A Few Small Changes (I Hate When This Happens)

I’ve had to change a few things around in my light novel series, such as the names of the magic system to better suit what I want to do and to prevent the inevitable “this is totally taking the names from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” angle that will probably come up some day in the future.

I will say I wrote The Symphonist in the early part of 2023, before Clair Obscur was ever announced to the public in the summer of 2024, only re-releasing the first two light novels as a single volume this year. I have old copies of the book’s introduction from late 2022 and the original incarnations of the works, in any case.

My work is my own, so that will not fly.

It is inevitable that magic systems based on color will use the word chroma. I believe the game is about art and uses painting references, so it makes sense that my novel series and that game would share some terms, since symphonist battles are poetic and like paint upon a canvas.

However, besides the naming convention of alter chromas staying the same, I’m changing the color chroma naming conventions of the eye colors of every person in Orchestrylus to iroseva (ex: iroseva azure) instead of “blue chroma,” “green chroma,” and the like. It is a hybrid of two different languages for color in the ancient tongue of Orchestrylus.

I want my work to be as original to me as I can have it be, so I’m not interested in sharing terms with a popular game. I’ll just bite the bullet and change my magic system naming to give myself some distance from that.

Emotions and eye colors mixed with music are the major facets of the growing magic system with strict rules as the series progresses, starting with The Voided Promises of Noble Songs. The series will introduce many factions and groups from the seven spheres of Orchestrylus, starting with the upcoming novel.

Here’s the unedited prelude to The Voided Promises of Noble Songs, introducing one of the seventeen Nocturnes, a shadowy group of killers in the underground of this world. That Stanzielle is known as the Nocturne Violinist will be part of the story, and getting mixed up with this group while searching for the Last Key of Maestraumus will make for some interesting conflict. The final product will have insets, art, manga panels, and different content polished to shine. I estimate it will be 125,000 to 130,000 words when fully complete.

I will have the final cover art by September of this year.