I initially developed the concept of Nocturna about a year ago for a browser game. That game never really materialised, but I found the characters too appealing to be chucked aside.

I envision my FYP animation as a pitch for a much longer story, involving a large rotating character cast and a plot that addresses questions about life, death, existence and meaning. The characters are more quirky than grim, and I envision the backdrops in lush purples and magentas with spots of cyan, a lighthearted spin on the Gothic genre.

At this point, I no longer really care which direction(s) the project ends up taking as long as I get to tell the stories of the world and its various characters.

The setting is a town in the liminal zone between heaven and hell, where their influences meet and swirl. It is trapped in perpetual dusk, but sees the moon and stars pass through familiar phases. The one thing they do not see is the sun, because its light is taken by the angels on the border.

All magic in this world is drawn from the dance and alignment of celestial bodies across the map of the sky. Planetary conjunctions, full moons, new moons, accord the magical adepts of this town power in different flavours and strengths. Some spells must be performed on specific days. Some people’s powers rise and ebb in synchrony with the distance between the moon and Venus.

This is a world that’s just a couple of steps away from the ordinary. For most, magic isn’t something that is dealt with daily, but those who see it merely think of it as a part of daily life, as with rainfall or snow (angels and demons pass through frequently enough). On that note, all magic is aligned with either Heaven or Hell, and the angels and demons are the ultimate wielders of the aforementioned powers, which they weaponise in their neverending war with each other. They live in small strongholds close to and on the border, battling to advance the territory of their realm. Neither is strictly “good” or “evil” speaking from an outsider’s perspective, and the difference between them lies is in the magical means by which they attain their powers.

The oldest and probably dearest character in the Nocturna project is Mort, a young and zealous reaper created from the ghost of a girl. You see, Mort died when she was thirteen, and when she woke, she was not terribly thrilled to discover that she had been plucked from the living world so soon. As soon as she discovered that accepting a job as a reaper would let her back into the living world, she leapt at the opportunity to do so. She dresses like a magenta witch because she loved witches as a child and dreamt of becoming one.

[Mage], tentatively named Amari, is a magician with a natural penchant for magic. A “tainted” third magic emerged from the interaction of the two forces at the border, and Amari picked it up with ease. They use it to perform stage magic, conjuring objects and making them behave in seemingly unnatural ways, in performances just believable enough that people do not believe that they wield any real magical powers. They lost their younger brother to starvation, which they see as their fault.