#phoraena sisters

[brianjamur]

Hey am back with Olivya Phoraena from Tactics Ogre. She's my favorite among the sisters.

I did the Phoraena Sisters some months ago but hmm maybe i should do it again.

[space-spring]

I just met Sherri (who is rad as all get out) and I'm going nuts over the dialogue you can trigger with her sisters. You've got Olivya and Cistina who both reach out to say something along the lines of "We're sisters!!! Stop this!!!" and subsequently get shot down with "I am going to throttle you right now for real. how's that for stopping"

But then you've got Cerya who goes "Surrender. Now." and Sherri responds with "GEEZ glad to see you too :/"

Truly the siblings of all time ❤️❤️❤️

[adalheidis]

Festive season with the Phoraena sisters

[catiuapavel]

Ok new tactics ogre poll.

[dragon-appreciator-fray]

Tactics Ogre Reborn has been a fascinating experience. I think I have rediscovered my enjoyment of the game every 20 hours or so as I keep experimenting and discovering new little mechanical interactions.

Going back to the first 20, 40, 60 hours are just... entirely different toolboxes of abilities and items to play with.

To give context, I am a little over a dozen fights into Chapter 4 after the Chaos Route. I have all 4 Phoraena sisters and am trying to recruit my dear sister.

I could PROBABLY replicate some of the weird shit I am doing with items? But it is just so much more fun having terror Knights and wizards mass debuff the entire enemy team while samurai dance and mass buff all 12 of my units.

4v4 tactics games are just... nothing compared to what 12 units built to throw the entire book of mechanics at the enemy in the span of a single fight.

I don't even kill enemy leaders all that often anymore. It is just so endlessly fun to take apart the ENTIRE enemy roster. Especially if I am outnumbered or dealing with weird terrain.

The verticality in some of these maps is insane.

[endeavorsreward]

Excerpt (Chapter 1-3)

There was a beverage native to Ordallia, kafé, which was made from the slow cooking of beans in water. Ehlrig filled a dented kettle from the water-bag he had at his belt, and they added the foreign beans that they’d managed to scrounge; when Wiegraf Folles finally returned to their little temporary hideout, the smell had begun to permeate the half-collapsed wine cellar and his eyes widened.

“My God, I haven’t smelled that in years.” He pulled up a crate to the fire they’d built, and Cerya handed him a stein with which to receive the strange brew. “For this alone, the long journey has been worth it. My thanks to you.”

“It was simple enough; you and I have in common that we’ve sampled the tastes of Ordallia in earlier years.” Cerya wrapped her hands around her own tin cup, which conveyed a warmth that was lacking in the stone bolthole. “The duration and trajectory of your campaign is well-known to many amongst your fellow commoners, who’d hear tales sung in taverns as you cut your way eastward, putting them to the blade. I could only suspect, like myself, it was one of the few things you’d miss.”

“Other things, as well, in truth. The caravans of Ordallia were full of music unlike our own, even after being taken. Even their sad songs were lovely.” He sipped slowly, cherishing the drink, seeming to enjoy the scent even more than the taste. “Before Dhalikar, they were some of the best days, in truth – if only for the comfort of my naivety, for believing in the innate honor of my purpose.”

“You miss also the feel of specie in your hands,” said Ehlrig with a sneer.

Wiegraf laughed. “Well, that’s what it’s all about, is it not? The nobility affect a posture that they are above Capital, but that is because they possess it. To have coin is to have freedom – the freedom to exist beyond one’s base desires.”

Cerya rubbed at her lips, scratched along them with a nail.

“We only wanted what we were owed.” The Shepherd took a long draught. “Even now, I believe they can be made to answer for it, and is that not why we assemble? Revolution, too, is honest work, and we’d be paid for it.”

“Captain Folles...” She placed her cup down on the ground by her feet. “We did call upon you and your band, that you would inspire the people here, as you have in your own movement in the west. And you have succeeded in that, as you could do naught else; you have my thanks for that. But I grow concerned that our movements are not alike in purpose.”

Wiegraf closed his eyes and sighed, as though he’d expected it, which only made Cerya angrier. “What grievance has the Order of the Ebon Eye?”

“Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an artwork; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, respectfully, or modestly. It is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” She tried to rein in the trembling of her hands. “You seek to be the conscience of the king, in truth...”

“Or queen,” mumbled Ehlrig into his cup.

“...But royalty is without conscience, for they rule over the people by very definition.” She glared at Ehlrig. “You tell the Mob that to burn a home to catch a thief is folly, but our home has not a thief, but an assassin. When the sword of rebellion is drawn, the sheath should be thrown away.”

Wiegraf finished his kafé, delicately placed his receptacle upon one of the stone stairs out of the cellar, and smiled sadly. “My sister and I were born of the commons, as you and all well know. We grew up in a small port town in Gallionne... it is here that I should discourse on the trade of our parents, but in truth I can’t remember it, for they died of the plague that Romanda brought to shores, and I scarce remember them at all. We lived in an upturned cask just like one of those,” and here he pointed to one of the giant barrels still remaining the wine cellar, long since cracked and emptied; its long-rotten remains were now home to a rat’s nest. “that existed in an alley behind a pub called ‘The Coeurl’s Whisker,’ at least until we could no longer fit within it. But when I stand before the Mob, many of them doubt – they think me of the nobility.”

“Anyone bathed and lettered can pass for Quality,” said Cerya with a shrug.

“Indeed. And Milleuda made certain I was both, though the latter proved more long-lasting than the former. We would run errands for the local abuna in exchange for my being taught my letters and figures. And later, I was able to teach her. But no, ‘tis something else. For I was born with a defect of sorts, in that I can understand their ways and thoughts. It is a sort of cleverness, or perhaps cunning, put to the work of Lucavi in its idleness. But understanding it became useful after we answered the call to service. To be made useful to officers, and then to their officers, and then to their lords.” He looked at his dirty fingernails in bemusement. “Do you know why we were not paid, when we came home from war?”

Cerya frowned.

Ehlrig looked uneasily from one to the other. “The kingdom is... broke, is it not?”

“Aye, of a sort.” Wiegraf shrugged. “But consider the wealth that the nobility still has. The candlesticks not yet melted down, the bills of exchange yet held in escrow or, even further, wrapped in oiled leathers and buried beneath flower patches. It is true that most of the hard money, the actual coinage, remaining is a pittance being handed back and forth above our heads. But in Lesalia is a great mint which does not make new coins, with either Atkascha on the face.”

“So then...”

Wiegraf nodded to Ehlrig’s beverage. “That there is your answer.”

There was a brief pause, as even now Wiegraf timed his lines for dramatic effect. His sobriquet was well-earned, but Cerya did not enjoy being shepherded. A hound was barking somewhere. “The first time I had that drink,” he finally continued, “it was not so long after crossing the border of Zelmonia, where as you,” to Cerya, “can readily attest, the Ordallian occupation had spread some of the nation’s creature comforts there along with all of the oppression. Reaching that point alone had been an adventure, about which we could discourse for some hours, but when our push reached that point, it was the first of the month, and I, along with the rest of my men, received our stipend. We had bivouacked near a village, and as one might expect, we were quick to spend much of what we’d received. Some fair majority spent it on carnal exchanges readily on offer. I had strolled into a market, where a young woman convinced me this strange brew was worth a gil, though that serving had cut its bitterness with various spices.” He leaned back. “Or rather, it was not a gil-farthing at all that I paid, but Ordallian currency, called ‘goth,’ for Zelmonia had not yet been won back – and then lost again.”

Ehlrig scratched at his beard, not comprehending. Cerya, meanwhile, had begun to do so partway through his tale, and now rubbed at her eyes, trying to slow the spinning sensation that had ensorceled her mind. “An invading army must be paid in the local currency, for otherwise a soldier cannot spend. And so you mean to suggest that Ivalice mints no more coinage...”

“The Skies did not sign a treaty so much as a surrender.” Wiegraf’s fingers were entwined. “The nation’s army is largely discharged. They refuse to pay what they owe because to mint new coin is to introduce currency that, in someone’s mind, could be seized to pay an army that chose instead to invade us.”

“That is insane.” Cerya shook her head. “I’ve no head for markets but...”

Wiegraf stood. “I expect in a year’s time or better, the mint will run again. I’ve sources that suggest Gollund’s mines are pulling up more than coal, of late. But in a year’s time, how many veterans of the Fifty Years War will die hungry? The economy will run along, but on the backs of our brothers. You can believe me naive, Cerya Phoraena. But I serve not my own honor, but those of my men, who marched out of Hell to find no food in Heaven. We must win the hearts of the nobility, and of the Crown, because to do otherwise is to starve.” He placed a hand upon the pommel of his sword as he mounted the stairs, looking again like the statue’s figure he’d cut on the fountainhead. “Consider whose end that would serve. I fought in war, and I’d not lose this one to win a battle.” And then he ascended, and was gone.

[brianjamur]

Cistina Phoraena from Tactics Ogre.

There's something about her design that i really love. My favorite sister is Olivya, but i always try to do my best whenever i want to draw Cistina.

I guess when someone asked me which sister do i like, i would say all of them. Each of them have something that i really like about them.

Next Phoraena i draw will be Sherri (i did Olivya a long time a go, maybe i should post it here as well) but i kinda want to redraw Cerya hmmm

[brianjamur]

Cerya Phoraena from Tactics Ogre.

This is a redraw so that her pose would fit with the other sisters when i eventually put them together.

Play Tactics Ogre btw. Iz gud.

[space-spring]

I reblogged that post the other day about never finishing video games and it made me stop and think hard about my life and the fact that. oh my god....... I really DO never finish video games........... So I have changed my ways by finishing up Chapter 4 and the ending of Chaos route for Tactics Ogre! Tons of endgame spoilers ahead but here are my bullet-pointed highlights:

My guy Azelstan the pirate! I love him. His whole arc with losing his daughter reminded me a little of Svarog and Hossabara from Triangle Strategy (albeit with substantially more nihilism!), and finding him at the port and then going through the story with the girl he takes under his wing made me die a little inside.

I do really appreciate the fact that even once he joins you he's still a little bit of a mess! I feel like a lot of the characters join Denam out of anger or honor or something else equally passionate, and meanwhile Azelstan's out here going "I've lost everything I love and this is just a decent way to try and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else." He's simply a very sad old man and I love him a lot

This is not a highlight per se but it IS funny: I had to play the whole pirate cove dungeon where you recruit him like three or four times because I kept thinking I had the recruitment conditions fulfilled and then. did not in fact have the recruitment conditions fulfilled. I killed SO many ghosts. I got to the point where I just bought like 30 exorcism arcanas before going in so I could just have anyone regardless of cleric status blast the stilled undead whenever I needed to

AUGHKDHJSHDGHJJS. I am. SO unwell about the Sherri recruitment scene. I cannot express just how much I am unwell about the Sherri recruitment scene. All the Phoraena sisters really are so cool and good and I spontaneously combust whenever they come on screen but this scene is just AUUUUUGH........ It kills me thinking about how long Sherri's been hiding out because she doesn't think anyone will welcome her back and meanwhile her sisters just!!! love her so much!!!!!!!!!! and SHE loves THEM so much!!!!!! it just makes me go woaugh..........

I also just replayed some of the earlier chapters with Cerya and Cistina to test out the endgame rewind feature, and I take back my little chart I made of them a while back where they're arguing over clothes and things. All of the sisters are defined first and foremost by Being Willing To Sacrifice Everything For Each Other and I love them so much about it

And in addition to all the Phoraena sister dynamics, looking at this scene through the perspective of Denam ALSO having a sister who's keeping herself apart because she feels unloved is so. wowowowow

And on that note Denam and Catiua are rotating around in my head 24/7!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm really so in love with how far the writers went with their argument and fallout and also insane about the bad ending in this scenario because AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!?!?!?! and also I'm just a sucker for guilt arcs and having to live with mistakes even when it'd be easier not to. Catiua's absolutely insane (affectionate) and I think it's so fun how she changes things around and really comes into her own after this.

Also I really really love that the two of them got to have such a narratively clear conversation about everything that went down!!!!! This is a complete tangent but I sometimes kind of go insane over the fact that in Triangle Strategy we really don't get to see a ton of Roland and Cordelia after they reunite and Whiteholm is retaken. They have. so many things to talk about, and Cordelia has more than a few valid reasons to feel resentment toward Roland for the way he handled retaking Whiteholm. The closest they come to really talking about how they feel is that scene where they're standing in the garden and Roland's trying to explain why he killed Avlora and Cordelia just kinda quietly goes, "I know. I get it. I can't blame you." And while that scene is fun in its own "this bad boy can fit SO many emotionally traumatized Cordelia headcanons in it" sort of way, it's also so so so nice to see Denam and Catiua do the opposite and actually sit down and hash it out for a bit. They get to talk about why they're angry!!! They both get to explain themselves and then reassure each other that they're still loved!!!! They get to be genuinely close again and work as a team!!!!! and I love that for them :)

Also with comparisons to Cordelia, Catiua very distinctly doesn't get sidelined after Denam rescues her!!!! She's an active participant in the war and really takes charge over Denam, which is very neat imo, and I love getting to see her coronation and speech at the end

THIS ATTACK SPECIFICALLY. The whole final boss was so cool but I actually gasped and sat back when I saw this, it was just so so different than any of the other graphics in the game and it made me go nuts

AAAAOAUGH GHAGHG

The credits are really pretty :)

RHCKCHHGLGLRLRLAHHJG I am once again foaming at the mouth about the way the game blends game mechanics and story this is SUCH a fun explanation for how the whole world tarot system works and also I am absolutely gutted by the idea of Denam doing this canonically because he can't stand the regret of the choices he's had to make. I feel like Denam's guilt over the entire conflict isn't explicitly mentioned a ton (he actively makes a lot of comments to the effect of "I'm doing what my honor dictates and I have nothing to be ashamed of") and then every once in a while the game comes back and slaps you with stuff like this. Like hey. hey. yasumi matsuno. can we talk? I jst wantto talkk

Also all the endgame content is SO GOOD. I'm starting to move over to Reborn because I want to experience all the voice acting and stuff over on that version, but it's also so hard to leave my team and all the cool stuff I've unlocked. I need to read up on it more but I'm 90% sure you can recruit Lancelot and Warren if you do the Palace of the Dead stuff which I avoided in Chapter 4, so I'm tempted to go back and do that on there sometime. Or mayhaps I'll just play it through on Reborn once I get through Lawful and Neutral!

But yeah!!! Overall, such a fun route and a fun game and a fun ending :) I do feel like I want to come back to Chaos route once I've finished the other two, because I miss Vyce and the role-playing part of my RPG-obsessed brain really wants him to survive the canon-ish ending because I think there's a ton of things from the beginning of the route that I'll think differently on now that I've finished (like all of the stuff building up to Vyce going nuts and Catiua leaving).

[space-spring]

ask game; 6 and 19 for Tactics Ogre!! :D

Tactics Ogre!!!!!! Thanks so much for the ask <3 <3 <3

6. My favorite character

I regret to say that. Vyce is maybe possibly my favorite. Cerya is definitely a close second but there is something wrong with my brain and whenever I see a character make absolutely undeniably horrible decisions many times in a row I get heart eyes. I just think he's neat!!! And his whole terrible relationship with Denam compels me. Whatever those guys have going on is insane and also really funny <3

Honorable mention to all the Phoraena sisters though, I'm really enjoying how often they get to interact + how their stories build on each other. I cannot remember how far I've gotten in posting my little screenshots yet, but I did get to recruit Sherri a while ago and got that scene where Olivya and Denam kinda talk her down. It's really fun to see the four of them comfort/interact with/argue with each other with everything that's going on--I feel like it's uncommon to see sibling dynamics with more than two siblings let alone four, so it's fun to see tactics ogre tackle that

19. Favorite headcanon

Speaking of the phoraena sisters!!!! Ever since I picked up Sherri my brain's been trying to piece together how exactly all of them would interact with each other so now I've got this fun convoluted little web which I'm now going to inflict upon the world.

Mostly my take is that I think Cerya + Cistina have really similar personalities (really opinionated + stubborn) while Sherri + Olivya are really similar in a different way (more laid-back, tend to be more passive-aggressive than outright aggressive), and that Cerya + Sherri / Cistina + Olivya would tend to be a little more fond of each other just because they're closer in age.

I also think if they were going to have a vote of "sister most likely to defect to the Bakram army and try to kidnap our dad" it probably would have been in order: Cistina, Cerya, Sherri, Olivya, so it would have been pretty out there when Sherri was the one to go nuts after their mom died. "Most likely to start her own rebel army" was definitely Cerya though. 100% all of them saw that coming and actively made plans around it

[space-spring]

!!!!!!! DENAM AND THE PHORAENA SISTERS GREW UP TOGETHER !!!!!!! And family reunion time!!!

[catiuapavel]

The relationship between Cerya and Sherri feels very intense and agressive just from the way Cerya talks about her in Brigantys and their exchange in the Hagia Banhamuba. It’s always been the Phoraena dynamic which intrigued me the most and I really wish there were some aftermath to this. Maybe they could have extended Sherri’s recruitment scene in Balmamusa to show Olivya and her join their two sisters outside? There is a need for closure between Sherri and Ceya (as well as Cistina) that just isn’t there, and it’s a missed opportunity.

[endeavorsreward]

Excerpt (Chapter 1-3)

At the edge of the world, Cerya Phoraena stood four stories high atop the remains of some destroyed manse, fingers tight around her spear, and watched Ordallia breathe.

Or at least, she watched Zelmonia; from her vantage she could see the far-off cliffs that marked Dhalikar Pass, beyond which lay The Swan and all the lands of their fifty-year foe, but before that was a land she knew far better, a land of her childhood lost. To the south lay Almorica Prison, once the seat of power for the Wallister people, and to the north she could make our a pinprick of light at the top of a series of crags which could only be the Royal City of Heim. She hadn’t been back in a very long time.

Cerya had not fought in the war; she’d been a priestess, then, a dutiful daughter as indeed her youngest sister had stayed, tending to the flock in a Pharist chapel miles away from the world at large, until the Ordallian push reclaimed Zelmonia and put her flock to the sword. She’d fled west with all the others, only to find that for all Ivalice’s royals had spoken of freeing them from Ordallian rule, they were far less interested in Zelmonia’s people when they pitched refugee camps on the Ivalician side of the border.

Standing now atop this ruined peak, the wind slapping her long raven hair into her face, she saw Zelmonia as a sort of faerie tale place, a memory that felt less than real. Few things felt real anymore save the tactile sensation of the weapon in her hand, and the acrid smells bubbling up from Sal Ghidos all around her.

“Cerya.” A man’s voice behind her fixing her place in the eddies and wash of time. Merrick Ehlrig’s voice was scarce above a whisper even when he was shouting, but she’d known to expect it. “He’s due to begin.”

She gave Ordallia one last look, as though she could see The Swan at this distance with her own eyes, and then followed him down the crumbling stairs.

Once, Sal Ghidos had been a merchant capital; Ivalice’s gateway to the east had collapsed in on itself after the Ordallian front ran it over, and when it had been reclaimed no money had arrived in the wake of its freedom. Slums and tents pock-marked the town’s breadth, and dirty-kneed children tripped over loose cobbles as they chased adventurers and caravans that dared to pass through.

Cerya hated Sal Ghidos. It was where she’d washed up when the tides of war had swept her out of Zelmonia, and she’d spent too long beached, belly to the sun, before finding a new purpose. And yet she so often found herself here again, in the underworld, because her people were the eyes in the shadows, and there were more shadows nowhere else in all of Ivalice than the town the land forgot.

She followed Ehlrig as he carefully stepped past a trio of drunken mercenaries, easing into an alleyway which led towards what remained of a town square. Ehlrig was a good man, a former pirate who’d had some second coming of St. Ajora on the high seas and returned home to find his homeland starving. They’d never discussed faith, nor would they likely ever. He was her right hand in the Order of the Ebon Eye, and with his height and his bulk, his skill with a hammer or an axe, his silence in approach, some called him the Demon Wall.

It was he that she’d sent westward, through Bolmina and the Dorvauldar and past Besselat, to make contact with the man who now stood atop the remains of a dry and shattered fountain with a crowd of people to all sides. A handsome man in polished but well-worn armor, and a cape with Gallionne’s colors; his hands were dirty from work honest and dishonest both, and he held the Mob’s attention before he’d even spoken.

This was the legend in flesh, Wiegraf Folles – she’d invited the Shepherd himself to Zeltennia.