athalantan

[athalantan]

The amount of body horror [and horror in general, frankly] El goes through is insane, and I think the worst part is, oddly, that there's no lingering sign of it. Oh they're littered with scars, sure, but none of those scars ache. None of them are really as nasty as they should be. They have no lingering pains, no stiffness, no missing limbs. They're as healthy at over a thousand as they were as twenty — healthier, even. That's the true body horror, the double-edged sword of being a deity's Chosen. And, not just any Chosen but her favorite and most useful. The one who's become synonymous with her. El endures unspeakable torment, often alone without even My.st.ra's answer, and afterward they're healed. Limbs regrown, fatal wounds washed away. They've even been resurrected more than once. All that remain are the wounds on their mind and spirit that they're left to manage on their own. Their body is limber, strong, healthy, immune to diseases and poisons, never wearing down — except in their spirit, which is burdened to the grave yet tethered to this world.

#OOC / HOLLY. #where's that old post about the horror in magical healing #how you can get instantly healed up after the most fucked up shit and sent right back out #El is rife with that #their body never wears down. doesn't even need sleep and can go stretches without food and drink #they can keep going forever #except spiritually they are so. exhausted. #they keep going because they have to but damn #pros: being a Chosen makes you effectively immortal #cons: being a Chosen makes you effectively immortal #I've been getting into De.lic.io.us in Du.nge.on recently and I think that's what's making me think of this #the way death itself is so casual because oh you can just get resurrected

[athalantan]

Not to bring back an ancient meme, but —

Kel: If she breathes, she's a thot! Adon: All women are QUEENS!!

#OOC / HOLLY. #I was just telling Pal today that I'd be so much farther in this series if Kel wasn't in it lmao #do I need to start tagging my posts as Kel critical or something . . . because I will #if you like him go ahead I support you #as for me however. if I had one use of the wish spell I would not cure cancer or end world hunger #no I would be rid of Kel.emv.or Ly.ons.ba.ne #it is so rare I truly don't like a character but damn #maybe he'll grow on me. like fungus

[athalantan]

Obsessed actually with clerics being introduced as [name] of [deity] as if the deity is their origin and their kin and their home and their root and all info that is essential about them

#OOC / HOLLY. #holly reads books

[athalantan]

Midnight is taller than Cyric

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #holly reads books #I LOVE THIS

[athalantan]

Oh boy wifi’s cutting out on me so I might have to hold off sending the rest of the memes til tomorrow

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE.

[athalantan]

I love that Midnight is apparently tall and buff. I will never learn a more important canon fact about her.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #holly reads books #her taste in men is shit but her taste in workouts is apparently solid

[athalantan]

How about an inbox call 👀 Like this post and I’ll raid your meme tag to send you some. Will send these out today and tomorrow.

#MOBILE. #these are getting sent out tonight 👍

[athalantan]

Icb El showed, scolded the party like unruly kids, and disappeared before Midnight could deliver her message

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #holly reads books #it’s a comedy

[athalantan]

How about an inbox call 👀 Like this post and I’ll raid your meme tag to send you some. Will send these out today and tomorrow.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE.

[athalantan]

THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO. ( it's already been done. )

#PROMO. #MOBILE. #first off this promo is wounding me 😭 #second and most important Perci is fantastic and I love everything he does with Gale #if I could offer the follow button to y’all on a velvet cushion I would

[athalantan]

Icb I ever considered an alternative— obvs it’s My.st.ra who’s 🤝 with Cleon from Fou.nda.tion.

For reference there’s an empire in Fou.nda.tion. Ages ago, an emperor named Cleon decided to found a genetic dynasty by cloning himself. The ouroboros of the end result is astounding. There are always 3 Cleon’s: Dusk (oldest), Day (middle), and Dawn (youngest). Although they’re clones, a new Dawn is decanted as an infant at the same moment a Dusk is euthanized. Prev Day becomes the new Dusk, and prev Dawn becomes the new Day. Dusk advises Day. Day rules the empire. Both (especially Day) raise the new Dawn.

The themes of personal identity and ouroboros are so delicious. They are all Cleon; they are all the same person. They’re perfectly synchronized down to the moment they lift their forks. Yet they are each individuals shaped by their own experiences. They are each other’s brothers and fathers and grandfathers while also being each other. In that sense they are also their own brother and father and grandfather — while also being none of that because they’re a clone of the same man. A new one is born the very same moment another dies: an endless cycle like the sun wheeling across the sky. They are at once always alive and always dead. It’s even in the way they’re always addressed not as emperor or your majesty or your serenity or your radiance or as anything other than Empire. Not only are they are seen as one with each other but they are seen as one with the empire they were cloned to rule. As Demerzel put it: Empire does not have individuated sentience.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #ask to tag #fuck you know what? Demerzel 🤝 Azuth #Azuth was originally a mortal mage and an early Magister raised to godhood (exarch) by My.st.ra #he is her consort and one of the vessels of her power #El has said Azuth is her greatest love #he takes on more of a paternal guiding sort of role with Midnight!My.st.ra #Demerzel is an android who survived a war with between androids + humans and their subsequent outlawing #she was the closest attendant of the first Cleon + apparently a lover as well #she has persisted through the centuries and raised his many clones

[athalantan]

Look. Y’all know I’m very My.st.ra critical, but I can appreciate the inherent tragedy. One day you’re a simple peasant girl, capable of no more than a few simple cantrips. Then suddenly you’re the most powerful deity in existence. No one remembers who you were — not even you, though you cling to it like a drowning woman to a raft.

Because that’s the problem My.st.ra is TOO powerful. Although she is the embodiment of the Weave, her connection to it can also be called parasitic. It’s a power so strong not even deities are capable of holding it indefinitely. It consumes the deity in office. Prev!My.st.ra had to fight eternally to keep some semblance of personal identity, some sense of self separate from the Weave. That’s why she walked often in the guise of avatars. That’s why she took many lovers and drank deeply and danced with abandon. That’s why she watched every detail of her Chosen’s lives, clawing to her humanity by voyeuristically observing theirs. At times, Azuth had to remind her of her divine duties, pull her back into focus. You wonder if she misses the woman she might have grown into if godhood hadn’t found her as a girl.

And godhood is not, for My.st.ra, the deathless beauty it may be for others. At the same moment the goddess is made, she is unmade. Like mortals, she comes into being with her fate sealed. No one can hold the office forever; the power is too great. The goddess is doomed to die and be remade over and over and over and over again. She knows this, if not at the moment of her apotheosis then soon after. However many millennia are allotted to her, she will spend them all preparing for the day she will die, grooming a successor, putting her affairs in order.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #oh the ouroboros of it all #the same power that makes you unmake you #you are born in your own grave #you are your own mother and your own daughter and your own undertaker

[athalantan]

Caitlan being My.st.ra’s chosen avatar makes me emo not only because she’s too young to hold such power but because she’s similar to who My.st.ra was as a mortal when My.st.ryl found her.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #holly reads books #reading her criteria for her avatar like #oh. you’re just looking for the child you were before a goddess found you

[athalantan]

On the topic of El’s few students once again — they’re always gonna prefer the ones who don’t leap to solve everything with magic and want to learn practical skills as well. Yes, conjuring food or teleporting or mending / cleaning with a wave of the hand is very convenient. They do it, too. But, it’s important not to become so reliant that you’re useless without magic. Pick up some practical skills. Mend your own shirts. Cook your own food. Sweep your own floors. Learn to read maps. Practice pocking locks. Train some non-magical combat, especially melee. Not just using staffs and blades either. Learn to throw a punch — and to take one.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #El’s apprentices have all come away with a smattering of odd non-magical skills because of this #El casts mage hand but it’s them smacking you upside the head

[athalantan]

Random thought but it’s very like El to refrain from using the knock spell. It’s not on moral ground but because they used to be a thief. They pride themself on being able to pick a lock just as well today as when they were in their teens / twenties — better, even.

#OOC / HOLLY. #MOBILE. #you ask El for a knock spell and they scoff like ‘why? think ye the gold is undressing?’ 🙄 #[whips out the oldest lockpicks known to man and pops it instantly] #better yet [hits the lock with the butt of their staff; it pops immediately] #the Faerûnian version of McNally

[athalantan]

Elthryn — and, by extension, El — did not inherit Shiallia's wrath from his parents. Shiallia is carefree by nature and thus not inclined to pass punishments down the family line. Furthermore, Elthryn treated the woods and its inhabitants with respect, and he paid Shiallia her due whenever he entered the High Forest. He also married a forester's daughter, Amrythale Goldsheaf. His father-in-law was a faithful of the goddess who carried out his duties not only with the law of man in mind but the good of the woods and his goddess' guidance.

Whether El's uncles inherited the goddess' wrath is debatable. I can't say few of them lived long enough to have children because Elthryn was like 14 or 15 when El was born lmao I find it probable, though, that Belaur and Othglas earned her ire of their own accord. Othglas died a priest of Malar and likely offended Shiallia before becoming one; there had to have been a pre-existing adherence to the ways of Malar. Belaur was simply a shit king who encroached on the High Forest without thought for sustainability and killed whatever it pleased him to kill, be it animal or person.

#META / HC: PRIMARY. #META / HC: WORLD. #RE: ATHALANTAR #RE: THE LINE OF AUMAR.

[athalantan]

THE FOUNDING OF THE STAG KINGDOM.

El never knew their paternal family. Elthryn, their father, renounced all titles and left court very young. He settled in the furthest, quietest part of Athalantar — a town called Heldon — and told his child nothing of his family. Even the surname Aumar was kept secret. By the time El learned of their lineage, all were dead or missing except for one. And, that one who remained was one they were sworn to kill. The fight for survival prevented them from learning more about their family history when they had the chance. By the time they might investigate their roots, it's too late. Thus much of what they know about their own kin is myth and hearsay. This is what myth once remembered —

SYNDREL WAS THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER of a far southern kingdom over a thousand years ago. She earned fame as a huntress from a young age, and rode ever with a hunting horn that, when blown, ensured conditions were always right for the chase. Thus was she given the name Hornweather. She traveled far and wide in search of the rarest, most challenging prey. Always she returned home to lay the best of the bounty at her royal parents' feet.

One day she encountered a magnificent stag. It was like the red deer with which she was familiar but three times the size with seven points on each antler. Its hide was dark as a moonless night and star-like silver spots shone on its flanks. She hunted it tirelessly all across Faerûn. It led her far, far to the north — all the way to the High Forest. When she lay to sleep beneath the trees, she dreamed the stag spoke to her with a man's voice. He walked with her around a great copse of trees only a little apart from the main forest. He praised her skill at the hunt, saying it would be an honor to die by her arrow. He asked only that, when she succeeded, she dip his antlers in his blood and mark each tree in the copse. Then she should sleep beneath his skinned hide. In the morning, she should bind the antlers and the bones in the hide and throw them in the Unicorn Run. If she did all of that, her reward would be far greater than a dead stag.

She brought the stag down the very next day with an arrow clean through the heart. She did as instructed in her dream; though there should not have been enough blood in the stag's body to mark every tree, miraculously it did not run out til the last was red. She skinned the deer, ate the meat, and set aside the bones. She slept that night beneath the hide and dreamed of a man with seven-pointed antlers. The next day, she wrapped the antlers and bones in the hide, and threw them in the river. No sooner had they sunk beneath the water than a man rose in their place. The same man she'd dreamed of, only he had no antlers. As he walked toward the shore, the copse of trees groaned and cracked and shook. In the place of every tree then stood a human stretching their limbs.

The man who'd risen from the water was Uthgrael Aumar, an explorer from the continent of Katashaka with dreams of mapping the world. His crew crashed on the Sword Coast and continued inland on foot. They were hungry and footsore and discouraged when they reached the High Forest, and so it was their stomachs that ruled them more than respect as they went hunting. They slew a pregnant hind under Shiallia's protection, thus earning the goddess' wrath. Uthgrael was made into a magnificent stag no one could resist hunting, and his crew became trees to bear helpless witness to his torment. They remained that way for years. Finally, Uthgrael came upon a mage in the woods, Neldryn Hawklyn. Visions of power had led him there from distant Chessenta, though he hardly divulged that. Instead, he presented himself as a friend to the obviously enchanted stag, advising him on how to break his curse.

Uthgrael, now freed, decided to end his travels and found a kingdom instead. Perhaps he was weary of running. Perhaps he wanted a measure of revenge against Shiallia by encroaching on the High Forest with cities and towns. Whatever the case, Athalantar, the Stag Kingdom, was born. Uthgrael became the Stag King and Syndrel, the Queen of the Hunt. The prize from her hunting she brought home to her parents was thus a husband. When she returned to Athalantar, it was with a queen's household, wedding gifts, and treaties.

Athalantar grew steadily against the odds, including skirmishes with orcs. The king and queen were devoted to one another, yet decades passed with no child to show for it. They feared Shiallia's wrath lay on them still. Neldryn, who had become Royal Mage, counseled them to enter the High forest and hunt seven stags, who were the goddess' own sons. They would drink wine foraged from the berries of the woods laced with the powdered antler. They would eat the venison roasted with herbs foraged again from those woods. They would lay together beneath a blanket sewn from their hides. Then they would have seven sons of their own.

The danger was they trusted Neldryn. He was their closest friend and advisor. The danger was they were heartbroken. So long without the children they desired darkened their hearts. They did as advised, hardly caring whether it was right, and seven sons were soon theirs. If Shiallia's wrath was not upon them before, it certainly was then. Syndrel's health declined rapidly from the close births; she died in childbed bringing forth the seventh. Grief consumed Uthgrael, who was barely a father to his sons thereafter and fell in battle fifteen years later. Their seven sons turned immediately to tearing each other apart. Though a single grandchild, Elminster, outlived them all, the Aumar line would no longer sit the Stag Throne. Athalantar fell a century later.

#META / HC: WORLD. #RE: ATHALANTAR. #RE: THE LINE OF AUMAR. #childbirth tw #pregnancy tw #ask to tag #look at me finally polishing this up