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galedekarios · 3 months

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gale's early access dialogue transcripts - part 3: dialogues regarding various decisions & quest progression

in early access, companions used to react much more to the decisions you made in dialogue as well as the overall quest progression pertaining to the main quest as well as side quests, and the events happening around them.

these conversations would be shorter in nature and were usually marked with an exclamation mark ( ! ) over their head.

some of these conversations survived the transition from early access to the full release, but they are very few and far between. the only ones that did survive are 1) gale's reaction to nettie poisoning the protag, 2) gale's reaction to saving mirkon, and 3) gale's reaction to saving arabella.

gale was much, much more responsive in early access and had conversations with the protag about a variety of topics.

following are all cut conversations / dialogues with gale (excluding the deer stew scene and loss scene, which i have covered here and here, but have decided to exclude because they are much longer conversations):

overview:

jergal's temple

reaching the druid's grove / emerald enclave

arabella the tiefling child dies / protag stood by and did nothing

protag killed lae'zel after lae'zel tried to prevent them from turning into a mind flayer

karlach vs anders, the paladin of tyr / agent of zariel

after edowin / the siblings brynna and andrick

killing the druids

arriving at the goblin camp

finding out that the absolute's brand is magic

about true souls

dror ragzlin & the dead mindflayer

ogre + bugbear couple in moonhaven

giving the necromancy of thay tome to gale (dialogue option in player-initiated dialogue / gale asks for tome)

on ethel

on ethel's deal

after finishing mayrina's quest

the zhentarim chest / rugan

the myconid colony in the underdark

defending astarion to gandrel the gur monster hunter

handing astarion over to gandrel the gur monster hunter

arka the tiefling (kanon's sister) kills sazza the goblin / protag stood by and watched it happen

letting sazza escape

finding out about priestess gut from sazza

below the read more, you'll find the transcripts of these 23 cut conversations.

where i can and still have them, i will include screenshots and, when i can find them online, i will include links to watch those conversation in video format.

jergal's temple [link to gifset]

Gale: Bad form, isn't it? Grave robbing? Judging by those undead guardians, the architects of this crypt certainly thought so. - Protag Option 1: I'm desperate, not proud. Best to take what I can get. Gale: Then again, to be alive is to be curious. - Protag Option 2: Dressing up the dead is pointless. They have no need for trinkets. Gale: Never lost a loved one, have you? Then again, those who loved these loved ones are dust and bones themselves. - Protag Option 3: A good fight and fine treasure. What's not to like? Gale: I suppose that's one way to spin it. - Protag Option 4: Why care about decorum in a long-abandoned tomb? Gale: Because my mother raised a gentleman. Then again, to be alive is to be curious. - Protag Option 5 [Cleric]: True. My god might not be particularly happy about it. Gale: You can pray for your sins later. I’m told that does the trick. Gale: Let's have a look at the loot. It isn't for your pockets only.

2. reaching the druid's grove / emerald enclave

Gale: So much for finding a safe haven. - Protag Option 1: This is a druid grove. With a bit of luck we'll find help here. Gale: Druids master the ancient magic that is part of nature's fabric itself. They can make bloom, and they can make wither. Let's hope the latter applies to tadpoles. - Protag Option 2: We won't linger long. Gale: And we shouldn't – but we'd be remiss not to give the place a once-over. Druids master the ancient magic that is part of nature's fabric itself. They can make bloom, and they can make wither. Let's hope the latter applies to tadpoles.

3. arabella the tiefling child dies / protag stood by and did nothing [link to gifset]

Gale: This place is a snake pit in more ways than one. That poor girl... Such sudden madness.... And what did we do? We stood by and watched. Her parents – we'll have to tell them that we failed. - Protag Option 1: Our priority remains to find a healer. The most dangerous snake is in our heads, remember? Gale: Distinctly. But it hasn't poisoned my sense of right and wrong just yet. How about yours? - Protag Option 2: We're here on Zevlor's behalf. Let's not lose sight of that. Gale: Yes, nothing like serving up a dead child as the appetiser to successful negotiations. - Protag Option 3: Her parents deserve to know what happened. And that we are not to blame. Gale: So inaction equals innocence? There's a small corpse on the floor over there that might just beg to differ. - Protag Option 4: This is none of our concern. Where there's strife, there will be blood. Gale: And where there's blood, there will be vengeance. This troubled grove is about to become far more troubled still. - [Arabella died because protag failed the DC twice] Protag Option 5: The girl really should have left the druid's idol alone. Look where it got her. Gale: If the errors of youth deserve an early grave, none of us would live to see a dozen summers. There is no justification for this tragedy.

4. protag killed lae'zel after lae'zel tried to prevent them from turning into a mind flayer

Gale: Lae'zel... that was brutal. Are you all right? I'm here if you want to talk about it. - Protag Option 1: Is there anything left to say? Gale: She was alive. Now she is dead. Might be worth a few words. Then again, maybe not. What a night... - Protag Option 2: She was danger to us all. She didn't leave me with a choice. Gale: I was not judging, merely offering my sympathy. One moment we are travelling together, then the next... - Protag Option 3: Don't bother. It's over and done with. Gale: Words as final as your acts. One moment we are travelling together, then the next...

5. karlach vs anders, the paladin of tyr / agent of zariel

Gale: I have to say I don't know if agreeing to this hunt was such a wise idea. Who's to say who's the real villain in this tale of devils and masquerades? - Protag Option 1: Cheer up! It'll be fun. Gale: Yes, I used to sign up for a round of Kill-The-Stranger every tenday back home [sarcastic]. When we track Karlach down, let's chat before we chop. - Protag Option 2: You're saying I shouldn't trust a bunch of devil-sworn pretending to be paladins of Tyr? Gale: I'm saying I really shouldn't have to point that out. When we track Karlach down, let's chat before we chop. - Protag Option 3: It's easy: I say who the villain is. Gale: My, so it's you who is Tyr then, the mighty judge of justice? Go ahead, tell them. I'm sure they'd love to fawn all over their erstwhile patron.

6. after edowin / the siblings brynna and andrick

Gale: I have to say, it's one thing to have a parasite in your head, quite another not to know it's there. What's more, these people weren't on the nautiloid with us. Just how many mind flayers are at work in these parts? - Protag Option 1: The real question is: how does this all link to their belief in this “Absolute”? Gale: Mind flayers excel -> See Option 3 - Protag Option 2: Do you really think there may be more mind flayers around? Gale: This True Soul and his acolytes are ample proof of that... They 're ample proof of a dread suspicion as well. - Protag Option 3: Let's move. I don't mean to lose daylight pondering idle questions. Gale: You really do dismiss these events too casually. - Gale: Mind flayers excel at mind games. To enthral completely is their bread and butter. What if they perfected their craft by convincing their subjects they're not thralls at all, but that they have free will? That the commandments they experience are the will of a benevolent god. How terrifying a level of perfection that would be.

7. killing the druids

Gale: If Silvanus is the mighty oak, his druids were but the weakest of his leaves, tossed by the winds of fury. I can't shake the image of what happened to the grove: the winds have blown and the harvest has come. The oak stands lone and barren. - Protag [Druid] Option 1: A grove destroyed... I dont think I can forgive myself. Gale: After winter, spring will come, but I'm not sure we left behind much fertile ground. - Protag [Druid] Option 2: The druids caused the harvest. It was only just we did the reaping. Gale: Yes, well, I prefer to pluck apples and pick strawberries. They don't tend to weigh on one's conscience. - Protag Option 3: They were in need of a lesson – and we taught it well. Gale: One usually needs to be alive to reap the benefits of education. If anything, we taught them too well. - Protag Option 4: They felt threatened and lashed out. A tragedy I wish we could have avoided. Gale: Their action are on them, that much is true, but the consequences are ours to carry - Protag Option 5: Come, let's move on. What's done is done. Gale: Look around you. What's done is done, but what's wrong is also wrong.

8. arriving at the goblin camp [link to gifset]

Gale: Amid all this grandeur sunk into squalor, I wonder what dismal corner we'll find Halsin in. - Protag Option 1: Any suggestions? Gale: Prisoners are treated the same by everyone: they serve as serfs, or they waste away in a dungeon. Stands to reason we'll find Halsin in either one of these less-than-appealing conditions. - Protag Option 2: What grandeur is that? Gale: This must have been a splendid complex once, a temple of impressive proportions. Worshippers lived here. Pilgrims visited. They required food, shelter, ceremony, entertainment. Now that it's nothing but a goblin-ridden death-trap? Plenty of places to hide away a druid, I imagine. - Protag Option 3: With our luck? Marinating in a cooking pot most likely. Gale: A hearty serving of druid stew wouldn't do us any good. No, let's hope the best and keep this in mind: Prisoners are treated the same by everyone: they serve as serfs, or they waste away in a dungeon. If he's still alive, it stands to reason we'll find Halsin in either one of these less-than-appealing conditions. Well -more-than-appealing conditions come to think of it, when one considers the stew alternative.

9. finding out that the absolute's brand is magic

Gut: Hold out your arm so I can mark your flesh. It's charged with magic. Ordinary slobs can't see it; only us that follow the Absolute. Gale: Charged with magic? Perhaps that explains the ease with which these goblins submit to True Souls.

10. about true souls

Gale: I can hardly wrap my head around what we've just heard. Let's list up the facts, shall we? There are other people here with tadpoles in their heads. They can hear the tadpoles speak to them, and they think it's a new god. I don't know about you, but to me, none of this makes any logical sense. - Protag Option 1: I concur. There doesn't seem to be a logical explanation. Gale: And yet I suspect something... intelligent behind it all. Some carefully nurtured scheme. - Protag Option 2: I'm seeing too many coincidences – which tend to add up to conspiracies. Gale: Evil cults and grand designs, is it? Mind you, I'll not even dispute the possibility. - Protag Option 3: I don't care about logic, I care about solutions. Gale: I'm not sure those are mutually exclusive. If we seek to solve we must seek to comprehend. - Gale: But let's not lose sight of what we've learned here – what joins us and what separates us from these True Souls: They heard a voice we do not hear, a voice that binds them in servitude. As long as we're possessed of our own free will, I venture to say there's hope for us yet.

11. dror ragzlin & the dead mindflayer

Gale: A grand necromantic spectacle staged at the behest of a newfangled god to track down... us. Can't quite say which of these two wins out: to be honoured or to be horrified. - Protag Option 1: The real question is: why are they looking for us? Gale: Several guesses spring to mind, all equally plausible and implausible at once. - Protag Option 2: Not to worry: we easily tricked that hobgoblin – and his god. Gale: We tricked the minion, yes, but its master? I doubt it. - Protag Option 3: Can't say I'm thrilled to be a god's pet project. Gale: Horrified it is then. - Gale: Fact is we're being hunted, but at least we have the hunters at a disadvantage: even here, in the lion's den, they don't recognise us as their prey.

12. ogre + bugbear couple in moonhaven

Gale: One moment they were embracing each other in intimacy, the next they're embracing only death. Can't say I'm proud of our actions here. - Protag Option 1: Me either. We should have left well enough alone Gale: Don't get me wrong, I know they'd have gladly made us their post-coital picnic given half a chance. It just feels wrong to turn lovemaking into life-taking. - Protag Option 2: Playing it a bit fast and loose with the word 'intimacy' there, Gale. Gale: I'm not contemplating definitions, I'm contemplating our deeds. Don't get me wrong, I know they'd have gladly made us their post-coital picnic given half a chance. It just feels wrong to turn lovemaking into life-taking. - Protag Option 3: Don't dwell on it. Ogres and bugbears are nothing but vermin. Gale: And yet they speak and bond and revel. Don't get me wrong, I know they'd have gladly made us their post-coital picnic given half a chance. It just feels wrong to turn lovemaking into life-taking.

13. giving the necromancy of thay tome to gale (dialogue option in player-initiated dialogue / gale asks for tome)

Gale: Much obliged. Narrator: you watch Gale perusing the book with a true wizard's fascination. A few pages in, something startles him. Gale: A rough read indeed... I'll give it my undivided attention at a more appropriate time.

14. on ethel

Gale: You know, I think there's a little something more to Ethel than meets the eye. 'Hag' is the word they used. If that's what she really is, she's beyond dangerous. - Protag Option 1: If that's what she is, that means we killed two innocent men. Gale: But theit sister still lives. And I doubt Auntie has her over for tea and conversation. - Protag Option 2: Hags are powerful creatures. She might actually be able to help us with the parasite. Gale: See Option 3 - Protag Option 3: She hinted at a reward. That's all I really care about. Gale: Beware of a hag bearing gifts. They're never gifts to begin with.

15. on ethel's deal

Gale: Netherese. A portentous word. Combine it with mind flayers, and it's... unspeakable. - Protag Option 1: What do you make of it all? Gale: What we can do is combine what we know and make our deductions. At the heart of it all, the problem is clear: we've been infected by a mind flayer parasite. So far, however, we've been spared the dread fate that is ceremorphosis. How have we been spared? It would seem the answer is that the parasite is somehow infused with Netherese magic – more powerful, more sinister than it has any right to be. The question remains, however: why? Infected, but unchanging. Blind cogs in an all-seeing machine. - Protag Option 2: If even a hag can't help us, who can? Gale: I... I actually don't know. All we can do is combine what we know and make our deductions- See Option 1 - Protag Option 3: It's all gibberish as far as I'm concerned. Gale: No, there's meaning to it. There has to be. All we can do is combine- See Option 1 - Protag Option 4: None of this actually solves our problems. Gale: I know, but let's consider this: at the heart of it all, not only is our problem clear, but so is the motive of our enemy: power. All power has a nexus. Find it, and we may just find both the answers and the remedy we seek. - Protag Option 5: Get to the point if you have one. Gale: I was merely thinking out loud, but if you desire a point, consider this: See Option 4 - Protag Option 6: Enough talk. Let's go. Gale: Fine, but while we walk, consider this: See Option 4

16. after finishing mayrina's quest [link to gifset]

Gale: Hags really do redefine depravity, don't they? A promise kept in the cruellest of ways: a loved one returned, undead. - Protag Option 1: This entire affair sickens me. I wish we'd had no part in it. Gale: We don't always choose the roles we play. All we can do is perform them to the best of our ability. [Connor killed] At least the curtain's fallen on this tragedy. The lovers' tale is quite over. [Connor alive] Can't say I'm very enthusiastic though, about the extra you just cast. - Protag Option 1: Hags thrive on corruption. It is simply their nature Gale: A nature that, as far as I'm concerned, deserves to go extinct. [Connor killed] As extinct as the happiness Ethel cut out of Mayrina. [Connor alive] So does that abhorrent thing-once-man. For god's sake let his eternal sleep be free of this undead nightmare. - Protag Option 3: You have to admit Auntie Ethel knows how to have some fun. Gale: [disapproves] You can't possibly mean that. [Connor killed] In any case, the man's dead for good. The spectacle has come to a close. Fun's over. [Connor alive] Although, judging by the newest company you've decided to keep, you may just be depraved enough yourself to mean that after all.

17. the zhentarim chest / rugan

Gale: So you threatened your way into ownership of that chest. Now that it's yours, what will you do with it? - Protag Option 1: I say we hold on to it until we find the rightful owner. Gale: So that means you're not curious as to what's inside? Very well, suit yourself... - Protag Option 2: Let's seell it. We're bound to make a tidy profit. Gale: See Option 1 - Protag Option 3: I will do what is meant to be done with a sealed chest: open it. Gale: Music to my curious ears!

18. the myconid colony in the underdark [link to gifset]

Gale: Spores that can raise the dead... These myconids certainly are fascinating creatures. Protag Option 1: They make for good allies. Gale: Agreed. And there are precious few of those in the Underdark. - Protag Option 2: They're more dangerous than I thought. We should be on our guard. Gale: They will remain welcome hosts unless we turn hostile. Should be easy enough to avoid. - Protag Option 3: Sorry, but I don't share your fascination for fungi. Gale: Nobody's perfect.

19. defending astarion to gandrel the gur monster hunter [link to youtube video]

[Protag defends Astarion] Gale: How thoroughly invigorating it is to stand by one's friend in the face of danger. Even if that friend is an egomaniacal vampire with moral longevity of a mayfly. - Protag Option 1: We did the right thing and that's all there is to it. Gale: It's charming that you think that. - Protag Option 2: Are you saying that you would have thrown Astarion to the wolves? Gale: Never. What harm did the wolves ever do? - Protag Option 3: I'll remember you skepticism if anyone ever comes looking for you. Gale: ?

20. handing astarion over to gandrel the gur monster hunter

[Protag hands Astarion over to Gandrel the Gur Monster Hunter] Gale: I had a friend who had a dog once. Beautiful animal, but it got mean in its old days. Gale: It would growl and bark at everyone. Even bit him at the end. Gale: Yet still it was the saddest of occasions when he took the dog away for good. - Protag Option 1: It was for the best, I'm sure. Gale: I'm not sure the dog would agree. Gale: Astarion wouldn't. I'm absolutely sure of that. - Protag Option 2: Parting is never easy. Gale: ? - Protag Option 3: Put the mongrel down, did he? Gale: ?

21. arka the tiefling (kanon's sister) kills sazza the goblin / protag stood by and watched it happen [link to gifset]

Gale: Arka's thirst for revenge has been sated... and the goblin welcomed death with open arms. All's well with the world one might argue. And yet there's something unsettling about witnessing an execution. - Protag Option 1: I take no pleasure in it, but justice has been done. Gale: No one will mourn this goblin I suppose. Let's leave it at that. - Protag Option 2: Somehow that sounds a condemnation. Gale: I condemn nothing - but a question can be a mirror: Gale: If it's guilt you see reflected, the condemnation is your own. - Protag Option 3: I have no patience for the squeamish. Gale: You imply a weakness. I say a critical mind is one of our greatest strengths.

22. letting sazza the goblin escape

Gale: I know I said it's not inconceivable a goblin priestess could help us. And yet... was it really wise to set another goblin free so she can arrange introductions? - Protag Option 1: Passing up the promise of a healer would be far more unwise. Gale: A perfectly reasonable train of thoughts. But what if she leads her entire tribe to the grove? - Protag Option 2: What's done is done. Doubt doesn't help us. Gale: I'm not quite done yet. What if she leads her entire tribe to the grove? - Protag Option 3: Keep your misgivings to yourself. Gale: But consider the consequences. What if she leads her entire tribe to the grove? -> Protag Option 1: I'll make sure that doesn't happen Gale: I'm not sure you can. - Protag Option 2: Getting rid of the tadpole comes first. Otherwise we might be the monsters that destroy this place. Gale: Harsh. But fair. If not given too much further thought. - Protag Option 3: I don't care, I owe this grove no allegiance. Gale: No allegiance, no. Though we don't need to sign its death warrant.

23. finding out about priestess gut from sazza

Gale: Booyahg – the goblin word for magic. Primitive to a fault, but not entirely without merit. To seek some goblin priestess' help would be unconventional to say the least. Then again, I'm not one to advocate conventionality. - Protag Option 2: A goblin healer sounds absurd to me. Gale: I wouldn't dismiss the idea out of hand. Goblins come from a warrior culture: to heal wounds is a highly prized skill. - Protag Option 1: I don't care if a cure comes from a goblin, an ogre, or an orc: as long as it works, I'm happy. Gale: My sentiments exactly. - Gale: If this priestess is indeed a master in the arts of booyahg, it's not inconceivable she could be of help to us. And if she isn't, we might find items of interest among her shamanic paraphernalia. If her tribe doesn't kill us on sight, that is.

thank you for reading! please consider liking and reblogging this post to support my work. thank you.

coming up next:

-part 1: the three tadpole dreams -> completed -part 2: major cut scenes: the deer stew scene & the loss scene -> completed -part 3: minor cut scenes: abandoned temple of jergal, failed to save arabella, talking to the paladins of tyr and agreeing to go after karlach, edowin and the tadpole reveal, mayrina giving ethel's wand to her or breaking it, handing astarion over to the gur or defending him, reaching the druid grove, killing lae'zel, reaching the goblin camp & looking for halsin, killing the druids, priestess gut & the brand & the cult of the absolute, dror ragzlin and talking to the dead mind flayer, ogre couple, necromancy of thay, ethel, zhentarim chest, myconid colony -> completed with this post -part 4: gale's condition & the way it was treated in early access

taglist: @chainsawmascara, @randomfanner, @tacogoats, @khajiit-necromancer, @gwinharper, @galesenchantedpanties, @swampfaerie, @ardently-queer, @nirraein, @gale-enjoyer, @xiv-wolfram, @kairoswouldnever, @a-psychopathic-dream, @toboldlydammitjim, @mishtress, @vcxahlia, @fitzmagus,

i thought i'd tag the people i'd seen taking an interest in my original post! if you want to be taken off the taglist, or added, please let me know!

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 meta #early access #ch: gale dekarios #vg: baldur's gate 3 #series: baldur's gate #meta: mybg3 #series: eadialogue

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faerytreealtars · 6 months

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⋆⭒˚｡⋆ Your Souls Origins ‧₊˚✩彡

Hello my dear Saplings! 🌱 A new PAC today that I hope you enjoy, take a deep breath, and choose whatever images resonate with your soul and heart, Happy reading! ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Today I channeled the story of the birth of your very soul, where exactly did you come from, what story has your soul been trying to tell you or remember? Hopefully, this PAC will shine some light on the answers you seek.

I would love to hear if the message you received resonated with you, so don’t feel afraid to comment, for it makes me so happy to connect with you all! 💕

Song: Soulless Creatures - Aurora

Faery-Tale: Snow White & Rose Red - "One cannot never be too fortunate when one has a soul of true kindness"

[ My Instagram ♡ / Personal Readings ♤ / Faery Masterlist ☆ ]

Pile 1

[Cards: Ace of Wands, Three of Swords, Judgement + The High Priestess]

Your soul first began life within a highly evolved society - they had mastered the use of technology and energetic frequencies far beyond a lense binding them together to further heighten their awakened minds. I see in my mind a city filled with pure white towers and large crystals that jut from the earth like Icebergs that are capable of transforming the frequencies they carry into power to fuel a large city. You and your species were creative beings too and liked to combine your logical minds with your artistic hearts creating fantastical pieces. Living in a society such as this which wanted for nothing meant you spent your days in peace. You did not worry about supposed foes or close off your gates to outsiders. Everyone was a friend or ally to yet be made was the general thought among the populace. This was unfortunately your undoing, perhaps they misunderstood your peaceful ways as a slight against their power but you welcomed in another race who were filled with anger and hate they played an act until it was time to strike. It only took a day for the city to fall, all but ash left in its wake. Few were able to flee...but the numbers were few and far between. A whole race of intelligent minds and a city of wonder and knowledge were gone never to return to its state of magnificence again. This is why deep down your soul may lament a forgotten home or feel a confusing sense of homesickness.

Pile 2

[Cards: Eight of Swords, Two of Wands, King of Wands, Ten of Pentacles + The Empress]

Your soul was lost, a young being left alone in the inky darkness of the night not even the cold stars could comfort you and so you wandered on. A hunger in your heart for home until at last! You found another identical to you - who shared the same longings and the same dreams. You hung on tight to one another afraid of letting go. You journeyed together until you found a place that was as isolated and alone as you both had once been - you made it home and that home soon became a colony abundant in resources and trade. Many other souls flocked to it - some like you and some entirely unique. Together you built a society that could be inherited by other lost souls down the centuries.

Pile 3

[Cards: The Magician, The Chariot, The World, Queen of Pentacles + Ten of Pentacles]

You were the alchemists, the unfound genius of your time. Always on the go, always on the move chasing the next brightest star - you didn't want nor need a "Home" You were and always would be your own home and didn't want to feel trapped, it would only slow down your mind. Being free allowed you to see the most wonderous creations in the galaxies - Your independent streak never faded & it only benefitted you as you communed with the mighty showing off your skill and knowledge & gaining recognition & reward! Not you fully cared for the material as you never stayed too long in one place to fully enjoy - running off and jumping down the next rabbit hole. All in all Your soul was happy and it was free.

Once again I thank all of you and your spirit teams, most importantly your higher self/Soul for allowing me to divine and tell your story, all of you had such beautiful if a little bittersweet tales to tell.

Remember that this is a general reading though! Not all may apply to you so go with sentences that make your intuition feel something and try to piece together the missing pieces yourself, if you can!

~Much Love, Fae ♡

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fyblackwomenart · 1 year

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Itaweret, High Priestess of Mut from the Kemetian colony of Per-Pehu, takes a rest from her quest on some rocks in the Achaean countryside.

For those of you who have not met her yet, Itaweret is the heroine of my novel Priestess of the Lost Colony, which takes place in an alternate timeline wherein the people of Kemet (aka ancient Egypt) colonized the coast of Achaea (Greece) during the Bronze Age. When the Achaean warlord Scylax of Mycenae sacks the colony and enslaves its citizens, it is up to Itaweret and her younger brother Bek, guided by the goddess Mut, to liberate what remains of their people.

Itaweret’s story draws inspiration from a couple of ancient Greek legends about Egyptians settling on their shores. One comes from the writings of Herodotus, who claims that a pair of “black doves” (priestesses) from Egypt founded the Oracle of Dodona, whereas another tells of an Egyptian king’s fifty nieces fleeing to the Greek city of Argos. One scholar, Martin Bernal, has even suggested that these legends reflect an actual Egyptian colonization of Greece in his three-volume work Black Athena, although his hypothesis remains unsupported among archaeologists. Nonetheless, I thought the premise was fair game for an alternate-history story.

#Artists on Tumblr #art #submission #melanin #black woman

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silurisanguine · 2 years

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My human Outsider headcanons.

These relate to my idea of him, through my fanfic story of Tyr.

Past life before The Outsider -

-Tyr's full name is Tyr Saan Evv (pronounced like Tee-er, Sa'aan Eh-Vee) Each part of the mark is pheonetic symbols of his name. The large central one is his first name Tyr, the other two mean ' of the Evv people' I based it on what was written about the ancient lanaguage using pheonetics to describe things with the diphthongs Malchiodi described and real world ancient tribes, who didnt have surnames, instead were known by where they came from.

-The Evv people were warrior shamanic tribal people . Some of them worshipped the Void and decided to travel the ocean to find a special place the Void called them to and they set up a colony in Pandyssia ( think viking/ mongolian type people) he was born there, as first generation from his people who originally came from what is now called Tyvia. Back in the homeland the people disappeared as a unique culture integrating into a larger society. The colony in Pandyssia suffeed from war with other cultures there as well as the Void closing in and eventually the colony was destroyed with survivors joining those cultures instead and the language was lost as their temples of black stone crumbled to ruin.

-His mother was murdered by his father and he was dumped onto the streets as his father never fully believed he was his father. That his mother,a temple priestess had in fact slept with one of her fellow priests as she kept talking about her son being a chosen one to sate the Void's hunger and he bared no resemblance to his father. The man became bitter and resentful as she doted on her son and when she was strangled by him. Tyr was beaten by his father until one day he was dumped out onto the streets to fend for himself.

Tyr now -

-Although Tyr's mortality was granted back to him, his human body died 4 thousand years ago in that ritual, his throat slit, his blood drained. The Void manifested this new form for him to live out a mortal life, but he isnt truly human. A lasting gift for his time as god of it. (Much like the eye of the 'dead' god can still bestow it's gift) He'd become part of The Void and although released from his joining with it, its still part of him. He retains the knowledge he's learnt , though it used to severely hinder him and he had to meditate to calm his mind. When it happened his eyes flashed between the black and normal green and he had almost blinding aura like headache as the sights, smells and images bombarded his mind. Now thanks to Billie's help he no longer suffers the migraines, but he does have to mentally focus when using his powers

-The powers of the Mark stay as Tyr still has a connection to the Void, he always will have. Before he was released, he granted Emily , Corvo and any other Marked the ability of their mana to refresh naturally, not by solution (much like Billie's does).

-Because of his connection, he has abilities not unlike what he had as the Outsider, like teleporting and recalling memories, but he also has new ones that work to his own unique personality, much like how Marked ones powers work to theirs.

His powers -

Void walk - vanish at will in a half seen cloud of shattered Void dust to reappear elsewhere, just as he once did ( the cloud is more an echo of what it was). He enters the Void ( as it is within and without space and time) and then leaves it where he wants. He can also take things from anywhere to have to appear in his hand.

Recollection - He can see a person and instantly remember their darkest secret. this is where objects which have meaning to them, he can summon.

Void gaze - His irises, appear to shatter and go black (not entire eye) and he can see much like dark vision. (dark vision being a way he could always see as the outsider and gifted to his chosen. Their eyes go black when they use it as they see through his eyes).

Void blade- a shard of sharp void obsidian can appear in his hand and be used as a weapon ( think how the twin blade knife appears in his hand when he summoned it)

Obscure- similar to mesmerize. People who see him can be become entranced by a suggestion , Tyr has the ability to wipe their minds of their train of thought. His eyes go nearly as black as when he was a god, but not as solidly black, his normal eyes can be seen behind darkened glass like appearance

Time stop - he can stop time briefly. (like as he did in Stilton's Manor.)

He also has one other very powerful ability, that i cant share as it would spoil my story!

-When he was The Outsider he travelled through the minds and dreams of the living, Observing, but never fully feeling. The Void subdued his emotions, until Delilah interfered with the Void, draining it of power to fuel her own. It weakened the effect on the Outsider and that is why he is more emotional in DH2 and stays that way once Delilah is dealt with as the shackles the Void had on him were weakened. Its why he decides he's had enough and wants out. (Of course Emily had a very specific effect and gave him another reason to. He could not express or feel in the same way she did, until he was free of what he was.)

-He was also often an unwilling voyeur, seeing everything people did and watching it all, unable to turn away. But he remembers it all and vows as a mortal to only ever be attentive and passionate to those he loves. He is making up for the lack of empathy he had as a god. He is a give or take kind. Can be dominant or submissive depending on mood. Likes to watch Emily (thats the voyeur in him) and has a magic fueled stamina (so does Emily.)

-He has alot of anxiety now as a mortal that he cannot see what people are thinking, only what they once thought. He does not know what could happen and it worries him. He hides it as much as he can by using what he does know to help others, especially Emily and Corvo. Sometimes though that anxiety manifests by him reverting to how he behaved as The Outsider - distant, observing and speaking in a more cut off way, until something snaps in him.

-Billie became a good friend to him after she freed him, as for her, he knew everything about her life, but never judged her for it. In return she guided him back to living in the world, taught him how to survive there. For Tyr, she could have abandoned him and let him get on with things, but she stayed and helped, maybe understanding another lost soul in need of direction.

-Tyr enjoys much of what many people take for granted. Rainfall, a soft breeze on the skin, warm sunlight peeking through heavy curtains, a ripe apple or hearty blood ox stew. All those things were denied him for so long, so now he appreciates them all.

-He keeps much of his appearance, from his time as The Outsider again thanks to Delilah's interference in the Void. Once the dampening effect of the Void weakened on him, he was able to finally show how he really looked, not how others perceived him.(This explains how he looks different from Dh1 to DH2.) He is happy to look in the mirror and see his natural eye colour and the face he remembers from so long ago, that he doesn't wish to change.

-When he sleeps, he sometimes does dream of the Void. It calls to him. Sometimes they are nice dreams. Memories of more pleasant encounters through his time there. Other times they are nightmares of The Void's hunger. A warning of what is to come. He knows other people are starting to suffer the latter too as there is no custodian to control the chaotic power of the Void.

Tyr's future -

-To protect Tyr, Emily and Corvo help set up his official 'backstory'. Making him a long lost Tyvian prince, of old noble bloodline that would be a suitable candidate for royal consort.

-'A long time ago in Tyvia whilst it was still ruled by the noble houses, One of the Samarin Princes's sons had fallen in love with a visitor from Serkonos. His family had disapproved of the low match and he had fled to her homeland with her and settled there, taking on a normal life away from the nobility of his family name. They were one of the Prince families who were eventually removed from power many years ago in Tyvia. His line lived well in Serkonos due to his intelligence and charisma but he has no desire to be seen as nobility and had no intention of joining any other exiled Prince. The old Duke Abele had kept file on his family name in case it could be used in trade negotiations, though his son Luca didn't realise he had it. Tyr had 'known' of his family name, as he had been a scholar and had come across history about the old noble houses of Tyvia. As someone with no actual wealth of a noble he felt he could do nothing so kept quiet until he heard of a woman trying to oust the duke. She had found him as word spread and he along with her other associates indeed helped Oust Luca and Delilah from the throne and returned Emily's rightful place. They had grown fond of each other whilst she had been in exile there and the new Duke Corvo had taken over Karnaca he had met with Tyr and found about their romance and found it acceptable. As Tyr was technically noble it would not be hard to raise him back to nobility, through sponsoring ( hence staying at his Serkonos palace for 3 weeks) and thus be a suitable candidate as consort to the empress. Someone of both worlds as Corvo has shown it does the empire good.'

#Tyr Saan Evv #Human Outsider #To see Beyond Forever #Dishonored fanfic #My fan fic #Silurisanguine Fan Fic #Emsider

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chaotictiamat · 7 months

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get over your hill and see, what you find there

with grace in your heart, and flowers in your hair

I am working on another playthrough of BG3, because of course I am. However, this might be my favorite character outside of Rasa. (Poor Ellowen)

Siona - Seldarine Drow - Chaotic Neutral - Spore Druid

I have this whole background story worked out for her. How she was a former Loth drow but fled Menzobarranzan. During that flight she lost her right eye. She found shelter for a time with a Myconid colony and it is there she came to embrace their spore magic. The spores seemed to change her, her lone red eye slowly changing to green as well as parts of her hair. While staying with the Myconid's she began to have far more frequent dreams about the surface and the promise that world offered. Eventually following some silver moths upwards and finding followers of Eilistraee.

She's always dirty from her spores and just working with the earth constantly. Dirt under her nails and on her clothes which would have appalled her noble family. She absolutely loves it. I imagine she smells like the earth after a spring rain with some floral undertones. And I have all sorts of story ideas for her brewing around in my head.

Mods Used for Siona's Look New Character Creation Presets WIP Covenelf's Tattoo and Makeup Collection Honey's Hair Kitchen (WIP) New Eye Colors (And Blindness for All Eyes) Drow Priestess Robe

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 screenshots #bg3 tav

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strangeduckpaper · 1 year

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Cybertronian Expansion

Worlds of interest to the Cybertronian people as of present

The Hadeen System: Cybertron’s home system.

Cybertron: The cradle of the Cybertronian civilization, the inert body of Primus themselves, expanded beyond capacity and ravaged by war.

Luna 1: Cybertron’s largest moon, home base of the Mini-Cons and the Knights of Cybertron. Disappeared following the Quintesson war, though it’s said the Knights left a map.

Luna 2: Cybertron’s smaller moon, formerly a hotspot, then an Energon mine, and then the Autobot’s main foothold within the home system.

The Winged Moon: An artificial moon, constructed as a symbol of Cybertronian expansion under the Functionists, designed as a massive processing center and communications hub. Heavily damaged during Simanzi, fragments of it would fall to Cybertron, decimating the planet and paving the way for its evacuation. Its suviving half would ultimately fall under Autobot control, used as a roving command center during the war effort.

The Major Colonies:

Caminus: If any planet could be said to rival Cybertron in terms of prominence, then Caminus far and away claims that title. A centre of arts and culture, the planet is a theocracy under the rule of the Forgefire Parliment, and its head, the Mistress of Flames, High Priestess of Solus Prime. But what they have in culture, they lack in actionable resources, which has limited their ability to take in refugees, but has spared them scrutiny during the war. Officially neutral, it is nevertheless sympathetic to the Autobot cause, at least partially due to the planets’ collective faith in the Primes. Camien sparked Cybertronians are characterized by lower frequency internal energon that runs blue & not pink, alongside a preference for flight forms, possibly a result of the peculiar gravity altering ore native to the planet.

Velocitron: The third most important planet within Cybertron’s sphere of influence, Velocitron is characterized by the mantle “survival of the fittest”. The planet is incredibly hostile, even to the hardy Cybertronians, and civilizations exist in a series of mobile cities meant to outrace the boiling sun, stopping only to harvest the planet’s bountiful Energon sources. Everything, from arguments to political decisions, are decided by racing, a culture assisted by Velocitronian’s favouring of ground based body forms optimized for speed and handling. The planet’s neutrality is much less biased, and while its leadership leans Autobot, it has produced more than its fair share of notable Decepticons.

Luna 4: A barren asteroid caught within Velocitron’s orbit, the barely moon is a hive of scum and villainy, home seat of the Cybertronian raiders known as the Star Seekers.

Devisiun: Formerly a luscious forest planet, Devisiun was thoroughly cyberformed, and now exists as a peripheral state in the war, distant from the actual fighting but contributing a steady supply of soldiers to the war effort. The Cybertronian inhabitants are characterized by their previously unheard of level of spark branching, a world of twins, each of whom combine into one alt mode.

Junkion: Whatever killed the Titan known as Tempo has been lost to the midsts of time, but what is known is that in his final moments it seems he deliberately misfired his in-built Space Bridge, creating a space time ‘Bermuda Triangle’ phenomena that drew cosmic refuse to form a planetary shell around him. This hodge podge planet would come to be populated by the Junkions, resilient scavengers with a near reverence for the stray communications that drifted through the rifts that brought them their livelihood.

Carcer: Having fought for Liege Maximo during the Primal Schism, the Titan once known as Vigilem was stasis locked into vehicle mode and set on a random course, never to be seen again...until it was discovered by Elita-1, and would find itself hosting an increasing number of dissenters and NAILs.

Earth: The most recent addition to the Cybertronian sphere of influence, through sheer chance no less, as the Allspark would make landfall upon the planet, it’s energies disseminating throughout the planet. And over a century later, Earth would play host to the final stage of the Great War.

Other Worlds of interest:

Chaar: A colony world that now serves as the functional capital of the Decepticon Empire.

Antilla: Once a prospering colony during the Age of Expansion, Antilla would be decimated by the outbreak of a bio mechanical disease that targeted and decomposed sentio metallico, later deemed Cosmic Rust by pathologists.

Athenia: A world target for colonization when the Great War broke out, and the Autobots would leverage their pro organics stance to set up an embassy and settlement there.

Prion: A colony world established during the Age of Expansion, Prion would fall victim to Anti-Cybertronian sentients during the Great War, the colony assaulted by the Black Block Consortium and its inhabitants slaughtered almost to the bot. Almost being the operative world.

Gorlam Prime: A world located within the Benzuli Expanse, earmarked for colonization in the Age of Expansion. But the colony ship would be lost with almost all hands, save for its captain: Exarchon.

Eukaris: Also known as Biosfera, Eukaris was a non-cyberformed planet that came under Cybertronian rule during expansion. Mostly untouched by the Great War, and used as a sanctuary by NAILs and Beastformers. But rumors abound of sightings of Shockwave, seemingly tampering with the world’s biosphere...

Arduria: Once home to a species of enlightened avians, now a corpse planet, its mantle shattered and core drained to fuel the war engines of first the Functionists, and then the Decepticons. Orbited by an asteroid belt that acts as a Space Bridge Nexus.

Elba: A prison world, home to Garrus 9.

Clemency: A world rumoured to be the home of the Necrobot, Cybertron’s mythical psychopomp.

#Transformers #Transformers AU #TF136

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redrorums · 8 months

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Godawful Eight

- [ ] During the 555 years war (Wars of the Spiteful), the on-again, off-again conflict between the Kingdoms of Al’Terra and the Gaian Alliance (though it briefly transformed into the Holy Gaian Empire under the rule of the first and last true Gaian Emperor, Henry Pyra[midion]). It became increasingly dangerous to live on Gaia’s surface as it was constantly under the threat of surprise attack from other dimensions. During this time, Gaia’s government decided it was in the people’s best interest to try starting new lives on other worlds, in other Realms under Imperial control. Some of these colonies survived the test of time, others didn’t, still others demanded independence from Gaia and became their own nations or joined with the nations of the worlds they were on. This colonial precedent did not last long, as the death of Supreme Emperor Henry was announced only a decade after the beginnings of this colonial initiative. Almost immediately afterwards, there was a violent coup d’etat on Al’Terra, where the combined might of the 12 Temples mustered behind Johanna Archambeau. Johanna, as the champion and Herald of The Newborn Gods, demanded that the churches of Al’Terra rise up and overthrow The Consortium. In so doing, many noble families and entire guild conglomerates were WIPED OUT entirely by the Holy Revolutionaries and the people of Al’Terra. Johanna was beloved by the Al’Terran population and the Revolutionary force she mustered was Insurmountable in power. They all had long craved freedom. That’s what she represented. In her Coup, the Ten King’s on-world forces were too crippled and surrendered to the last. Those Guilds that did not join Johanna were wiped out, the Guildwrights and Senators of the Citadels were forced to go off-world just to survive. The Archchancellor and the Wizardly community had secretly allied with the Papal Oligarchy from the very beginning, with every intention of stepping back and letting the Oligarchy rule over Al’Terra. So it was that the power of the Nobility and Guildsmen was reduced to almost nothing and they were cast from the Citadels. So it came to pass that Johanna Archambeau was anointed by The Seven Popes on the Throne of Splendors, granting her the title “Holy Queen Above All Others”. She would be the SOLE RULER OF THE NEW AL’TERRAN THEOCRACY.

- [ ] It was around this time, in the Realm of Empyrealis, that Gaian Emperor was slain. Not by Al’Terrans, but by Baalzik “Roderick” Grandvandal The Great and The Comrades Reborn. Along with the help of Aurangzeb, Ozyeldias, and the High Priestess of Bahamut. Even with their overwhelming combined powers, they still only barely managed to defeat the Emperor, with Baalzik becoming paralyzed from the neck down permanently and the Dragonborn High Priestess being cast into The Ginnungagap. It is still debatable as to whether or not Henry let them win, as he had long since lost faith in his own mission. With his death and the collapse of the old Al’Terran regime, the people of New Al’Terra and New Gaia were finally able to sign peace treaties. The people of Empyrealis still swear that the soldiers of either side of the war threw down their weapons and ran at the opposite side like madmen. Not a single shot was fired or spell cast, though. They all just ran up and hugged each other, rejoicing and breaking down in tears. At least that’s how the Empyrealite story goes.

- [ ] What does any of this have to do with the colonies, you ask? I’ll tell ya. There was no longer any need for the people of Gaia to flee her surface. Some of them returned home, but many of the colonies remained on their now distant homes… and it is in one of those far off colonies that our story truly begins. With a baby boy and girl, apparently born at the same time, but of different parents. The story begins with the war vet who would become their mother finding them both at her doorstep. There was a heavy downpour and not a soul in sight. The babies were perfectly dry, though. It was as if they had appeared there by magic.

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magnumversumplus · 9 months

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Manananggal Ko

Episode 11: Abangan Part II (Look Out Part II)

Written By Joseph M.

In the slums of Metro Manila, in a coven of manananggals, in a ring of gambling, cockfighting and other illegal activities, Imeldnananggal droned through the chambers, her head tilted down and her heart ripped apart by Crisanto, who left her in shambles to be with his lost romantic partner again. His rediscovered lover, Lagg the manananggal, used to be a shoulder to lean on. Imeldnananggal met Lagg during a coven ritual in which the leader of their clan, the Fraksi Hantu pangulo.

Now Imeldnananggal was searching for a new male to call her love, a new beau homme, a gwapong lalake to call her own. She consulted the Fraksi Hantu’s fearsome but respected leader, the Keeper of the Colony known as Bananananggal, or simply Madame Saging (saging is Tagalog for banana, a fruit from which Bananananggal’s name derives.) Madame Saging lived in a bahay kubo–a hut designed with intricate bamboo patterns and topped with corrugated metal roof and straws, and the entire bahay kubo was bolstered on bamboo pillars.

The bahay was outside of the manananggal hideout itself, looking over the dirty, scrappy Manila ghettos. At the doorstep of the house was a welcome mat, and by the bintana (window) of the bahay was a shelf of escrima batons. Displayed above the shelf was a manananggal claw, and in front of the cabinet were two rocking chairs and a table, where Bananananggal invited Imeldnananggal to sit.

Imeldnananggal and Banananggal had a motherly-daughterly bond that transcended their relationship as members of the same coven. Bananananggal’s deep soothing growl always provided comfort to a troubled Imeldnananggal, and Madame Saging’s red eyes always glowed with maternal love towards the coven members closest to her. Imeldnananggal, also known as Imelda, always felt comfortable confiding her deepest and most personal secrets with the Madame.

Imelda–masmalunkot siya ngayon. Lungkot siya kasi she wanted him back, and he wanted someone else. It was like three batteries in an electronic; only two were required to make it run and the last was a spare.

In the weavings of fate, Imelda had to untangle herself from the web of destiny and find a lover. That’s why she consulted Madame Saging–she wanted Madame Saging to use her seeking powers to find Imelda her true love. The Madame’s seeking abilities were potent–not only was she able to seek through the future, but she was also able to manipulate and change the fates of those in her coven to an extent.

The Madame’s seekings always began the same way, and they commenced similarly today as well. She chanted a prayer in the language of Mananangglian while wrapping her arms around Imelda, she felt the boiling veins underneath Imelda’s sinews and the bubbling blood coursing through her body and she saw Imelda’s reflected in her irises, a vision of a man donning a red bandana and pamaypay staring into her eyes as a manananggal priestess announced their married status, thunderous roars and ear-piercing screeches filling the chapel.

Madame Saging’s body began to shudder, her arms trembling and her head twitching, her wings swinging outward, knocking down the shelf of eskrima sabers and whacking Imelda across the face. Madame Saging’s sooty and flowy hair lashed against the wall, her skin turning from slightly ashen and pallid to sickly as she saw misfortune in her eyes. Madame Saging wailed in agony, vomit rising from her face and overflowing like a dam, chunks of human flesh dripping from her lips and splattering on the table.

Imelda tried to awaken Madame Saging from her fretful nightmares, but she was convulsing too quickly to be held still. “Wake up! Madame Saging, wake up!”

Madame Saging’s irises dilated, her expression filling with shock. Her parched and ashen lips muttered something, her talons pulling Imelda close while she frantically tried to wake the frantically palpitating Madame up, and then Madame Saging froze and became very still.

Imelda’s beckoning was stifled when Madame Saging’s quavering halted, and was then filled with relief as she saw the legs of Madame Saging wandering the premises, her ghostly apparition still roaming the squalors of Manila.

Imelda, though knowing that Madame Saging still roamed in spiritual form, was filled with tremendous grief. Her begging cries for Madame Saging to wake up turned to silent cries, and she bitterly asked her mentor one final time to open her eyes. “Madame Saging, rise.” She turned to prayer.

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blooblooded · 1 year

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Stasya in the Lost Colony

ASILO, THE LOST COLONY, 654 YEARS AFTER THE OPENING OF THE RIFT

The poison was in the water supply. It had been there for at least 2 days. The stuff was not from this world, harvested from the slimy corpses of the crawling abominations. Turn on a faucet and the water would come out black. It stunk like rotten death. Already, the bodies of those who had drunk it were twisting and mutating. Stasya Nekraskova could already hear them screaming and howling in the streets outside.

The Colony was doomed. She knew that. She knew it as well as anything. There were only two choices: get out or die like the rest of them.

“We have to do something!” Kira Tariq, the high priestess of the Red Temple could not stop sobbing. Her hands twisted in her long dark hair. She and Stasya had taken refuge in Asilo’s Capitol Building, but even that was not safe. It would not be safe as long as that…Thing…still walked around inside it. The thing that called itself Jerry Botega. “Everyone’s dying! I can’t– I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”

Stasya watched her dispassionately. The blood magic user had come to her, begging for help. Wasn’t that ironic. For the last 6 months, every other witch in Asilo had been hunted down and drained of their blood by the mobbing worshippers of the Rift. She had seen their bodies strung up, the intestines falling out onto the streets. Everyone had been clamoring for their deaths for a long time. Their magic was an aberration, and wasn’t that ironic too? It was two sides of the same coin. The witches were a threat to it. It knew what they could do. Every witch except for her. She wasn’t like the rest of them. She was better, smarter. She wanted to live more. “Pull yourself together.”

Outside the Capitol building, people were screaming. Stasya had seen it. Their bodies were changing. The thing that lived inside of Jerry had made a broadcast before poisoning the water. “One of you will be my new host,” it had said. “One of your bodies will be mine.”

The only thing that followed was agony.

“We can stop it,” said Kira. Her pretty face was streaked with tears. The creature inside of Jerry Botega had ripped her husband’s head off his shoulders in front of everyone in the old temple. That was the moment where everything started to go wrong. “I know how. You can help me. You have to help me, Anastasia. We can force it back into the Book.”

The Book. Stasya did not know much about the Book, only that Kira said it was where the Thing had lived before it lived inside of Jerry. She had seen it once before, inside the great temple. Even looking at it had made her head throb painfully. It did not like witches.

“How?” she asked. Her mouth was as dry as sandpaper. Yesterday she had slaked her thirst with her last bottle of juice. What other choice did she have? Drink the water? Twist and suffer while her guts slipped out of her and her bones cracked? It wasn’t making people better or stronger, it was just killing them in the most painful ways imaginable. It was killing them and they were all locked inside the Colony with no way to get out. Stasya had not seen the moon or the stars in months. Her magic was weak.

“Together. You and me, with both of our magic. Different kinds of magic. It can’t stay in his body if we hurt him, it will have to go back. And– and there’s the sword, it’s made from metal from the Other Place. Em-Emma Fitzgerald has it, she says it can force that Thing out of Botega!”

Stasya knew about the sword too. A children’s fairy tale. She glanced out the window. Most of the buildings outside were on fire. “Did you call Eden and the Northern Territories for help?”

“That horrible four-eyed atheist in Eden cut the feeds the moment I told her what was happening here! Frank, Frank Toussaint, he said he would come with some men but–”

“So help is on its way.” Another fairy tale. Stasya knew they were on their own. It was too late. She knew the way Eden and the Territories would want to deal with this. Everyone in Asilo had heard of the ways Eden solved its problems. Firebombs and quarantine until everyone inside Asilo was dead.

Kira Tariq’s eyes were as red as blood. “Nobody is coming,” she said. Her voice trembled. She clutched her hands over her pregnant belly. “Nobody will get here in time! We have to do it. We have to stop it! You don’t know what I’ve seen! You don’t know what it told me! If we don’t stop it, it will cover the whole earth in darkness and the oceans will turn to blood! It will consume all life here!”

Something outside crashed onto the streets below. She could hear the faint pops of machine gun fire as the police who were still…human tried to control the hungry, mindless hordes.

What were the choices? Get ripped to shreds or accept the change and become a monster. It was not a choice that Stasya wanted to make.

She would die before she had to make that choice. She would kill herself before she allowed her body to be mutilated. But she did not want to die. Stasya pushed her hair out of her face and started to pace, her long skirt swirling around her ankles.

“Where is the Book?” she asked. “If you want me to do what you say, I would have to look at the Book itself.” There was magic in it, even if it was empty. It was possible that Stasya could leech some of that power into her own body. It was what she had always been good at: stealing from others. For years, she had drained the power and life force from other witches, adding theirs to her own. But the magic in the Book, the magic that fueled blood magic, came from somewhere else. The Void. It came from the Void.

The Void. That was what the Rift-Worshippers had been hiding from everyone. Stasya could barely wrap her mind around it. Kira told her that there was a place between universes that was filled with monsters. The creature inside of Jerry Botega had come from that place, hungry and bodiless. It was the source of all blood magic on earth.

“The Book– it’s somewhere safe.” Kira wasn’t looking at her anymore. She was just weeping. Attachments made her weak, attachments to her dead husband, to her unborn child. She had more to fight for than Stasya did, but those things put her at a disadvantage.

“Where is that?” Stasya reached out with her mind to test if she could steal some of the priestess’s power. The sting of blood magic made her flinch and pull back. If Kira Tariq noticed, she did not show it.

“I have it somewhere safe!”

“You don’t trust me. You’ve come to me for help and you still don’t trust me.”

Kira’s red eyes were bloodshot. Her make-up was spilling down her face. Her belly was so large that it made it difficult for her to move; she was ready to pop any day now. She shook her head. “I do, I do, I trust you, I just can’t– I have to keep the Book safe! You don’t understand, it’s our last chance. We have to send that Thing back into the Book. We have to kill Jerry Botega and send that Thing back into the Book! We can end all of this now, we can save everyone if we just work together. We can end it!”

It wasn’t going to end with the death of Botega. The demon of the Void would not be defeated, only subdued, trapped once again in the place it had originally lurked inside. For all they knew, once it left Botega’s body, it would just hop into another. Was that why it had poisoned the water supply and mutated the people of Asilo? Did it want an unending source of human bodies, half-hybridized by the blood of the slimy, crawling abominations?

Or had it created a new body for itself in a different way? Maybe it was possible for something that was not human to–

Before the Rift opened, a biologist attempted to create tamer and more manageable bees by breeding two different strains of honey bee. It all went wrong. The genetic hybrids that were created by the merging of two different species were called African killer bees; they swarmed frequently and aggressively and killed thousands of people. They were not supposed to exist in nature.

They would not have evolved without outside help.

A chill ran through Stasya’s body and she made the sign against evil at the very thought. She licked her lips.

“I’ll do what you want,” she said, “But only if you let me terminate your pregnancy.”

Kira froze. Even her tears ceased in an instant. “What?” Her voice wavered. Suddenly she looked very small and young. It was hard to remember that the terrible high priestess of the Red Temple, the woman who had spilled the blood of hundreds in the worship of the beast of the Void, was only 22 years old.

“We have to get rid of whatever’s spawning inside of you if we want to be sure It doesn’t come back inside a new vessel.” Stasya tied her long silver hair back into a ponytail to get it out of her face. She tried not to listen to the screaming and gunshots outside. “The child is Botega’s, isn’t it? Better safe than sorry. It would be quick, I’ve done this before.”

“The child is my husband’s.” The blood magic user was not moving a muscle. She stood like she had been turned to stone.

“Please.” Stasya rolled her eyes. “Those disgusting orgies at the Red Temple weren’t exactly a well kept secret, and you had Botega’s hands all over you in every press conference I’ve seen. Do you think it’s a coincidence that you would come to term just as the Colony falls? Just as Botega begins ranting and raving about needing a new host? You need to get rid of it before some twisted mutant pulls itself out of you.”

“The child is my husband’s,” Kira Tariq said again. She swallowed and still didn’t move, apart from her trembling. “I’ve changed my mind, witch. If you come near me or my baby, I’ll tear your guts out and make you beg me to kill you. I–I don’t need you. I don’t need you, I can do this by myself. I can kill that Thing by myself! Frank Toussaint and his men from the Territories will be here soon and they’ll help me too!”

She was such a stupid child.

Stasya sniffed. She took a mocking bow. “As you wish,” she said. The girl would die like all the others. Stasya already knew that she would not die. She would not let herself. She would suck the life force from a thousand souls before she let herself die in this place or be ripped to shreds by one of the tortured freaks. “Don’t come crawling to me after Botega snatches your baby before you even pass the afterbirth.”

And she left. There was nothing left to say. A witch could not work together with someone who practiced black magic. It went against both their natures.

But there was nowhere for Stasya to go. She could not go home. She did not want to wander the streets and risk getting shot or infected, but what choice did she have? As she walked through the halls of Asilo’s Capitol Building, she came across the body of a young man who had been a police officer. He lay on his back, pale and staring at the ceiling. His chest cavity had been ripped open, exposing piles of glistening organs. Visible bite marks scored his flesh. Stasya shuddered as she bent to pull the gas mask from his face and secured it over her nose and mouth. The air outside was thick with acrid smoke. She had to protect herself.

Aside from her ever weakening magic, she had no way to protect herself. She had no weapons. Stasya was 45 years old and had never been athletic. In the paradise that had once been Asilo, she had never needed to work out or worry about people who might hurt her. All her life, she had never known crime, she had never known hunger, she had never known fear. Now…

The last 5 years had been a nightmare. Everything had happened so slowly. Nobody noticed what was happening until it was too late. Botega had created the perfect Colony in order to destroy it. The lifeblood of his people was being used to…well, she didn’t know what it was being used for. So many people had died. So many people had been sacrificed over the years and everyone had just accepted it.

She should have done something. Back when it all started. But Stasya had been comfortable and she had been happy. She had never assumed that the violence being perpetrated on others might ever trickle down to her.

Her breath fogged up the gas mask and she tripped over a broken piece of flooring. There was no light in the lower hallways, all the remaining electricity had been rerouted to more essential functions. She squinted to see in the dark. If her magic had not been so weak, she might have used some of the herbs in her pockets to create a light spell. But she had to save her power as well.

There was no way out of Asilo. Wretched blood magic had locked the gates from the outside. The dome above them was impenetrable, even if it could be reached, there was no way to break through. Stasya’s mind wandered to other ways out. She was theoretically aware that even in a closed and self sustaining Colony, there would have to be multiple avenues to dispose of waste. Sewer lines. Tunnels beneath the incinerators. She could get out that way. It would be hard but she could do it.

She would have to go fast. There were manholes on every block outside, but she didn’t know if they led to the sewers, or if they opened into the gas lines. And other people would have already thought of this too, she would have—

“What’s the matter, darlin’?”

At the sudden sound of the voice, Stasya had to bite her own tongue to keep from screaming. The voice was soft and pleasant, she had heard it hundreds of times on the Colony wide broadcasts. At first it had been a voice of calm comfort, until she recognized it as the voice of a demon. Jerry Botega was standing behind her. She willed herself to turn around slowly, even though every instinct in her body was telling her to run.

Running was the worst thing she could do and she knew it. A running animal will activate a predator’s instinct for the hunt. Oh, but she wanted to run. She wanted to be anywhere but here in the dark, alone with the monster that had destroyed her home.

She had never seen Botega in real life. He was a big man with soft eyes and a gentle face. His posture was open and easy going, like he did not have a care in the world. Botega’s hands were in his pockets, but even in the near-dark, she could see the blood on his arms, soaking through his flannel shirtsleeves. He was smiling at her without showing any teeth, friendly and disarming.

There was nothing to say. Stasya began to shake but the rest of her body was frozen. She remembered what had happened to the other witches. She remembered the casual brutality with which they had been dispatched. Like they were cattle.

Botega took a step towards her. There was insectile hunger radiating off of him that did not mesh with his physical appearance. “I’m not gonna hurt you. What are you doin’ in here, scramblin’ around in the dark? I thought we got rid of all you false sorcerers and your dirty magic.”

Stasya shook her head. She could feel sweat pouring off her face. Even through the gas mask, she could smell the stink of sulfur and rot around him. There were no good options. If she ran, he would catch her and kill her. If she tried to fight him he would defeat her easily. Being in his presence felt wrong, it felt against nature, against every instinct inside of her. Run away. Run away, run away.

“No? I can smell it all over you. Doesn’t do you any good now, does it? The only magic that can be used in this place now comes from my homeworld.”

“Go back,” said Stasya, and her voice was barely more than a squeak. Why was she talking to this thing? It wasn’t even human! There was no way to appeal to its morals or decency! She knew that it wanted everyone dead, that it wanted her dead. It would kill her soon. So why was she talking? Why could she never keep her mouth shut? Why couldn’t she ever just shut up? “Go back to the Void. You don’t have to do this. Stop doing this to us, just let us go and go back to the Void!”

Botega took his hands out of his pockets so that he could brush some ash from his shoulders. He seemed almost bored. “Go back to the Void?” he asked. “Why would I go back to that howlin’ desert when I have a perfectly good planet crawlin’ with mammals here? How do you even know about the Void, witch? You have a secret I don’t know about? Or have you been talkin’ to little Kira? I didn’t think she’d lower herself to interactin’ with something like you.”

“She realized you’ve been eating people.”

“Yeah?” Botega looked Stasya up and down. His smile grew and showed his straight white teeth. “Seems to me that you’ve been eatin’ people too.”

Siphoning power and life force was not the same as eating people. There was no reason for her to explain that to this thing. For one stupid second, Stasya considered raising her hands, considered trying to pull from Jerry Botega’s life. What would it be like to take that kind of power into her own body? But that was stupid, it was so stupid. He would kill her as soon as she even twitched.

She didn’t want to die! Stasya thought of what she might do, what she might say. She would say anything if it meant that this Thing did not kill her. She blinked rapidly and willed her heart to stop beating so fast. “Kira Tariq wants to kill you,” she said. Throwing the stupid girl under the bus seemed like the right thing to do in this situation. Maybe it would make him mad enough to leave her alone. Or maybe it would make him mad enough to rip her head from her shoulders. “She’s looking for ways to kill you. She begged me to help but I wouldn’t do it.”

“Aw.” Botega seemed completely unfocused, not paying attention to her at all. At the sounds of more screams and gunshots from the streets outside, he cocked his head to listen. He was more interested in the background presence of chaos than he was in her. “She’s a good girl. She don’t mean it.”

“She has the Book.” Stasya edged backwards. Just an inch. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. “The Book you came from. She’s finding ways to send you back.”

He looked at her again, not really comprehending. His heavy eyelids gave him a look of perpetual sleepiness. “No,” he said. “There’s no way for me to go back. Not once I have my new body.”

And what did that even mean? There was no way to know. Stasya just had to keep talking. “The red priestess says there’s a way.”

“No. Kira Tariq would never try to hurt me. She welcomes the changes I’ll bring to this planet.”

“You think she wouldn’t want to hurt you? To destroy you?” Stasya took another tiny step back. “You killed her husband in front of everyone. And her baby? I think her baby is–”

“You witches are all liars.” Botega shrugged. “Even if you were telling the truth, it wouldn’t matter. There’s no way for anyone to send me back. I’ll devour this planet for a thousand years– even after that, there’s no way for me to go back. No body can enter the Void.”

“That girl is going to try to pull you out of that body and send you back.”

Botega’s expression revealed nothing but boredom and was barely illuminated in the dark. “Yeah? What do you know about a mind without a body? My body is asleep in the black monolith of the Void. It hears my siblings chatter about the minds of half psychic witches that come visit them. You know why I’ve been destroyin’ all your kind? For centuries, you witches have been spewin’ out monstrosities, void-walkers, hybrids that can see the future in the space between worlds. I don’t think that’s right for you primitive little mammals. You think Kira Tariq knows anythin’ about the Void? Anythin’ about me? I’ve already destroyed any possibility for you people to get even a glimpse of knowledge.”

Void-walkers.

This scrap of knowledge meant nothing. He was still going to kill her. And Stasya was frozen. She couldn’t get away if she tried. Even if the nonsense Botega said was true, it didn’t matter. It was too late. There was nobody who could see the future. There was nobody whose mind could go into the place he had slithered out of.

She didn’t want to die.

But more than that, more than anything, she wanted this Thing to die. Why hadn’t she listened? Why hadn’t she tried harder? Would that even have been good enough? She should have at least tried. She should have never just sat and waited to do something until it was too late.

A frog will sit in a pot of boiling water and wait until it slowly boils. If she received a second chance, Stasya would not make the same mistake again.

Botega yawned and didn’t try to cover it. He closed the distance between them and reached out one hand to touch a strand of Stasya’s hair that had escaped her ponytail. It glimmered like moonlight in the near dark. He pulled off her gas mask and dropped it to the floor. Her stomach lurched in anticipation of violence. Every muscle in her body was tense. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard that she could feel it in her bones. All she could hope for was that he killed her quickly.

But the violence never came. Instead, Jerry Botega’s touch was gentle. The skin of his hand brushed her ear. “Maybe I should let you live.”

“Please,” she said, aware of how pathetic her voice was. Void-walkers. Void-walkers. A world between worlds. A way to destroy this monster. She did not want to die.

“I know what it’s like to be the last of my kind. Do you know what it’s like to be lonely?”

Stasya was not the last witch. Maybe in Asilo she was, but out in the world? In Eden or the Northern Territories? There had to be more. If by some miracle this creature did not rip her limb to limb, she would find them. And they would figure this out together. But now all she could do was stand frozen like some prey animal, entirely dependent on Botega’s mercy.

“Please,” she said again. She could feel her eyes watering.

Botega said nothing. He patted her cheek like she was an animal. And to him, she probably was. Just a little woman with her magic drained, trapped and alone. There was no cruelty or violence in his touch. He seemed only like a gentle man who was tired, very very tired. Maybe that was the kind of man he had been before the Thing had jumped into his body. Stasya didn’t know. She didn’t have the space to care either.

And he just turned and walked away, leaving her in the darkness.

Stasya clamped a hand over her mouth before she could scream. The relief that flooded her was not comforting. There was no reason for him to have let her live. She could not wrap her mind around it. Had Botega been bored? Had her life been so meaningless to him that he just decided to let her go and walk away? It was the same way she looked at a fly buzzing around her head. Nothing, she had meant nothing to that creature. She was not dangerous, she was not even interesting.

There was no time to focus on that now. Her only focus was escaping from this place of death before death came for her too. She would not get a second chance.

Maybe Kira Tariq would do what she claimed to be able to. Maybe she would use the Book and force the demon back inside. Maybe the stupid girl would even kill it.

And if she didn’t, Stasya would.

###

For two hundred years, Stasya tried to produce the kind of hybrid Jerry Botega had told her about. She tried to create a Void-walker, someone who could walk between worlds. The secrets of that place consumed her. It was the first thing she thought about when she woke up and the last thing she thought about when she went to sleep. The Void! There were monsters in that place, monsters like Botega that could destroy the whole world. The burden of this knowledge was heavy in her mind.

For all she knew, Botega was dead. Kira Tariq had done what she said and the Lost Colony was sealed off to everyone. But the Book was still out there. She heard whispers of it all the time. The planet eater could return. Someday it would return and it would eat the entire world.

So she needed a Void-walker. She needed a person who could go to that horrible plane themselves and learn its secrets.

There was not much to go off of. Stasya found witch girls all throughout the savage, stinking Northern Territories. They were happy enough to be in her care, safe from persecution. She’d teach them magic in the old ways of Asilo, then find some man with psychic abilities to get the girls with child. A psychic’s power came from the Void itself while a witch’s came from the earth. The union made sense to her. All she was going off of was a handful of words given to her by a monster.

It never worked. The children were all born with the ability to do witchcraft, but none of their minds could travel to the Void. There was something wrong. There was something she was missing.

So Stasya would consume the girls’ life-energy to regain her youth. And she would start over. Over and over again.

After two centuries of this, it was understandable that she would start to feel disheartened. Failure after failure. As war and disease ravaged the land, there were fewer witch girls to come by, and finding psychics was next to impossible. But Stasya continued her work. She did not lose her faith, her belief that one day she would create a hybrid child with the ability to dream of the Void and tell her its secrets.

If she could just get her hands on the Book, maybe she could make sense of it all. It had found its new home in a community of Asilo’s survivors, miles to the South East. Stasya could not even get close. She started to get a sense that they were doing the same thing she was: trying to get a glimpse into the Void that they worshiped. These whispers traveled back to her, whispers of how they had started to combine the bodies of the crawling slimy monsters with the bodies of humans.

Stasya tried harder. Failed harder. She failed and failed, until she thought she could fail no more.

The witch girls she had in her care at the end were nothing more than scraps from the bottom of the barrel.. One soft, pretty thing who was always whining and complaining. One scrawny piece of gutter trash who acted more like a feral cat than a girl. Both of them were no good. After Stasya paid some telepathic fur trader to put a baby in the older one’s belly, the stupid girl had tried to kill herself. She could already tell that this would be yet another failure, but would have to wait years to find out. That was fine. Stasya would just try again.

Time was something she had no shortage of. She would try again and again, she would never stop and she would never rest until she was able to uncover the secrets of the Void. All the loss and suffering, the devastation of the Lost Colony– it meant something. It had to mean something. It pushed Stasya down a path she could not turn away from.

One day she would destroy the Book and the demon inside of it.

She just had to keep trying. If that meant she had to kill a hundred girls, a thousand girls to produce a Void-walker, she would keep trying.

#writing

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tyrannoninja · 2 years

Photo

This is a simple profile view of Itaweret, an ancient Egyptian (or Kemetian) priestess of the goddess Mut who is the protagonist of my novel Priestess of the Lost Colony. It feels like it's been a while since I last drew her.

#Priestess of the Lost Colony #original character #ancient egypt #egyptian #kemet #african #black woman #woman of color #dark skin #drawing #traditional art #art

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lordofchickens · 1 year

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This session had two different combats encounters and a decent amount of roleplay so this'll be kinda long I think.

After spending a short while in the Oasis the Party decides to make their way into the city as the sun sets, Vahlok tells the Party that he knows a secret way inside that the criminal organization he's apart of, The Colony, uses for smuggling.

They manage to sneak up to a small crack in the city wall, digging at the sand underneath they come across a wooden door with marble plague on it reading "Do we know you?" Vahlok knocks a pattern onto it and the door swings open, revealing an incredibly steep tunnel inside.

Dave gets pushed down before he can light a torch and experiences a variety of terrain under him as he slides down the chute, upon landing his feet down he hears a series of clicks coming from a pitch black room. Cronwer casts Light and follows him down, revealing the tunnel to be a patchwork of wood and an adobe-like material, once he joins Dave at the bottom he's met by the sight of multiple Thri-Kreen (insect people) that are approaching cautiously, one of them lights a lantern.

After Rostam and Vahlok slide down too, the lantern wielding Thri-Kreen recognizes him and signals to the others to stand down. It pulls a rope on a wall nearby and gestures for the Party to follow. As they walk the Thri-Kreen makes small-talk with Vahlok, who only has a small grasp of their mandible-clicking language, telling him about recent tunnel collapses and general improvements made around The Colony's HQ know as The Hive. The lantern Thri-Kreen leads them to a man sat in a half-built-half-dug house named Gurt, who welcomes Vahlok warmly.

Vahlok chats with the man, telling him about his new contract to kill the Head Priestess Glarenthy, including his failure to do so earlier that day, and asks if their boss, The Scarab (a hulking beetle like man,) is around as he needs some advice on how to act going forward. Gurt chuckles and tells him that The Scarab is currently out of The Hive "on wormly business", remarking what good news that is for Vahlok as he might be able to finish his hit before The Scarab comes back. He asks Vahlok if he remembers his way through the tunnels and suggests he make his way to Sillen's town center, where a wake is being held for the victims of the attack earlier in the day. A man hurries up to Gurt after he bids Vahlok well, Gurt calls him back and hands him a gemmed necklace the unknown figure just gave him, he tells Vahlok it'll help him find his target.

After a short time scurring through the tunnels Vahlok leads the party into a small courtyard through a secret hatch and they make their way onto a nearby house to find their bearings. As soon they climb the roof they can hear a funeral dirge playing a few streets away and hop between rooftops to get closer to it.

In the town center they see a large amount of cityfolk praying and mourning the loss, some of them are wounded survivors from the procession the Party attacked. In the middle of it all is a fountain with a ornate stone pillar, perched upon the pillar is the armoured Giant, seemingly unscathed from the fight before, his hands cupped together and gently cradling Glarenthy as she leads the wake, praying for the lost and the injured.

The Party sneaks closer and makes a plan to attack from afar and hopefully retreat once the Priestess is dead, Dave finds the approach distasteful so he and Cronwer decide to stay further back while Rostam and Vahlok make ready. As soon as Vahlok crosses the roof he plans on attacking from the pendant he was given earlier starts to glow brightly as it attempts to float towards the Priestess, who happens to be wearing a similar pendant.

Vahlok manages to stuff the pendant into a barrel nearby before his position is completely given away but not so quick that the Giant didn't notice. They throw weapons at the Priestess but they harmlessly bounce of the Giants armour, he holds her closer to his chest as she begins leading the crowd into a new prayer.

Several guards throughout the crowd start to move on the Party, mostly being mild nuisances that are quickly dealt with but not before stalling the Party long enough for the Priestess to finish her prayer. The Party all feel themselves fill with a divine burn as their health is sapped away from them, the pain being too much for Rostam as he collapses on the ground next to Vahlok, as the energy burns the Party nearby guards and injured cityfolk start to be healed and reinvigorated. With mild panic the rest of the Party redoubles their effort to kill the Priestess, Vahlok gets Rostam back on his feet as Dave rushes in and Cronwer Thunder Steps to a roof on the opposite side of the street, trying to lineup a lighting bolt.

Dave swings at the Giant's legs with his glaive only to be kicked in the head repeatedly, he then decides to get more physical and attempts to run up the pillar to grab one the Giant's leg, but instead grabs part of the pillar and fall down as the fragment crushes a nearby guard.

Cronwer desperately tries to electrocute the Priestess when he realizes she's starting the prayer again but isn't able to stop her from finishing it again as the party is all sapped of their strength and fall unconscious, the last thing they hear is the shuffle of guards as they're detained.

Over the next few days the Party flits between bouts of consciousness, in the brief moment of clarity they see their wounds being tended to by members of the cloth, as well as an announcer's voice coming from a blinding light somewhere beyond them.

Once they've fully recovered a Priest reads through a list of all the evil deeds they have done, calling the name of everyone they've ever killed, even the ones know one should know about. Before sending them into the light the Priest asks if they have any gods they'd like him to pray to for them. The only person to speak up is Vahlok, he invokes the name of the God of Death, Visoka Zivairsh. At this the Priest spits on the ground and tells the guards to hurry them away, the Party is then ushered out into the light, as they're brought through they realize they were in the pits of the Sillen Arena, the announcer from before riles up the crowd as he recounts the attack on the Priestess and the wake days before.

The Party is beset upon by lions, followed by manticores with Starlight capped claws able to bypass the barbarians resistances with an unnatural sharpness. As well as a swarm of flying snakes, some of which have scrolls tied to them that when activated make them erupt into a torrent of fire.

Highlights of this fights are Cronwer blasting away three lions at once with Pulse Wave after Vahlok makes light of his ability to handle himself. A manticore missing every one of it's tail spike attacks only for it to be clobbered by Rostam. A giant snake sneaking up behind Vahlok and constricting him. And finally, back to back snakes exploding on the party in-between manticore attacks.

As they cut down the last manticore the Party realizes the crowd's boos and jeers have turned into chanting, but the names they hear are unfamiliar. They manage to make out the names "Bount" and "Gullivan" as the sand under them starts to churn and two Bulette's emerge from the ground, their hides scarred from countless bouts in the arena.

The session ends with the large shark like creatures start to circle the Party.

#chicken plays dnd

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jasontoddsguns · 2 years

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Soooo I maybe did these for Mythological stories in other cities for BatFam rogues

Poison Ivy- A celtic priestess who lived and preserved herself in nature itself with her magic. Enraged when she woke up to find the world in this state of technology and concrete she turned her power into a method of reclaiming the land for nature. She would later seduce a mortal Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn- Like the Red Hood, she was formed from crime. Born from the minds of the ones The Joker tuned insane. She joined The Joker, but later left him enchanted by the mystical power of Poison Ivy

Bane- A half troll from the mountains of the country who journeyed to Gotham to hunt the Bat creature as it's ultimate predator

Manbat- A traitorous member of The Bat creature's original colony who killed the rest. Now he plagues The Bat's life and nightmares

Mr Freeze- A frost elf, cursed with immortality and with his powers limited. He fell for a human and now wastes his immortal life away trying to revive her from her state of near death

Ra's Al Ghul- Due to his nickname/alias of The Demon, people literally think he is a demon, an immortal ancient powerful demon who cannot be banished from this domain while his blood walks this earth

Two-Face- Harvey Dent was an ordinary man. In the attack the disfigured him, he became a conduit for spirits and now hosts two along with his own. The Knight (Dent), The Killer (Two-Face) and The Executioner (The Judge)

Killer Croc- A young man who was cursed by a crafty malicious mage to be hideously mutated into a monstrous bipedal crocodile creature

Riddler- A former exulted sorcerer god and trickster, the jotun god Loki who defended the Valkyrie Batwoman. He was banished back in time to Midgard and lost all memory of who he was except for his love of games and tricks. He fell to a life of crime to try and gain his memory back. He once did and that allowed him to work alongside the Bat in his shadows

The Joker- Fuck him. He doesn't deserve a cool mythological origin

Love the concept that joker is Just some guy.

#dc #batman #gotham rogues #asks #inbox #mythological au

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fyblackwomenart · 2 years

Photo

This is a digital painting I did of my OC Itaweret, the protagonist of a novel I wrote titled Priestess of the Lost Colony. She is a headstrong priestess of Kemetian (ancient Egyptian) descent who grew up in a colony established on the coast of Greece in the novel's alternate timeline. When a Mycenaean army under the leadership of the warlord Scylax sacks the colony and enslaves its inhabitants, it is up to Itaweret (with the guidance of the goddess Mut) to liberate what remains of her people.

#Artists on Tumblr #Art #Woc #Black woman #submission

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dailyadventureprompts · 3 years

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I’ve been trying to think of a setting for a nautical campaign. A vast expanse of tropical islands and waterways with the obligatory shady towns that sit on the water and temples of worship deep in both the jungle and the water. Any thoughts?

Yeknow what, fuck it, I wasn’t planning on writing a full pirate campaign anytime soon but everything’s better with pirates so lets do this!

Campaign: Scoundrels of the Sundered Isles

The Priests debate as to how our hearts may be weighted against its bearer’s sins.. but we Sailors no Better: ‘tis not sin our hearts are weighed against, ‘tis coin, as only coin could get a man to sail out to the edge o’ the bleedin world and gettim to stay ‘ere long enough to get to sinnin in the firstplace.

-Overheard at The Last Hurrah Tavern

Setup: The Tropical waters of the Tourmaline Sea have been a flurry of activity over the past century and a half, as natives and settlers from three different continents work together to reclaim land once lost after a half-millennia of supernatural darkness rendered a large chunk of the mainland uninhabitable. Most people deserted the Sundered Isles ( their name derived from a mistranslation that they were “Sun-Dead”) fearing the raiders and plagues that issued from that calamity, and they stayed away even after the sun returned, letting the gentle creeping of green reclaim the once barren rocks.

Ever hungry for expansion, civilization makes its first tentative steps into these dangerous lands, with ports popping up all along the coast and archipelagos, the first wave of resettlement of a land once thought consigned to oblivion.

All is not peaceful however, as powers both foreign and continental strive to establish dominance in this new frontier, with settlers, traders, and foolhearty sailors caught in the clash between. Discover the Mysteries long buried in darkness and sunken beneath the crashing waves, as you and your party strive to make your way in the Sundered Isles

Campaign Start

Captives of the Villainous XROC Merchant company and on their way to do hard labor in one of a number of debt-colonies, the party is miraculously saved when a tremendous wave crashes against the ship where they are imprisoned, shattering it upon the coastline and giving them the chance to escape together through the island. There they find themselves Port Calmayne, a prosperous trade hub where the party can get their sea-legs under them while determining the best course of action and evading the Company.

Early Game:

A Priestess of the sea god has work for the party, neverminded that she’s a “retired” pirate, and the job involves helping a group of smugglers exterminate some monsters they accidently imported from the continent

Investigate the haunted manor of an old Commodore, recover a treasuremap, and perhaps acquire some funds by looting through his hold treasures. Don’t get shot by a ghost while you’re at it.

Earn the Respect of the local sailorfolk by diving for treasure into shark infested waters. Hidden among the bones of a great dragon are tokens that prove the party’s skill and sea-blessed luck, earning them passage on any ship going anywhere in the Sundered Isles

Mid Game:

Make your way to Greenveil Lagoon, hidden home of all true pirates and the Bretherin Court. Help reunite an old salty-dog pay respects to his long departed crew, or start treasurehunting for the world’s most skilled but unlukiest mapmaker.

Hunt ruins for a fabulous relic, then defend it in a ship-duel from a mystic privateer intent on taking it back. When a job goes bad, it goes bad, and it’ll take all the party’s skill as sailors to evade this tenacious ( and seemingly omniscient) foe.

Sign on With the Monster Hunting Crew of the Leviathan’s Bane, travel to the most dangerous corners of the archipelago, fight creatures that break ships between their coils, learn how to cook seamonster

Explore an ancient, eternal lighthouse, used as a lair by an eccentric pyromancer. Help a wayward celestial find their misplaced chariot of fire and learn clues as to the darkness that overtook the mainland so long ago.

Late Game

The Merchant company that enslaved the players wants control over trade in the Sundered Isles, and is willing to unleash a madwoman in order to get it. This renegade pirate is obsessed with becoming the terror of the high seas, going so far as to overthrow the brethren court that keeps order among the Isles’ freebooters, and even unleash a vampire on the populace in hopes of becoming one herself.

Venture into the lush jungles and overgrown ruins of the continent, and meet the fallen demigod who caused the devastation in the first place. Now little more than an eccentric old lizardfolk, this seemingly benign evil has many stories to tell, and more than a little wickedness still in him.

The Wave that set the party free was only the herald to a true upset, as over moths an entire new archipelago of islands emerges from the seafloor after millennia in the depths. Dotted with ruins and artifacts of a long dead civilization, these new isles draw fortunehunters into a clash with the merfolk exiled by the sudden rising of their home, all the while an ancient power wakes, looking to assert itself over the world once again.

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