#Ethem Cailo

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Ethem-Cailo, The Divine Squire, surrendered to his hate and envy, and sought to devour the universe as Jovix-Cailo, God of Greed…

…while the stone Effigy fashioned in his likeness became a hero to defend a realm that was not his, but is home to the people he has come to love. Wybjorn Gol-Blynn, the new bearer of the title of God of Aspiration.

The Godslaughter campaign is wrapping up, but we’re probably going to hit its 1 year anniversary before it does! I think that’s pretty neat. This diptych was inspired by “Mirror Mirror” by Blind Guardian, and the (almost) year I’ve spent with these characters. 

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Now that they’re all up, here’s the guys I got asked questions about all in one place! Thanks to everyone who sent me a name. If you’d like to see what I talked about regarding each of them, here’s a little directory: Ethem-Cailo (x) Iona (x) Fee (x) Wybjorn (x) Domino (x) Whitty (x) Rumenthlay (x) Rusty (x)

commissions / artblog 

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DRELLINGTON

Full Name: Drell Hartford, Cleric of theMatrivalan Beltane

Gender andSexuality: Male,Straight

Pronouns: He/Him

Ethnicity/Species: Drell is a Matrivalan, which isn’tquite human and isn’t quite elven but is sort of similar to both of thosethings. Note his weird ears and magenta eyes with big sideways-oval pupils. Hisblood is also violet-magenta.

Birthplaceand Birthdate:Drell was born under a Scythan Moon in the month of Samhain, year 77 in the Ageof Orbits. He was born in a Beltanic Monastery in the south of the Matrivalancontinent, and was given up to the Order of the Matrivalan Beltane as is customfor firstborn children of certain families.

GuiltyPleasures: Drellhas a bit of a sweet tooth, which he indulges very often despite being on a ‘diet’of sorts. He loves to line-edit schlocky romance novels in his spare time, ahabit he picked up while aboard the Incandesca (Usually books provided to himby Fee, who would then secretly read the edited versions). He’s alsouncompromisingly fond of 60’s-70’s era rock of all sorts, like America, SteelyDan, 10cc, ELO, and ESPECIALLY Queen, which – probably the guiltiest pleasure –he enjoys singing very loudly.

Phobias: Drell actually has a pretty solid head on his shoulders;there isn’t a ton that he’s afraid of. He seems like the kind of guy who wouldbe kind of a pushover, but he can be very firm and doesn’t balk at a lot. Plus,Drell was barely 18 when he began to undergo the rites required to bind theWitherwound to him, and was only just in his early 20s when he left to go onthe Hunt, so he had to come to terms with the likelihood of his own death at anincredibly early age. Drell is, however, terrified that some day theWitherwound’s inability to filter the magical energy she absorbs at all timeswould lead to her overloading before Drell could allow her to work enoughenergy off; the resulting explosion would be theoretically powerful enough toeffectively destroy whatever poor planar system he happens to be inhabiting atthe time. Not to mention it would atomize him. He was terrified of theWitherwound when it was first bound to him, too; he has since overcome thisfear, but he is still flinchy around large dogs or any other big predatorycreature.

What TheyWould Be Famous For:As with every member of The Hunt, Drell is technically famous in a way.Unfortunately, Drell isn’t the ‘attraction’, so to speak; he isn’t even billedin the roster as Drell Hartford, his name is completely left out of it and heis only known as ‘The Witherwound’. 99% of the people familiar with the Huntfor whatever reason don’t even know his name. Plus, Drell was not exactly theshining beacon of positivity and faith that he is now; his binding to theWitherwound caused him an extreme amount of chronic pain, 24/7, as his bodybecomes the transient medium for the Witherwound to absorb ambient magicalenergy. It was only when the Witherwound was ‘fixed’ by the home team thatDrell was able to think clearly enough to regain some of his ‘true’ personality.In the meantime, Drell has been a sickly, fatigued man barely able to take careof himself for the past couple hundred years of the Wild Hunt. The Witherwoundis famous for her high-speed, hardcore, merciless kills. Drell is famous forthat Threnghelleon YouTube Compilation Of Times He Vomited.

Otherwise,Drell would be famous for being an influential and acclaimed Cleric for theMatrivalan Beltane; Drell is the model that other Clerics would aspire tofollow, honestly, and is probably one of the best people – in a ‘quality ofperson’ kind of way – in the whole campaign. He is currently trying to rebuildthe Matrivalan Beltane around the Witherwound instead of the goddess she usedto be, and so he may actually be famous one day for founding a new religion onThe Road. 

What TheyWould Get Arrested For: I literally cannot think of a single thing that Drell would getarrested for. He’s an ordained Cleric, for god’s sake. I think the only reasonDrell might get arrested is by association with someone else who did somethingwrong, or maybe in a shitty dystopian world where people can be considered ‘illegal’and that classification then permits a wide variety of atrocities to becommitted against them (looks at camera flatly), for harboring fugitives orinterfering in a law enforcement investigation to find said fugitives.

OC You ShipThem With: FEEFITZSIMMONS!!! They have really good chemistry and she’s one of the like twentypeople (out of a couple hundred thousand) on the Glorious Incandessa who knewhis name and liked him. She’s a really stalwart person and one of the fewpeople Drell doesn’t have to worry about wrangling at any given moment, andsomeone Drell doesn’t technically outrank. He is constantly taking care ofother people, and he really doesn’t need to take care of her. Aside from Fee,as Sal said I guess I could see people digging Iona and Drell, but Drell is oneof the people who helped her put her brain back together after the trauma sheexperienced at Apocrypha’s hand, and now that she’s joined the MatrivalanBeltane he is her direct superior so there are some yucky vibes IMO. Butreally, anybody who can tell Drell to chill out for a few minutes when he’soverworking himself and refusing to acknowledge it and actually get him to doit would probably have at least a little chemistry with him.

OC MostLikely To Murder Them: At this point, probably The Helmsman or Ethem-Cailo or Glory. Theproblem with trying to kill Drell is, good fuckin’ luck chump! There’s a dragonon his back and she can move faster than the eye can see and her claws andteeth are made of pure arcane energy! And, the thing is, Drell is her fuckingfavorite, so she will and has turned people into meat ribbons of her ownaccord if she feels like Drell is threatened. So, the only people who could laya finger on him at this point are the high-level Gods on the Hunt who could andwould do something nasty to him or that are just powerful enough to laugh theWitherwound off.

FavoriteMovie/Book Genre:Anything suitably dramatic, honestly. He won’t turn his nose up at a good documentary,of course, and he prefers books to TV and movies anyway, but he loves reallywell-crafted drama, fantasy, and thriller material. He also has a deep, abidingrespect for encyclopedias, guides, journals, and other similar record-stylebooks. The Matrivalan Beltane revolves predominately around the act of makingbooks, so Drell is actually a talented bookbinder and makes his journalshimself, and so he has a really keen eye and appreciation for those kind ofdetails.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Any cliche or trope that has todo with the cleric, holy man, priest, or otherwise religious leader is adirtbag and uses his power for his own gain. Not necessarily because itirritates him, but rather because he recognizes that there is too much precedentand truth in the real world behind these cliches.

Talentsand/or Powers: AsI mentioned, Drell is a very skilled bookbinder who has made at this pointhundreds of tomes. His Order requires its Clerics to craft their own HolySymbol, which for the Matrivalan Beltane are Grimoires hand-crafted andinscribed. Members of the Beltane are expected to read any of various tomesthat suit their interests and pick one to transcribe into a personalized tome,and are encouraged very strongly to include their own research, notes, andunique flourishes to the material to build on what has come before them. Drell’sGrimoire, the Treatise of Simon the Magician, is perfectly crafted and isenchanted at Drell’s own hand with a series of spells that allow the book tomagically self-inscribe with a broad variety of arcane and occult knowledgefrom whatever society he happens to be in. So, basically, nerd that he is,Drell made himself a book that he can read over and over again that will neverget boring.

His Grimoiredoes contain, at all times, a series of Clerical Orison-prayers designed tolead the Witherwound through her different divine natures – when he needs tocalm her, excite her, heal her, or subdue her, he can read the appropriatepassage from his Grimoire. In addition, so long as he is on the same plane asthe Witherwound (which, you know, she’s attached to him literally so he alwaysis), he has access to a set of spell Orisons that he can use to attack anddefend. Drell would predominately be a utility/support fighter, were it not forone thing: The Witherwound.

As I mentionedbefore, the Witherwound is basically a super-fast super-pissed dragon made ofpure arcane power, capable of literally shredding anyone who comeswithin range and constantly dragging in magical power from the world aroundher. The Witherwound usually whips herself into a frenetic frenzy, racing backand forth at lightning speed in random angles that turns a the area aroundDrell into an inescapable death trap, referred to as the titular Beltane. TheWitherwound can widen this radius, and increase the intensity of her speed andpower, creating an ever-widening field of Pure Fuck that grows more deadly withthe passing seconds. In game mechanics this equates to a passive AOE abilitythat deals damage in stacking d20s until you manage to escape the ever-wideningradius of the attack. It ramps up very fast and is fucking brutal. TheWitherwound’s other natures mostly augment Drell’s magical abilities, but shehas a couple other beefy powers she can trot out if need be.

Why SomeoneMight Love Them:Drell is an earnest, good-hearted and indefatigably positive guy who is AMAZINGat giving advice, AMAZING at navigating interpersonal relationships, and is anAMAZING listener. He’s not good, he’s not great, he is The Best Listener. He isvery introspective and self-aware, and has always been very mature for his age.He’s patient, empathetic, easy to talk to, and is devoutly faithful to his god.He is willing and eager to share his faith but is critically un-pushy, and bythe nature of his religion is highly interested in and excited about most otherreligions outside of his own, welcomingly incorporating other deities into histypical worship which makes him a capable Cleric for whatever deity anybodyneeds to interface with. However, Drell isn’t a pushover; he is very firm and doesn’ttake shit from anybody, and isn’t afraid to tell somebody off (albeit verypolitely). If you need help, he will possibly literally work himself to deathto help you.

Why SomeoneMight Hate Them:Man, some people just don’t like any of that.

No, butseriously, religion isn’t for everyone. And Drell is inseparable from hisfaith. To some people, he’s just that annoying person who won’t stop fiddlingwith their personal religiously-affiliated jewelry and has to praise Jesus orBuddha or whoever. Plus, he lived in a monastery dedicated to making books outof raw components (AKA animal skin) and cataloguing + storing arcane power; histales of his home have provoked more than a few ‘It’s Not A Cult’ explanations.Drell could be seen as an off-putting individual for his relentless (at times abit forced) optimism and positivity, and could be seen as a patronizingknow-it-all. Drell is very patient and extremely careful about proselytizingwhere it’s not wanted, but if somebody needs help in some other way? Sure,Drell could be a little annoying about trying to help someone.

How TheyChange: As tendsto be the case with people who join the Hunt (whether willingly or not) andthen decide to defect and reform, Drell’s arc is sort of up and down. Beforethe Hunt, Drell was being groomed as the ‘Chosen One’. When the Wild Huntshowed up and completely fucking ruined his entire planet and the attachedplanar system, the leaders of Drell’s clerical order went ‘GUESS THIS IS WHATYOU WERE CHOSEN FOR’ and explained to him that if he wanted anything, anythingat all, to be left of his home and what few were left of the people he knew andloved after the Hunt swept through, he would have to have the Top BananaGoddess of the local pantheon (who, to remind you, is at this point a crazyperma-mad dragon made of lightning) TATTOOED INTO HIS BODY. And all of this atage 18. So Drell was forced in short order to come to terms with: The deaths ofmost of his friends and family, the destruction of his Clerical order, thedeaths of 9/10 of the Supreme Deities of his homeworld, the oncoming apocalypseas the planar instability of his home threatens to drag Matrivale intooblivion, the fairly high likelihood that he will ALSO die, and then also thefact that this crazy thing that might kill him is the only way to deter theapocalypse. AND THEN, after ALL of that, he was told ‘Actually you can’t stayhere, because we don’t want to die, so go join those guys who just killed allyour friends’ (The Wild Hunt stuck around after winning that hunt to stabilizethe planar system and keep Matrivale from just imploding).

That’s prettyheavy. So, accordingly, Drell wrestled with a lot of stuff in those first fewhunts: hatred for his Clerical order, hatred for the god that was now tattooedto his skin, hatred for himself and his circumstances. He was laid low forbasically a couple hundred years by the constant, overwhelming pain that theWitherwound inflicted on him just by the virtue of existing; whenever theWitherwound wasn’t burning through her excess energy by slaughtering things inthe Hunt, he was suffering alone on the Incandesca. He eventually came to termswith his situation, but it turned him into a solemn, quiet, sickly guy withoutmuch optimism to spare. He connected with the Witherwound, seeing both her andhimself as two beings who had been forced one way or another to do thingsagainst their will, and found his faith again. By the time the current Huntrolled around, though, Drell had consigned himself to eventual death byflash-obliteration when the Hunt encountered a world that was too magicallyrich and he failed to find a suitably tough foe for the Witherwound to wearherself out on.

But! He got asecond chance at the hands of Daigh, who pulled some dangerous Ether-MagicFuckery and stabilized the Witherwound’s mind, ‘fixed’ the existential woundthat prevented her from regulating her energy intake, and finally gave Drellthe opportunity to stand up to the Wild Hunt once more. Now, Drell has bouncedback; he’s a lot more measured and has in a way had part of his childhoodrobbed from him, but he has joyfully taken the opportunity to get back to beinga Cleric and helping people again.

Why YouLove Them: Ithink the amount of affection I have for Drell caught me by surprise, in a way.As sometimes happens with characters, he didn’t really click until oneparticular interaction in which he stood up for himself – calmly but firmly – againsta guy who was kinda just lashing out because he was upset. After that it waspretty much all downhill from there; he’s like a reminder to be decent ineveryday life, and in-game he is kind of the linchpin that keeps the group ofdefectors from the Incandesca stable. He’s such an unrepentantly good dude andhe’s had some really genuinely interesting interactions that I don’t thinkeither of us were anticipating. He’s a genuinely stabilizing influence on theother characters in the game, and his warmth is infectious. I think there’s justnot a whole lot more to it than that, honestly; he’s kind of an uncomplicatedcharacter to interface with and I think that’s really nice. He’s a verywholesome person, perhaps a little bit more of a typical fantasy character thanI am used to running but that’s not a bad thing because it’s fun.

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Oh, I never posted the finished product here on tumblr. I think I was under the impression I might do more little almost-paintings for that character questions thing on twitter. I didn’t! The prompt was “Villains”. A lot of the Godslaughter Campaign characters are former badguys, but these three are my main antagonists, with Jovix-Diocunigast being our endgame boss. Jovix-Cailo has since been killed by Ozzy, and The Helmsman, aka his true name Yawg-Ecthylion, has been given a lot of food for thought and has switched to the home team. But I wouldn’t really call him a good guy. 

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Ethem-Cailo

Full Name: Ethem-Cailo, The Divine Squire, God of Aspiration / Jovix-Cailo, The Ravenous, God of Greed

Gender and Sexuality: Male, Bisexual (but uncomfortable with it)

Pronouns: He/Him

Ethnicity/Species: Threnghelleon God 

Birthplace and Birthdate: All of the OG Threnghelleon gods are born from experiences that Glory had in hist first years on their world. Ethem-Cailo was born when Jovix-Diocunigast decided he wished to scale the world’s highest peak, which would one day become their version of olympyus. After a long journey, Diocunigast and his accompaniment found a boy sitting cross legged on the mountaintop, who introduced himself as the God of Aspiration.

Guilty Pleasures: Probably a bunch of creepy shit better left unsaid, to be honest. At a certain point though, Jovix-Cailo revels in any pleasure he finds, so, nothing is really a guilty pleasure.

Phobias: Fears of being inadequate, being alone, being forgotten, being unloved or working/suffering with no reward. Wybjorn makes him really insecure because it shows that there is not some foundational problem with Cailo himself that makes him inherently unloveable or irredeemable, he’s just a jerk. 

What They Would Be Famous For: Being a God!  

What They Would Get Arrested For: violating a restraining order or killing someone, lol.  

OC You Ship Them With: Cailo, and Wybjorn by proxy, have had two canon long-term romantic relationships. One is his first and only wife, Eleanor of Warns, Breaker of Horses, a sturdy lass who was the daughter of the man who he was supposed to train to unify Thregelleon’s tribes. It was a whole big thing that ended in tragedy and the start of the Red Age, Threnghelleon’s big nasty barbarian period. The second is a less documented romantic relationship with a champion male wrestler that he squired, named Raske Callhand, but male/male romance was not something looked on well in their culture so it was kept quiet. This is all stuff that occurred thousands of years before our game started. In the present, Cailo has actually been secretly hooking up with a human girl who saved his life, named Helena Kirsch, but that is very much a secret and is not going to be plot relevant until our next game. I feel like any other relationships (Like Cailo/Ozzy or Cailo/Celair) kind of dial up a skeev factor that I’m not comfortable with, and are better left to ol Wybjorn, who is a significantly better version of him.  

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Ozzy is supposed to murder him but is not sure if he can! Wybjorn would kill him, The Helmsman would kill him, Rumenthlay and Apherhaim would kill him, Celair would kill him, Diocunigast would kill him…lots of people would try to kill him, to be honest. He is not a popular guy.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: He likes a little bit of everything, he’s seen it all. Things most relevant to his interests in movies are are sports films, shlocky action movies and 80’s teen romance, and in books he’d like poetry (both epic poems like The Odyssey and Beowolf in addition to like, Robert Frost and Bukowski and etc) and classical literature.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: “Why does the jock always get the girl in those stupid teen movies, huh? When’s it gonna be the nice guy’s turn!” But in seriousness is very trope-savvy and probably gets tired of most genre conventions really easily.

Talents and/or Powers: Ok well he’s a TTRPG boss so, Ethem-Cailo’s powers, and also Wybjorn’s, are built around a series of three different runic magical shields and provide passive buffs as well as effects when they are broken. Jovix-Cailo additionally can tell whatever gross dirty thing your heart longs for by looking at you with his awful red peepers. Other than your usual godly fare (can change his size, supernatural endurance and strength, flight, etc) he can make constructs out of stone, which is where Wybjorn came from.  

Why Someone Might Love Them: In rare moments, Cailo is emotionally sincere and tender, and is in general very passionate and old-school romantic (sonnets and poems, small tokens of affection, etc). Objects of his affection are protected at great lengths, and obsessively adored. Some people might dig that. He has great investment in the rights of children and is very sensitive to situations when they are taken advantage of in any way, due to his personal experiences as a squire to mortal champions. His temples on Threnghelleon generally doubled as a gymnasium/YMCA kind of deal, and woe fall upon those who fuck with its younger members or try to use its systems to exploit them. He really wishes he could’ve had a family with his (ex and thousands of years dead) wife, Eleanor.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: As Ethem-Cailo he is emotionally needy, has an obnoxious need to prove himself, is selfish, buys too much into toxic masculinity, has physically violent tantrums, hardly ever accepts blame unless it’s in a self deprecating fashion and is creepy/awkward/obsessive around the girls he likes, so, what’s not to hate. He is the reason the Lapinine (Rumenthlay’s race) are all dead. He’s the reason why a LOT of people are dead! As Jovix-Cailo, he is a vicious, cruel, hedonistic monster who takes everything he wants by force and purposefully stirs the pot to break apart Jovix-Diocunigast’s ranks, with the long-term goal being to overthrow him. He’s more confident and cares less about what people think, but he’s still a fuck.  

How They Change: I mean, spectacularly for the worst. He goes from being the God of Aspiration to the God of Greed because his hate and entitlement and desperation is too much to pack into his tiny body. I feel like I go over this pretty thoroughly across the board so I don’t want to repeat myself too much.

Why You Love Them: To be honest the only reason why Wybjorn exists is because I got way too attached to Ethem-Cailo and when we saw a way to give me an outlet for that and really embrace Cailo as a villain, we took it. He’s my favorite antagonist that I’ve made for a TTRPG. His core desires are not things that are inherently bad - a desire to be loved, recognized for his struggle, have his pain acknowledged and respected for his hard work. But his fatal flaw his his inability to reflect and look internally for a solution to his troubles rather than seeking it externally, and so he is always a victim in his mind, and always desperate to prove things to people who couldn’t care less. He started as a good person with good intentions, and while he isn’t evil, he’s definitely a capital b Bad Guy. I find him sympathetic while still enjoying how just depraved and cruel he is, and he has a certain just rock solid conviction to get revenge on the universe that I find really compelling. To me, Wybjorn and Ethem-Cailo represent a divergence in processing complex trauma - self reflection, remaining open and compassionate, accepting you may fail as you try to heal vs. clinging to the past, an obsession with being the victim, and embracing cruelty so that you can direct it towards a world that you feel has failed you. I mean, as far as I relate to it anyway. It’s my way of working through some stuff that I probably chose to ignore for a little too long, lol.

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Jovix-Diocunigast, a burning star born from the death of some unknown universe, fell from the heavens to collide with an icy planet devoid of heat or life. So that there may be witnesses to his splendor, a host of other beings spun themselves into existence, forming the core pantheon of the world that would become Threnghelleon. In the eons to follow, scores more Gods would be born and die on that frozen world, but only a handful would follow Jovix-Diocunigast out of their home plane and onto the great Hunt that would span the multiverse. The untamable power of those chosen few would continue to grow and change, such as the case of the mysterious origin of Veth-Rawn, born on the Hunt of uncertain parentage, or the terrible transformation of Ethem-Cailo, God of Aspiration, to Jovix-Cailo, God of Greed. The fate of Wybjorn Gol-Blynn, once an effigy and slave, now a god in his own right and an opposer to the hunt, remains to be seen.

All the while, Jovix-Diocunigast remains flawless, undefeated, and without mercy.

GODSLAUGHTER / artblog / commissions  

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Ethem-Cailo, The Divine Squire, God of Aspiration:  Once, Ethem-Cailo walked among the mortal champions of Threngelleon in many guises, from warriors to poets to vintners, to assist them in achieving their dreams and completeing their quests. He would come to them in their time of need bearing many names and trades, but always in the form of a starry-eyed but hardworking youth. But, his own desires are forever out of his grasp - to be as beloved as his brothers, to be respected, and to grow out of his form as a boy and into a man. For if he achieved his wants, what would he have to aspire to be?

The nature of his charge made it difficult to form lasting interpersonal relationships, as he was constantly moving from one champion to the next, and exposed him to people and circumstances that would leave him spurned and violated. Ethem-Cailo joined his brothers on the Wild Hunt, a fierce game in which the pantheon of his native Threngelleon travels the multiverse challenging the Gods of other worlds, and resolved to be a Squire no longer. His pain and anger have twisted him into a ruthless being driven by greed and envy, and is no more the Divine Squire, but Ethem-Cailo the Thorkiller. A title well earned after he slaughtered the Aesir, and pryed Mjolnir from the cold hands of Thor Odinson. He is now squired by a stone effigy of himself, who suffers under Ethem-Cailo’s self loathing and impotent frustrations, but has had many thousands of years to think upon his shadow of a life. Though now one of the most powerful gods on The Hunt, Ethem-Cailo’s conquests only leave him all the more furious and unsatisfied. For his aspirations will always be out of his reach.

commissions / artblog

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Three of twelve gods of the Circle of Glory, who comprise the core membership of an interdimensional hunting party that travels the multiverse challeging the deities of other realms. And the villains of my current tabletop campaign, which we have entitled Godslaughter. 

Ethem-Cailo, The Divine Squire, God of Aspiration: Once a mild and put upon squire to more glorious dieties and mortal champions, Ethem-Cailo has snapped and become a greedy, furious force of nature.  His own aspiration of growing up and being respected and beloved are doomed to forever be just that, for he must always have something to aspire to be. Each conquest leaves him all the more unsatisfied, and eternally hungry for more and more power.

The Helmsman, The Leviathan Hunter, God of Void: They say the abyss he patrolled was so dark and deep, it swallowed up his name. Crafty, cruel and lonely after spending eons in the planet’s depths thanklessly safegaurding the surface from world-eating beasts, The Helmsman burns for for the limelight, and will go to great and grisly lengths for eyes to be upon him. The Helmsman’s black, leviathan ivory ship, the Sursurrant Phantasm, is home to a hoard of ghoulish trophies from his kills, and he wears several woven belts made of the hair of fallen enemies.

Yawg-Nornus, The Withered Heart, Goddess of Unhallowed Dead: The twin sister to the God of Death once met an undignified end by pricking her finger on her own poisoned arrow. Before her brother revived her, she saw a glimpse of the woeful afterlife for those who died dishonorably, and took an oath to perform a feat for each lost soul there so that they may ascend to paradise. More and more, her vibrant appearance waned into the decrepit form she has now, but it has not put her off her task. The Hunt has proven a practical way to meet her quota.

commissions / artblog 

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Ethem-Cailo, The Divine Squire, and never one to pass up on indulging in his own misery, created a stone effigy of a more tender, long bygone version of himself to serve him and become an outlet for his impotent rage and self loathing. The Effigy suffered beneath him for thousands upon thousands of hunts, but thought deeply on their shared past, their triumphs and many mistakes, and maintained a level of empathy and self-awareness that Ethem-Cailo himself buried in his greed and hate. Ethem-Cailo’s first challenger on The Road, Osmanthus Quince, found an oddly kindred spirit in The Effigy, and at the end of his match, took the Effigy with him back to his comrades. By a combination of divine magics, The Effigy was released from all of his ties that kept him bound to Ethem-Cailo, allowing him to flourish into his own being. A mere effigy no longer, he has taken the name Wybjorn Gol-Blynn, and though he is not a god, retains some measure of divine power. He is best described as an Earth Elemental - still a being of stone, but possessing a great measure of raw magical potency and mastery over his own form. No longer encumbered to the clause in his master’s charge that makes him unable to age or achieve what he desires, Wybjorn has become everything that Ethem-Cailo wishes he was: a grown man, beloved by his friends, with all of his hopes within reach should he fight hard enough to achieve them.

godslaughter/artblog/commissions 

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Wybjorn's Threnghelleon divinity, the light in his chest that anchors him to his identity, provides him with the powers of the aspiration domain and mastery over his physical form, has been forcibly stripped from him to feed a nefarious, occult machine. This has returned him to a similar state as when he was an effigy, but the mosaic of divine magic that freed him from Ethem-Cailo's influence still makes him something much more than stone.  One thing is certain, whether he chooses to nurture the strange energy that lingers within him to become something new or reclaim his former glory from that which stole his light: there is suffering ahead.

Pose referenced from the statue "Marble Statue of a Wounded Amazon", a Roman statue from 1st-2nd century AD.

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MASTER / APPRENTICE

This is purely speculative, though Ethem-Colias does exist in our main game canon. An AU scenario where Jovix-Cailo returns to the world under his own auspices 10 years after he's killed by Osmanthus Quince, and is able to rescue his daughter before the cult successfully indoctrinates and trains her to become a weapon. A better life for them both. Some meta context under the cut.

In oh, I dunno, SEPTEMBER, there was one of those art-things going around twitter that was your character’s original design with an option to draw them with either a “Corruption Arc” (if they were a hero) or a “Redemption Arc” (if they were a villain).

 I couldn’t help but notice that results skewed pretty heavily towards the former, and wanted to even the odds a bit. IDK I don’t think that the domain of “greed” necessitates that an entity is “bad” (look at Greed from FMA, for example), JC is/was just kind of an asshole about it and may have even settled down in a few hundred years into being a cooler guy, but would have caused too much mayhem in the interim. I had also wanted to draw him as he normally is but tbh, I’ve sat on this piece long enough. I started this before my hand took another dive for the worst (almost three months ago) and have only just recently managed to push this from 80% done to 100% done. That said, kind of a fun AU that I wouldn’t mind revisiting. I never got to play the new God of War and have daddy issues so this whole concept really tickles me. 

[salavarte]

Guess who's coming to dinner. One of the primary antagonists from Godslaughter, Jovix-Cailo, God Of Greed. I decided to dust him off for Artfight - MEET US IN THE PIT!

Since his page is locked unless you have an account (because of some of the maturity filters of the site), I’m just going to copy paste his bio under a cut for prosperity. It’s been awhile since folks have seen him so I’m sure a refresher is not missed, anyway. This is written in the tense before his eventual death. 

History: Jovix-Cailo is a furious being of unbridled hate and desire, a glutton for all pleasures who revels in carnage. But he was not always so - once, he was Ethem-Cailo, The Divine Squire, God of Aspiration and the loyal, jovial steward to several millennia’s worth of Threnghelleon champions, mortal and otherwise, as he walked among them in mortal guise. But no matter how many warriors, poets and kings Ethem-Cailo led to their prize, his own desires would always be cosmically denied him - for then what would the god of aspiration aspire for if he had everything he wanted? Though an uncanny and ageless being, Ethem-Cailo was effectively stuck in the body of a youthful squire, was never able to receive the respect of his divine brethren, and often found himself at the mercy of cruel mortals when he walked among them in the form of a boy. A once passionate, kind and righteous being had his resolve, his faith in humanity and confidence slowly eroded over the centuries, festering into resentment, jealousy and anger. All of Ethem-Cailo’s secret rage blossomed into violence when he was taken with his brothers and sisters on The Hunt, the old gods satisfied with their now space-faring planet’s expansion, and bored with the minutiae of commanding a wealthy, stable empire. Seeking excitement and glory, the gods of Threnghelleon set out to distant planes, to challenge other pantheons to grand duels and challenges for their own entertainment, and the entertainment of their people back home. Ethem-Cailo, at first unsure of himself in such a bloody sport, quickly rose to the task when confronted with life or death challenges, and became a force to be reckoned with, utilizing all his knowledge of the mastery of combat he had so long used to raise up Threnghelleon’s champions. His most notable achievement was the slaying of Thor Odinson, and for many hunts, Ethem-Cailo would wield the plundered Mjolnir to devastating effect. No longer seeing a need to hide his emotions, Ethem-Cailo became openly bitter and cruel himself, and cultivated an appetite for bloodshed. Feeling he now was of a standing to deserve a squire himself, Ethem-Cailo created a stone effigy of the tender creature he used to be and used it as both servant and punching bag, taking out all of his self-loathing onto the pitiable construct that shared his likeness. On the 10,000th hunt, Ethem-Cailo found himself in a match with an unassuming, frail-looking lightning sorcerer named Osymanthus Quince - who shocked the world by handily defeating Ethem-Cailo, and in doing so, became the new wielder of Mjolnir. Ethem-Cailo, furious and insulted, fled the scene before the match could be called, leaving their grim business unfinished. To add insult to injury, Osmanthus also liberated Ethem-Cailo’s effigy, and put into motion a series of events that would allow the Effigy to transform into an autonomous being liberated from Ethem-Cailo’s influence - Wybjorn Gol-Blynn. When a Threnghelleon god is able to break their fatal flaw, or if they become powerful enough, they ascend into a new being that joins others at the height of power in the pantheon - a Jovix. And so, when Ethem-Cailo was at last able to look deeply into his heart, he found a bottomless pit of greed and was glad for it, abandoning all notions of continuing a charade of heroism and accepting his uninhibited wants. What had been denied him for a millennia came to him at last when he embraced his nature- his body, contorting and stretching, permanently became that of an adult man, and he was at last granted the satisfaction of inspiring awe and fear in his divine siblings.   Now, he bides his time, stirring the pot in the Threnghelleon pantheon in hopes that he can eventually plot a coup to overthrow their patriarch, Jovix-Diocunigast. In the meantime, he pillages and conquers all he can, living for the day that he can crush Osmanthus Quince’s neck in his jaws and turn Wybjorn Gol-Blynn into the sand from whence he came. Personality: Jovix-Cailo is eternally driven by his dark appetites, be it riches, glory, food or carnal pleasure, but is seldom truly satisfied, leading him to have an almost perpetual foul mood. When he has the upper hand, he is extremely cruel and petty, full of himself, and is a sneering, cackling beast who delights in tormenting his quarry. When backed into a corner or challenged, his bravado quickly fades into blind rage, making him unpredictable, but easily goaded. He is notably clever, and prefers to get the advantage by planning ahead or outwitting his opponent before descending upon them with all his strength. He despises mortals, but does retain some modicum of a code of honor - while he does not hold back in a fight for the sake of preventing civilian casualties, he considers it beneath him to purposefully harm civilians without cause, and may go out of his way to prevent children from being harmed. A leftover vestige of his former charge. 

[salavante]

how's orange boy wybjorn doin' at the end of the campaign.

What Happened To Wybjorn Post-Godslaughter: An Illustrated Guide

Post-Godslaughter Wybjorn could be better but could be a lot worse. After the game wrapped up, he went back to Ozzy’s home plane (“Mindrunner”) with him. Mindrunner is an alternate version of our main setting, The Road, so it’s familiar but significantly more high-tech, with the addition of a psionic race that died on Primeline road early in its development, but survived in Mindrunner to become a major world superpower. Wybjorn also brought two of his “siblings” who defected with him.  

Derog Enlil-Eöl and Ethem-Awnrah (who gave up her Divinity and is now just kind of the most psychic lady in the planar cluster. She did this mostly because as it turns out, nigh omniscience kind of sucks) tagged along, and Gol-Gringorn also defected but now mans a benevolent Brigadoon party-temple that just kind of drifts around the multiverse and randomly appears in remote locations. So Wybjorn’s getting to know Derog again and vice versa, Ethem-Cailo and Derog were very close before Cailo became a little prick, so there’s precedence for it.

But before he left, we a had a little single session doorkicker that my co-conspirator DM’d and was superhero flavored (Jake’s really into all that jazz, me not so much, but it was fun). I won’t go into it too much just because the question was about Wybjorn, but let’s just say that Wybjorn had to kill a kryptonian guy that kind of just snapped and started tearing apart civilians like soft bread, and Wybjorn did not exit that encounter feeling particularly good about how fair the universe is. Celair also told him that she was effectively self-exiling herself into the woods, making Wybjorn’s exit to Mindrunner pretty bleak.

 On Mindrunner, he’s trying to settle in to some kind of routine before the levy breaks and Mindrunner’s impeding civil war kicks off, and straighten out what kind of relationship him and Ozzy have when they’re not running for their lives. They’ve mostly just been training/hanging out and doing normal dude stuff. Playing video games, etc. They’re basically in a big floating fortress full of witches/the insurrection, so Wybjorn sometimes puts on a human suit (as seen above) and does supply runs or other things that secretly being made of rocks benefit.

He misses his friends on Primeline road (mostly Drell) but he and Patroklos can talk to each other in a sort of dreamscape so at least he’s got that. He still has nightmares about Jovix-Cailo biting him in half and has a couple of scars for his trouble (which are really just mineral deposits where his ‘flesh’ had to fuse back together), most visibly on his neck, where he was decapitated. 

We’ll get back to him soon, but I need a break from DMing very bad so we’re doing a longer format game about Whitty in the meantime. It’s silly but I really do miss playing him in the meantime, he’s become my favorite PC in the last year. I should draw him made of Kryptonite like he was in that superhero fight, though, because that was pretty tight.

[salavante]

If you're still doing the OC asks, Patroklos?

So Pat is actually @saltineofswing‘s character, so I drew him, but Jacob filled out the questionnaire. And it’s super duper beefy - it’s pretty much an entire rundown of what the Threnghelleon muses are, how Patroklos operates, what his powerset and backstory is. So if you’re in the mood for some world building written by my better half and Co-DM, indulge. (My questionnaire for Wybjorn was filled out like five months ago, before Patroklos existed in the fiction, so I’ll take the opportunity now to say that I also am very into Pat and Wybie as a couple). 

Full Name: Patroklos, Poetic Muse of the House of Camaraderie

Gender and Sexuality: Male, Bisexual

Pronouns: He/Him, but like with a couple of the other stranger members of the Threnghelen sphere of divines, probably wouldn’t be put off by They/Them

Ethnicity/Species: Patroklos is a Threnghelen Muse, a race of beings that were created by the Threnghelen Pantheon and tasked with bringing inspiration, hope, motivation, and sometimes madness to the mortals of Threnghelleon and its Dominion. The race of beings known as the Threnghelen Muse is assumed by all members of Threnghelen society (save a very select and clever few) to be some sort of lesser deity; in the same way the members of the Circle of Glory were born when Jovix Diocunigast first experienced various emotions and conceptualized various ideas, the Muses supposedly popped up when mortalkind began to conceptualize complex ideas.

This is not true.

The Muses are actually a strange race of ‘quasi-real’ beings from the Unknown that feed off of emotions and other similar existential experiences, which is hard to explain; they can’t manifest in the physical world and can only be seen by gods and other divine beings. They’re really more like tulpas than anything else. Threnghelleon has a series of Houses and Bloodlines into which the Muses are organized, based on the domain over which they hold sway (and therefore the things they feed on); the Bloodlines are Dramatic, Poetic, Sacred, Epic, and Tragic. The Houses are the House of Pain, the House of Conflict, the House of Camaraderie, the House of Love, the House of Lore (or ‘history’), the House of Innovation, and lastly the House of Fear. Muses of the Epic and Tragic bloodlines are naturally more powerful than the others due to Threnghelleon’s system of values, and Muses of the Sacred bloodline become more powerful when tasked by a divine being.

The Muses of the House of Fear are the oldest Muses on Threnghelleon... and are also the strangest and most powerful. They’re the ones responsible for creating the others, developing the lie about what their race actually is, and had some very interesting early influences on Threnghelleon. More about that another time.

Patroklos is, as mentioned above, the Poetic Muse of Camaraderie; he is Also, incidentally, the Sacred Muse of Camaraderie. It’s not super unusual for a Muse to have two domains, but Pat is a bit special because Sacred, Epic, and Tragic muses are rarely double-classed, so to speak. He also doesn’t know that he’s actually a descendent of an extradimensional eldritch thoughtform.

Birthplace and Birthdate: Some time in the early ages of Threnghelen mortal history, after the conveyance of a spark from the Flame of Kaer Rhûndor to mortalkind and before the Red Age that spiraled out of the Bloodbath of Warns. Like many other Muses, Patroklos was created when some of the members of the Circle of Glory had a ‘spark of inspiration’... in other words, the Muses of the House of Fear planted the idea in the heads of the Threnghelen pantheon. As far as the Gods know, the Muses were ‘crafted’ in a secret forge somewhere on the White Hill, aka purgatory. The truth is a lot weirder and more gross.

Guilty Pleasures: Patroklos is not a terribly guilty person. He is very Shakespearean (all of the Muses are, they’re kind of like a Shakespearean chorus) in his temperament and preferences, and has sort of a classical stage actor’s grace and manner. Patroklos is effectively a phantasm, a being that lives exclusively in the Veil who is unable to directly manifest on the Mortal Coil, and so he’s never experienced eating or drinking or sleeping or any of the things that flesh-and-blood critters require.

But, Patroklos is very fond of watching people; the Muses have nothing to do with their time besides watch people, and if that sounds creepy it very much is! Patroklos is very nosy, he likes to eavesdrop and is a bit of a gossip, and watches people he likes more than he probably should. Whenever Patroklos and Wybjorn talk, because it’s usually in a dream, Patroklos usually goes on one ‘You won’t remember this when you wake up, BUT’ tangent and gossips about stuff he shouldn’t. Patroklos likes to watch people living their lives and going about their day-to-day. It’s something he, as an incorporeal spirit, doesn’t get to experience, and so he lives vicariously through others.

Phobias: Dying! Patroklos is in kind of a precarious spot right now. Threnghelen Muses can be killed, it’s just very very hard to do – and not only that, you have to kill them not once but twice. First, a Muse must be killed, usually by a divine being or enchanted weapon. They then become a Choral Spectre, trapped in the Veil or the Astral Plane, and they slowly lose the ability to leech energy off of their associated domain. In this state, a Muse is not only vulnerable to all of the nightmarish beings in the Unknown (where thoughtforms are made as real as anything in the Unknown can get), but also slowly starves to death. Patroklos is Once-Dead after appearing to Ethem-Cailo in a dream and trying to convince him to return to a more righteous path, and Ethem-Cailo had a tantrum and accidentally ‘smashed’ Patroklos with Mjolnir. Now, Patroklos is trapped in the Unknown, hiding from both the Helmsman and the many ghosts, horrifying Leviathans, and other monsters that the Glorious Incandesca attracts as the Wild Hunt skips from dimension to dimension.

Patroklos is also deathly afraid of being forgotten, as most Muses are; this sort of ties into his fear of death, but a ‘Forgotten’ Muse will eventually become a Choral Spectre and die anyway. Patroklos and the other Muses of Camaraderie were mostly utilized by Ethem-Cailo during his glory days as the God of Aspiration, but Patroklos saw less and less play as time went on and Ethem-Cailo became more bitter and nasty until he stopped being called on by Ethem-Cailo at all. By the time the Wild Hunt rolled around most of the Muses went undirected by the Gods, doing whatever weird bullshit they wanted and inspiring mortals however they saw fit, and Patroklos was kind of seen as an oddball by his siblings because he never indulged that chaotic impulse and preferred to be summoned before meddling in the mortal world. As a result? Not a ton of friends.

What They Would Be Famous For: Patroklos is, as all beings in the Threnghelen Pantheon, revered by the mortals of Threnghelleon. Patroklos was one of the more popular Muses of the House of Camaraderie, especially before and after the Red Age, and had a couple of shrines devoted solely to him – an honor usually bestowed only upon Epic and Tragic Muses, and Muses that were direct children of one of the Circle of Glory. This is partially because of his frequent partnership with Ethem-Cailo; the two were very good friends, and Patroklos was the Muse responsible for helping him with the famous Squiring of Raske Callhand – an extremely famous championship boxer/wrestler and the first mortal to receive a favor from the gods.

Additionally, Patroklos was one of the main Muses who helped Ethem-Cailo to develop the Art of Bardic Knowledge ability, by which an individual can tap into the poetic narrative of a ‘real-world’ event and verbally convey it with a magical visual accompaniment. The other involved Muses – the twin children of Awnrah, Feste and Fidele, Epic and Tragic muses of House Lore – were plenty helpful and ostensibly more powerful than Patroklos, but Patroklos put in the most time and effort on the project, who really wanted to bring Ethem-Cailo’s vision to life. As a result, he is usually cited as one of the primary creators of the art, even to this day.

What They Would Be Arrested For: Trespassing, evading/resisting arrest. Probably can’t get ARRESTED for this per se, but he might be the type of person who could get in hot legal water for breach of nondisclosure contract.

OC You Ship Them With: Wybjorn, full stop. Patroklos had a thing for Ethem-Cailo way back in the day, an unspoken crush that he never acted on and then squashed when Ethem-Cailo began so aggressively and pointedly denying his attraction to men after the Raske Callhand Fiasco. He never really got over it, even when Ethem-Cailo joined the Wild Hunt and started becoming a shittier and shittier person; Patroklos sees Wybjorn as another chance to connect with an old friend, in a way, and Wybjorn has a lot of the best aspects of Ethem-Cailo that made them such good friends in the first place. When Wybjorn tells Jovix-Cailo that Jovix-Cailo is the one who ‘stole his life’, and not the other way around, Patroklos is one of the things included in that umbrella. Now that Wybjorn is free of Ethem-Cailo’s influence and is developing into his own person, Patroklos can reforge a relationship with a person he has missed dearly, and who has in turn missed him just as much.

Patroklos also risked his life to bring Wybjorn back from the boundary to the White Hill after Jovix-Cailo almost killed him in the massive battle at the end of the Hunt, painstakingly breaking into the afterlife to drag Wybjorn’s soul away from death like some kind of super-romantic Orpheus and Eurydice bullshit. As seen in this illustration. If Patroklos had been noticed by Yawg-Cherogmoth, Keeper of Souls and guardian of the afterlife, he would have been exorcised with extreme prejudice.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Ethem-Cailo killed him, on accident, in a dream – which as described above has actual consequences for a Muse. But aside from that, Patroklos spent a LOT of time hiding from the Helmsman and other gods who could see into the Veil or the Astral Plane; if the Helmsman had caught a whiff of Patroklos skulking about in the Unknown while the Incandesca traveled from dimension to dimension, he probably would have pulled Patroklos apart just for funzies. Wybjorn was also genuinely concerned that Corvicarius, the Head Bitch In Charge God Of The Unknown Everywhere on Road-Prime, might just squash Patroklos like a bug for having rode in with the Wild Hunt and being a foreign being. Corvicarius assured Wybjorn that, especially because Patroklos helped save Wybjorn, Patroklos was safe so long as he didn’t fuck around with anything too important.

Favorite Book/Movie Genre: Anything with an extremely strong through-line of friendship and camaraderie. Patroklos enjoys a good romance as much as the next person, but he just loves it when two characters have that Unbreakable Bond and don’t need to have a romantic tryst in order to validate their relationship or dedicate their lives to one another. It’s literally the equivalent of fine dining to him.

Least Favorite Book/Movie Cliche: When someone is only providing love, friendship, and support with a clear sexual or romantic motivation. That shit is scummy. He also doesn’t like when one person has a painful crush on their best friend, but lets it go untended and then dies or loses their chance and has to live with the heartbreak. That one just hits kinda close to home.

Talents and/or Powers: The Muses all have a really peculiar selection of powers, and Patroklos is no exception. Most of the Muses’ powers are more suited to subterfuge and manipulation, and don’t really lend themselves to an out-and-out fight.

For starters, Patroklos’s natural state is one of invisibility and intangibility; if Patroklos somehow makes his way into a physical body he’ll lose his ability to become invisible, but the ability to become intangible is one he’ll never lose. Even then, he’ll still be very talented in the art of astral projection.

As a Muse of the House of Camaraderie, Patroklos has an affinity for ‘inspiring’ others in ways that bolster friendships and forge bonds. Individuals may find, while Patroklos is around, that diplomacy becomes much easier to achieve, group infighting is at a minimum, and compromise becomes easy. He is good at soothing tense situations and his suggestions, as they pertain to building positive bonds/smoothing over aggression/stabilizing relationships, are supernaturally difficult to ignore. But that’s not all he can do – it’s just what he prefers to do. All Threnghelen Muses are capable of, effectively, performing inceptions on people; planting a seed of an idea in someone’s mind, so seamlessly and flawlessly that they can’t distinguish it from their own idea, is the truest and most sinister power of a Threnghelen Muse, and Patroklos has used this power to his advantage and the advantage of Ethem-Cailo liberally in the halcyon days of Threnghelleon’s society. A Muse’s silver (golden) tongue is nothing to underestimate. At their most powerful they could even ‘inspire’ oh, I don’t know, the most powerful and Glorious god in the universe...

Otherwise, Patroklos has a minor ability to manipulate certain probabilities; he can influence events to maximize the amount of ‘camaraderie’ that is displayed by the individuals involved, such as altering the path of a bullet just enough to keep someone from dying in the act of sacrificing themselves for another, or ensuring that a strike made to avenge or protect a fallen comrade hits true. He could influence the ease with which someone rushing to the aide of a friend or loved one arrives at their destination, or keep someone with ill intentions (or bad timing!) from screwing up a tender moment between friends by impeding their progress. This power is relatively weak and can be easily superseded by more powerful divine domains – such as Glory’s ability to never lose, or Derog’s influence on the outcome of a conflict, or Ethem-Cailo’s ability to ensure someone achieves their aspirations. But this particular ability skyrockets in effectiveness when he is tasked by a divine being... which is why he and Wybjorn/Ethem-Cailo made such a good team.

Patroklos is capable of appearing to people in dreams and, while doing so, can control their level of lucidity and what they do or don’t remember about what occurs while he’s visiting – as I mentioned earlier, he starts a lot of really catty gossip digressions with ‘You won’t remember I said this when you wake up, BUT–‘.

When it comes to stuff that doesn’t have to do with his House or Bloodlines, Patroklos is an incredibly powerful teleporter – he can teleport almost indefinite ranges across spacetime and, more impressively, interdimensionally. Patroklos teleported from The Veil outside of Road Prime all the way to the Threnghelen afterlife without making a pit-stop in the Threnghelen mortal coil, which is an extremely difficult and precision jump that he was able to pull off (there and back, in fact) intuitively, without assistance, and without screwing up.

(Fun fact: when a Threnghelen muse teleports, their body goes first, and their eyes and teeth go last – so for a moment as their body fades away like a ghost, their giant golden eyes and teeth remain hanging in midair before they, too, disappear.)

Patroklos is technically a race of being native to the Unknown, and not hailing from any particular planar cluster; as a result he has an innate knowledge of how to travel in the Unknown. Which might not sound very impressive, but consider: the Unknown is a literal nonsense place, where the laws of physics conditionally rely on the perception of the individuals moving through it. The Unknown works off of dream logic and is endless. If you get lost in the Unknown, you are doomed to wander aimlessly forever until you forget who you are, where you came from, and what you were doing in the first place. So, the ability to intuitively find your way in the Unknown is an absolute necessity to traversing it.

Touching on the above, Patroklos can also just... make people get lost. He discovered this ability while hiding from monsters in the Unknown. You could be standing in your front yard and walk to the mailbox... and then you’d find yourself saddled with the unsettling horizontal vertigo of not knowing where you are or where to go, and wander the perimeter of your lawn for an hour and a half until the fugue state wore off and everything was suddenly familiar again.

Patroklos is also a talented shapeshifter, capable of transforming into a near-flawless imitation of any person that he has seen before, regardless of how much taller or shorter they are (within reason); he can also mimic voices so long as he’s heard them, and although it’s not part of the power set Patroklos is a naturally gifted mimic – he’s good at picking up body language, verbal and physical tics, and mannerisms, and that’s just a personal trait of his. The one problem with his powers: no matter who he changes into, his insides will always be made of gold. This is an ability that didn’t see much play back when the Muses were confined to Threnghelleon, but out in the Unknown any advantage is an advantage. Patroklos does have a ‘True Form’, additionally; it’s something rather terrifying, to the point that Patroklos explicitly told Wybjorn not to look at him while he tore his way into the White Hill to save his soul from crossing over. Based on the horrific ripping, grinding, and clicking noises, Wybjorn gauged later that obeying this request was the right choice.

(We’re almost done here, I promise, but I’m a perfectionist with this stuff.)

As long as Patroklos is in a spectral form, he is actually capable of possessing a mortal or a weak enough divine being or manifested spirit. It’s a difficult thing to maintain, and he can’t do any of his other tricks while possessing someone, but even in his current state it’s very doable.

LASTLY, Patroklos is one of the best in the game at utilizing Bardic Knowledge. By invoking Bardic Knowledge, Patroklos is capable of tapping into the ‘narrative’ of an event, a conflict, or the history of a person/place/thing. In this way Patroklos has a sort of limited omniscience; he can ‘feel out’ how things are going to go, or why things have happened, especially as it pertains to interpersonal conflict between friends. Like a lot of stuff that is related to or touched by the Unknown, Patroklos is very good at Knowing Things He Shouldn’t as a general sense, but it has a lot to do with the choral element of his being and his Bardic Knowledge – the narrator needs to know a lot of what is going on, and when Patroklos inhabits the role of the Unseen Narrator he can grasp the narrative in a very complete way, even if he isn’t completely omniscient. This is also helped by his ability to invisibly watch people from the Veil and his ability to move from place to place almost instantaneously.

Why Someone Might Love Them: Patroklos is unfalteringly loyal, has a great (if slightly strange) sense of humor, and is extremely supportive and optimistic. He’s really FUNNY. He’s got a rapier wit and has a very complex grasp of wordplay and humor. He’s very charming and crafty, but he is not very pretentious or self-inflated and is quite humble. In familiar company he’s boisterous and fun-loving, even if he’s a little shy around new people. He’s very good at conveying information and loves to tell stories. Patroklos has big theatre kid energy, he’s very dramatic and playful. He tends to be very earnest, is open with his feelings, and listens very well, but he’s not blunt and does his best to phrase things positively instead of negatively.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Patroklos is a HUGE gossip. A detrimentally huge gossip. Although I think he could keep his lip zipped if somebody told him some kind of huge secret I think he would have a really hard time keeping it to himself. Patroklos usually gets away with this because he can make people forget the stuff he tells them but that’s only when he’s invaded somebody’s dreams. The downside to him having a very open and earnest personality is that he doesn’t hide his feelings well, which can be problematic if he’s also too shy or humble or nervous to voice an issue he has. He’s kind of noisy, which can rub people the wrong way – not everybody has a high tolerance for loud and high-energy people. He also goes through moods where he can be very eldritch and strange, displaying his fickle and fae nature and doing weird shit just to amuse himself (‘Here, hold this’, he says apropos of nothing, and pulls a live centipede out of his coat and hands it to you). He is absolutely the type of person who points and laughs when somebody does something dumb or embarrassing and wouldn’t be above talking circles around someone because It’s Funny.

How They Change: Patroklos has gotten quieter, for sure. He’s matured a lot after his ordeals in the Unknown, and although he hasn’t lost his goofy side he has become much more mild-mannered and melancholy. He’s also taken quite a hit to his bravery; I wouldn’t call him a coward, but he’s become much more practical and keen to avoid fights, for obvious reasons. When he lived on Threnghelleon he was very immersed in their culture, and since being trapped in the Unknown his strange side has really taken over. Patroklos doesn’t really miss his home, although he does miss some of his siblings and the people he was friends with. Overall, though, Patroklos is a very new character; I only created him about halfway through the campaign when we were kinda fishing for more content to stretch it out with. How he’s going to change is largely contingent on how he’s treated and what happens to him; Wybjorn is going to go on a very romantic quest to figure out a way to return him to life, so I’m sure that will also have an effect on him.

Why You Love Them: Patroklos is just a lot of fun! He’s kind of swashbuckling and dramatic – all the Muses are named after Shakespeare characters, and I did it on purpose to inform the kind of feel I wanted them to have. They’re kind of meant to evoke that strange, ethereal, fun weirdness that some of that old theatre stuff is so rife with. I also really enjoy playing around with his weird-ass powers and his nebulous, lovecraftian undertones and behaviors. Patroklos is also a really cool character to bounce Wybjorn off of, he brings out certain qualities in Wybjorn that I think are a bit underplayed when Wybjorn is in other situations where he’s not the main character and provides a very interesting pathos to play around with between these two ancient beings that, in some ways, have wrapped all the way back around again to young men.

[salavante]

for the OC tag thing: the Helmsman!

Cat’s out the bag so here’s The Helmsman featured with his real name! 

Full Name: Yawg-Ecthylion, The Helmsman, God of The Void

Gender and Sexuality: Male and eh I dunno, I’ve never thought about it, but his two romantic entanglements have been with women.

Pronouns: He/Him but I don’t think he’d turn his nose up at they/them, I think he sees himself as existing outside of human constructs of that kind of thing. He’s not really even organic.

Ethnicity/Species: Threnghelleon Deity

Birthplace and Birthdate: Hah ok, here’s a funfact that I’ll probably talk about later in something specifically about them, and that I think I talked about with Ethem-Cailo. All of the OG Threnghelleon gods were made by Jovix-Diocunigast’s experiences. There was awhile where whenever Dio had a new thought or action, a new god would spin into being. The Helmsman was created when Dio first conceptualized ‘nothingness’. I think there’s a little more to it than that, but that ball might be in my Co-DM’s court.

Guilty Pleasures: The Helmsman is cruel, bitter and sadistic, and enjoys inflicting pain on things. I think one can extract a lot from that alone. Before the hunt, he had spent most of his several millennia long life almost completely isolated, hunting eldritch abominations at the bottom of Threnghelleon’s icy ocean, which has informed a lot of his decision making in how he fights and sees his opponents. Wearing down large enemies slowly, making use of what’s left of the carcass - that’s The Helmsman’s game. Which is really a roundabout way of saying that he basically tortures his opponents and then takes trophies or makes scrimshaws, leather-working pieces, etc out of the dead gods and mortals that he faces on The Hunt. He likes to step on toes and rattle cages to get reactions out of people. Negative attention is better than no attention, and it’s certainly made him a fan favorite among Threnghelleon’s edgier viewers. I say this as a guilty pleasure because he is not incapable of guilt, and before the hunt, was a fairly honorable, lawful God, if not still violent and creepy. In rare moments of reflection, he wonders how he fell so far, but usually doubles down afterwards. The public and the rest of the pantheon saw him a certain light that gained him attention, and he, starved for any kind of connection to others, leaned heavily into it. He has allowed other people’s perceptions and opinions of him to shape his identity and sense of personhood, which I think is rather tragic, but he likes making belts out of human hair so...

Phobias: It’s hard for me to say what The Helmsman is afraid of because most of his worst fears have come to pass and have made him the bastard coated bastard we know today. Being alone, being forgotten countless times, having his expertise and hard work taken advantage of. Paranoia aimed at Jovix-Diocunigast has turned out to be entirely accurate - Dio felt threatened by how much attention that The Helmsman was getting for defending the realm and killing giant monsters, so Dio effectively cursed him so that no one could remember his name. People began calling him Yawg-Ecthylion less and less, and The Helmsman more and more. Ethem-Awnrah, Goddess of Memory, is the only one who remembered his real name.

What They Would Be Famous For: The Helmsman played pretty much right into Dio’s ploy and turned into a craven, vile weirdo, and the media circus that broadcasts The Hunt loves him for it.

What They Would Get Arrested For: Murder and turning corpses into crafts.

OC You Ship Them With: The Helmsman has had two canonical spouses which have both produced children. His first wife was mortal, a deep-sea marine biologist named Svea who came upon his ship, The Susurrant Phantasm, in her own submarine while researching the fauna surrounding the Mouth of Yawg, Threnghelleon’s entrance into the void/ether/unknown/whatever you’d like to call it. Their union produced The Helmsman’s demigod daughter Yawg-Enyion, who would later take up his mantle of defending the realm with her warfleet while The Helmsman was on The Hunt. However, between her inability to remember his name, and being torn between her own life and her duty as the wife of a deity, the two of them split. Enyion reminds The Helmsman of his ex-wife a bit too much for comfort, and the two of them have a very strained, complicated relationship.

The next one is a little bit of a doozy.

Yawg-Ecthylion and Ethem-Awnrah always kind of had eyes for each other, and were courting before he lost his name and was soft-shunned by the rest of the pantheon. This, naturally, disrupted all of that, and they would not reconnect until The Hunt occurred. In the time between The Circle going on The Hunt and The Helmsman slowly deteriorating into a monstrous douchebag, he and Awnrah clicked again and produced a son: Veth-Rawn, the mysterious god of Psychics. But Sal, you say, in that writeup you made a thousand years ago, didn’t you say that Veth-Rawn had uncertain parentage? Well, that is because The Helmsman being a nasty ass murderous bastard made The Goddess of Memory so incensed that she accidentally wiped all of the universe’s memory of their time together in a fit of passionate rage. This, unfortunately, included Veth-Rawn, leaving the God of Psychics mentally shattered, and forced to grow up utterly alienated by his would-be family, who didn’t know who he was or why he was there. It is only really recently that this came to light, and was one of my endgame plot twists.

If the team beats Dio, The Helmsman will go back to Threnghelleon with his comatose son to heal him and try to make things right with his daughter, Enyion. Awnrah is staying with the hometeam and the other defectors from The Hunt - Geeg, Derog and Wybjorn. I’ll probably touch on her sometime on her own, I’m quite fond of her, and she’s a Good Guy now so she’ll be featuring in post-Godslaughter campaigns.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Either Jonquil (his hometeam rival for the game), Jovix-Diocunigast or Jovix-Cailo. Jonquil spent the better part of the game trying to learn how to shove his soul into a diamond and hurl it into space. Jovix-Cailo has hated him for a very long time and enjoyed tormenting him as soon as he got a power bump. And Dio would just turn him into a smear for defecting. Awnrah could also utterly annihilate him if she wasn’t such a decent person, she could crack his psyche open like an egg.  

This is where the book/movie section usually goes but I’ll be real with you, I don’t think The Helmsman bothers with either. I think he sees most things of human invention as being kind of beneath him. But he especially hates most artistic interpretations of himself, and has very seldom happened upon one that he feels gives him due diligence.

Talents and/or Powers: The Helmsman honestly has a build that I would LOVE to use as a player character. It hinges largely on stacking DOTs (Damage Over Time) and status afflictions, making him able to whittle down opponents with large health pools as well as get a trickle of HP back to himself. His whaling hooks are called Black Tongue and North Star, and they give him some pretty impressive reach, and the ability to swing large, heavy objects around. He also has a few abilities such as “Where Strides The Behemoth” that gives him heavier damage output when he’s facing an enemy larger than him, and “Like Water”, where he effectively ignore gravity and can move freely through space. His very large peepers are usually squinting, as he is not really accustomed to full light, but in darkness, they open all the way into horrible, near perfect circles. Really, out of all of the Threnghelleon gods, The Helmsman is the most biologically compatible with his environment.

Why Someone Might Love Them: The Helmsman has a very primal, intense quality that I think a certain kind of person could find attractive. For many years, he did a very dirty, thankless job that benefitted all mankind and the pantheon, which is perfectly respectable. He’s fairly witty and is good at banter, and is handy in a fight, a couple of traits that Threnghelleon folk appreciate. I also think his more tragic qualities attract a level of pity that could entice someone to desire becoming closer to him. I dunno, he has magic eyes that see in the dark, some people dig that.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: He stalks/murders/tortures indiscriminately and treats corpses of pretty much anything like someone would treat the corpse of an animal. He does not see the distinction between humanoid person and animal/monster and considers it all free game. He’s mouthy, impatient, cruel and sadistic and has set aflame 10,000 worlds. What’s not to hate.

How They Change: The Helmsman’s arc in the game was the slow-dawning horror of the fact that pretty much all of his current murderous identity has been spoon-fed to him by other people, and he just kind of went along with it because he was weak-willed and desperate for attention. This troubles him pretty deeply and makes him lose his hutzpah towards the end of the game. He does end up defecting from the Hunt to the hometeam to help take down Diocunigast, the guy who cursed him and started his downhill slope. But I really hesitate to say that he’s a Good Guy. He doesn’t feel all that bad about all the people he’s tortured/killed/made into fanny packs, at least not to the degree he should. The Helmsman will still go about his nasty ways when he’s back on Threnghelleon, but will be more judicious about who he kills and how. He’s also resolved to try and repair his relationship with his daughter Enyion, and hopefully heal Veth-Rawn. He has no intention, however, to try and re-initiate a romantic relationship with Ethem-Awnrah, though he still kinda loves her. He knows he FUBAR’d that one.

Why You Love Them: I enjoy villains! His ferocity is cathartic and entertaining and challenging to to the PCs. I genuinely wasn’t sure if he was going to be alive or not by the end of our game. Sometimes it’s fun to just have a downright fucker in the mix. I also like his design, which while not THE most inspired, is a lot of fun to draw. The Helmsman was the first of the Gods that I designed, with Ethem-Cailo being second. Also an internet stranger said he was hot once.

[saltineofswing]

Celair

I got a couple for Celair, which is really nice!

Full Name: Celair Eshgalweth, The Smile ThatHides The Wrathful Wail, Silverqueen, Scimitar Dancer, Divine Patron of Elves

Gender andSexuality:Female, Bisexual

Pronouns: She/Her

Ethnicity/Species: Hmm… well it may surprise youto learn that Celair, despite being the Patron Deity of Elves, is not herselfan Elf. Celair was tasked with the job of ‘Patron of Elves’ by thecreator deity of her home plane; she was actually a fairly terrifying-lookingFae being, a giant insectoid thing visually similar in some ways to a prayingmantis. Her job, and the amount of time she has spent doing it, has changed hertrue form considerably but it’s still pretty terrifying to look at in that‘beautiful and horrible’ kind of way that Elves do. This, incidentally, is whyCelair has insectoid features; I haven’t drawn them but Celair does have wingsthat she can ‘stow’ in her spine, and those ‘horns’ on her head are actuallyantennae. She effectively ‘folds’ herself into the relatively benign-lookingmeatsuit that everybody knows and loves as Celair, which she puppets with heressence like a doll. This is why she is so absurdly strong and fast despite thefact that she has the physical appearance of a late-teens-early-twenties youngadult. The closest anybody could get to seeing her original true form is theWrathful Wail, Celair’s divine Enraged Mode, when she transforms into a massivebluish-hued silver-streaked monstrosity with gangly multi-jointed limbs, anabdomen and thorax, and mantid raptorial arms created by the way her hands fuseto her meteorite-steel scimitars.

Rusty, whileusing a device that allowed them to peer into the Veil and therefore gave themthe ability to view the ‘true forms’ of anyone they came across, spied onCelair as she truly appears; the image they saw was a tangled swath ofinsectoid limbs and dragonfly wings, a series of silver lines floating in anarc around a svelte torso composed of paneled wood, her head adorned with abeautiful silver mask in place of a face. So, take that as you will.

Birthplaceand Birthdate:The ‘Ethereal Plane’ (The Unknown) of an extrauniversal planar system calledKith, Dawn of Time.

GuiltyPleasures: …Killing stuff, honestly. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Celair was effectivelyforced into the position of ‘Planar Greeter/Butler’ by the other divines in thepantheon, and served in that position for thousands and thousands of years.Because Kith is an extrauniversal planar system, it’s effectively ‘in’ theUnknown and therefore basically open for any schmuck who has figured outinterplanar travel to shlep their family into; Kith leaned into this, andbecame a ‘tourist destination’ of sorts for nearby dimensions. So for Celair, acreature with a horrifically short fuse, her guilty pleasures while on the jobwere the minuscule opportunities for her to really cut loose. And since shejoined the Hunt, she’s been able to indulge her guilty pleasure quitefrequently.

Other thanthat, though, she is way more fond of mortal fashion than she lets on. And she reallyenjoys alcohol. You think you can drink? Celair and her elves preferredto drink pure wood-grain alcohol. Celair could drink paint thinner andcomplain about the taste with no other ill effects. Her favorite drink isEshgalán Absinthe, which is elven wood-grain alcohol made from wormwood. IRLabsinthe doesn’t make you hallucinate but Esh-brewed Absinthe DEFINITELY doesif you’re not Esh. There was a funny scene we did early in the campaign, beforethe Hunt proper started, that involved Celair at Gol Gringorn’s bar with a hugehandle of 192-proof alcohol vodka in her hand, just swigging it like Tennesseesweet tea, and asking if Geeg had ‘anything harder’.

Phobias: This is not a gal easily shaken. If you were amillennia-old Fae-natured goddess who swings your twin meteorite-steelscimitars so hard and fast that they hum, would you be scared of much?She has a couple of deep existential fears, but predominately she is terrifiedof losing Ophelnwol and Mizzimet, the two Eshgal clerics that she brought withher when she joined the Hunt… and the last two living members of the Elvenrace on Kith. They are the only things keeping her from failing in her DivineTask, and they were her most faithful servants so she does truly love them. Oneof her worst fears has already been realized during her time on the Hunt,actually; on Greenbrier, she had a hand in the instantaneous extinction of theLapinine, Rumenthlay Redbud’s species, when Ethem-Cailo landed the killing blowon their creator goddess Halarenu. Being involved in a genocide on that level,accidental or not, really fucked her up and was the first event that put her onthe path to defecting.

Additionally,she has a… complicated relationship with Ethem-Cailo that I will go over inmore detail later. Suffice to say, her fear of him doesn’t manifest the sameway people typically manifest fear, but deep in her heart she is truly scaredof him.

What TheyWould Be Famous For:Celair was the patron deity of the Kith-Esh, the elven races of her home plane– she was the sole deity assigned to the three elven lineages: the Wood, High,and Dark Eshgal. And boy howdy, did they all love the shit out of their patrongoddess. Her surname translates to ‘Beloved of the Elves’, and every single elfin Kith had a shrine to Celair. Her usual appearance belies the Wel-Esh, theWood Elves, but she was capable of appearing as Stal-Esh (High Elf) orCimer-Esh (Dark Elf) – the three different lineages of elves got on like catsin a bag but they all had one thing in common, and that’s how much they lovedtheir mom Celair.

When Celairjoined the hunt, she got very famous for being very savage in her fights. Someof the most popular and well-rated fights of the last 2,500-hunt block havebeen Celair’s fights and she’s only been with the Hunt for 247 hunts. Herextreme temper, merciless combat pragmatism, and raw brutality won her quite afew fans amongst the members of the Wild Hunt and the viewing public back homeon Threnghelleon.

What TheyWould Get Arrested For: Any of the ones about hitting.

OC You ShipThem With:Because of the afore-and-hereafter-mentioned issues Celair has withEthem-Cailo, we decided very early on that we were going to Definitely For Sureavoid pairing her with Wybjorn. And then, god damn it, they had reallyspectacular chemistry. Weirdly, they bonded over Ethem-Cailo’s tendency to sendhis ‘Effigy’ (Wybjorn before he was rescued) to serenade Celair or give her hisshitty poems when he couldn’t be effed to do it himself, and their earliestpersonal interactions were commiserating about what a dogshit guy EC was. Soright now that’s kind of the leading ship; aside from him, I think Celair wouldbe good with Amaryllis (who already has a girlfriend tho and also is currentlydead), and probably Wynrael of Wild Magic (Whitty’s mom). Sadly, I don’t thinkshe has even the faintest trickle of interest in August; just because he’s notone of ‘her’ elves doesn’t mean he’s not one of her elves, if that makes sense,and she just sees him as one of her children so to speak. I bet she findsHoratio very strikingly handsome, but I don’t think they’d have very goodchemistry.

The bigproblem with shipping her with other people is that Celair looks really young.This is a problem I was cognizant of when I made her, and something I knew Iwas going to have to finagle; Eshgal are just a very young-looking race,because that’s the way ‘long lived’ works for them – they look like they’re18-24 until they’re 500, and then they are suddenly weird toad-people like someshit outta Rankin & Bass. There is a race of ‘half-elves’ on Kith that havea stable breeding population, so two half-elves will pop out a half-elf, butinter-species romances rarely happen between the Esh and the other races ofKith, and contributed to the infantilized/servile role into which Celair andher elves were forced by the other divines and races of the plane. Celair canmake herself look a little older, but the magic that binds her to her patrondomain is engineered such that she will always look like a youthful elf, and soshe is kind of stuck looking like a trendy college sophomore forever.

And… well, that’swhy Ethem-Cailo was attracted to her. He is also stuck looking anywhere between14 and 19, and when Celair came along he saw it as his chance to finally havesomething with someone that wasn’t by its nature time-gated for failure. But heblew it harder than a Satchmo solo!

OC MostLikely To Murder Them: Ethem/Jovix-Cailo. There’s a lot of bad blood there, and he doestechnically owe her one because once she stabbed him. He really, reallydeserved it, but he could never admit that. It was really more of a warningstab anyway.

FavoriteMovie/Book Genre:You may be unsurprised to learn that the fae-natured elven patron is fond ofcomedies, specifically slapstick and anything where people are making absolutefools of one another. She loves the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, andCharlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton silent film stuff. She’d probably be really biginto Chris Farley, too. Basically if it features mortals making idiots ofthemselves, it will appeal to her fickle, fae proclivities. She doesn’t muchlaugh out loud anymore, but it makes her smile.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Nice Guys. Karma Houdinis.Fridged and otherwise injured-for-men’s-sake women. Elves as stuck-up,impenetrably nebulous and enigmatic embodiments of the White Ideal. Or,conversely, Elves as the long-suffering punching bags of the rest of the worldand used as thinly-veiled stand-ins for other minority groups (lookin’ at youBIOWARE). Really if you’re going to show her a media property, steer clear ofanything containing ‘traditional’ elves or she’ll just get pissed.

Talentsand/or Powers:Celair’s powers are fairly intuitive and don’t require a ton of explanation,thank god, so this will be fairly quick. First and foremost, without any of themagic or her divine physical abilities, Celair is a master swordfighter. Sheinvented the Eshgal art of the Scimitar Dance, a technique that makes use of anintricate and high-speed set of graceful dance-like steps to capitalize on themomentum of an enemy and the weight of her swords. It excels in combat againstany enemy in melee range by virtue of the footwork, the twirl of the blades,and the incredible weight of the blows.

Her speed isextremely remarkable, on par with the Witherwound’s, and she is physicallystrong enough to chuck cars one-handed. She has incredible endurance andstamina, a remarkable tolerance for pain, and can fly thanks to thedragonfly-like wings that she can hide and reveal at will. Magically speaking,Celair is a master-tier illusionist and has a very wide array of illusions,curses, and debuffs. Celair also has dominion over silvers and other preciousmetals of the earth, so she can generate and control silver in its raw, ore, orprocessed form with ease and in great quantities. Her ‘signature’ spell is calledSilver Darts of Esh, which summons a hailstorm of silver throwing darts.Celair’s huge swords, Gladhaedrel and Caedwhelnor, hum with the speed at whichthey pass through the air when Celair’s dance is in full step, and at herfastest and angriest she has been known to hit people with her swords so hardthat they aren’t cut by the swords so much as burst open or apart by them.

Now take allof that and bring it up by about 500%, and fuse her swords to her hands likemantis arms. That’s the Wrathful Wail, and while she inhabits this form shealso sings the Eshgalmuldrath, the titular ‘wrathful wail’, a horrible andunfathomable noise that is not only loud enough to be heard for miles aroundbut also summons a scouring gale of wind full of silver dust.

Why SomeoneMight Love Them:At her best, Celair is proud, clever, and graceful; she has a coy and teasingsense of humor, enjoys revelry, and in true elven form will absolutely get youmega-sloshed if you want to party with her. When she’s relaxed she is willingto try almost anything once, and is very encouraging of people trying to facefears or looking for new experiences. She’s fiercely protective of her friends,and will keep her eye on them at all times. She’s not really a ‘mom friend’,but she looks out for people on principle and is extraordinarily loyal. She’snot really all that stuck-up about her divine origins or her age, and treatseveryone she meets as equals until she’s given a reason not to. She’ll stand upto anybody, for anybody. Although she can be a little stubborn, she is open tointrospection and will admit when she’s wrong, and she will earnestly try tochange her behavior when called out.

Why SomeoneMight Hate Them:At her worst, Celair is bitter, violent, and has a hair-trigger temper. AndCelair has been at her worst for a really long time. Trauma has made her anempty, angry person with a grudge and a few hundred thousand years of repressedrage to work out, preferably via Stabbing. She has also learned nothing fromher treatment on Kith, and will bottle up her emotions until they pop. She isvery aware of her own power and will belittle or outright threaten people whorub her the wrong way. She’s stubborn, biting, and has a bit of a problem withauthority. And just like in physical combat, Celair is a pragmatist inarguments. She’ll go for the low blow if it gets her the ‘W’. When she getsreally stupendously angry she snaps a little bit and has been known to go ontirades about how pathetic and tiny other beings are to her – she’s severalmillion years old and has sneezed more times than you have cells, how Dare youyadda yadda yadda. God, her temper is so bad. It’s always been Not Great butsince she uncorked it all for the Hunt it has just been the fucking worst.

How TheyChange: IfDrell’s change graph was a steep valley, Celair’s is the heart monitor of aperson in the middle of a heart attack. Celairwas originally a very good person, all said and done. She was the light of herpatron race’s existence and did a lot of good for Kith. Ostensibly, she savedKith with the sheer ferocity of her resistance. And the thought of beingupstaged by the girl who hung up the visitor’s coats galled her fellow Divinesso much that they and the mortals went on a campaign to exterminate every lastelf. And then Derog killed them all again for committing what he saw as a‘party foul’, leaving Celair the last Divine on Kith. So Much happened in sucha minuscule time frame that Celair had no way of processing it. She couldn’tbottle it up. So she didn’t. She joined the Hunt with her favorite clerics, thefinal two Esh anywhere in existence, and their unborn child. And she tried toKill the anger away.

Celair never really tried to fit into the Hunt’s ranks, only makingfriends with Gol Gringorn because she was at their bar so often and getting toknow August because he was an elf. Otherwise she spent her time awkwardlydancing around Ethem-Cailo’s awkward attempts to catch her interest and tryingto drink herself into a hole in the ground. Ethem-Cailo eventually wore Celairdown and she decided to try and help him become a better person – and for awhile, it seemed to be working. But after the Wild Hunt’s first visit to TheRoad and a nasty encounter with one of the Road’s native gods, Celair was basicallytold off for being a huge bitch and given a portent: one day she would putanother world through the genocide that ruined her life. She was justperpetuating the cycle. And she couldn’t shake that off. When Greenbrierhappened, Celair just kinda… gave up. Ethem-Cailo’s complete lack of remorsefor obliterating an entire race and admission that he was kind of just doingthat nice-guy thing where he fed her Niceness Coins in an attempt to make sexfall out pushed Celair to drop him like a bag of bricks.

Ethem-Cailo’s attempts to woo her began to creep into unsavoryterritory, and eventually reached a point at which he repeatedly andshamelessly violated her wishes, her trust, and the boundaries she set for him.He was truly despicable to her near the end, after he crossed his moral eventhorizon, and since he was kind of in the Big Shoots Club, nobody did anythingabout it. Like I said, she even had to stab him, once, in self-defense. Henever raped her, but it got bad. By the time the present game rolled around,Celair was kind of hollowed out – too proud to just let any old fucker killher, but actively fighting with a deathwish. The home team reached out to herand offered her the chance to defect, giving her a timetable and a choice tomake. When she decided to make her move and defect, she did so too early out ofsheer panic and an oncoming mental breakdown… and the hasty exit causedMizzimet and Ophelnwol to lose the baby.

Right now, Celair is a little… inaccessible. She’s been through alot of crap, and hasn’t worked through any of it – staving off having apersonal reckoning in favor of drowning her pain and sorrow in the blood ofwhatever hapless bastards the Hunt puts in front of her. Now that she’sdefected, she’s buried under almost two and a half centuries of repression andendless bloodshed, and she doesn’t know who she is anymore. She wants to findher way back to the person that she was… but that person hasn’t reallyexisted for thousands of years even before the Hunt. Being forced to live inCustomer Service Mode against her wishes because the other members of herpantheon were too fucking lazy to figure out a better way took its toll on herlong before the Wild Hunt arrived. For the first time in a really really longtime she’s free to be whoever she wants to be… and that’s pretty heavy. Shehas a lot of trauma to unpack. I’m interested to see where she goes from here.

Why YouLove Them: She’sabout a billion tons of badass crammed into a 90-pound frame. I love Celairbecause she is so god damn defiant and so uncompromisingly competent and youwould have no idea from looking at her. I kinda love the concept of her; thistiny-looking fae elf with dragonfly wings and a dress made out of magic leaves,big ol’ doe eyes and soft wavy hair, but then you make the mistake of judgingher by appearance and she starts screaming at you and oh! Turns out she has amouth full of sharp teeth and she smokes and drinks and Stabs As A Warning.When she went to fight Dreamer, the despicable bastard responsible forsabotaging her escape pod and causing the accident that killed the baby, sheshowed up to the launch pad in full SWAT tactical gear with a shotgun, twopistols, and a grenade bandolier, ready to rock, and I love that image so much.I’m excited to work her through who she is now, because it’s a personcompletely different from who she was before, and a lot of it is going to beshaped by the way she interacts with the rest of the cast.