Patu-paiarehe

Background

Patu-paiarehe is the equivalent of a fairy.  As with other fariy legends there’s some disagreement over the size of these creatures — ranging from tiny to normal, to giant. That’s generally good news for a writer because he can take license in these cases and fill in the blanks in whatever way he sees fit.

I want the fairy to be small like a traditional fairy, most of the time at least. I have no problem messing with scale, making it possible to grow and shrink as the story necessitates.

They might play flutes, and they eat raw food.

Concept

So this small, flying fairy will fly around you a la Zelda. She serves two purposes:

1. Magic Bias. The fairy will glow white at first, as she flies around the character. If the character favors one type of magic over the other, the color will change from white to either blue or orange depending on the bias. This will act as a visual indicator to the player about which side they are leaning on and how far they leaning.
2. Resurrection. The concept of “lives” kind of bothers me. It makes sense, but I think we can do better. For now I’ll try the Prince of Persia model of essentially not being able to die — if there is a moment when you might “die,” your fairy revives you.

Visual

The fiary will look like an orb of light that flies around close to the player.