#Wicked Saints

[trufflesandbedlam]

I do a couple of sales a year, right? But nothing that goes this hard. It's time, folks. Our Black Friday Sale is live at www.trufflesandbedlam.com and despite the Canada Post strike, we're not taking prisoners.

We're using ChitChats to ship to the US, Canada, and internationally for the season. I dropped off a bunch of packages this morning, and will continue to do so until the holiday shopping season's over.

I've also got a ton of new stuff in the shop for the upcoming craft fairs, with plenty of stock for anyone who wants something cute and special -- fandom and creepy cute original too.

If you have stockings to stuff, this is your opportunity.

We're cooking hot and fully stocked for the following fandoms:

Star Wars

Star Wars - The Clone Wars

Star Wars - Legends/EU

Star Wars - The Bad Batch

The Locked Tomb

Arcane/League of Legends

Our Flag Means Death

Good Omens

The Sandman

ACOTAR/ACOMAF/ACOWAR

Throne of Glass

Frankenstein

Dracula

Crescent City

Haunting Adeline

Bridgerton

Wednesday/Addams Family

Nightmare Before Christmas

Sailor Moon

Animal Crossing

KOTOR

Dresden Files

Dungeons & Dragons

She-Ra

Lumberjanes

Nimona

Legends & Lattes

What We Do in the Shadows

Stranger Things

Outlander

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Wicked Saints (Retiring)

Indiana Jones

Fangirl

...and more.

If you're looking for our secret stash (IYKYK/it is not currently live but we still have stock) please shoot us a DM, and we'll get things sorted out for you to... obtain. ;)

—

Truffles & Bedlam Website | BlueSky | Facebook | Tumblr | Instagram

[hell-hirsch]

[darklinaforever]

Has anyone ever read Something Dark and Holy, by Emily A Duncan ? Because the Russian context and the Nadya and Malachiasz story intrigue me...

[thetinyspinosaurus]

Nadya, girl, I need you to stop thinking with your pussy and to start thinking with your brain because this is NOT working.

[booklover-s]

Ok, about blessed monsters: I'm almost finished and it's my favorite book in the trilogy, Nadya, Malachiasz and Serefin are impeccable from start to finish, how I love them!

[3-opossumsinacoat]

[between-the-pages657]

I forgot Serefin and Kacper have like a thing.

[thesinlesssinner]

My favorite character in the Wicked Saints series I’ve become obsessed with, his name is Malachiaz. Everyone NEEDS to read those books.

[blasphemousclaw]

Thoughts on the Curseblades?

the Curseblades are interesting because they’re related to a concept that seems very unique to hornsent culture… tutelary deities:

“Curseblades appear to dance when they spin their shimmering circular blades. These ascetics, who failed to become tutelary deities, were a scourge for those who attempted to invade the hornsent homeland.” (Curseblade Meera)

“Attire of the tower's ascetics, embodying their commitment to an austere existence of strict self-control. In order to ascend from their mortal flesh into tutelary deities of the land, they heighten their spirituality through severe ascetic training.” (Ascetic’s Loincloth)

“Weapon of the masked Curseblades. Circular backhand blade with wave-like cutting edges, sharpened into points that incite blood loss. Long ago, this was employed by the ascetics who strove to become tutelary deities as a ritualistic object in their self-flagellating dances.” (Curseblade’s Cirque)

The Curseblades are essentially a religious sect who live as ascetics in order to ascend as tutelary deities, which are in fact the hornsent corpses holding the Revered Spirit Ash that you find all across the lands of the tower:

“Spirit ash of those who came before, infused with potent spirituality. Acquired from the corpses of hornsent and other objects that ritually decorate townships and villages across the realm of shadow. Consume these at sites of grace to bolster your Revered Spirit Ash Blessing. The Revered Spirit Ash Blessing bolsters both summoned spirits' and spectral steed's abilities to deal and negate damage but has no influence outside the realm of shadow. The withered corpses were called tutelary deities, and Revered Spirit Ash was said to quietly accumulate in the palms of their hands.” (Revered Spirit Ash)

The word “tutelary” means “serving as a protector, guardian, or patron,” so the purpose of these tutelary deities were probably something like spiritual guardians or guides for the townships and villages they’re placed in… we use the Revered Spirit Ash to improve our spirit summons and spirit steed, implying that collecting the ash makes us more hashtag blessed, so I think it’s a fair assumption that the purpose of tutelary deities was to guard and guide others spiritually, help deepen spiritual connection, etc.

The most interesting thing about tutelary deities though is that they were mortal beings who ascended their mortal flesh to become “deities!” The Curseblades were people with incredible abilities due to their severe ascetic training, but presumably started out as regular hornsent, and yet it seems like a sort of godhood was within their reach! A similar sort of thing is described with Divine Bird Warrior Ornis:

“Ashen remains in which spirits yet dwell. Use to summon the spirit of Ornis the divine bird warrior. Spirit of the divine bird warrior from whom the horned warriors claim descent. Clad in golden armor, and granted wings and feathers by divine invocation. Ornis succeeded in taming the divine bird and made its wings his own as he soared through the sky. When he finally fell to earth, he lived on as the guardian deity of the temple quarter.”

Ornis, a mortal warrior, “tamed the divine bird” and lived on as a “guardian deity.” This is pretty unprecedented from what we’re familiar with in the base game: in the current order of the Lands Between, only ONE person — who must be an empyrean chosen by the Two Fingers — is able to ascend to godhood. Divinity is not something just any mortal can ascend to, even with all the spiritual training in the world! It doesn’t seem like the hornsent even had an equivalent to Marika, a “one true god.” To the hornsent, the Divine seems like it was something less centralized, with mortals regularly communing with and invoking divinity, and ascending as minor deities. This kind of makes sense with the concept of the Crucible as a “current” of spiraling energy, a primordial force from which life originated, something all-encompassing rather than centralized. This video by Zullie the Witch even implies that ALL hornsent were once called “empyreans,” and are referred to as such in the game files! I wonder if Enir Ilim’s Divine Gate is what allows the hornsent as a whole to access this divine power and invoke divinity, and no one person was supposed to seize that power for themselves?

This isn’t to say that the hornsent elite didn’t try to control who gets to access divinity, though… it seems like the spiritual elite strictly controlled what kinds of spirituality were “allowed.” Of course, in hornsent society, only those with horns are the ones considered touched by the divine to begin with. But even amongst those with horns, the Curseblades themselves were shunned and imprisoned:

“These ascetics, who failed to become tutelary deities, were a scourge for those who attempted to invade the hornsent homeland. Long ago, before the land was overshadowed by invasion, this scourge was shunned, and the curseblades were imprisoned.” (Curseblade Meera)

I’m not sure if they were imprisoned specifically because they as a group failed to become tutelary deities, or if the Curseblade cult as a whole was seen as a dangerous or distasteful way of ascending to tutelary deities. We do know of another cult that the elite imprisoned out of fear, though:

“A stone mask twisted into an expression of rapturous grief. Use while disrobed to transform into a lamenter. The change cannot be undone except by death. Using this mask while already transformed causes the head to swell in size. This transformation tallies with the state of a denizen of paradise, but the people of the tower denied and hid it from the world. In their foolishness, they viewed true bliss with deep fear.” (Lamenter’s Mask)

The Lamenter’s path to enlightenment being achieved through grief is kind of similar to the Curseblades’ ritualistic “self-flagellating dances,” pain being a way of accessing spirituality. There’s definitely a pattern of the hornsent elite suppressing forms of spirituality that don’t fit the status quo, so I think this might be a reason for the Curseblades’ imprisonment rather than them just being imprisoned for being cringe and failing to become deities

[ruinme-please]

The holy guitarist (x)

[yaegeram]

"Forgive me Father, for I have killed tonight."

[obsessed-and-possessed]

For a split second I genuinely thought they’d make out CUZ IT WOULD’VE FITTED SO WELL but no they had to stare into each others eyes and sing to each other in the most heterosexual way possible😔🤚

[litnerdwrites]

Okay, but what are the odds that Anir, Alexi, and (now) Val have a club or support group where they meet up and groan about their respective Princes (Wrath, Envy and, Gluttony), being in love? Like they set up charcuterie boards, get glasses of wine (and blood), and just mindlessly bitch about how they make their jobs harder.

Think Val searching high and low for Gluttony, who avoids to get more 'quality time' with Adriana. Or Alexi waiting with a delegation that came to meet Envy, only Camilla had stoked his sin right before they arrived, and now they have to wait while he claims her on his throne. Loudly. Or Wrath pissing off his chefs because he kicks them out of the kitchen to cook with Emilia (amongst other things).

In Throne of the Fallen, Alexi had to convince Envy to go after Camilla, and I'm pretty sure Val finding out that Gluttony fell in love with Adriana is going to send her reeling (even though she's probably going to tell Gluttony not to be a baby about it and just talk to her). Anir probably had the same frustrations with Wrath, during the original trilogy, and before it, when Wrath fell in love with her for the first time.

They would also spilling the most piping hot tea in all of the underworld about what their princes are like behind closed doors, when they think no one is watching. I'm picturing them being shocked over the idea of Wrath cooking with Emilia at all, and giving her doe eyes while she treats his giant hellhounds like puppies (they totally like her more). Or Envy sitting down to paint with Camilla, and go on romantic picnics with Camilla.

Every time one of the princes gets engaged, they'd approach their burnt out second who seems ready to quit, and give them a time and place. If Emilia ever found out about it, she'd probably start her own club though, where the wives + best friends gather to discuss how difficult their princes were in the beginning (and maybe some side stories about how frustrating Emilia found Fauna and Anir until she finally asked him out).

[ab-art-07]

(WICKED BOOK SPOILERS!!! READ AT OWN RISK!)

"We'll sort this all out in a flash, and no one need know. The baby has a name?"

"Elphaba," he said.

"After Saint Aelphaba of the Waterfall?"

"Yes.”

________________

Elphaba's name in the book was based on a Saint, and considering later in life she was dubbed Sister Saint Aelphaba, I thought I would play into that. After the bullshit she's been through, she absolutely deserves sainthood.💚🩷💚🩷

Other versions below!

[sad-scarred-sassy]

I am sorry but can people stop saying feysand are these godly characters who can do no wrong? I think that is what makes me cringe about them. I LOVE wicked characters, but not if they pretend to be self righteous and fair when they’re not. I need them to be self aware at least.

The people who justify Nesta being trapped inside a floating house saying it was for her own good are the same people who HATE Tamlin for doing essentially the same thing to Feyre. This makes no sense to me.

[between-the-pages657]

The clues were there from the start!