Hi! It’s me, Abi – lead writer and pixel artist on Wargroove.
And I’m here to wish you a very happy #InternationalVesperDay! Unanimously voted ‘world’s best holiday’.
While we’re all waiting patiently for more Double Trouble release news I thought I’d give you a little more insight into everyone’s favourite malefactor – the outlaw’s outlaw (by which I mean the Outlaws outlawed her), it’s Vesper!
This bitter and hateful villain is the main antagonist in our brand new co-op story campaign. While Vesper (unlike Sigrid before her) falls short of regicide, she does go in for a little bit of light kidnapping and some advanced level extortion. Her machinations lead the bereft Wulfar, Errol and Orla with a hefty ransom to pay, leading to their daring heists upon the Imperial Palace of Heavensong, The Stone Mountain Fort of Felheim, The Celandine Vault of Cherrystone and the Floran’s Iron Root reserves… That’s all the gold in Aurania!
Anyway, Vesper really wouldn’t approve of me talking about anyone else but her, so lets get back to our ‘leading lady’. Vesper was developed after the other Double Trouble characters had been established, so we knew exactly what gap she needed to fill. As Wulfar’s foil Vesper had to be decidedly dramatic and theatrical, the better to counter the grounded chieftain’s reasonable personality.
Throughout the visual concept stage we looked at circus ring masters and joker card style clowns as inspiration. Likewise, when it came to voice casting, we searched for something striking. After exploring a few options, we settled gleefully on a Cruella De Vil-esque voice (because if dalmation desecration isn’t arch-villain territory I don’t know what is).
Vesper’s signature weapon followed pretty naturally from her early visual development. Where there are ringmasters there are whips! We felt this suited Vesper down to the ground because, ultimately, there aren’t a lot of weapons that are more theatrical than a big ol’ whip.
A simple, straightforward whip wasn’t going to cut it, however. Vesper’s melee capabilities are greatly enhanced by her status as a Fumomancer. Fumomancy is a marshall magical art that allows the user to wield smoke as a weapon. It’s an obscure speciality, and notoriously difficult to master, so there are precious few practitioners. Vesper learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, who learned it from… Well, you get the picture.
Fumomancy was a big influence when it came to choosing a name for Vesper. Because of this special kind of magic we based our search around the themes of smoke and darkness. Not only does the name Vesper mean ‘evening’ (so evoking the gathering of darkness), but it also has a smokey assonance that we felt really suited the character.
So…
That’s Vesper! In a nutshell.
We hope you like her! Or, at least, like hating her…
