Character Dive: Narsinyo

In this short series, I'm going to be looking at not only how my art has changed and improved over the course of each featured character's (or group of characters) existence, but also how their personalities and my conceptions of them have changed and grown.

The final entry in this series, at least for now, is a NPC for my MERP campaign (arguably, at this point, a PC). I started planning the overall arc of this campaign in 2012, coincidentally right before shattering my leg and ankle and spending quite a lot of time with little to do other than think and draw. Some of my original ideas were a bit strange (I blame the pain medicine), but the bare bones of the campaign arc have remained fairly consistent. Narsinyo himself hasn't.

Several years before I really got stuck into planning the new campaign, I had a variety of scattered ideas, and an elf named Finril featured in them frequently. There did end up being a Finril featured in my eventual campaign (who was killed by a dragon several adventures back), but he was very different from the Finril who appeared in the earliest notes. That character has more in common with Narsinyo, despite appearing different in most details.

In some ways, the elf referenced as Finril in those notes actually bears the most resemblance to the current villain of the campaign arc – Nólanúro Artamornë, Narsinyo's father. This character was an ancient Noldo elf bard/scholar, whose obsession with old lore would lead him to dark places. The Finril who appeared eventually in the campaign was a Sinda elf scout instead.

I mostly abandoned that whole line of planning (which was really more of scattered notes about things I might want to do when I did get around to planning my MERP campaign), but what I had sketched came back occasionally. I did use a ruined fortress as one adventure setting, for example, but nothing specific came through.

In early 2012 I started to get back into planning, and my focus went to the villain of the campaign arc. The above is an early version of the one who would become Artamornë, sitting on another dubious throne (I really didn't have that down in 2012), and this time imagined as a warrior – which is in some ways more like Narsinyo. This was still the phase where I throw a bunch of character ideas out and hope some stick.

I had a strange idea around this time that there were actually several different people who were all being called by the villain's name (not Artamornë at the time), and the character who would eventually become Narsinyo was one of them. I wanted to run an experiment where the party would encounter somebody who could end up being either a villain or an ally depending on how they played things, how they treated the character, and so forth. That's the only part of this early idea that was kept.

In early 2012, while I was recovering from my broken leg, I got really into planning, and things started to gel more. I discarded the multiple-people-under-one-name idea early on, and the character who would end up as Artamornë started taking center stage as the villain of the campaign. This fairly early drawing above shows him and his wife Itáriel sailing to the far north (now that I knew that was where I was setting things), but her role wasn't well determined at this point.

It was around that time that I decided the character who could go either way was going to be Itáriel and Nólanúro's son, partly because I wanted him to be a much younger elf but have a reason to be there, and partly because it gave a reason for him to be involved in his father's conquering plans without necessarily being committed to them himself. But there were a lot of different ideas I had for what this person was like, and I eventually ended up splitting the role into two (Arinoro and Itáriel both ended up as essentially backstory elements, being already dead by the time the campaign took place).

This was drawn when I found my old colored pencils and decided I might as well experiment with them, because I couldn't walk or go anywhere much.

Once I had my basic idea, I started doing a lot of sketching, because that's how I think. This is the first drawing featuring someone who was definitely Narsinyo, in his current role, as a warrior. I'd also settled on his father (and thus him by extension) as being of the House of Caranthir at this point, thus the coloration change from the previous. I think this was depicting an earlier much larger orc attack that was in the backstory.

This sketch was on my early campaign notes, labelled 'Turwain', which was how Narsinyo was referred to early on. It is still one of his names, but not the one he uses. (A note on names: Túrvinyë, or Turwain in the Sindarin form, is his father-name; Narsinyo is his mother-name, and the one he goes by.)

I continued to work on the backstory of the campaign all through that year, and during a vacation I took – where, not being able to walk, a spent a lot of time in the hotel and on the lake shore – Narsinyo's character started to coalesce. I had clearly forgotten in this drawing that the island disconnected from the mainland where I set this didn't have horses, however...

Above is a typical campaign planning sheet, or really any sort of initial planning for me (comics and books get this treatment to begin with also), where I just sketch a bunch of characters and scrawl notes about their role. I'm putting this here despite my players for the campaign definitely reading it because none of this stuff is true any more; most of these characters have changed name and role in the story if they even still exist at all. Narsinyo is called out as Turvinye, Finril appears (along with someone who doesn't exist any more), and the group that would become the isolated Black Numenorean settlement shows up at the top but everything about them is different. This is the first mention of Narsinyo having a half-sister associated to that settlement, but everything else about her is different.

Around this time Itáriel (sometimes referred to as Tintariel) developed her role in the story, as having fled Nólanúro's citadel and joined with the Black Numenoreans, where she attempted to defy Nólanúro (and where the character who would become Zarabeth, Narsinyo's half-sister, was born). There was a brief time in the plan, which extended to the first adventure, where she hadn't been killed yet, which led to a few oddities in those adventure's notes... which I have hopefully explained away sufficiently since then.

At about this time, the inciting event for Itáriel fleeing (now with Narsinyo) became Arinoro's death, being killed by orcs in the mountains. As of the above drawing he still had the red hair that both he and Narsinyo had at one point; not much after this, they ended up as identical twins (Arinoro was older here as well).

Ardanel, Narsinyo and Arinoro's oldest sister, is one character who ended up being combined into another. She had originally the same role as Itáriel, who didn't have much of one, and she was also an accomplished smith. Soon after I drew this I eliminated Ardanel, because I was looking at cutting down the number of elves in the backstory, and Itáriel took on the smithing and defiance role. The other elf in this drawing is known at this time as Aranir (confusingly: not Arinoro) the Sinda elf leader of Nólanúro's little army he took to Silmenos – his fortress built on the northern island. Aranir remains important to the backstory and indeed the current campaign arc, but he's due for a name change.

I kept drawing these characters a lot while working up the backstory for the campaign. Here we see Turvinye with a strange armor design, and back when he used a shield and broadsword as opposed to the longsword he's had for a while now.

There are a lot of miscellaneous sketches from this time, varying between 'while events were happening' and 'the characters in better times'. I'm not going to include them all; just a few that show how character designs progressed. Above, for example, was when Narsinyo was losing the circlet and becoming more distinct in appearance from Nólanúro.

Aside from showing that I had no idea what I was doing with watercolors in 2012, this mainly shows that I was starting to work out what form Silmenos had. I knew it was a fortress on top of a mountain on the northern island, but it went through a time of being a bit more of a fortress (shown here) than the tower-in-a-city it ended up as. The mountain path is also rather too wide here.

Around this time Narsinyo also switched to using a longsword, and I started drawing somwhat more reasonable armor.

Silmenos was still much larger in design in this sketch showing Arinoro pointing something out to Narsinyo. (Arinoro was never a fighter; originally he was a bard, and ended up as a healer.)

Despite the fact that the whole 'Nólanúro threw Narsinyo from the walls of Silmenos' event ended up never happening (it did happen with Itáriel, and that's how she died), I ended up drawing/painting it several times, because I guess that's just the kind of thing I like to draw sometimes. This was never an event that was deadly when it was applied to Narsinyo, so I went a bit over on the blood here.

There were several once-important events that got edited out of the backstory, because sometimes I accidentally end up going overboard with things and less will do. Narsinyo and Arinoro being inseperable before Arinoro was killed was important, however (as was Arinoro being the more sociable and perceptive one, since it turns out he noticed something was up with Nólanúro's expeditions into the underground ruins).

The exact nature of Arinoro's death (which, as is now known, was almost certainly orchestrated by Nólanúro) changed repeatedly, but Narsinyo getting there too late never did.

I genuinely don't know what was going on with the heights there, but this was again the 'being thrown over the wall' thing that never happened – now the wall of Minal-Kadar, the Black Numenorean city, rather than Silmenos. (Narsinyo's height changed slightly but was always around 6'4", which implies that one of these humans is over seven feet tall and the other only barely over five feet).

Quick character-focused sketches are a thing I tend to do when working out a character's mental state.

Aranir consistently was the person who helped Itáriel flee from Silmenos, and also was Narsinyo's mentor (arguably more of a father to him than Nólanúro was).

The exact nature of how haunted Silmenos became, and what form that took, changed a lot... and I'm not going to go into the current form, because nobody has been there! But it's not like this painting any more.

Or much like this drawing, but the drawing is closer in terms of 'everything seems suddenly abandoned'. This was after Narsinyo was exiled from Minal-Kadar and made his way back to Silmenos to find it much changed.

This painting has a lot of problems, but features Narsinyo looking at his own reflection in a frozen pool and reacting to it as seeing Arinoro's face (the two were mirror images of each other). Silmenos is also looking more in its current tower form in the background, although it's kind of muddy in this painting. (There also shouldn't be this many trees. It's too mountainous and too far north for that.)

Narsinyo searching for Arinoro with the house that shouldn't exist. I was starting to try to draw his hair curly as it ended up being, but I was really bad at it to begin with, so it's not obvious. The trees at least are more landscape-appropriate here. (Narsinyo always wanted a horse, but there were no horses on that island.)

I believe this was supposed to be the aftermath of the battle between Minal-Kadar and Silmenos, during which time Narsinyo fought on the side of Minal-Kadar, but it also might refer to something that got deleted from the backstory since.

I didn't do much with drawing Narsinyo or anyone else in the campaign backstory for a time, until it got close to when he was actually going to be introduced in an adventure, but sometimes when I updated the backstory I did. This is during his time in Minal-Kadar as a prisoner (officially not, but effectively). The tower seen through the window is Silmenos, now far too much in the tall and pointy direction. Not enough people could live in that.

Several times, as an illustration experiment and while I was working it all up, I attempted to do posters for the campaign. This one has Nólanúro as Artamornë and he hasn't changed much since then, Narsinyo to his right as the leader of his army (which was a very brief time), 'assorted ghosts' behind him (who are kind of random and don't feature), and above a character who doesn't exist any more.

This was another attempt at the same thing, which I was planning on trying as a painting. Narsinyo is in the front this time, with Artamornë behind, and the character who doesn't exist any more on the other side. Silmenos as a tower in the top of a mountain is now fairly accurate here.

I genuinely don't remember what this scene was supposed to be about – probably something in the catacombs of Minal-Kadar? But it shows Narsinyo starting to look a little more like he does now.

I was hammering out exactly what Arinoro's role in the backstory was around this time, and this is him and Narsinyo long ago, leaning maybe a little much into the 'dawn and sunset' theme.

Once I began writing the adventure (which got split into two) where Narsinyo would first show up, I tried to get everything a bit more gelled. This portrait was part of that, but also a general experiment in the toned pencil style. (I still was not good at curly hair.)

In addition to the hair and the attitude, I was working on Narsinyo resembling his father more at this time.

A watercolor marker experiment, and the first time I drew Zarabeth and Narsinyo together. Their relationship as half-siblings went through some changes, but – despite the akwardness caused by Zarabeth exiling Narsinyo in a move she thought was politically necessary – they retained some love for each other.

I had liked the earlier painting, so I decided to redo it, and this time Narsinyo has his proper coloration and also is wearing red. I also went a bit less overboard with the damage, although it's still a bit much. (This was the 'thrown from the walls of Minal-Kadar' version.)

Leading up to that duo of adventures, I tried the poster concept again with watercolor. This has Zarabeth in front, who was in fact the first one that the party encountered, then Narsinyo, then Nólanúro in back. Silmenos is as it has been since. The ice theme is gone, though.

This was more metaphorical than anything else (probably). Showing a different, more elaborate armor design that I dropped.

Okay, so actually that was the last appearance of the misplaced horse. Ironically, after I started working out the geography and inhabitants of the northern island and what exactly was there, it turned out that clearly Narsinyo doesn't even know how to ride a horse (nor does anyone else on that island aside from the elves who are old enough that they had done so before coming there, who are now basically all slain).

Nólanúro and Narsinyo, against the backdrop of Silmenos looking like a big fortress again (which I was considering again here). There may be too much of a height difference here; I've never been great at that when not measuring carefully (Nólanúro is about seven feet tall, Narsinyo 6'4"). This would have been after Narsinyo came back to Silmenos, having been exiled from Minal-Kadar, and found things were not as he expected with his father.

These last two were done very close together, so no surprise that I had the same (incorrect) version of Silmenos on both of them. I was experimenting a lot with gold ink along with watercolor at this time, which doesn't come across well in the scan. By this time I knew that the party had chosen to nurse Narsinyo back to help after finding him badly injured, but the eventual outcome of the plotline was not yet known. If they had treated him differently, there was still a distinct possibility of his escaping and going back to lead his father's armies, and this was what that would look like.

I don't remember when I started this drawing, which unlike most of my later digital pieces was done in Photoshop, but I finished it in 2019. This would have been when Narsinyo reluctantly set off from Silmenos leading a band of orcs (he's not happy about it), and this shows Silmenos with a fortress attached to a tower by a rather perilous bridge – more the current form of the place, although the fortress became a small walled city.

I think I changed this from two weapons to one at some point, because the pose is odd.

This was a redo of a much older digital drawing, which I was trying a new style on. I think this was also while I was working up a bunch of the information Narsinyo had to give the party, since he was starting to trust them (or, at least, one of them) enough to talk.

Nólanúro (or, at this point, Artamornë) keeping an eye on things via the Palantir his search parties found in the north. He's not pleased.

Another style experiment, and an attempt to draw clothes instead of armor. People sometimes wear those. This was probably during the festival the group was attending.

This lineup of the characters in their festival clothes includes both Zarabeth, who had been rescued and was allowed to go about normally, and Narsinyo, who was still being kept an eye on (and also still had a broken arm). The heights are all over the place in this one, but Bryony (the hobbit there) is only 3'4", so she is (almost) that much smaller. Narsinyo and Balakar (the one to his right here) are actually the exactly same height, though, which instantly calls everything else into question...

Just Zarabeth and Narsinyo at the festival. I think those two turned out so badly in the last one I decided to redo them (and I also have another drawing of some others, but that's not relevent here). I seem to have forgotten that Narsinyo's arm was still broken here.

It turned out that Narsinyo joined the party and has been helping them against his father's plans, and the above portraits of him and Zarabeth were done once that was known (as part of a general group of my MERP PCs and NPCs at the time). These are digital, since I started doing that in 2020. Really, the main problem with Narsinyo's here is that his hair isn't curly enough, but I hadn't got the hang of that yet.

Dark Sun Rising is the overall campaign title, referring to Artamornë; this was my final attempt at the poster concept, in an oil painting style in Painter. Zarabeth is in front, then Narsinyo, and Artamornë above. Arinoro is the one in the back, and Itáriel above left. It turned out better than most of my attempts at painting do.

With the height scale on the left, I managed to do better here; this is everyone at the time in ordinary clothing. I hadn't yet fixed my original spelling of Narsinyo's name here.

This retains some problems, but symbolizing Narsinyo turning his back on his father's plans once and for all. The experiment had been a success: the party influenced Narsinyo to join them. (It would also have been a sucess if it had happened the other way, but this is what happened.)

The first accurate depicition of the landscape surrounding Silmenos (modeled after Greenland), Narsinyo is cleaning his sword after a battle here. This was part of a series of three that also included two other characters, but this one was finished first.

Once he joined the group, Narsinyo got a proper character sheet, and these were the first drawings I did for that. I did drawings in the same style for all my other characters at the time as well. The portrait is for the front of the sheet, the full body image for the back. He had a borrowed helmet at the time, pictured, and the armor accuracy drops off below the breastplate, but these still did their job.

Zarabeth also got one, although she doesn't need it as much, being a scholar and noble who doesn't do much fighting. But during the long journey through various cave systems to get back to Minal-Kadar, it would become useful...

The journey back to Minal-Kadar was long, an adventure that ended with Zarabeth reclaiming her throne in Minal-Kadar and Narsinyo defying his father when they met briefly outside the walls. The two of them also reconciled somewhat during the journey.

One last sort of poster-style experiment, but this just with Narsinyo and Silmenos.

I finally managed curly hair in more of a painting than a drawing, and Narsinyo also has Arinoro's necklace here, which he always has with him. I was trying a perspective experiment, and I think I was originally planning a background, but decided against it.

Character art sheet for Narsinyo, which was used for new character sheet portraits (in greyscale, just the portrait for the front and the full-body for the back). Shows a detail of the necklace from his brother, his sword, and also more detailed armor.

Zarabeth's character art sheet.

The most recent drawing of Narsinyo so far, another style experiment.

And that concludes this series (at least for now)!