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(Art by @audioerf and Fen: https://twitter.com/_knucklebone)

Name: Mikaela

Species: Jackson's Chameleon

Bio: Chrias's first mission ended with him being one of the few survivor's of his team. Blix made a name for himself by single-handedly resolving a hostage situation on live TV. But their first mission together is the one that truly kicks off our story, and it's on that mission they meet Mikaela.

Strikingly dressed and rocking some high-tech gear, there's not too much they know about Mikaela. She appears to work with Andréa and Reynold, but in spite of them seemingly being the ones running the show she talks to them as if she's untouchable. She also seems to show a deeper familiarity of the science and technology Andréa's organization is working with.

If Mikaela's allegiances don't lie with Andréa, then the question remains: Who do they lie with? And what does she get out of this?

Behind the Scenes: Okay, so as a break from the string of characters initially introduced as entirely inconsequential one-off background characters, Mikaela is one that was created with a very specific role and function in mind. Intended to be a sort of dark mirror to Carmen, Mikaela was created for a part of the story much, much further down the line. As I developed her character (and her relationship to Carmen), I realized there was a spot for her earlier in the story so that she, and thus later developments, could be integrated more naturally.

This is one of the things I think I like best about rewriting some of this stuff. See, when a movie or game introduces some new element and is like "Oh, this was technically here the WHOLE TIME, just offscreen" it can either be really dumb and feel like a total ass-pull or, if you're the Fast & Furious series, really cool and feel like a total ass-pull. So what better way to mitigate this then to pull it out of your ass a little bit earlier? This metaphor has kind of gotten away from me.

Point is, Mikaela is a much more recent creation who was made with a specific function in mind and I like her so much that I'm going to integrate her into earlier parts of the story. Maybe she and Carmen kiss a little. Idk. I'm playing it by ear.

(Art by ZiLLA: https://twitter.com/WitchZiLLART)

Name: Reynold

Species: Bottlenose Dolphin

Bio: The MPA is still a young organization. Sometimes you need to take what you can get; sometimes you take risks and make mistakes. Chrias's first mission with them was also the first time Reynold was put in charge of a team. It did not go well.

It's hard to say what may have happened. Maybe he cracked under the pressure. Maybe he was never suited for this. Or perhaps he was drunk on power and just looking for an opportunity to abuse it. Whatever the case, the result of Reynold's sole outing as a team leader was two agents needlessly cut down by gunfire and a stealth specialist Chrias had befriended bleeding out from a stab wound Reynold may or may not have caused.

Before an investigation could be conducted, Reynold seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth. All attempts to contact him or track him down led nowhere, and he wouldn't resurface until some time later, when he's spied standing guard outside a mysterious building in the middle of the Amazon rainforest.

While it's unclear what events surrounded Reynold's employment here, one thing is clear: He seems to be the only person Andréa trusts with 100% confidence and the only morph she can stand to be around.

Behind the Scenes: You know the song and dance at this point. Reynold (originally "Reynolds" until I decided that was maybe a bit too much like a last name) was initially just sort of an incidental character. A sort of funny-ha-ha about sharks and dolphins not liking each other. As I thought about it further, though, I sort of came to the conclusion that having the shark be the main protagonist and the dolphin be a major antagonist would be a nice little subversion of how each species is commonly portrayed in a lot of media.

This, in turn, sort of spun outward into recurring themes in the story regarding the perception of "good" and "evil" as concepts. Characters doing seemingly villainous things for reasons they deem good; how much of it is necessary and when does it cross a line? Is there a line to cross? Is a choice that seems good but results in dire consequences a truly "good" choice?

I don't really have a whole lot more about Reynold before the events of Livid Crusade, the mission he lead that ended in disaster. I think part of that is that unlike some other antagonists, Reynold is the kind of bad guy where I don't think it's worth it to try and pathologize him. He's just an asshole. Sometimes the "why" doesn't matter.

(Art by @notzackforwork and ZiLLA: https://twitter.com/WitchZiLLART)

Name: Andréa Daedalia

Species: African Leopard

Bio: Chrias's birth was met with worldwide curiosity and excitement. What an event! The first child born of morphs of different species! It was a landmark in the history of morphkind, not to mention the answer to a question long-asked by the scientific community.

Two years earlier and almost halfway around the world, Andréa was born. Born of a morph father and human mother.

Her birth was not a happy event. Nor was everything that came after it. Her mother did her best to give her a good life, but misfortune always seemed to follow her. Eventually, she was able to catch a break and move to the US. She held no illusions about it being any kind of land of opportunity, but as far as she was concerned the farther away from home she was, the better. And what did she see when she arrived? A child born of different species, revered and celebrated and treated like royalty.

Andréa's anger grew from a hatred of her circumstances, to a hatred of Chrias, and then into a hatred of morphkind in general for abandoning her to her terrible life. And thus did she start seeking the means to exact her revenge, eventually finding a benefactor for her plots and building up an army. Obviously this was not going to be an easy road she found herself on, and after a particularly big setback, even she had to admit she needed a night out to let off some steam.

It was this decision that found her in Blix's bed the morning one of her subordinates sent him a bomb in retaliation for being part of the team responsible for the aforementioned setback. As if that wasn't enough, she also found herself face-to-face with the very object of her scorn as Blix brought her along to bunker down in Chrias's safe room to discuss the attack. None present would realize just whose presence they were in until she had them captured as they attempted to break into her Amazon facility.

Behind the Scenes: Yeah, you got me. I thought it would be hilarious if "random girl Blix hooks up with in chapter two" ended up being the big villain.

Honestly though, Andréa is kind of one of my favorite OCs I've made. I think we can all agree it's fun to make up a guy and be like "oh what if they were a little fucked up actually," but what if you make up a guy and you're like "oh what if they were REALLY fucked up, actually??" We support women's rights and women's wrongs in this house.

I think part of what's great about writing Andréa is getting to write a character that's just really intense and dramatic in almost every insane thing she does. Like, in the rewrite I literally have her ripping a dude's heart out to make a point? How can you not have fun writing someone who's just SO MUCH like that? And this is to say nothing of her character arc; I've written out a decent chunk of Andréa's journey already and only have more planned. I really hope I can buckle down and get more of this story out so I can get to all of it!

Oh, one last bit. See, people having last names in Morphkind are particularly rare. Mostly it's considered something of a status symbol. That's why Chrias has a last name, his family is famous so they decided to start using one. Andréa gave herself the last name of "Daedalia" as sort of a way to raise herself up. This is also the last name I gave her when I made a Miqo'te version of her in FFXIV. So that's where that comes from.

(Art by ZiLLA: https://twitter.com/WitchZiLLART)

Name: Gwen

Species: Great Horned Owl

Bio: Flying species are highly sought after by the MPA to fill its ranks for obvious reasons. Flight specialists tend to be a lot less conspicuous eyes-in-the-sky than any piece of equipment and can often swoop in or out at a moment's notice if needed. Most flying morphs have the unique issue of requiring combat gear with accommodations for the size of their wings and their carrying capacity, not wanting to be too weighed down. For most non-arthropod flying morphs (who are naturally bulletproof), the flight specialist motto of "never turn back" is both an affirmation and instructions; the vest is only bulletproof in the front, after all.

Gwen is the flight specialist assigned to Chrias's team early on in Morphkind. She's generally pretty chipper with a penchant for bad jokes, which helps put people at ease. This is especially needed because the fact that her eyes don't move in their sockets tends to make others slightly uncomfortable, and she can't wear her flight goggles all the time.

When Junia is recruited into the MPA following the Amazon mission, Gwen handles her flight specialist training (or, in her words, she "takes [Junia] under [her] wing"). Her bright-eyed nature also hides considerable strength and a deadly hand-to-hand combatant; or, as she would describe it, "hand-to-foot," as she fights using a pair of spring-loaded blades mounted on her legs.

Behind the Scenes: While I've got plenty of places for Gwen to show up, she's definitely one of the least-developed characters to be considered part of the core "team." In the original version of the story, she didn't show up until considerably later, when I found myself needing to fill out a team of flight specialists Junia joined up with. When rewriting the story, she (along with a warrior wasp character named Hazel) got an expanded role as part of a sort of worldbuilding update necessitating flight specialists to be common fixture on MPA missions.

Gwen is sort of an example of my problem with what I guess you could call "character bloat" while also being sort of an example of my solution. See, I tend to have an issue with going maybe a bit too hard with filling out a story with an absurd number of characters. When I started Morphkind, I sort of wound down the number of named characters in it to try and avoid this. Just looking at my character list I've maintained since starting my rewrite, I can tell you right now that I did a bad job.

Having a number of named characters isn't a bad thing, mind you. Nothing wrong with filling out the world, but it can be difficult to maintain and keep track of everyone and their place in the story. Gwen was created specifically to fill a role, but when I needed to fill another role later on, I decided to just backfill her into the story rather than create another OC to add to the already-long-list. This presents another issue of the world possibly feeling too "small" as certain characters seemingly keep inexplicably popping up, but we're not talking a galaxy-spanning space opera or anything. We're talking about, like, a government office building. So it's probably fine.