[Designer Talk] When designing Pleasure Demoness, what were we thinking?

Hi everyone, I'm Xiaoyun. During this period of time, I worked with the art staff to remake Pleasure Demoness. Thanks to the wonderful brushwork of art stuff, I have a lot of inspiration to rewrite her character background story.

[h2]【Design】[/h2]
If I were to use a specific image symbol to summarize Réveille, I think it should be flame.

A cluster of small flames is often bright and warm, it is synonymous with warmth and hope; And the raging flames will remind people of the scenes of raging fires or raging wars, and most of the time, it is always with a sense of destruction. Therefore, the small flames and the raging flames have formed a kind of opposition, so how can this opposition be reflected in the background story of Réveille?

The Epithet of Réveille is "Pleasure Demoness." Whether from the first version to the current version, the art designing of Réveille insists on using red and black as the main colors, and the parts of the body have certain inhuman characteristics. So I extracted "pleasure", "inhuman", "red and black" as keywords, and diverged my thoughts based on these keywords.

The first is "pleasure", the opposite of pleasure is pain;
The second is "inhuman", and the opposite of "inhuman" is "human";
The last is “red and black”, which reminds me of a quote from Julien, the protagonist in the masterpiece "Le Rouge et le Noir (Red and Black)" by Stendhal: I may be humble, but I am not base.

When this sentence echoed in my heart, the raging flames seems full of fighting spirit, which reminded me of the image of "Phoenix". But when it is connected with the destruction meaning also represented by raging flames, it has an extreme opposition, which is Nirvana.

In summary, the basic idea of Réveille's background story has a rough outline: the "inhuman" or "pleasure" won’t exist with no reason. Before Réveille became a black guard, she had lived as an ordinary girl with a pain past, until Nirvana in a fire that could change her destiny...

Combined with the content of the current world view, a brief summary of her past should be:

Ordinary girl - the experiment of the Tower of Babel - the Awakener grey blood - Black Guard.
In line with the conventional way of writing "to gain the superpower, the poor rely on mutation, the rich rely on technology", Réveille's past kicked off in the experiment prison of Tower of Babel.



[h2]【Past】[/h2]
For Réveille, her memory begins in the dark experiment prison of the Tower of Babel.

At first, there were no less than 30 girls about her age caged in that huge cell. All their memories were washed away, like a blank sheet of paper. The girls ate and lived here, received harsh training, and were subjected to various inhuman tortures by the jailers.

Girls with excellent training results will be taken out of prison by the jailer and never come back after that.

Those girls with poor training results were either killed by other girls in this cruel competitive fight, or were abused by the jailer again after being treated.

Réveille lives secretly in this hell. Until one day, when there were only six people left in the prison, she won the competition with another girl and got the opportunity to leave here.

The two girls who were taken out of the prison thought they could be free, but they never expected to be taken to a deeper and darker underground, where they were forcibly poured "grey blood."

This is the unfortunate but luckiest day of Réveille's life. When another girl was eroded and demonized by the grey blood, she awakened a powerful force from the grey blood.

It's hard to say that Réveille after awakening is still a human. Her hair became frosty, her eyes were red, and she even grew fierce claws. After killing the demonized girl who got out of control, she killed all the jailers in the fire of revenge, burned the prison to all, and vowed to kill all the members of the Tower of Babel.

A few months later, Réveille, who was constantly hunting down the members of the Tower of Babel, met the black guards. The black guards were surprised that the girl was awakened through the grey blood. Réveille also learned that the black guards had a common enemy with her.

The black guards took Réveille back to St.Nigal. And she stayed in a secret room for a day and night, she had a long conversation with the archbishop that no one knew the details.

Then, everyone suddenly discovered that Réveille's name appeared on the Black Guards roster...

The rest of her life was the time of living with the black guards in the Black Guards Academy, slaying enemies with them over the great wall, and it was also the time when her "pleasure" had just begun. The daily life of the college seems to be quietly awakening her sporadic good memories.

[h2]【Story ①】[/h2]

No one knows where Réveille's hometown is, not even she herself. Only those images of the warmth leaping fire in the stove that often reverberate in her mind, and the sweet smell of pumpkin pie that seems to be still filling the tip of her nose, remind her of the past. Perhaps a long time ago, she also had a family as ordinary and happy as most people, and carefree childhood years.

Although Réveille often has doubts and thinks about the authenticity of these memory fragments, her expression will always betray her-every time she thinks of these memories, her smile will involuntarily bloom from her face, even the flames in her palms seems to be softer.

The leisurely and happy daily life reveals a touch of tenderness in her vague memories of the past years, making her could baked a sweet pumpkin pie; sleeping soundly under the cherry tree with fireflies; competing with cats for a warm stove; getting acquainted with friends who also use fire; and fighting alongside the black guards from time to time... It can be said that the real "pleasure" belonging to the Pleasure Demoness has just begun.



Thank you for your interest in Réveille, and reading this.

In the actual game, Réveille will appear in the game as a Sniper hero. If you want to see more thoughts on the creation of the background story of Black Guard, please look forward to the Designer Talk next time~

Thank you for your interest in our game!