#Peeress and the price spoilers

[fakeshibe]

i got one of the dishonored comics today, The Peeress and the Price (still waiting for the art book to ship), and it was a really cool short comic run!! i’ve got a couple of mixed feelings on certain parts of it though :/

So, spoilers mini-essay with absolutely no spell checking or proofreading to explain my thoughts and critiques :D

— Spoilers for Dishonored: the Peeress and the Price —

the art was incredible, loved it, such a sick style the really harsh lighting had such a sick effect. really cool use of colours too. For some reason on the version i got Emily’s headshot on the cover was like, super low resolution and visibly png compressed? there were a couple of page spreads of D2 location art on the inside too which were slightly compressed looking with a weird sharpness, no idea what’s going on there lol. it was an official print so, i guess maybe it didn’t get proofed properly before it went to print or there was a tight deadline? the actual comic art looks incredible, it’s just the cover and the art spreads, which makes sense cause they’re pieces i’ve seen other places being re-used for this. bit odd though.

It started out super great, diving straight into Emily being confronted with the demand for democracy from a group of Dunwall citizens, and I love that!! it’s a genuinely good question for Emily to be asked, if she’s always looking to do the best thing for Dunwall, would that include abolishing the monarchy? but then the rest of the comic just feels too short to properly explore that and it concludes in such an unsatisfying way. It feels like it was maybe meant to be a 3 issue thing treat had to be shortened to 2? or maybe it was always 2 issues, and really should’ve been 2. idk.

The action is really great, I really love it!! it’s so cool to see how Corvo and Emily fight side by side, and to get it clarified that Corvo’s mark doesn’t get returned post-Delilah in D2. And the antagonist, Price? the way she’s drawn and framed is so cool and I love it, she’s allowed to be so brutal and i love that. but does she really have a motivation? Unless i missed a panel i couldn’t really tell one other than she just wants to watch the world burn. She kinda fits the description of characters from Morely, so in my mind i’m assuming she’s for the fall of Dunwall and the empire because of how Morely has been constantly revolting against the empire in the background of the games, because that actually is a really cool motivation that brings the wider empire into the story and furthered the question of how much good Emily’s position as empress does when balanced against the damage inherent of it being an empire.

But yeah, the ‘im into chaos because, fuckin idk it’s fun to watch the world burn’ methodology of Price kinda doesn’t work for me. I know Price explains her motivation in more detail while she’s attempting to convince Wainwright to use his position to turn peaceful protest into a violent rebellion, but it still just doesn’t convince me without the mention of Morely or a wider motivation.

Also, the part about the ending being unsatisfying? Emily kills like 10 of the rat gang henchmen without a second though, not in self defence either, she usually starts it. So her sparing the leader of the gang and telling the public ‘it’s not my position to decide who lives or dies’… actual what the fuck are you on about 😭😭 since when?? unless that’s meant to be her separating Empress Emily and assassin Emily, and declaring that publicly she’ll limit her powers, but behind the scenes she’ll still control Dunwall??

Also the people were like having a revolution 10 mins ago, but now that Emily has spared one person from capital punishment they’re all royalists again? idk, i loved the art in the comic and the characters but i think some of the writing just wasn’t for me lol

I’ve still to read the actual books and ik they’re a lot longer than a 36 page comic, so i’m hoping they delve into things a bit deeper.

All in all, I think by nature a short run comic is gonna struggle to go very in depth on any topic, i think it did it pretty well for the format and i’d have loved to see the authors and artists given a longer run to explore the ideas they had further :) I think it’s a nice little follow up to show how things work in Dunwall post-D2, and how Emily and Corvo work together and everything. It’s nice to see that there’s been a thought for the continuation of the series and more spin-off media, even if i have critiques of it i’ll always be glad for more Dishonored related media lmao

[wehavekookies]

I don’t really have much to say about The Peeress and the Price, but i have to say something.

[booksandwords]

Dishonored: Peeress and the Price Vol. 1 by Michael Moreci. Illustrated by Andrea Olimpieri & Mattia Iacono.

Read time: <1 Day Rating: 3.5/5

The quote: ”This will not be an easy life. You will always be faced with challengers who think they can rule better than you""Or worse, you'll have to deal with people who simply want to burn the empire to the ground for no reason other than to watch the flames.""You'll always be looking over your shoulder, Emily. You'll always have enemies though I don't care to admit it.""But I know you can handle it, no one is better prepared then you are.""No One.” — Corvo Attano

Enter the strong and fierce Empress Emily.

As with the previous volume you can read this without playing Dishonored it just doesn't make as much sense. Given we now have Empress Emily it is set after Dishonored 2. Emily's dealing with an uprising against her monarchy. I love watching Emily show the skills impressed on her by both her mother and her father.

This comic has some wonderful lighting it moves between yellows and blues. There is brilliant shadowing. And the effort put into the colouring of the clothes in well appreciated. Could it have been better, probably but it was capitalising on popularity at the time. It mostly avoids game spoilers from what I can tell, that to me is important.

Also I want to share a video from Outside Xbox, they are playing Dishonored 2. It features the immortal quote "you couldn't let, it alone and now you're on fire."

[verdanteffigy]

A collection of witchcraft in the series 4/4

Under the read more is everything supernatural and witchy that I could find in the comics and books. Contains spoilers for The Wyrmwood Deceit, The Corroded Man, The Return of Daud, The Peeress and the Price, and The Veiled Terror. Collections 1-3 are everything supernatural and witchy that I could find in Dishonored 1/DLC, Dishonored 2, and Death of the Outsider.

The Wyrmwood Deceit

“It’s a curse on us Void-touched. Cruelty runs through us like a warp through a plank of wood.”

- Esmeralda Duggins

Esmeralda Duggins claims that “Void-touched” can do a lot with just a name of their victim once it’s been offered to them.

Esmeralda Duggins can seemingly divine information through touch of a relevant object with the help of spirits.

“I let her touch the mark on the piece of canvas. She mutters forbidden words and names as her finger traces the shape of it. One of the names I’ve heard before. As a child in Serkonos, I remember some poor soul screeching to it for mercy as an Abbey mob stoned him to death for witchcraft.”

- Martha Cottings

Broken Tom, a man that has bone charms embedded in his flesh and in a suit he wears, uses an arcane eyepiece that can detect where Corvo will blink to.

Delilah and her coven can conjure living creatures by painting them, can alter existing people by painting them in their likeness, and can peer into the memories of others.

“A boy - a nephew - concocted out of dreams and paint and made real by Delilah’s witchcraft and an aging man’s yearnings for his long lost sister. Delilah’s craft has grown that she’s able to make such a thing.”

- A witch

The Corroded Man

Everyone who comes into contact with the Twin-Bladed Knife has received a vision of the Great Burning.

The Twin-Bladed Knife somehow teaches Zhukov how to create corroded bone charms. These charms, like magic granted by the Mark of the Outsider, produce abilities that reflect the user’s personality, desires, experiences, and surroundings. These charms come at the cost of corroding both the charm and the user over time, eventually depleting the charm and making the user weak and physically ill. Corroded bone charms granted Zhukov an ability to transverse through reflective surfaces, an ability that produces a disorienting and nauseating aura that he can increase in intensity and cause other people to have visions, and an ability like telekinesis (he displays this when manipulating the Black Mirror shards). Corroded bone charms granted the new Whalers a normal blink transversal. The abilities these charms provide are unaffected by the Overseers’ ancient music.

Deep Watchers are unusually large whales that are described by Zhukov as “A creature of myth and legend, leviathan of the boundless depths. A creature of power. And a creature of magic.”, “-an abyssal leviathan, a so-called deep watcher. They live far away from the world of man, in the farthest, darkest places of the world. There they weave their own kind of magic, channeling a power that comes from within their very bones, the current flowing through them like a living battery.”

Zhukov and Galia used a transposition ritual once owned by Delilah to transpose themselves and a Deep Watcher whale’s jawbone from the Boyle vault back to their base of operations. This ritual’s ingredients were four fat, short, and orange beeswax candles, white chalk to inscribe geometric shapes that overlapped or connected by arcs and tangents, a “witchcharm” (the skull of a Brigmore witch) and corroded bone charms as sources of fuel. The chalk lines somehow repelled nearby blood.

A whale oil vat of “red-orange liquid”, the Twin-bladed Knife, the Deep Watcher’s jawbone, and presumably the sacrifice of Galia were the ingredients that crafted the Black Mirror. An artifact that allowed the sight of all potential pasts, presents, and futures.

“Unfortunately, a sacrifice was necessary. That artifact was from another time and place, a world that existed before this one, tethering me to it. I needed to unlock its power and pull on that tether, bringing that world closer to this one.”

- Zhukov

From within the Black Mirror shard and after it was pulled out, the knife was golden. Reaching inside the mirror and grabbing the knife healed Emily’s hand.

“Sometimes when I sleep, I dream, and in those dreams I am many things. I am an adventurer, a traveler. I am a hero and I am a tyrant, a beggar on the street, the ruler of the world. And sometimes in those dreams I see a light, bright and shining, red and golden white, the light of a fire that burned so very long ago, when one world ended and another began. And when I wake the dream is gone but the feeling remains, the echo of a song ringing in my ears, the warmth of a winter hearth and the shine of light on a distant unknown horizon.”

- The Ashen Veil

The Return of Daud

Maximilian Norcross possesses an arcane eyepiece that allows him to detect magic. He uses it to determine if runes and bone charms are real. But he discovers that he can also see the Mark through Daud’s glove with it.

“The witch toppled to the ground, dead. Burning lines began to run along her skin, blackening her clothing-- the remains of some occult tattoo that Daud did not quite understand, though he’d seen other sorcerers employ similar tricks.”

“Thick, viscous black liquid poured out of the wound. Again, lines of fire streaked along her back and shoulders as the strange marks burned away.”

The Twin-bladed Knife is said to no longer have the power of Void Strike.

Daud became terminally ill when he touched the Twin-Bladed Knife. The veins in his hand and arm turned black, he became tired, nauseous, and he found it harder to breathe.

“When I came back the first time, it crystallized this moment, making it part of history. Now, no matter what I do, no matter how many times I try, I can’t change it.”

- Billie Lurk

“- as Daud drew on the rune’s power, the artifact grew hotter and hotter, the glow from within the whalebone soon a blinding light. He fell to his knees, screaming in rage. It was a terrible roar from the very depths of his being. He felt the pain from the Outsider’s Mark flood over him like boiling oil, until he felt like he was enveloped in a cloak of fire. The rune in his hand exploded. The shockwave shattered the glass cabinets and knocked Daud back to the floor. The tower room was filled with exploding glass; Daud rolled onto his front, shielding himself as the debris rained down. His eyes were screwed shut, but he could see a blue light, so bright it was blinding, and all he could hear was the guttural roar of his own voice as he screamed and screamed again until his throat felt shredded. What had gone wrong? Had he forgotten how to use runes? Or had it been too long--had something changed as he had aged? Or had he simply lost control? Rather than channeling the power of the rune into himself, perhaps he had reversed the process, diminishing his own power and overloading the artifact?”

"It is nothing more than a story, but then, so much of what we know of the powers of those who proclaim knowledge of witchcraft comes from such stories, sometimes no more than whispers and rumors. That we must rely on such unreliable sources of information is unfortunate, but learn what we can, when we can. It is claimed that those touched by the Void employ servants, under some form of mesmeric influence, living for the singular purpose of serving their terrible mistress or master. Further, it is said by those who have born witness that the connection between sorcerer and servant is comparable to familial love, although to say this perverts the very concepts of family or community.”

- On the Witch's Most Devoted Servant

Challis, a man implied to be spellbound by one of Delilah's witches, formed long-distance communication with a magical device that violently drew power from his mind.

Lucinda and Caitlin instantly grew their nails into claws to kill Challis.

Lucinda trapped Daud in his own mind with a mesmerizing spell, an Oraculum lens, and the sacrifice of Challis.

The Peeress and the Price

“I learned how to turn your power against you. There were some very old notes at the Academy of Natural Philosophy. And a dying scholar there made something for me in his last days. Reversing the Void energies of bone charms. What would a bone charm that’s had its energy reversed do?”

- Luella Price

Pink bone charms introduced in this comic have magic nullifying abilities like the Overseers’ ancient music.

The Veiled Terror

Billie is no longer able to use Displace and Foresight. She can’t summon the Twin-bladed Knife until much later in the book without a horrible pain and going unconscious. There is no mention of Semblance or Rat Whispers.

Billie’s Black Shard Arm creates frost on surfaces she touches.

The Sliver of the Eye can now only detect magic.

After the “fall” of the Outsider, everyone across the empire began to have nightmares every night.

Months after the removal of the Outsider, Void rifts began to appear. Void rifts slowly “shear” the world. Inside the Void rifts are parallel worlds called the Void Hollows, places of any timeline. The first Void Hollow Billie travels to is one in which construction for the Leviathan Causeway is complete, whereas in the real physical world, it was still in its early stages. Inside the Void Hollows, with specially made runes, one can teleport to any location within it. And one can enter and exit a Void Hollow with these altered runes.

The removal of the Outsider is what caused the Void to become unmoored from the physical world, slowly departing. But it wasn’t until months later when Emily dissolved the Abbey that they began to appear. Billie speculates that the Abbey was performing a ritual to the hold the Void in place.

After the removal of the Outsider, the Overseers generally “fought amongst each other in the street, became rabid, insensible, and highly dangerous.”

Hayward Woodrow, a former Overseer, stabbed himself with a Voidrite knife and carved lines into his flesh. He became entranced while his face began to twitch and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He chanted “Yram da haal, yram da haelt, tilb mal, yram, yram” and “Eco, lazar, lapolay, yram. Eco, lazar, lapolay, yram.” By doing this, his target victim fell paralyzed, began to convulse, and foam at the mouth. This also caused a repelling area of effect that Billie struggled to get through while shelves began to shake violently and glass broke nearby.

"The Outsider has fallen and has taken his magic with him. Oh there are other magics, certainly -- oh yes, I saw the fuss that young Overseer made at the apothecary's-- but as one divinity falls, so others compete to take its place. With the Outsider gone, those who carry his mark are no longer linked to him, and they have no power."

- Professor Dribner

The drug that Billie uses, “Green Lady”, somehow weakens her connection to the Void.

“I must insist that you give up your Fool’s Fancy(Green Lady). It may be painful, but you need to let the parts of you  that are part of the Void be drawn fully to it. That herb dulls not only your senses, but also your tether to the Void. If you are to be of any use, you must clear your mind entirely. Only then will the full potential of your connection be useful to us.”

- Professor Dribner

Billie is described as being more linked to the Void than any of the Marked were.

Bone charms are used in protective clothing to ward off the corruption of the Void while near Voidrite.

"But strangest of all was the bone charm set into the base of each mask, directly below the porthole. Smaller than the circular runes Billie knew the guards had on their belts, the bone charms were irregular pieces of magical scrimshaw, held into a circular cutout in the metal of the masks by two crisscrossed straps. Each of the four guards had a different charm in place."

Voidrite, the black stone we see in the Void, releases an anti-gravity gas when combusted.

Like the Eyeless and the Envisioned, people near the Voidrite began to physically and mentally change. Unlike the Eyeless, everyone who came into contact with the Voidrite over extended periods of time became near-mindless. These people eventually became creatures like the Envisioned, but their bodies were different and were used as miners to mine Voidrite with their claws.

Queen Eithne knew about Billie’s past, including things not even Billie knew (the names of her parents), by traveling through Void rifts.

Billie is outside of time and can control Void rifts.

The Outsider’s Altar is described as being one of the two most powerful artifacts in existence, the second being the Twin-Bladed Knife. By placing oneself on the altar, one can project themself as a “Void Shadow” entity. As a Void Shadow, one can open and close Void rifts at will and have abilities that allow one to shapeshift the body to focus strength or length of a specific body part (like lengthening claws), an ability to generate smoke that burns the eyes and nose of those nearby, an ability to become a whirlwind that can kill multiple people instantly, and the ability to crawl on walls and ceilings.

“She wants the Sliver and the arm. Partly, yes. But combined with the artifact she already has, she’ll have full mastery of the rifts. She’ll be able to travel through them corporeally, and the changes she makes to time will crystallize, become fixed points on which the world pivots.”

- Billie Lurk

“The only thing stopping you from summoning the blade is your own fear. You think you’re different, that your powers have changed, and the Knife knows that.”

- Billie Lurk

By placing King Briam on the altar next to Queen Eithne and slashing open their chests with the Twin-bladed knife, the Void Shadow engulfed the altar, the bodies, and the Knife to become more of a “metallic collection of geometric shapes”. In this form, the Void Shadow fed on Voidrite to become even more powerful.