scaled her to the mockup for ease of visual reference (even though as I've scaled the art, it looks like she'd be taller if she were to stand upright, but I needed the visual more than I needed the pose accuracy). I also ignored the position of Agnea's foot in favor of having her heel on the heel-line, so she looks kind of awkward. These things happen, but considering how a few of the heights bounce around a tiny bit in official arts, I think this is the best I could do.

Because a few of the heights just...didn't look right (Partitio being that tall, and Ochette being that small) I also referenced a few other key official arts. First off, the "thank you" art:

This was useful for checking Throne's height against Osvald, since if I were to draw perspective lines then the top of Throne's head would be about level with Osvald's shoulders. This art also shows Ochette as being about half Throne's height, which is also consistent with my mockups.

I also checked the "nighttime" artwork for the soundtrack:

This art isn't actually as useful given how much perspective depth is used in the illustration (Agnea looking taller than Osvald bc she's in the midground and he's in the background being a good example of the depth I'm referring to), but it does show Ochette next to Hikari, and again, she is small. Also Partitio towering in the background supports the idea that he's actually just like, really tall.

The final official art I used to check heights was the endgame artwork, which is naturally a huge spoiler, so go ahead and skip this if you don't want to see it, bc aside from my notes on the artwork there isn't anything after it. (J is the hotkey that'll let you skip to the bottom of a post, though I dunno how this'll look if you're on mobile, sorry).

.

.

.

.

.

This art is...somewhat helpful. I can't see anyone's feet and Ochette appears to be floating (although again, she is tiny compared to everyone else), and there's still some depth of perspective at play, and some of the characters look like they're standing on a higher elevation than others. But! Here we can see that yeah, Partitio is about as tall as Osvald and that's with his head leaning forward (tall enough to use Osvald as an armrest, Parti buddy). Agnea also looks like she could be about two feet shorter than Osvald and this art does nothing to suggest that Hikari isn't short, but again it's hard to tell with some of the perspective choices. Mostly this the art that convinced me that, okay, yes, Partitio is that tall.

[polarisbear]

ooo look at those summer comms ooo look at those gradients. they’ll be open from now to the end of august, so if you’re interested please look at the google form below. or the examples below i’ve made some bangers this last year

google form: https://forms.gle/C95oMoFhFtEamsys5

[fantaseagal]

I would give anything to see Lemaire and Auguste interact. They would have the most unhinged discussions on art