#Abbey of the Everyman

[stealingpotatoes]

@bluebee242 commissioned me to draw his Whaler OC and his Oracular Order designs!!

(commissions are open!)

[the-rats-are-listening]

My friend who doesn't play dishonored sent me a post about it and I started explaining how funny the Abbey is cause the entire religion is "we're going to defeat God with math and music" and they went "sorry that God doesn't vibe with jazz"

Someone mod dishonored so the overseer music boxes play jazz

[karnaca78]

Exploring The Dunwall Archives a bit for writing purposes, I stumbled upon this excerpt.

The Overseers' Ancient Music is an often overlooked theme in Dishonored's lore, but a very fascinating one. I regret that it's not addressed much beyond the few Overseers we encounter carrying music boxes.

I wonder if there's any fics or posts on this subject? Sadly I don't have time to skim through AO3 and Tumblr much today but I'm very curious about what other people's thoughts are on this!

[tagarfa-art]

Sisters from the Oracular Order from Dishonored. My versions (2019; 2022).

[mindend-art]

"One day I'll burn the Abbey to the ground"

[pendleton-manor]

So @lydiaboyle and I discussed the topic of marriage in the dishonored universe and we settled on a few ideas so here they are: 

Ceremonies take place at night or the in early morning to hide from the Outsider. Alternatively, they take place indoors with the curtains drawn and entirely in candlelight. 

The couple spend an entire week separate from one another to observe the seven strictures, one stricture per day. On the seventh day the ceremony takes places. 

For nobility, the High Overseer officiates. 

Wedding vows focus on the seven strictures “on this day I choose to honor you, my hands will never wander to another”  ect. 

Overseer music boxes play throughout the ceremony to ward off the Outsider/heretics

The bride and groom wear elaborate, often incredibly expensive masks to deceive the outsider. 

Masks also represent the seventh stricture, which states that two “enemies” cannot inhabit one body. The mask symbolizes one’s past self that they must do away with for a successful marriage. To end the ceremony, the bride and groom must destroy their masks--this is a flaunt of wealth for nobility. 

After parties last for days, at least a week for the rich. Anything less than three days is laughable. 

[tossawary]

The Abbey of the Everyman in "Dishonored" is generally, as depicted in the games specifically, almost as two-dimensional as it gets with corrupt and oppressive fantasy religions. As enemy NPCs, the Overseers are nearly all witch-hunting thugs who want power at any price or just enjoy hurting people, so the player doesn't have to feel bad about hurting them. The "Dishonored" games also tend to take place in particularly miserable locations during particularly miserable times, so there's just not a lot of opportunity to see an alternate side to this strict and brutal organization where it might actually bring joy and comfort and community to people, instead of just being an arm of murderous governments.

Nevertheless, I do really enjoy the setup of the divine and religious institution here. The only god this religion has isn't a creator, he's (in the Abbey's eyes) an evil tempter who apparently makes people go insane. There are no heavens, only a hell of sorts, and the hell itself is definitely the weightier divine "entity" between it and the god. It's called the Void and it's made of magic and fucking with it for power blindly will almost certainly make you go mad in the long run. (It's also full of demon whales who are also kind of godly, but they're pretty much just chilling there.) There's no "good" god as a counterpart here, just the "evil" one.

So, the religion has the the usual "follow our strictures for a good life" setup, but it's coming at it from a "ignore the god as hard as possible, if you heard him talking to you, no, you didn't" perspective.

Which is, admittedly, not an unreasonable take on the situation, seeing as interacting with the Void apparently DOES regularly cause people to start writing on the walls in their own blood, if not worse. There are a few Overseers here and there (Khulan, Byrne) within a generally cruel and corrupt organization who seem to be acting out of some genuine concern for public safety and the greater good, and when you look at some of the shit Delilah's witches are doing for funsies, you can kind of go, "Okay, I understand why you might be fanatical about trying to keep this from happening, and you're working off of the teachings that you have."

It's just funny to me that "Dishonored" has the typical "evil worshippers of an evil god" fantasy setup in the form of Delilah's witches and Granny Rags and so on, but then the actual religious institution is built on rules and lore of "don't talk to the evil god or we'll kill you" and "don't use the evil hell magic or we'll kill you" without any kind of good counterpart. And then you have gangs like the Whalers where the general take seems to be, "Our boss has a direct connection to the evil god and it gives us all magic, but idk, I just work here."

And meanwhile the big, scary "evil god" everyone freaks out over is just some guy who got murdered by a cult a few thousand years ago and was forced to become the face of hell, and his main power honestly seems to be giving other people powers in a way that makes himself really vulnerable, actually, and he's doing that apparently mostly because he's bored and suicidal. And maybe also because he still cares about the world in his own way.

[abovetheground]

honestly I think emily should’ve been her truest british self and pulled a henry VII to end the abbey of the everyman once and for all

my girl deserved to be heretical with her cool assassin royal family and maybe even date god

[cephalon-sancti]

I wanna pick someone's brain at Arkane for how they chose to make the Dunwall setting in the specific time frame it's in

Specifically that it's late Victorian to early Edwardian, but they're starting to run electricity (powered by supernatural whale oil), and they very specifically and explicitly do not have anything approaching germ theory.

Clearly they have some idea that inhaling fumes is bad (see: Whalers), but I can't find any hint that they would have miasma theory either. What DO they think causes disease? In game several people are investigating the cause of the rat plague but the closest they've gotten to a causative agent is "rat parts???" like not even the droppings or fluids of a rat, just "rat."

I know that is supposed to resemble the bubonic plague, but there's no mention of fleas on the rats we can find being studied. If the plague is closer to my personal guess that it's some sort of turbo hantavirus, then Sokolov has no chance of figuring it out if he doesn't know that germs are a thing.

Did the Abbey of the Everyman decide that germ theory was heresy or something and that's why they don't have it?

[void-damned]

The 'Worshipped Outsider' AU

This is the masterpost for the Worshipped Outsider AU, originally developed by me and one lovely person that remains anonymous for now. Additionally, thanks to these wonderful people for being interested and asking questions that helped me develop this story further, @no-light-left-on, @kg-clark-inthedark, and @astheturtlemoves Additional information will be added over time! Feel free to send asks about this - I will be using the Worshipped Outsider tag for people to keep track of the AU!

_______

The Outsider functions as the primary God worshiped through the Isles - he's a funky guy, honestly. Things are very religion-heavy - instead of being purist and violent, the Abbey preaches about His Intentions (instead of the Strictures), though it is merely their interpretation of the things the Outsider supposedly stands for*. They are still the Abbey of the Everyman, but the everyman here is dedicated to their God and behaves accordingly, denouncing any false God, leaving offerings, etc. But otherwise it isn't too strict about any form of worship. They are more oriented towards spreading faith and keeping it alive among the people, while the Oracular Sisters/Oracular Order are more spiritually based and focus on communicating with their God. 

The people carve charms and runes out of bones and antlers to leave him as offerings; everyone flies indigo and various purple fabrics decorated with gold. Households. commonly hold such cloth and hang it on their walls or drape them across private shrines. Even the Abbey's banners match the very same colour scheme. 

The Outsider himself scarcely appears, sometimes speaking to the Oracular Sisters, but there are many instances documented across the millennia - people speak of the Outsider walking among them, always in the same shape and same Void-filled eyes (but sometimes he appears with pale Pandyssian eyes when he is feeling like blending in more). They never talk about him doing anything big or remarkable, any miracles, nothing, really. He's just kind of there, though sometimes he's seen watching the whales or people in general. 

(Speaking of the whales, they would be sort of sacred but that does not mean that they aren't poached and used. The people believe their existence is a benevolent act of their God who wants them to use his gift. It's an Abbey made excuse, though*. )

Paloma used to be particularly religious and often took to carving charms, even as much as including pieces of carved bone in the clothes she would make; when Corvo was younger, she would make him kneel (even by force) at their makeshift altar and press a piece of singing whalebone into his hands for safekeeping - he was never as pious as his mother, nor as his sister - there was always with a streak of rebellion in him. 

Jess, much like his mother, had been an image of faith and as an Empress, she was an Avatar often said to be aided by the Outsider himself - she certainly had to be approved by him to reign; both her and Paloma would have often joined the pilgrimages across the blackened erratics that climax in the Shindaerey Peak where the Outsider had been made once. The pilgrimages happen once every 2 or so years as a 'celebration of suffering' or whatever the Abbey calls it. 

The Marked are respected for being blessed by the Outsider, no matter who they are and what they do; in fact, they are rather hounded and sheltered, considered too precious to be left wandering around freely, lest something happens to him. In a way, they are also seen as Prophets. Those like Corvo and Daud hide their marks, not wanting those to define them - neither could ever bear to live such a. lifestyle. Some tend to fake their marks, and such an act is often seen as offensive and punishable by the Abbey. So is worshiping false Gods and icons. Vera Moray was a Marked kept like a precious pet but the treatment had made her insane, leaving the Abbey to further isolate her and pretend that she's doing just fine. Meanwhile, Delilah yearns to be treated like a Queen and keeps threatening the Outsider, trying to take his position as a God.

That and either Jessamine never died of Daud's hand and Corvo had never been blamed, a different man held the blade and paid for his transgressions,or, well, honestly, the Marked are pretty much worshipped, though the way the Abbey goes about it is more or less forcing the other Marked people to hide their marks overall. Corvo could still get labelled as a false worshipper and framed for murdering the Empress as an act against their God. It is eventually revealed that his marking has been real this entire time and that he was framed by people who wanted to oppose the Outsider. Still not Daud's job, though. 

There is a potential connection here to be made, a parallel where the circumstances of the Empress' death also lead to the metaphorical death of the Outsider.

*Not to mention that the Abbey is still very much eh and often seems to hide sacred texts, preach about everything in the wrong way, and only ever interpret them the way they see fit. The shit His Intentions speak of are hardly anything the Outsider would have ever said/meant. Some bits do hold truth to them but the way they are presented indicates a lot being lost in translation or simply being translated falsely. Any runic expert who had been asked to see the scripts or tried to research them had been chased off in fear of translating things differently and therefore invalidating the Abbey and their preaching. 

There's still a lot of ground to be cover but this is the gist of it. And in case you're wondering why the Outsider doesn't correct them or do much himself, he absolutely refuses to speak to the Abbey or have anything to do with them.

[karnaca78]

[Dishonored OC]

The Overseer - Theodore Fanshaw (circa 1821)

Introducing my newest Dishonored boy!

Born in 1793 in the city of Baleton, he is a scholarly Overseer. His greatest aspiration was to enter the Academy of Natural Philosophy, but he makes up for this failure by dedicating his work at the Abbey to the pursuit of knowledge.

In a scholarly visit to Serkonos in 1821, he begins a secret love affair with the renowned professor Amedeo Carelli, eight years his senior. Despite claims that the astronomer is using their relationship for his own gain, he knows better; they spend more than ten years together, until Carelli's mysterious disappearance around 1835.

Unlike many other Abbey scholars of his time, he is far from a zealot, and also seeks knowledge from other sources. Thus, his relationship with a former Academy student is also beneficial to his research. However, he feels like he cannot fully understand his lover's fascination for the Void and its mysteries.

[I have plans for this character and I hope I'll be able to write them. He should be featured in my Dishonored science fic series.]

[tagarfa-art]

The hounds howling at the Overseer’s mask.

By the way, I like a lot Overseers and their Abbey of the Everyman but these are difficult to draw.

[reds-skull]

please infodump about the cyberknights au🥺

Well if not one but TWO people give me permission I guess I have to haha

(Seriously tho thank you so much T_T)

All of this can be changed by the time I get to start writing it, so fair warning lol

So last time I really talked about cyberknights I mentioned their world is basically a theoretical future where operation Deadbolt failed (deadbolt being the op to contain the aether/zombie outbreak to Urzikstan in MWZ), around 70 years after the initial outbreak.

Cyberknights is a temporary name for the Knighthood, the organization that is in charge of keeping the aether as far away from the remaining human cities as they can.

I think it will be an international organization, made possible by the aether tears and teleporters (can't remember the official name rn).

What I was thinking about more recently is, that maybe the Knighthood are a separate entity from the state they're from. That is why they can work internationally despite some countries having political tensions between each other.

I was replaying Dishonored (my favorite game <333) and really paying attention to the interactions between the Overseers and the City Watch.

[brief explanation on those if you've never played Dishonored: There are two main peacekeepers in the city of Dunwall, where the game takes place, the City Watch, who are basically policemen following rules made by the parliament, and the Overseers, who are religious officers that follow the Abbey of the Everyman and the high overseer (comparable to the pope in our world I suppose). These two groups have tensions between them in-game, but they're often working together.]

Inspired by the Overseers, I wanted to have the Knighthood be more religious, making the aether a sort of religion by itself. To combine science and the supernatural. Maybe the aether is seen as a curse, and those who often come into contact with it are seen as tainted. The knights do a work no one else wants to do, they sacrifice their own good for the sake of the rest of the population.

The knights are more religious than the general population, prayers and rituals part of their every day life. Their religion isn't just followed by them, but by many outside the Knighthood, but none are as devoted as them.

I think knights would begin training very early in life. If a child has a strong constitution, their parents can consider sending them to the Knighthood. They're likely to never see the child again, so they receive goods from the state for their sacrifice.

The child will be trained in combat, taught how to cleanse aether contamination and use aether tears, and basic mechanic knowledge to work with the technology they're given. After they're deemed ready, they will go on their first mission along with a team, and if they survive they will officially be knighted.

In this structure, the knights won't have much contact with the outside world, and form tightly-knit groups.

The exception to this is Soap, who originally was raised in what used to be Scotland (don't have a name for it yet...), but was moved to the British order after his injury. His accent and mannerisms differ noticeably from the rest of the knights.

Sidenote on the tech they use, I think it will be quite similar to what their equivalent of a military has, except the knights purposely model their armor to be in the image of the original knights. The cyberknights admire the original knights, and in their eyes they continue their legacy of fighting monsters. As they fought dragons, they fight aether worms.

The military sends tech for the knights if they find it will be useful for them, as everyone relays on the knights to hold back the aether. A lot of people question the continued need for the Knighthoods, asking why so many resources need to be wasted on them, but those who know what they do understand that without them, humanity will collapse again.

The newest invention of the military was G.H.O.S.T, a fully functioning robot to aid the knights. G.H.O.S.T is experimental at the start of the story, the first of its kind in any combat situation. Many knights distrust G.H.O.S.T's presence, but the 141 squad learns he's not quite like a real soldier.

Part of why the Knighthood doesn't quite like G.H.O.S.T is because his body works with aether. G.H.O.S.T is able to use field upgrades just like a knight, and his weapons are infused with the same process their's do. Those processes are considered blasphemy for anyone whose not a knight, but the Knighthood assures them G.H.O.S.T's creation wasn't.

I want to design banners for each Knighthood and incorporate them to the outfits for each member respectively. Like imagine having Soap marked by his original Scottish Knighthood, while Gaz and Price have a British banner, with G.H.O.S.T having none since he was never technically knighted. I think that would be really cool.

For the story, I think there will be a lot of knights we will see in temporary collaborations, since the knights aren't limited by physical distance or country of origin. So I'd like to design knight armor for Rudy and Alejandro, and Farah and Alex. Also considering adding Roach for the first time since I will need a lot of characters.

Besides knights, there are also mechanics and aether experts in their base of operation (don't have a name for it yet either), trainers for the children that weren't knighted yet, and of course the amount of people that takes to maintain such large amount of people, like cooks, cleaners, etc. and I want some of those to be characters from canon because it's more fun than inventing people I guess.

As to what the knights do when they go out to the contaminated lands, a lot of their work consists of destroying aether nests, collecting crystals to replenish their supplies, fighting disciples that attract zombies towards human cities. Very rarely, they would fight monsters like an aether worm, if they find it poses a risk.

The knights are always working against the clock, trying to outrun the never-ending storms that ravage through those lands. Getting stuck in a storm often means death for them, as it depletes their aether supply faster than they can replenish it. Aether is fuel for a knight's suit, which powers their weapons and motorcycles (which look like horses and can actually respond to voice commands), but it also makes sure their filtration masks work. Every inch of a knight is covered for a reason - the air in the contaminated lands is toxic for humans.

If knights enter storms, their stay only lasts mere minutes, but if they stay far enough they could last days before returning to the Knighthood's base. Over the years, knights have built shelters in places they frequent, and it is tradition to leave one thing behind if a knight comes across one and uses it. Those shelters have food and water, as well as charging stations.

Knights almost never go out alone, usually having a team of 2–3 people, depending on their task. Like I've explained before, a full team of knights consists of a combat expert, a mechanic expert and an aether expert. A combat expert is always needed, but the mechanic and aether can switch out if the job doesn't require them.

The 141 has four members, with two being combat experts, so they can often split into two teams, and that's why Soap and G.H.O.S.T end up alone in the start of the story.

Out of the three jobs, a mechanic is the least likely to expect combat, and is the least useful. They're still very important, you wouldn't want to be stuck in the contaminated lands with a broken helmet or bike, but aether-mechanic lifeforms are weaker than native aether forms.

[non-native aether lifeforms include regular zombies and mechanic-aether lifeforms, while native aether lifeforms include disciples and aether worms.]

It's for that reason Soap was demoted from combat expert to mechanic after his injury. Initially, he was to be removed from entering the contaminated lands altogether, but after practically begging, he was allowed back. He hates leaving the combat role behind, but because he's got a few loose screws he still acts like he is.

Field upgrades (I'll probably change their name to something cooler in the future tbh) allow knights to use aether to their advantage. They range from healing to hiding the user from the eyes of aether lifeforms, and use up a lot of aether so they're best used in combat only. While in combat, aether is collected from the blood that comes into contact with the various blades of the knights, and because regular zombies are easy to kill it's a good source of energy.

Soap's field upgrade, Frenzied Guard, is usually reserved for combat experts only. It makes it so the user builds up a sort of coating that protects them the more they slay, but at the cost of having every aether lifeform aggravated and focused on them. Field Upgrades can be changed with the right ritual, but Soap refused to do so.

Frenzied Guard actually helps Soap's leg injury not affect him while he's using the upgrade, but at the cost of making him collapse right after it runs out. He doesn't use it often as a result, and is actively discouraged to by his team.

I still need to work out what happened 70 years prior to the start of the story, exactly how much civilization collapsed because of the aether, as well as how are countries now operating, what even their names are... How people react to the Knighthoods. There are a lot of interesting ways I could make the dynamics of the knights and the military go, currently I'm leaning into mutual distrust...

And of course there's G.H.O.S.T's mystery... which I won't reveal here but oh boy if there's not a lot I could do with it...

I feel like this AU burrowed in my brain more than even rev AU because its world isn't ours, so I can world build so much more. I'll admit working within canon restrictions is interesting, leads me to decide things I wouldn't usually think to do if I was left to my own devices, but cyberknights AU is far more of my bread and butter. Before getting struck by COD brainrot I would only work of things that are related to either fantasy or sci-fi (which includes superheroes and supernatural entities in my eyes), things that rely heavily on worldbuilding as they often don't take place in our reality. Overthinking everything is part of the job in those genres haha. So I'm very much enjoying myself thinking about all of this, as you probably can tell by the length of this post...

I also still need to continue my research into Scottish mythology and knight orders from medieval Britain and Scotland (the Scots didn't really have the same vibes as British knights but it's still interesting to look into). I'm currently reading a translation of one of the stories allegedly written by that medieval John M'Tavish and it takes far longer than a modern story would because they use high level words that I never heard of, and English isn't my first language by far so I need to sit with a dictionary and reread the same sentence three times sometimes to understand it lol... but this was the case with the Exeter book as well and I read like 20 poems and riddles from that book for BLOOD||HUNGER so it's not like that's new.

How do I tell people I got into medieval poetry because of a fucking COD fic.....

[sourthesour]

So my Fiancé and I are working on a Harry Potter-Dishonored Crossover that changes the format of both worlds. Within this, I will explain what we have done and if y'all would like to see this!

So, in this Crossover:

Snape is the descendant of Corvo Attano, and by proxy Emily Kaldwin. This translates down to Harry being the son of Snape through which James, being infertile in this, asks Lily to choose Snape for his pedigree to be the father of their child. Lily is related to the Curnows, giving Harry relations to Corvo Attano, Emily Kaldwin (by proxy Delilah Copperspoon), and The Curnows.

Hermione is from Delilah+Arnold's bloodline with the eventual addition of Meagan's bloodline. She is haunted by Delilah, being the devil on her shoulder. Meagan, aka Billie Lurk, is the angel on her other shoulder. She pushes for Hermione to do good, wanting her to do good. She is Harry's cousin in technicality, the two getting closer in the familial way. Hermione ends up becoming a co-target with Harry, her heritage making Voldemort very interested in her for Delilah's knowledge. She is slowly manipulated into performing the dark arts that Delilah dabbled in, soon creating their Gravehound companion that fights beside them in the end.

The Weasleys are related to the Mayhews, Ginny taking the most after Alexi. Ron is still comedic relief, but also displays a strong desire to protect his friends. He gets into a sword fight eventually in his 5th Year, he wins.

Draco takes on the bloodlines of Daud (we made a side character who is Daud's twin sister to respect the character's sexuality), Granny Rags, and Mindy Blanchard. He is continued as Harry's foil and antagonist.

Luna obtains the ingenuity of Kirin Jindosh, while Neville soon picks up his wits. They are distantly related through Kirin, but Luna takes after him in some ways.

Dumbledore was born from The Eyeless Gang before they disbanded, taking some of their teachings and taking it to Hogwarts when The Abbey of the Everyman when that was disbanded. His sister went to The Academy of Natural Philosophy before she passed, Dumbledore doesn't go but allows Students to.

Tom Riddle is the distant son of Marc/The Outsider and a woman. He is deeply connected with The Void, but not as much as another character, who acts as its eye for a potential new representative...

Would you guys be down for this?? There's more, but I'm leaving it here to not give too much away.