--- TOCH - THE DISPIRITED TRAVELLER ---

Disinherited by his farmer parents in the Firelands for being too dreamy and odd to entrust with the family farm, Toch traveled all of Aether in search of an honest and meaningful life. Penniless and alienated from society, fitting into none of Aether's insular communities, he made one last journey to the boomtown of Julesvale seeking a livelihood. Failing even there, he felt that he had nowhere to go and nobody to whom to turn.... until he was accosted by a strange old man who paid his room and board for only the promise of a talk.

The old man offered Toch a job selling rare gemstones from the Archai region to both build capital for himself and draw Aetherians from all over to Julesvale to build an inclusive community. Toch felt unable, telling the old man about his status as a misfit. But the old man accepted and entertained his unusual ideas, even sharing wild stories of his own, and for the first time, Toch felt truly valued. Convinced by the old man that Toch had to create a new world where he had a place of dignity, Toch spent many days learning from him and discussing philosophy. Filled with a desire to create a new world for both himself and his elderly friend while there was still time, Toch set off back across Aether with new eyes.

By the end of the sales job, Toch had part of his last remaining gemstone cut into a pendant as a keepsake of his mentor. With the money he raised, he decided to start a career as a deliveryman who could deliver anywhere in Aether. And this aim was bolstered by an incredible discovery he made while preparing his new business: despite being a Firelander with no elemental power over fire, he had an ability to compress and push air with great force. Now armed with high-pressure movement and the skill to debilitate attackers, Toch starts his delivery business, Four Winds - holding onto his wish to create a new world for himself and the old man.

---

March of 2023...... I had just completed the story mode of Dungeons of Aether, a game the release of which I had been anticipating since it was announced in April of 2020. The game itself was an enjoyable enough experience, but...... The story of a specific character from that game affected me very strongly in a way I hadn't expected. I was left thinking about that character for weeks, wishing that things could have gone differently somehow. This feeling of grief, if I can call it that, manifested in more than one way, but one of those ways was imagining if somebody else in the world of Aether could have cared about them as much as I did.
Four months later, Aether Studios, the development team behind the Aether series, announced a contest for Steam Workshop users to design a character in the original Rivals of Aether's Workshop, with the contest winner having their character become an official playable character in Rivals of Aether II, the then-in development sequel. Excited about this contest, I began to think: maybe that person can exist after all. I began developing the idea of this character into an actual playable character that could be made in the Steam Workshop.

I knew that I wanted the character to be an air elemental, both because the character who inspired this endeavor was also an air elemental and I've always been partial to air in elemental systems myself anyway. And as this character was a reflection of my own feelings, I wanted to base them on one of the animals that I usually use to represent myself. Out of them, I chose a weasel, because..... well, a weasel who's an air elemental? Kamaitachi, obviously, it just writes itself. And so that's how I derived his name, too: kamaitochi. (Well, in his case it's pronounced like 'tokk', but)
And as he has things in common with me, so does his overall personality being one of lacking something..... longing, alienation..... emptiness. So the way he uses air is to create vacuums. And his gimmick as a vacuum-user would be to 'negate' the opponents' offenses and defenses. But instead of having sickle-like claws to manipulate the air, he would instead wield a REAL sickle.... because he left his old farming life and that was all he had left from it. And that is why he was traveling Aether, searching for meaning in his life. Only to meet someone who seemed to be a kindred spirit. An odd creative process, but it worked out!
So in many ways I only thought of Toch as an extension of myself, to do what I wanted for that other person who lived in that world. But as I thought up this character's background, his relationships, his personality, I began to separate him from myself and care about him. I began to care about his future..... And I imagined what he had done to get to where he was and where his life would lead. And..... how it would affect him when he failed to achieve the hope that we both held.
I failed to achieve my own hopes in some way, too..... since I didn't really have the skills necessary to create a whole playable character for Rivals of Aether from scratch by the contest deadline..... even WITH an extension. Feh! It may sound like sour grapes, but I seriously doubt I would have won that contest anyway, given the stiff competition, especially from people who actually knew HOW to design a fighting game character. I'd still like to make a playable Steam Workshop build for him in Rivals of Aether, especially as I have a lot of the planning done, but past a certain point I switched focus to working out a very detailed backstory for Toch.
Toch's existence has gained an importance greater than merely helping out a person for whom we both care. I want to work towards telling that story...... Who knows. Maybe Aether Studios would appreciate somebody telling such a story based on their work? LOL, probably not. But it's still a story I'd like to tell, anyway.
I have a rough plan for what he did with his life all the way up to the events of Rivals of Aether and Dungeons of Aether. But what happens after that? Well, it's hard to tell with Rivals of Aether II's story content not coming out until 2027 at the earliest, if ever.

Anyway, I've meant to complete this key art of him for some time. I attempted to mimic the style of the official characters' portraits done for Rivals of Aether's 'Definitive Edition' release as closely as possible. While some parts of it are still a bit rough, I wanted to post this before the end of the day of Rivals of Aether's 10th anniversary of release. I... just barely made it in time. It fell a bit short, but I'm still really happy with how it looks. This might be some of the most complex work I've ever done....... Well, except for maybe that one background I drew in an earlier piece.... hm.
I might still update this submission if I touch up the art a bit, but I'm taking a small break from it for now, since I pushed myself to get it to a finished state in time. Though, I have other projects I'd like to work on, too..... hmmph.

Ah, and there are a couple of design sketches I did which I have posted in my scraps as supplemental pieces. You can see them here and here.

Toch..... my son. Here's to a new world. May you find happiness.