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mwezina · 1 year

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Strength & FE3H

Contrary to some other readings of the Strength card, it is actually not about physical strength. It is about spiritual and emotional fortitude. It is about courage, a strength of the heart. It is about resilience in the face of difficulties, and the ability to overcome them.

We see in the card a maiden calmly handling a lion, and the lion reciprocating with its tail between its legs and its tongue lolling out. The lion can represent a terrible situation that could have become very dangerous for the maiden. However, the maiden is calm, and her spiritual fortitude wins over the lion’s ferociousness. (Ill-advised as a real life experiment. I promise you that no matter how strong your spirit is, you will not literally be able to tame a lion. This is just a representation of strength over difficulties using symbolism.)

There is some debate over which crest aligns with Strength, and my thought is that the Crest of Blaiddyd aligns with this card the best. Aside from the fact that it literally makes its bearers stronk, the Crest of Cichol is literally a scale? Like, it’s pretty clear cut that’s supposed to be Justice.

So the name Blaiddyd is probably based off of a legendary king of Britons, Bladud. Interestingly, he’s supposedly the father of Lear. Seeing as the Alliance broke off from the Kingdom, and most Alliance names are based off of the play King Lear by Shakespeare, that’s kind of interesting? Like they thought about possible connections here, haha.

Bladud studied philosophy in Athens, and was disowned due to contracting leprosy. In legends, he healed himself and others through mud baths, which I’m actually not sure is a valid way of curing leprosy. It’s possible that he just happened to get better after the mud baths, or perhaps there were other factors in the mud baths that we can no longer verify. After curing himself of leprosy, he reclaimed his throne. Then he got into necromancy, hoping to skirt death a second time.

The dragon connected to this crest is the Grim Dragon. I can’t really figure out what this can connect to except possibly the grim reaper or other gods of death. These gods invite and guide humans from life to death and are pretty necessary in the cycle of life.

My thought is that the Grim Dragon might be all dark and shrouded in wisps of thick black smoke appearing in the shape of scraps of cloth. It may also look the most uncomfortably human of the dragons, as what remains of its hand looks unnervingly human-like. Perhaps it wore a grim expression on top of just looking like an absolute downer.

My character connection to all these things will have to be Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. He survives through so much trauma and difficult circumstances. When it’s all over, he learns better coping methods and finds a strong support network. He comes out stronger. Just like Bladud, he suffers an exile and orchestrates a return through self-healing. The connection to the Grim Dragon is a bit of a stretch, but he killed many soldiers during the invasion of Faerghus, so he could be seen as a god of death by some?