Behind the Scenes 1: Leon... and his sister?

So, I went through several revisions over how to deal with the main character in the past year or so that I’ve been actively planning this story. Perhaps the biggest change I decided on before starting to actually write was that Leon used to have a twin sister!

The story would’ve started out almost identical to how it ultimately ended up starting, with Leon and Artorias out on a hunt. This was before I came up with the Northern Vales, but I still had ‘Mountain Tribes’ in the north. However, the family didn’t live up in the Northern Mountains. They actually lived as hunters in an obscure village far out of the way of anything or anyone who might’ve been able to identify Artorias’ status as nobility.

So, Leon and Artorias kills a dear or whatever, then brings it back to their hut in the wild. There, they would find Leon’s happy and bubbly sister welcoming them home. Artorias would notice some blood on her clothes, and she would tell him about how a couple of bandits tried to steal their furs while the two of them were out. She ended up killing them and leaving their bodies in the back. She says all this without losing her bright and high-spirited smile.

This was also before I thought of Inherited Bloodlines, so I would then immediately launch into an introductory arc about bandits raiding the nearby village. Artorias would be mortally wounded in the fighting, and Leon and his sister would set out to advance the plot together.

It would become obvious during the story that Leon was far more asocial than he is even in the current version. He was far more unwilling to talk and barely interacted with anyone except his own sister. (I never got around to naming her, and only gave Leon a name later, but for now let’s call her Lea.)

Lea, on the other hand, would be a very happy and upbeat girl, constantly going out of her way to make friends and just be a wonderful social butterfly.

So, after several story arcs, the twins’ identities would be found out by the people who killed Serana. The twins would return to the capital after winning a battle and would then be ambushed in the street. This would end up being an arc unto itself, with almost all of their friends being killed in the fighting. Even the Prince would die (there was only 1 prince at this point).

It would all culminate in a final battle that would leave Lea dying in Leon’s arms, and him going crazy with anger and rage. He would fight the enemies for another chapter or two, killing many, but eventually succumbing to his injuries.

Just as he was taking his last breath, however, the Man in the Tower at the very center of the plane would appear to him and offer him a deal (This guy had a very different role than he does now).

We would never see what this deal entailed, but it ended with the Man in the Tower turning back time, so Leon could save Lea and all their friends by stopping the ambush before it happened. After that, he would get one day to say goodbye to everyone before disappearing.

Lea would wind up driving most of the plot for next few arcs alone. But, she would find that she could sense Leon’s current status if not his whereabouts through some magic twin thing that I never really fleshed out. Whenever Leon was extremely injured or feeling a strong emotion, Lea could sense it. The same would happen in reverse, with Leon sensing Lea’s injuries and strong emotions.

They would later reunite several years later, with Leon—made much stronger from his recent experiences—coming in as much needed support during a battle and helping to win the day.

The two would never be so far away from each other again, always watching each other’s backs and supporting each other’s endeavors.

I’m not going to talk about what the Man in the Tower had Leon doing because I’ve actually merged a lot of that arc with something that will happen in the future, but why they do it and much of the context surrounding it has been very heavily altered.

So, in the end, I decided to keep things simple by only having 1 ‘main character’, even if there other POV characters from time to time. I’m still interested in having twin MC’s who are psychically linked somehow, though. Perhaps when I finish with The Storm King, I’ll revisit that concept for whatever comes next.

Thank you very much for reading this, and an extra special Thank You for my patrons! My next BTS post will be in June, and will be exclusive to the $3 and up Patreon tiers!