Today I thought I'd introduce you to the Warriors, a punk/garage band based on the south side of Rock City, a (fictional) urban center in the northern Midwest.  The following inside look at the band contains some details that didn't actually make it into the text of the game itself.  (Our BGs are still being worked on, so the BG is not one of the ones that will be in the game, but one by Uncle Mugen.)

Ace Lee, lead singer and primary songwriter.  He is quick to anger, but is deeply devoted to his two major passions:  his boyfriend Pat, and his music.   His mother gets the majority of what's left of his attention.

            Ace is a Rock City native, but his mother immigrated from China as a young girl.  His father's family, on the other hand, came to America during the late 19th century, where they were among the many Chinese immigrants made to work in unsafe conditions on building the nation's railroads.  Ace has one older half-sister, who was born to his father's first wife; upon the sudden death of his wife, Ace's father moved from his native San Francisco to Rock City, where he soon met and fell head-over-heels for Ace's mother.  (He calls her his goddess.  It makes Ace a little nauseous.)  As his mother's only child, Ace was horribly spoiled as a child…and has not grown less spoiled as an adult.

 Ace's Inspiration:  naturally, Ace is based on Achilles, the temperamental lead(?) of the Iliad.  Like Ace, Achilles was something of a mama's boy, though his relationship with his father was better than what little we know about Ace's relationship with his father.  Achilles, too, was musically inclined:   in Book IX of the Iliad, when Agamemnon sends an embassy to Achilles with his apology, they find Achilles playing the lyre and singing to/for Patroclos.  (Not a romantic song, though:  he's indulging his self-pity and singing about another warrior whose honor was insulted.)

Pat Rock, drummer.  Pat is, above all, dedicated to Ace.  Pat realized he was in love with Ace long before Ace realized he was in love with Pat, but even when he thought his love was one-sided, it didn't change his devotion.  He tends to be fairly calm and to consider the situation thoroughly, and often acts to rein in Ace's temper.  (Pat is our player character and narrator.)

            Pat doesn't really get on very well with his family, particularly his father, a very conservative accountant who doesn't like the fact that his son is going about under an assumed name (their family name is absolutely not Rock) and banging on drums when he should be making his way as a respectable member of the community.  He also doesn't like that he's still having to support Pat financially while he's off gallivanting around half-undressed.

 Pat's Inspiration:  Pat, of course, is based on Patroclos, Achilles' devoted companion.  Whether or not Patroclos and Achilles are actually lovers in the Iliad has been debated for more than two thousand years now, and it's doubtful that any firm conclusions about the epic itself will ever be reached…but the greater consensus in the ancient literature seems to be that they were.  More importantly, our modern society is finally coming to accept that yes, they were absolutely lovers.  Because, yes, they were absolutely lovers.  (I am adamant about this point.)  Unlike in some modern reinterpretations, the Patroclos of the Iliad was a badass warrior, and he was only killed because Apollo knocked the armor off his back and broke the spear in his hand.  (Plus by the time Hector killed him, he was wounded, too, as another Trojan had stabbed him in the back only to run away in terror when his spear struck the shoulder blade and wouldn't go in any further.  And yet Hector was really proud of himself for having killed him, because he knew perfectly well that Patroclos was a very mighty warrior.)

            Pat's bad relations with his family, and especially his father, are not reflective of the original myth:  Patroclos' father was so dedicated to his son that he literally picked up his whole life and moved to another kingdom when Patroclos was exiled as a boy.  (We know nothing about Patroclos' mother, not even her name.  Because it was a very misogynistic society, and didn't consider wives, mothers, sisters, etc. to be worth mentioning under most circumstances.)  But Patroclos was not a gay man living in a society that condemned homosexuality, whereas Pat is.  (Patroclos' sexuality is debatable, but I think "bisexual" would probably be the most appropriate term, and would have been the typical situation in his era.)

A.J. the Axeman, guitarist.  A.J. is the most stable and dependable guy you could ever meet, though his loyalty to his friends can cause him trouble.  Having grown up in a particularly low-income area of Rock City, A.J. decided early on that he wanted to do whatever he could to improve his and his family's situation, so that neither he nor his half-brother would ever get drawn into street crime or the havoc caused in its environs.  To that end, despite his passion for music, he went to a vocational school and received training as an auto mechanic.  While working at a service station as his day job, he also started playing in bands in his free time, and eventually joined up with Ace to start the Warriors.  In order to save his money, he's still living in his parents' duplex until he has enough money to buy a house in a nicer neighborhood, at which time he plans to marry his girlfriend, and have his whole family come live with them.  (He's still working at the service station, though.  Just not as many shifts as he was before.)  Though he's straight, he knows about Ace and Pat's relationship, and is okay with it.

            The biggest tragedy of this game, to my mind, is that due to the structure and focus, I wasn't able to include A.J. as much as I would have liked.  If I ever rewrite this game to be longer and more involved, I would love to include a side-plot where A.J. is conflicted about the growing tensions between the Warriors and Untamed Whirlwind:  I would love to make a side-plot wherein his half-brother T.J.'s mother was Hector's aunt.  (Rewriting the game from A.J.'s perspective might be an interesting approach to the story, in fact.  I might try that at some point…)

 A.J.'s Inspiration:  A.J. is based on Aias of Salamis (better known by his Roman name, Ajax), the Greater Aias, often referred to in the Iliad as "the bulwark of the Achaians."  Aias was the tank of the Greek army at Troy, in modern parlance.  ;)  (He is not to be confused with the Lesser Aias, the one from Locris.  He was a horrible person, and is best known for raping Cassandra in the temple of Athene during the fall of Troy.)  In the Iliad, Aias is not related to Achilles, but in pretty much all later texts he's Achilles' first cousin.

            Aias' devoted half-brother, Teukros (Roman name Teucer), had a Trojan mother.  In the Iliad, her identity (and indeed Trojan origin) is not specified, but in later texts (again, pretty much universally) Teukros' mother was Hesione, the sister of King Priam.  This makes Teukros first cousin to Hector and the other princes of Troy, making him both suspect in Agamemnon's eyes, and all the more laudable for placing his devotion to his brother above so many of his other blood relations.  (Um…depending on your point of view.  The laudability mentioned above was the view of the society in which the myths originated.  It's a much more "gray area" thing in modern eyes.)

And let's also introduce their manager….

Ankit Ganesh, manager.  Ganesh has a small management company that puts out fairly low quality records that he only manages to distribute to local vendors.  The Warriors are the only local, currently-performing band he represents:  his other records are local pressings of music from India, and re-releases of recordings a few local bands made in the 1960s.  He does love music, but does not gush on about it, so it's easy to overlook his passion.

            The fact that he and Ace have frequent personality conflicts does not help, like, anything.  They're both very domineering people who like to be in control.  Honestly, they should not be working together, but Ganesh is one of the only managers in Rock City who actually likes the music the Warriors are making, so…they're sort of stuck with each other.  (And he dislikes Ace's personality so much that he's hesitant to even let on that he likes the music...)

 Ganesh's Inspiration:  Ganesh is based on Agamemnon, the King of Mycenae, and leader of the Greek forces at Troy.  The Iliad starts out with an argument between him and Achilles getting so out of hand that Achilles withdraws from the war, and even prays to his divine mother to intercede with Zeus and prevent his own allies from winning any battles until Agamemnon apologizes.  (Achilles has no conscience, apparently.  And/or doesn't care that he's getting his own friends and allies killed.)

And that's all I have to say about the Warriors; you'll have to wait until the game comes out to learn more!  ;)  (I promise that our programmer is better at positioning sprites than I am at positioning them in my graphics program, btw.  No one's hair will be lopped off by the top of the screen in the game itself...)

For the next devlog, I plan to highlight the artists who are working with me to bring this game and these characters to life.  Please look forward to it!  :D