Project Spellcheck: Introducing Pashmina
Art by Koseki
A Fretful Fairy Friend
They say that no adventure is complete without a friend to help guide
you, and this holds especially true if you’re a young, inexperienced adventurer from an uneventful shepherding village. However, Meeko would have never expected that his first companion would be someone quite like little Pashmina.
Hailing from a hidden fairy hive deep in Ramhorn Grove, Pashmina values caution and common sense—moreso than anyone else in her community. Even the hive elders believe she’s an overly serious stickler, but her safety-first instincts have helped more often than not.
Before she ended up being unwittingly sacrificed while helping a friend escape a goblin trap, Meeko jumped in to be as gallant a savior as he could be with nothing but a walking stick. Watching Meeko take his first steps to becoming a patented magician, she decides to tag along to help dig out of whatever trouble he gets himself into—and maybe get a whiff of the outside world while she’s at it!
Who is Pashmina?
Pashmina is Meeko’s travel companion and guide throughout his adventures. She joins up early on and plays an important role in Meeko’s journey as both his compass of logic and someone to interact with. She tempers Meeko’s sometimes simplistic ambitions and mannerisms with reason and a big-picture outlook.
While Pashmina’s generally cool-headed and amicable, high-stress situations tend to rile her up and blame perceived recklessness on Meeko’s part. Meeko never intends any ill-will on Pashmina, that won’t stop her from unleashing strongly-worded rebuttals and sometimes even red-hot rages. When it just so happens that the misstep is her fault, or that Meeko’s bee-line attitude actually pays off, she has a bit of trouble swallowing her pride, but the simple truth is that she is just as much of a novice in some things as Meeko is. Thankfully, Meeko is much more understanding.
Pashmina likes to flutter close to Meeko while the two of them journey about the wilds of Lancet, chatting and making keen observations. When people are around, or when things get way too dangerous for her liking, she is very quick to tuck herself in Meeko’s hat to conceal herself. It’s only natural, as fairies have historically been poached for their body’s magical properties. When she can’t make herself heard, however, Pashmina is not afraid to use her tiny fists to do the talking for her, as depicted below.
Art by Koseki
Behind the Scenes
Pashmina’s design was pretty straightforward to come up with. I wanted to go less in the direction of leaf-tunics and flowery dresses and instead give fairies a refined, dressy look. Shoutout once more to Koseki for establishing Pashmina’s principal design and showing just how animated she can be. As designs continue to change and evolve, I would consider moving the fairy aesthetic in a potentially more modest or even puritan direction while retaining that defining fanciful flair. We’ll just have to see where that thought goes and find out what ends up sticking.
Pashmina’s main purpose is to make sure Meeko always had someone else to keep him company. While all sorts of travel companions and acquaintances await Meeko on his adventure, Pash will be Meeko’s first and most constant. This was/is especially important as Meeko is currently depicted as being mute (or at least soft-spoken)—something which I regret not establishing in Meeko’s own introduction.
That said, Pashmina is not his mouthpiece; Meeko should and will speak for himself through his expressions and actions. Pashmina’s role is instead to be a foil for Meeko to bounce off of and vice versa.
On the topic of fairies themselves, they’re obviously a common fantasy topos thanks to their association with magic, mischief, and goodness. The fairies in Project Spellcheck are more on the benevolent-but-whimsical side, but are especially isolationist since, as mentioned, their magical traits make them quite valuable to anybody with use for them, whether they be goblins or black-market merchants.
More to Come…
Together, Meeko and Pashmina certainly make one bizarre pair of travelers, but there are more, arguably stranger characters and creatures to meet and even stranger places to see. Look forward to seeing what else Project Spellcheck has in store!
Art by Koseki