#and then Eye of Slythor

[spiderin-space]

We are going to beat you to death

[thegodofkhaosinkarnate]

"Achlys the Slythor, his bite like no other, a lasting pain upon all enemies- but they say it is his tongue that stings the worst."

COTLtober Day Eleven: Poison Once again, I bring you one of the old gods. Did anyone ask for this? No. Am I going to keep doing it at every opportunity? Yes. Look at him, look at this bitey little man. It was so weird to me drawing a snake with arms, but canon says the snakes in this work have arms so I kind of had no choice but I think I did good!!! Look, his little kilt-skirt-thing has eye patterns! Fuck yeah, eye patterns!!!

[rainbowolfe]

Shamura's Warning

I'll put it shortly: The omen Shamura repeats is less a prediction of the future and more of an explanation (to their siblings) of something that's been in motion since before they acquired their crowns. The fate that can't be outrun lol.

Shamura is describing the (unfortunate) fate of four sets of godly beings. And it allllll comes back around to Purgatory.

When you layer the symbol for Purgatory over the magic circle found in the Bishop's boss rooms, they align like such. And if you add the Mystery Symbol into the mix the lines highlight which symbol belongs to which god.

Five points to a pentagram

When using relics like Shunrue's or Galvar's Charm, this circle of symbols appears. One of them is an upside-down star with the center erased—five points to a pentagram. These gods represent either five phases of the moon OR five phases of an eclipse. I lean towards eclipse because there's no gibbous phase represented.

I suspect these scarecrows are representing the previous rulers of (in order) Darkwood, Anchordeep, Anura, and Silk Cradle. Though they're the only gods left around these parts, there are many shown to not actually follow the Old Faith. I would think the creatures of these lands are fashioning their scarecrows in the image of who they believe to be the true/rightful leaders, much like how Lamb's followers build scarecrows in their image.

Five portents of doom

I cannot point to any particular gods for this one, but their positionings do line up with this sigil(Tail of Slythor, called FamiliarRune in the files). The symbol itself looks like a bullhead, so it could be referencing the statues found in Darkwood. Especially since that headless one is purple. There is a sixth statue with glowing intestine not shown here.

I don't believe the crowns come with a pre-assigned role. Meaning, the Red Crown isn't always the God of Death, the Purple Crown isn't always the God of War/Knowledge, and so on and so forth. That's just how things ended up based on who each sibling killed/usurped.

Alternatively, the original portents of doom are what the high-level, magical enemies are based off of.

Five siblings stood abreast

Here we have our siblings, represented by shields, all grouped together. I get that reasoning from the tarot cards: Shield of Faith, Ichor Lingered, and Mithridatism.

The shields themselves don't have symbols, but they're connected to the portent of doom they end up 'inheriting', and are also in alignment with a crown.

The symbol for Chaos is etched into Leshy's doorway. The symbol for Pestilence is the alchemical symbol for arsenic sulfide (but upsidedown), which was majorly used for crafting medicine. The symbol of Famine is the scales that accompany that horseman. The symbol for War is the nordic runes for Tyr and Gebo. Tyr is a god of war, and Gebo means gift--based on the Consecrated Oil tarot card, Shamura gave the gift of godhood. The X symbol is also a part of Shamura's cloak. The symbol for Death was chosen by process of elimination because I've not a clue what that's supposed to be.

Death and War could be swapped. A common interpretation of the Tyr-symbol is sacrifice (of the self) for the well-being of the whole (society).

Five gods

There may or may not be duplicates of each crown. To clarify; the Red Crown is two rounded spikes, yeah? That shape of crown may also come in green, blue, yellow, purple, or white. Because the crowns on this rug (also found in Smuggler's Sanctuary) are most definitely Red Crowns, but it could be depicting six crown users from different eras.

But this curse's iconography (Divine Blizzard) would imply the existence of a blue variant of the Red Crown. I'm including all the blast curses to show that, although the color of the eye changes from curse to curse, it doesn't use the crown icon.

Either way, I believe the 'five gods' in this situation are five Old Gods. I believe these beings to be the original owners (if not the creators of) the crowns. Maybe even the sources that power the crowns existence. So far we've been given the names Turua, Ithaqua, and the Revenant. There is also this skeleton in Spore Grotto, which is labeled as an Old God.

The graffiti on the rock hidden in ruins on the cult grounds and in pilgrim passage may be referring to Turua, but shrug.

One tomb

And the tomb? Well, that seems to be the Lands of the Old Faith. I guess something about this world just did not vibe with the higher-ups lmao. It's been physically separated from the rest of the land in it's own world; and it's been cosmically separated from the Great One's world. And seemingly, all others. At least, creatures of this world are not welcome in other worlds.

Probably for good reason, all things considered.

BONUS:

Although you defeat four Bishops and break four chains, there are actually five chains attached to his gateway. The largest one, all golden and ornate, is the last to break. There are also five symbols (and a slot for a sixth one which I find suspicious). Four portents of doom (now the four Bishops we know) and one point to the pentagram. The sun. The same sun (save for the X in the middle, presumably marking this god as gone) Lamb covers up with their flag when they take over Pilgrim's Passage.

[the-one-who-acts]

Operation-Undoing the damage- Part 2

TW: Medical stuff, details on injury, and gore, implied multiple deaths.

Previous

Next

Entry 2:

3 days later, our dear Leader has come back with more supplies, I have no doubt that these might be compatible, what only puts worry in my bones is just how stable these are, but I have just begun, Our leader has given me and my team a couple of notes as well as resources in case we end up with any sort of complication, all courtesy of Ratoo.

The second sample to be tested is The Eye of Slythor, this one already puts uncertainty in me since it’s poisonous, more specifically, its tears. To ensure the safety of our team, I made a quick potion that could act as an antidote, a mix of various flowers that grow out of a blessed Shamura skull, otherwise, we can always call upon our Lord.

 Leshy’s body doesn’t seem to be reactive to the poison, A member of my team that used to reside in the biome of the Darkwoods pointed out that Leshy’s summoned demons all had this attribute, one even spits poison, I think I shall explore later and gather a sample for a more powerful concoction.

The documents our Lord has gathered with any piece of information on Slythor, he used to roam around in Anura, but he did not rule over the land, instead, he would go there to seek potion ingredients and sell them, the only reason he became a being worth of inscriptions of a legend, was because he bared a crown, but it was not like the ones we have, Our Lord will look further, and speaking of look, Leshy has woken up for his eye exam.

Entry 3:

A pleasant evening to whoever is reading this, due to the circumstances that I shall get into in the next paragraph, I have taken over the role of lead healer, my name is Finayen, and my former boss has been imprisoned and his sentence is currently being decided, but in the meantime, Leshy will be in my capable hands, now, to address the situation.

My former superior documented the making of an antidote to make sure his team did not get poisoned, however, a side effect from it was that no one could swallow any food for days. Our leader was so confused by it, no sign of sickness was brought to his radar, however, Kallamar showed us what has happened, the flowers from the Shamura skull were indeed blessed, AS LONG AS THEY WERE ATTACHED TO THE SKULL, the moment they were taken from it, they became damned, unpure, deadly and not ideal for consumption, and we were left starving for days until our Leader managed to find a cure, sadly the operation will take longer to do, my team seems to be nowhere to be found, so I might now have to figure this out on my own, hopefully, the Eye of the fervent does its job once it arrives.

The eye of Slythor will be taken out, Leshy wished not to endanger the cult any further, we were pretty close but, I cannot deny his reasoning, it wouldn't be ethical of me as a healer to not put what my patients think into perspective, after all, it's their body that I will be operating on if they are feeling unsatisfied despite previous treatment, it is my duty to do better, I think Jullenryn lacked such a sense, he did not mention but rumors have been brought up that he was the reason his village came to ruin, and as the next in command, I shall do better.

[tobernaut]

Vampiric gauntlet or blunderbuss (though I'll settle for godly. Not picky about weapon type either.)

DIVINE GAURDIAN

Eye of Leshy, Eye of the Icegore, Eye of the Slythor, Eye of the Fervant, and Some amount of exorcists finger (I think I've gotten it 3x on my longest run). After all that is stacked, Shamura's skull.

Vosegus, Paean, and Hathor demons along with a deadly dish, stacked hearts, and possibly the golden fleece and we're good. I also stack damage bonuses from my disciples.

I've only achieved this build in its full glory once, but the results were truly godly.

My Favorite Cotl Build

I've recently discovered my favorite run build for Cult of the Lamb.

Bane sword

Strike of the crown

Blessed Clauneck's Hair (or whichever Clauneck's Hair tbh)

And kinda an optional, but Golden Fleece cause it's awesome. (Honestly, as long as it's not Fleece of the Fates, it's fine)

So yeah.

Anybody else have any favored builds?