Hey everyone! Welcome back!
So...Persona. Its a rather interesting game series that I admit I've been a fan of since the third game. Each story is self contained, so you can start anywhere, but they all have a similar theme - that of certain psychological themes such as the titular word 'persona' and the relation to the mind and self. The protagonists face their true selves, the selves you yourself might not like or even try to hide from the world, and accept them, which gains them the power of Persona, which they can summon to face whatever the main issues of the game are, but usually against Shadows.
Cognition plays a great role in the series. The persona take the form of how a person might see themselves, but also related to myths and legends, even gods. Those forms would be the shape of how you might perceive them, which would be based on myths and legends we know. There has even been two that hold the same name throughout the series, but look entirely different because the users of it perceive it differently from different versions of legends, and linking it well with the way they perceive themselves to show some very creative designs.
Which, honestly, is a good thing to practice for the Dreamwalkers dreamscapes as well, as monsters, scenery, weapons etc all depend on one's imagination, and switches in power is often based on perception.
I had been designing a Persona based on the character of Alibaba, a character from Alibaba and the 40 thieves. Also added into the character themselves is a link to one of the major arcana from Tarot - those have a link in how Persona work as well - and make them obviously not a person, but something to summon in battle. As its based on cognition, I looked at interpretations of Alibaba for ideas for clothing, as well as reading up on the story itself. I have come up with a sketch based on this, which I will go through here as to why it looks the way it does:
The clothing is based on many of the stories. If you look at the stories, all versions of Alibaba wear similar clothing style. I decided to add the Litham - the face mask - in order to hide the persona's face, since whether the character is clean shaven or not differs. There has even been interpretations of the character as female as well. Litham have historically been used by men to hide their identities, or, more commonly, as protection from the sands, sun and harsh temperatures. In stories and folklore it has also been used by women to hide their gender. As such it seemed to be a good thing to use on this persona, allowing for both male and female interpretations as well as meaning the facial hair could be any length if any is there at all. Similarly, because of Alibaba being a character from a hot land, the protective headdress of a Keffiyeh held by an agal (the circular part around the head). The head and exposed parts of the body are made of wood, even as it trails down to the stone body and circulating the metal disk shape on the front. This is because, in the stories, Alibaba stated life as a simple woodcutter before, as he was gathering wood, he discovered the forty thieves, the entrence to the hidden cave and the password to open it - Open Sesame.
This leads to the stone 'stomach', with the strange circle on the front split down the middle. The stone is actually the cave from the story, and the disk in the middle is the entrence which would open with the password and revealed the treasure that Alibaba took. As a persona, within is more likely the various attacks, but the cave is integral to his story. The opening of the cave here is a coin. This represents not only the money taken, but also, if you notice, a sketch of scales are on the coin. This represents the scales that were borrowed from his brother's family to weigh the coins, and the single coin that was stuck upon it, which let Cassim, his brother, discover Alibaba had come into money. This knowledge lead Cassim to his ultimate fate at the hands of the forty thieves.
The persona, I felt, matched the Arcana of Fortune. As you can probebly guess from the name alone, the fortune arcana represents fate, luck, fortune and opportunity, whether good or bad. You have to admit, coming across the cave at the moment that he could find the password has to be extremely good luck, or perhaps fate, the same for the fate of his brother.
Because Alibaba's story is often mixed with that of Aladdin's - there are some similarities, such as a cave of treasure and a poor person becoming rich due to what was found within the cave, Alibaba here does look a little like a genie as well, a small nod to those stories that blend the two characters together.
In combat, I thought of it mostly as a magic based persona focusing on buffs/debuffs and, well, magic. Which also seemed fitting of the genie imagery.
I do hope that it came across as an impressive looking persona, though I do hope that it didn't seem too stereotypical since there was a lot of looking as illustrations of Alibaba for the base ideas - the way cognition might be perceived by someone who has heard stories of Alibaba and the forty thieves, rather than what the character might have been like if he was living and breathing. Remember, cognition has a big role in Persona.
Of course, this is only a first draft sketch, so there's still a lot of room for adjustment.
I'd be interested in any constructive thoughts on the matter, especially those who know the story well. But for now, this is the idea for a persona based on Alibaba.
Until next time!
Tara
