Welcome back to another blog post and this week we have a BIG one! At last, we finally have the ‘meet Vianna’ blog. We’ll dive into her character and learn about what makes her tick, just what has made her the way she is, and what exactly about her is so unique! This post took a long time to make, and I even lost my first draft, so before something else happens, let’s get right into it!

The World of Harmonizer

Before we dive into Vianna’s character, we need to set the stage for the world that she calls home. The world of Harmonizer is a fantasy-based world with predominately medieval tones. There are far more towns than cities, roads are predominately paved with dirt, and most buildings are made from timber and stone. For the most part, technology is absent, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

In some parts of the world, civilizations have begun to adopt technology. Some cities are made of metal while others have only just begun to experiment with machinery, but there are a few civilizations that have fully embraced technology! These cities are defined by towering factories, mechanized legions, and flying fortresses stronger than any army!

Such technologies, however, are mostly absent in the city of Ankila, and that is where this story starts. Situated to the north of a vast desert, Ankila is a mining city with little in the way of luxury. Most of its homes are made of sandstone, trade can be rather scarce, and technology is borderline unheard of. Life in Ankila is the very definition of harsh, but Ankila manages to keep itself going thanks to its mining operation.

Occupying the heart of Ankila is a massive mining pit. Here, tons of stone and raw minerals are harvested and sent across the continent, providing the income necessary to keep the city from collapsing, but that doesn’t mean life is prosperous. While most everyone is able to make a living, not everyone has such luxuries, and that is where Vianna comes in.

Vianna

Standing as the hero of the story, Vianna is a Sellenian, a bipedal, dragon-like species. Clocking in at over eight feet tall, Vianna is incredibly large, even for her species. Her incredible strength is largely uncontested and is only matched by her incredible temper. Everyone knows to give Vianna a wide berth, but while her attitude might seem abrasive, it was, unfortunately, well-earned.

When Vianna and her sister, Aiya, were younger, their lives had been mostly normal. They had incredibly loving parents and were reasonably well off, but tragedy struck when their parents unexpectedly died on a trip, leaving the sisters as orphans. With no one to rely on or take care of them, Vianna embraced her final promise to her parents and took it upon herself to take care of her sister at all costs, and she did just that.

In order to provide for them, Vianna dropped everything and took up a job in the mines. While the earnings were meager, it was the only job that would take her at such a young age, and Vianna didn’t complain. Vianna’s life began to revolve around the mines. She gave up on a social life, stopped attending the Scholarium, and even forgot her dreams. To her, all that mattered was fulfilling the promise she had made to her mother, even if it cost her everything.

Over the long years, Vianna’s life became defined by her life in the mines. While she was a hard worker and had the benefit of her incredible stature, her earnings remained meager. What she earned was barely enough to support one person, let alone two, but Vianna hardly took any of the funds for herself.

Almost everything that Vianna earned she gave to her sister. She bought clothes for her, food, bedding, and even funded her attendance at the Scholarium. Vianna gave up every semblance of comfort in order to ensure that her sister could chase her dreams. To her, so long as Aiya could fulfill her lifelong dreams, then that justified all the sacrifices she was making, and so Vianna found herself trapped in a never-ending routine.

While life was harsh, it wasn’t entirely the fault of her circumstance. When Vianna had lost her parents, she and her sister had been left entirely alone, and that abandonment affected her. When people eventually began offering assistance, Vianna turned them away. In her mind, not only was it a cruel insult to all they had gone through, but it was a threat to the promise she had made.

To Vianna, if she couldn’t support her sister alone, then she would have failed to keep her promise. Not even her best friend, Feera, had been able to convince her to accept help, ultimately leaving Vianna to mire herself in a repetitive, painful life that seemingly had no end.

Vianna’s Temperment

As a person, Vianna is an incredibly aggressive individual. She is quick to anger and often doesn’t listen to the advice of others. Almost everyone in Ankila knows to tiptoe whenever she is around, and she has a reputation for breaking bones over the smallest of slights.

Throughout her childhood, Vianna was known as a thug. She would very often get in trouble for causing fights, breaking bones, and destroying property, and that very often brought her face to face with the city elders. She would spend many, many nights sitting in isolation within the city temple under the elders’ supervision, but she would almost always be let off with a warning from the high elder, Lassar.

Most people couldn’t understand why Lassar was so lenient, and many speculated that it was because of his relationship with her parents, but Lassar could see something in Vianna that almost no one else could. Though she was quick to anger and unreasonable, he saw the same spark that her parents had, and that was the spark of a leader.

While Vianna is quite violent, she is also fiercely protective of those she loves, namely her sister and best friend. Whenever either of them needs something, Vianna is the first to help, and she never hesitates to put herself in danger for them. Many of the fights she gets involved in are started because of someone saying something bad about her best friend, but her overprotective nature doesn’t stop there.

Even in the mines, she has a reputation for being a caring and reliable friend. When other miners get in trouble, she is quick to offer assistance and bail them out with her incredible strength. Although many of the miners look up to her and are eager to follow her lead, she has made it clear on numerous occasions that she has no interest in leadership, but that doesn’t keep her from having a following.

While Vianna’s aggression and protective nature are what define her, there is also a sense of justice that she follows even without realizing it. One of the lessons she learned from her father was to always help in situations where she could. Because of this, Vianna has a hard time turning a blind eye to those in need and often pitches in to help. Though her sense of duty can sometimes override this, at her core, Vianna remains a just individual with a heart of gold. That heart just sometimes gets covered up by a molten, angry exterior!

Aiya

Vianna’s sister, Aiya, is quite different from her bigger, angrier sister. Aiya is much smaller and tends to think her way through situations instead of punching. Thanks to Vianna’s sacrifices, Aiya is largely able to live a normal life. She has a room, decent clothing, and the typical belongings anyone would have, and that weighs heavily on her soul.

Because of what Vianna has to go through, Aiya feels an incredible sense of guilt. It breaks her heart to see Vianna give up on her dreams, but her protests always fall on deaf ears. Vianna refuses to allow Aiya to get a job or do anything to even remotely help her. To Vianna, all that matters is that Aiya follows her dreams, and while it hurts Aiya’s heart, she remains focused on her Scholarium work.

Aiya’s greatest dream was to become a Scholar. She wanted to attend a Scholarium and learn all that she could, so much of her time is spent studying. Whenever Vianna gets home from the mines, Aiya works to try and teach Vi whatever she can, but Vianna isn’t quite as scholarly as Aiya is. Though Aiya tries her best to focus on her studies for the sake of her sister, a large part of her yearns for the chance to do something to help her sister so that Vianna can live the life that Aiya feels she stole from her…

Feera

While Vianna’s abrasive attitude means she doesn’t have much in the way of friends, she is incredibly close with her best friend, Feera! Feera is practically Vianna’s opposite. Whereas Vianna is large, muscular, and mostly brawn, Feera is small, diminutive, and incredibly intelligent. Feera and Vianna met when they were incredibly young, but because of their polar opposite natures, they magnetized to each other and have been unbreakable friends ever since!

Because of her small size, Feera is something of a runt. She is often bullied for being so small, and that led her to more scholarly pursuits. At a young age, she discovered the process of alchemy and instantly fell in love. Feera devoted herself to learning all she could about crafting potions and creating explosive chemical mixtures, and she was able to become a true master of the craft! Though she still has much to learn, she is the premier authority on alchemy within Ankila and dreams of one day opening an alchemy shop better than any other in the world!

When she’s not working on her alchemy, however, Feera can almost always be found hanging out with Vianna. Whenever Feera gets picked on in Vianna’s presence, Vianna always comes to her defense, often with a flurry of fists. After the dust settles, Feera is always there to patch up her friend, but despite all she does to help Vianna, she still wishes to find a way to help her friend live the life she thinks she deserves.

Garrin

Out of everyone in Ankila, Garrin is very high on Vianna’s dislike list. Garrin is a rather intelligent sellen who works as an apprentice blacksmith, but dreams of one day becoming an ace pilot somewhere beyond the confines of Ankila. While Garrin is known for being something of a smooth talker, what Vianna really hates is that he is Aiya’s boyfriend.

Because of his relationship with Aiya, Garrin tries his best to be supportive of her, and that often leads to conflict with Vianna. He knows more than anyone just how much Vianna’s suffering tears Aiya apart, but his offers of assistance are met with fierce hostility. Vianna ultimately sees him as a threat to her promise, and, as such, keeps him at arm’s length, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing to search for a way to get through to her and end her self-destructive cycle.

Vianna’s Dreams

Though Vianna has accepted her way of life, a tiny part of her still dreams of what things could be like. As a child, she had once dreamed of exploring the world and seeing the sights beyond the city, and while she has long given up on that dream, she still finds herself staring off into the horizon dreaming of what her life could be like.

The Harmonizer and her Quest

Throughout Vianna’s life, it was always clear that something was a little different about her. While her unnatural strength could just be brushed off as genetics or the work in the mines, her fighting skills are almost supernatural and only seem to amplify in moments of crisis. While this seemed like a mystery that would never be explained, an unexpected catastrophe alters Vianna’s life forever.

In a catastrophic turn of events, Aiya contracts the Violet Death, an incurable plague. Desperate to save the only family she has left, Vianna takes her sister to the temple of Visunna, and it is there that a spark of hope is offered.

The High Priestess guides Vianna to seek the Tower of the Gods. This journey is a pilgrimage for those of Visunna’s order, but no one has ever seen the inside of this mysterious tower. It is believed that whoever opens the door will be granted a wish by the gods, and while it is seemingly a fool’s hope, it is the only chance Aiya has.

With her path laid out, Vianna sets out alongside Feera and, begrudgingly, Garrin. They journey north and Vianna finally gets to see all the things she has never experienced. She sees fields of grass, flowing rivers, and an entire forest, but finally arrives at the steps of the fabled tower.

Though Vianna doesn’t believe in the gods, she falls to her knees at the doors of the tower and begs someone to save her sister. Though they all try their hardest to get the doors to open, her pleas are met with silence, and it seems as if all hope is lost. Right as she begins to give up, however, the doors that have never opened suddenly… open.

Vianna and her companions are stunned and enter the tower only to find it occupied by a single entity who calls herself Estria, but she is nothing like anything any of them had ever imagined. She is seemingly made of light itself and has knowledge of things the three of them can barely understand. What shocks them most, however, is her explanation of why she opened the gates. Estria has waited many years for someone to appear with the abilities of what she calls a Harmonizer, and it turns out that Vianna is that someone.

Vianna has a rare, genetic sequence left behind by Estria’s people. This genetic sequence is what is largely responsible for Vianna’s innate, supernatural strength, but that’s not the most important thing. What sets Harmonizers apart is their ability to interact with Harmonizer coded technology, and that ability is what Estria needs in order to avert a catastrophe.

In order to purge an infection from the heart of the planet, Estria beseeches Vianna and her friends to help her acquire the keys to the planet’s core, but such a task will not be easy. Each key is guarded by an entity called a Guardian, an immense, mechanical being with incredible powers. While such a task seems impossible, the special weapon of a Harmonizer, a blade called Harmony, is the weakness of any Guardian and the key to bringing them down.

Though Feera and Garrin are hesitant, Vianna agrees to Estria’s request on the promise that Estria gives her a way to cure her sister. Though Vianna can barely understand what she has gotten herself into, all she cares about is that she has a chance to save her sister. With Harmony in hand and her friends at her side, she sets out to hunt the Guardians, not just to save her sister, but their very future!

Conclusion

And that is the full story of Harmonizer’s hero, Vianna! Hopefully that was an interesting read, but what I really hope is that it makes her character easier to understand. Sure, she has her flaws, but she has been through an incredible ordeal, and the worst is possibly still ahead of her! Harmonizer: Tower of the Gods, has already been released, but it’s sequel, The Lonely Fortress, is just around the corner! Will Vianna be able to wrest the second key from the next Guardian, Garondar, or will she ultimately succumb to the machinations of the Steel Legion?

If you liked this post, be sure to come back next week for our spotlight on Feera, Vianna’s best friend and the pyromaniac responsible for at least a few dozen arson incidents!

Cheers!

The Flying Fennec

Vianna, Harmonizer’s Hero!