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chyertsar · 25 days

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♔. synopsis : koschei is part of a pantheon of primordial beings who currently reside in a supernatural realm mirroring old rus' and modern russia ( known as the chyerti realm ) primarily set during world war ii, there's a much older war reaching its pinnacle ; one between two brothers : koschei, the tsar of life and viy, the tsar of death. based on the deathless book universe. leaning heavily on slavic folklore and the allegorical concepts of a paradise lost and war as a hell on earth. . . . affiliated with godwitch & rosetem

♔. koschei will do just about anything to turn the odds of the war in his favor, so plenty of room for kidnappings or crossovers into other worlds & pantheons here.

♔. as an in between realm of sorts, the chyerti realm is very easy to stumble upon by accident -- especially during life/death situations

♔. his hoard is full of stolen relics, magical weapons, tomes, and artifacts from all corners of the world, which might be necessary to obtain for your muses' own goals

♔. the man knows how to throw a buffet, but much like the fae, it's not wise to eat or drink in his country as he has various means of inducing forgetfulness to those who do. many members of his retinue were transplants from other realms who over time do not remember living anywhere else, nor a time before the war.

♔. note the default is for threads to take place either during or before wwii. koschei (in his current incarnation) does not survive past that point in human history

in the beginning, there were seven tsars and tsaritsas each responsible for the respective domains of water, salt, night, the length of an hour, birds, life and death. as the tsar of life, koschei inherited the divine knowledge of the alatyr stone and through it he was able to learn and wield life sustaining magic which he used to create all the plants, trees, crops, animals, and daemon creatures ( known as the chyerti ) that resided in his domain ( buyan, the country of life ).

working in tandem with the other tsars and tsaritsas, he also used the power of the stone to give life to other beings they molded for their own countries, such as the birds, the fish, and the first people of rus'. their tsardoms knew balance and peace for a great time, but the brothers viy and koschei, though inseparable as children, had been fated to duties and domains so contrary to one another that it was only a matter of time before tensions boiled over.

the tsar of death had eternal claim to koschei's creations and came to collect them as was necessary to curb excess and maintain nature's order. watching his crops wither in the frost and the beasts he nurtured grow sickly and lame was a terrible thing, but koschei could live with the loss. it was just as necessary to see the grass and the fruits consumed by the animals so that they could grow strong; and the animals had to be consumed by the chyerti and people in turn. death seemed sensible and unavoidable then.

but soon some animals became too dear to koschei; some chyerti became like children in the ways they regarded him; some people became his neighbors, his friends, his lovers -- each holding a unique place that could not be filled again. death now seemed cruel and intolerable. to have so short a time with his countrymen while viy could enjoy the rest of eternity with them in his ghostly realm was an insult to injury, but truthfully viy didn't care for the company.

he was a kind and receptive host, but the only guests viy really desired to receive were the other tsars and tsaritsas, his brother most of all. for them viy was willing to wait, content in the knowledge that the day would inevitably come. knowing this, koschei sought not only a means to end his grief, but to bring it unto the one he blamed it on. he took the one thing viy coveted the most -- his death -- and hid it somewhere he could never find.

the war was officially waged viy marched out of his country with his limitless supply of undead soldiers to force koschei to correct this violation. koschei refused to relent and used every advantage in his arsenal to keep viy's army just shy of victory, even if it meant leveraging the help of the other tsars and tsaritsas to do so. he also took all manner of chyerti and strangers into his druzhina ( his court and military retinue ) and trained them in the art of war and sorcery.

however, out of the natural order, most of koschei's magical creations became horrors and over the lives of his own countrymen, he grew to favor the things death normally didn't care to touch -- gold and precious stones, soft furs, books that could offer him more knowledge of the arcane arts and legendary instruments of power. above all these, the tsar of life hoarded his death, vowing to sooner see the world drown in blood than to ever set foot in his brother's country. by wwii, viy became happy to oblige him.

♔. in this verse, koschei is a primordial god modeled after both dazhbog and yarilo from slavic mythos. initially, the tsar of life was regarded as a benevolent deity in both the chyerti and mortal realms, whose borders were originally less defined.

♔. there used to be a village called yaichka in the outskirts of buyan, and although the tsar had a palace by the sea, yaichka was the place he preferred to call home. he lived happily as a farmer there, in a humble house neighboring other mortals and chyerti. they called him ivan or "the giver" back then.

♔. the village mysteriously ceased to exist after his falling out with viy. the tsar returned to his palace, which eventually became a black kremlin made of tissue and bone called the chernosvyat.

♔. the start of the war happened around the 11th century, when koschei's tales and contact with societies outside of buyan became rampant. he'd often pillage the realms to stockpile their magical weaponry and collect just about anything that caught his interest.

♔. in this time he became referred to as koschei the deathless, "the eater", or "the devil" by the mortals, while the chyerti who still followed him were considered his demons. both were thus wholly unwelcome in the mortal realm, forcing them to operate unseen or keep to the chyerti realm exclusively. by the 20th century, koschei himself has no interest in the mortal realm ; most of its magic is gone and his battles against viy are all focused within buyan.

♔. while many have tried and failed to locate koschei's death and kill him, you can assume marya morevna of rus' was the only person who managed to at least keep him imprisoned for a time until someone else accidentally let him loose. however, unless i'm writing with a marya, assume her incarnation is not currently in the picture. i want to leave room for other dynamics to get a go at being his foil too <33

#ver. you walk the same tale over & over

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sharphey-cheesy-biscuit · 10 months

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Mick and Keith as a slavic folklore creatures

Imp Mikola

- wears a gold nugget amulet (got it from Kita)

- cunning, can be quite mean when he needs to

- prefers to deceive non-peasants, as he considers this business childish from which there is no benefit and fun

- in itself is quite careless and harmless if he sees no reason

- likes to lead Christians astray, impersonating Veles, the pagan God of cattle breeding, convincing them of the "wrong choice of religion"

- always big festivities, knows how to present himself

- he wears a caftan only for convenience, in fact he loves expensive clothes

Werewolf Kita

- spends most of the time in animal form

- mostly unsociable, but in itself very sincere

- he wears a silver amulet with the Alatyr rune on his belt, and the runes of the Wind are embroidered with gold threads on his felt boots. is his handiwork

- close friend of Mikola

- unlike the imp, he has almost no contact with the rich

#mick jagger #keith richards #glimmer twins #the rolling stones #rolling stones fandom #rolling stones fanart #rolling stones #classic rock fandom #blues rock #slavic folklore

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mrmorsh · 8 months

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Chaotic swap

Keeper Lien-Da is the last of the remaining echidnas, at the moment is the Keeper of the Master of the Emerald. Her physical strength and clan war skills make her a very dangerous opponent. She easily breaks stones with her bare hands as well as robots. She is also able to easily capture the flow of chaos energy. She doesn't really like communication and mostly stays away from some conflicts. She can be very cunning , but she knows when to bend over and ask for someone else 's help . despite her harsh behavior, she is also capable of positive feelings. She respects strength, is very patriotic — considers her people the greatest. Her main rival and enemy is u.l.f Rouge, with whom she has various conflicts. Perhaps only Agent Shadow is able to calm them down. Few people know, but apparently the last echidna has very warm feelings for Shadow, and they are not friendly at all. Her probably only friend is the mysterious spirit Sticks —who is paranoid, it was from her that Lien-da adopted her distrust and total closeness. Echidna probably only behaves openly to some individuals, although sometimes she is rude and very unrestrained.

The ghost of the Sticks is an ancient spirit that lives in the Alatyr region with the master emerald. She knows a lot about the secrets as well as the history of the lost Echidna civilization. Her character remains the same as that of the canonical Sticks

E.G.G-123—The most dangerous and intelligent of the E-series robots, is the creation of Dr. Vanilla, which as a result got out of control. Initially, E. G. G -123 was created as a guard for Rouge, which was in stasis at one of Vanilla's bases. However, the rapidly developing intelligence of the robot rebelled against Vanilla, wanting power as well as revenge for being locked up for three years underground. In his arsenal there is :Rockets, miniguns, flamethrowers, plasma and laser weapons. In addition, the robot is very smart, which allows it to create its own weapons, which often works against its owner due to mortality. E. G. G -123 likes to gloat and joke during the battle, praising his fighting qualities as well as his mind. Often underestimates his enemies, because of too much confidence in his abilities. The robot likes to compete with those personalities whose powers are not inferior to his own. Likes to arrange friendly duels with Rouge, considers her a worthy opponent. Despite his latent desire to take over the world, E-123 himself wants Agent Shadow and Rouge to share the board with him.

Prince Knuckles is the ruler and prince of the Sol dimension. Echidna possesses great physical strength and is also able to control fire. His behavior remains the same as that of the Canonical Brass Knuckles.

#sonic au #sonic fanart #knuckles the echidna #sticks the badger #lien da #doctor eggman

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valarinventures · 8 months

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@jaspvid-week day 3: shapes

What is this intricate shape you did?"

"An alatyr, a stone of great magic. I learned to make alatyrs from a vast eastern country."

#camp camp #jaspvidweek2023 #jaspvid #jaspvid week #cc jasper #cc david #camp camp jasper #camp camp david #magic

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a-koschyei · 1 year

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VER. THE RED SORCERER WILL WAKE THE SLEEPER & SILENCE THE BELLS

♔. synopsis : canon adjacent, mixing in elements of deathless and taking this verse as koschei's alt. tsar of life origin story. rewriting some details & emphasizing the undercurrent of the plot to reveal koschei faked his death in book 2 and was the mastermind behind the events of the series. he usurps medved, and becomes the new summer-demon towards the end of book 3. most plots can take place after the series, when he's on the brink of waging a war to take over medieval rus' and the other chyerti realms, particularly morozko's.

in the 11th cent. during the reign of vladimir the great, yuri, a polovtsian khan who plundered and traversed the entirety of the great steppes with his nomadic warriors, sacked a village near serbia and took a country girl as his wife. the girl's name was danika, and she belonged to a balkan line of witches & sorcerers who worshipped the giver, dazbog (the chyert of summer and tsar of life).

some time later, after confirming she had the ability to see the unseen chyerti, dazbog gave her his jewel, the alatyr stone. he promised to protect her so long as she wore it and did not let him fade from memory. when the time came, she was to pass it down to the youngest of her three sons. she only had two at the time.

that year, yuri led an unsuccessful attack against prince mstislav, son of vladamir. yuri was killed in combat, but danika and her sons were spared, though taken as slaves, under the condition that they assimilate and convert to christianity. danika converted, for the sake of her children and the unborn one she carried, but hid dazbog's jewel, wove him into her prayers and never forgot about the chyerti.

♔. the polovtsy / polovytsians. turkic nomadic warriors (aka the cumans). the name comes from the old slavic word for "blonde" "pale yellow" due to the color of their hair and/or their cream colored akhal-teke horses, known for their speed and golden metallic sheen. by the events of the book (14th cent.) the polovtsy fled from the mongol invasion of rus' to different countries, but many also joined the golden horde and became generally referred to as tartars, along w other turkic groups. (koschei's fairytale is based on a famous polovtsian, khan konchek) ♔. dazbog / medved. a slavic solar deity who resided in buyan but also the underworld. in the summer, he was a man in his prime, accompanied by wolves. in winter, he was a one-eyed old man who wore a bear skin during his hibernation in death's realm. canon doesn't say this explicitly, but medved is lame daba, aka dazbog after his demonization, which christianization (and koschei) caused. very few know him by his old name & nature. ♔. alatyr stone. in this verse, it's a red-gold jewel connected to dazbog's power and a gateway to buyan. it's his equivalent to the sapphire morozko passed to vasya. in book 2, it's the stone koschei uses as a decoy death.

i. three roads, three sons: koschei was born and raised in tmutarakan as a slave, serving first as a groom, then a farmhand, and when he came of age, he and his brothers were dragged into a war between princes for vladamir's throne. koschei's mother gave him dazbog's jewel hoping it would protect him, and it did, but during the winter march, his brothers were taken by the frost. in the spring when the war was in full bloom, koschei's contact with dazbog became more direct and frequent. he often carried him away from the brink of death in the battlefield in the spirit of a wolf to buyan, where he'd heal him, feed him, and teach him the art of war and magic.

eventually, dazbog aided koschei in deserting the war. during this time, he traveled the principalities around kiev freely, but the past, the threat of death and imprisonment, and the growing disdain for witches and sorcerers chased him out of every place he hoped to settle. he went to baba yaga's midnight country where he formed a romance with tamara and earned the favor of the golden mare and firebird, zornitsa, the fastest horse of yaga's flock. with her, koschei was able to outrun any threat or foe, and was carried to farther lands, away from kiev and the church bells.

♔. the golden mare / firebird : diverting from the book, koschei's mare is named zornitsa, the morning star, and she's the same in every verse. koschei wins her favor on his own, as he was a worthy rider at the start. later, he loses favor and that's when tamara & the golden bridle ( without spikes !! ) come into play.

ii. the wolf, the firebird, & the horse with a golden mane: he ended up in the newly founded village of moscow when it was still pagan, and was set on making his home there. ivan yurovich was the name he used to avoid recognition (given his growing reputation in kiev), and upon his arrival the lord offered him riches, land, and a seat at his table if he sold him his golden mare. koschei accepted, but used sorcery to transmute a wolf into the likeness of zornitsa, then asked her to hide in the wood in her firebird form.

the lord's sister, yelena tomislavna, had the gift of sight too. she caught on to the ruse, but kept koschei's secret. in time the two fell deeply for one another, but koschei was not a preferred match. he contrived a plan to have the lord spot the firebird during a hunt, and as he suspected, the lord promised yelena's hand to anyone who'd manage to catch it for him. koschei rose to the occassion, again presenting a wolf who simply forgot it was not a firebird, and the wedding was set.

♔. ivan yurovich : his birthname in this verse (see this post to dive into the rabbit hole). after his brothers' deaths, their nickname for him (due to his lankiness) continued to be his preferred name. he goes by koschei yurovich through his pre-immortal travels, then later koschei bessmertny. kasyan lutovich is the current alias. after his identity reveal he goes back to being referred to as koschei bessmertny. it's a name he's proud of, so if you ever call him ivan, it's on sight !!

iii. the midwinter feast : during their engagement celebration, morozko was an honorary guest, as it was his midwinter holiday too. he took great interest in yelena and had her tend to him the entire night, much to koschei's agitation and moscow's speculation. when the frost demon left, a panicked idea took root among the folk that yelena could not marry. she would need to be morozko's tribute for maslenitsa, the sunfeast, or else they'd face a late summer and risk another deadly famine. to escape the hysteria, koschei and yelena fled to a secret place tucked between realms in the midday road which koschei called yaichka for it's golden wheat fields that looked like a sea of yolk.

it was in that field, while koschei was stealing food from buyan, that the noon wraith, sent by dazbog, lured a lounging yelena into a trance and danced her into midnight and then back into moscow. when koschei found out, he and zornitsa raced through the midday road from buyan to moscow, but a devotee of dazbog could only find the middays of spring and summer. what felt like hours of riding were actually weeks. he arrived on winter's last sunset, through the red flash of the last day of the sunfeast, but the people of moscow had already strangled yelena in the snow and tossed her body into the sacrificial fire.

koschei begged morozko and dazbog to undo what the people had done, using the water of life and the water of death, but the twins refused to intervene with fate. herein laid the trappings of a secret war, where koschei set his heart towards revenge against the people of rus' and the twins who'd wronged him. for the moment, they were none the wiser. dazbog took koschei into buyan and continued to mentor him until he eventually used the knowledge to formulate a spell that would have him take dazbog's power and remove himself from death's reach so that he could confidently enact his revenge on the frost demon and people of rus'.

♔. the chains of the winter king : this feast was the memory vasya found morozko imprisoned in, and the man she saw was koschei ("ivan"). as tamara's sister later explains, kasyan's face is not koschei's real face which is why she did not immediately recognize him. so this is the first glimpse we get of him in the series. i'm establishing that koschei, working through medved, was responsible for the creation of this prison memory, but it was just that. a magical simulation on loop. no historical events could be changed by meddling.

iv. the golden bridle: zornitsa urged koschei against his plan, but he needed her speed to catch dazbog's chariot in his journey towards death's country, when he was most vulernable. he created a golden bridle that would bind zornitsa's will to his own. then he seduced tamara once more, and tricked her into placing the bridle on zornitsa. with the bridle on, koschei seized his opportunity and struck his fatal spell on dazbog just before he could reach morozko's country. but the spell was complex and too slippery for a human mind. they both tumbled into rus', and when koschei finally came to, he found himself immortal and alone, but not entirely successful.

v. lame daba : killing a dual natured god in one blow was impossible. in the fall, dazbog split in two: his primary form (the summer wolf) was killed and absorbed by koschei; but the winter bearskin of his hibernating form still remained, and koschei's spell had inadvertently reanimated the husk in the effort to make himself deathless. koschei's life force was removed from his body, but was stored in medved, the eater, whose mind and memory became a mangled and rotted version of dazbog's, tainted by koschei's essence and vision of him. medved then represented a mockery of life fueled by it's hardships and became the tsar of the upyr, the insatiable undead.

medved had no true recollection of his previous life and neither did anyone else. koschei then realized that to kill and usurp a god meant to erase them from memory, and when medved began to wreak havoc on rus', morozko imprisoned his brother with a murky recollection of the time before they were at odds. likewise, the world had an obscured recollection of koschei and who he was before -- but the witch women of midnight and the crossroad demons who had witnessed what he'd done remembered. they did not have the means to intervene, but yaga did cast out her daughter tamara, and shut all the roads of the chyerti realms to her and koschei so they could never come back.

vi. the tower of bones. now unable to reach buyan and the sleeping bear to retrieve his death and finish what he started, koschei set up camp in a place he called, bashnya kostei, the tower of bones. he offered tamara a place at his side, but she refused and left him. thus began the campaigns against the people of kievan rus' that inspired the tales of koschei the deathless. eventually, he took to keeping a lower profile, used sorcery and glamors to hide his rotting appearance, recruited the surrounding chyerti to do his bidding, and conjured scrying spells to keep morozko blind to his machinations and whereabouts.

vii. the bear & the nightingale. in dreams, koschei could sense any perturbances with medved given their inconvenient entanglement. after years of nothing, he saw a young girl with familiar green eyes and the gift of sight approach the bear at his clearing. if koschei could not get to buyan, he figured the sacrifice of a witch could summon medved into rus'. so he riled the bear awake in secret and planted the idea in his subconscious. the bear was successful, through the death of a different witch, but when he was foiled and bound again by the sacrifice of a father. koschei moved on to the back up plan: a counterspell to yaga's banishment using the alatyr stone, the red flash of the last winter sunset on maslenitsa, and the power charge of a witch from her bloodline.

book 2 & book 3. from here, we set up the events of book 2. koschei's core motive is a power grab, particularly for buyan and the chyerti. not knowing where vasya ran off to, he took on the alias of kasyan lutovich to infiltrate moscow and investigate vasya's remaining family there, hoping to find another witch/sorcerer with the sight who could charge and destroy the stone, thus "killing him" but really his body disintegrated and reappeared in the water of life in buyan, where he began to gather his own chyerti forces and used medved as a puppet & distraction in book 3 to buy himself time.

taking over moscow & destroying the bells was supposed to be an added treat that went a little haywire (understatement), but was not the primary goal. this was getting medved bound again at the right time while koschei was in buyan, getting his death back, hiding it somewhere else unknown, and merging with what remained of dazbog's power so he could become the new tsar of life. when vasya returns to the clearing seeking medved's aid, she finds his bearskin limp and koschei standing in his place. further notes & divergences can be discussed and/or will be posted as hcs.

#♔ . ⧽ v. winternight * 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔰𝔬𝔯𝔠𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔩 𝔴𝔞𝔨𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔩𝔢𝔢𝔭𝔢𝔯 & 𝔰𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔰 #this is long but really just ask that you read the indented footnotes/divergences #everything else is for reference & context and went in a little deeper bc tbh this is going to be my secondary verse of choice #and the backbone of all his other non-deathless verses #anyways let's give the series a lil extension w a new villain who loves the drama of faking deaths teehee #major spoilers ahead if you haven't read the books!

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