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etruatcaelum · 1 year ago

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On Salem’s Religion.

Her practice is a highly syncretic form of Ruakhian polytheism (although it would also not be inaccurate to say that Ruakhian polytheism evolved from her practice).

The underlying cosmology imagines a tripartite cosmos: there are three primordial realms, one of water, one of fire, and one of earth, whose confluences give rise to the younger realms, Remnant among them. At the center—the soul of all things—is the place-that-is, which is also called the river or the forge.

(It is a key tenet of this belief system that there is only one soul, and it is fractal; some beings have smaller souls than others, but all are the same soul because they are self-similar parts of the soul, which is the place-that-is.)

The historical Ruakhian pantheon was arranged loosely into five houses: the gods of fire, of earth, of water, of the soul, and of the world. (Sometimes seven, with dark and light, but Salem does not hold to this view.) On top of this core, Salem has adopted many new gods over the centuries.

These are the major deities she worships:

Gods of the Soul.

These are not the rulers per se, but they’re the eldest of the gods and given special deference accordingly. As they dwell in the place-that-is, the gods of the soul are reached from within; offerings made to them are ritually consumed.

Lombe, the Artisan, is primarily a god of craft: spinning and weaving, pottery-making, wickerwork, metallurgy, musical instruments. Salem also regards her as a hearth-god.

Shrithe, the Walker, is a god of stillness and motion: he is associated with the winter and with way-finding. He is also the death-god of chief importance in the Ruakhian afterlife, as the dead rested with him and received his guidance before beginning the long ascent through the primordial realms back to the waking (living) world.

Kané, the Singer, is a god of secret knowledge, song, poetry, and the written word. Alone of the elder gods, it touches the waking world as the breath of life and wind that moves the stars; many of its rites pertain to augury and haruspicy.

Margh, the Sleeper, most enigmatic of the elders, is a god of magic, selfhood, memory, dreams, and emotion.

Gods of Water.

The realm of primordial water is called the Wending Sea. It is the lowest realm, flowing beneath the skin of the world—Salem locates her realm, the one formed by her semblance, in the Wending Sea. These gods receive libations of saltwater, blood, atrum, or dark wine, and all have associations with grimm.

Striga, the Witch of the Wilds, is a god of witchcraft and war, storms and wildfires, rot and rebirth. She is the herald of the moon-god and associated with bloodshed of all kinds, including childbirth. Salem has fully divorced her own worship from the historical identification of Striga as herself. But this is why her emblem is called the Sigillum Strigis.

Ictifex, the Night Wyrm, is a god of darkness and underground things: caverns and sinkholes and the like, but also worms and burrowing creatures. He is formed from the cast-off skin of the serpentine Shrithe, and his is the death of water. When the dead traverse the Wending Sea, Ictifex hunts for them, and if he finds them and bites them, they will return to the waking world as grimm.

There are eight minor gods of water; the eight most common grimm morphs of the Taiyin Steppe are named for them: Ursai the Bear, Matagot the Lion, Khorkhoi the Viper, Almasty the Ape, Tulpar the Wind-Horse, Corocotta the Hyena, and the winged dog Chamrosh.

Gods of Earth.

The realm of primordial earth is called the Garden of Thorns. Its position relative to the others is somewhat vague—historically, it was often placed below the Wending Sea, but Salem thinks of it as a sort of cosmic membrane: the skin of the world and the skin of the sky. Whether these gods receive libations or burnt offerings varies; the libations are mostly of wine or blood, the offerings mainly in the form of animal sacrifice.

Omadios, the Vulture, is a god of wild things and wild places, of the hunt, and of hunger. She is the wilderness; hers is the death of earth. If the dead rising from the Wending Sea are unmarked by Ictifex, she will call out to them, inviting them to join her revelries; should they choose to partake, they will return to the waking world as faunus. Ruakhian tradition held that your animal patron was the thing you ate in the Garden.

Shiqmá, the Shrike, is a god of herds and the slaughter—the domestic counterpart of Omadios, in a sense. She was sung into being by Kané, and shares its association with poetry and language.

Erlik, the Wolf, is a war-god and a god of wrath, vengeance, horsemanship, and destruction. He is a companion of Striga and the mountain-smith; earthquakes are the reverberations of his hammer, and volcanoes are his forge.

There are ten minor gods of earth: the Crow, the Sparrow, the Hawk, and the Pheasant; the Hare, the Ferret, the Horse, and the Fox; the Snake and the Spider.

Gods of Fire.

The realm of primordial fire is called the Wailing Sea. It is the uppermost realm, burning white and gold above the skin of the sky. These gods receive burnt offerings, primarily of herbs, flowers, or wood.

Mar, the Moon, is a god of truth, justice, atonement, oaths, and mourning. They are the creation or offspring or a dream of Margh, and theirs is the death of fire. When the dead climb up from the skin of the sky to travers the Wailing Sea, Mar sees them through the sundered gate—the maw of the broken moon—and, to those for whom they weep, they offer the secret of silver.

Caleb, the Sun-Holder, is a hearth-god and god of familial bonds and healing. The sun itself is a clay lantern shaped by Lombe, which holds the life-giving fire. Salem regards him as a god of plantings and the harvest as well—agriculture featured very little in Ruakhian culture, but she gardens.

Iskra, the Vermilion Witch, is a god of mirrors, firelight, aura, and falling stars. She is a companion of Striga, and something of a stricter counterpart to her: scorched earth to the wildfire, dust-conjured lightning to the thunderstorm.

There are twelve minor gods of fire, represented by the constellations of the ecliptic.

Gods of the World.

Remnant is the waking world, the land of the living, the place without. Most of its gods are small: spirits of a mountain or a river or a household, culture heroes, ancient grimm, tutelaries, and the like. The roster of Salem’s big gods hasn’t expanded very much—when she does adopt new deities as gods of water, earth, or fire, she more often approaches them as new aspects of her own gods—but she has, by now, literally thousands of small gods. Some of them are very small indeed. Those that follow are only the most important to her.

Samandar Khan was her son and the founder of Ruakh; he began to receive cult after his death. Salem doesn’t worship him exactly, but she keeps a shrine and practices his rituals as a way to, at least symbolically, keep him alive. She calls him Irem when she is feeling sentimental.

Sykites was the tutelary deity of Irem’s deme before their decimation and continued to be his patron and that of his family, Salem included.

Kultarinta the Bear is a culture hero of the Yslenic peoples of northwestern Sanus, a warrior variously attested as an ursine faunus or a shape-changing turnskin. (She was both: Salem taught her shapeshifting.) At the end of the Third Era, she killed Patricius Eternus, put the Circle, his fanatical cult, to the sword, and became the second summer maiden in the process. Worship of her as a bear-god persists into the modern day among the Yslena as well.

Valravne is the leviathan of the Evernight horde: an ancient nevermore as massive as the wyvern of Mountain Glenn. Grimm of such size are invariably hollowed out into living hives by their hordes, and they are to grimm hordes somewhat akin to what culture heroes are to people. All of them are very, very old. (Monstra, incidentally, was not a leviathan: Salem hauled the corpse of an actual dead whale out of the Tarth Sea, marinated it in an atrum reservoir for several months until the meat was all mostly grimmified, and then started sculpting. Monstra was a battleship.)

Vangtand, Knaggli, Náttfari, and Turibriga are four of the five tallest peaks in the world: Evernight perches on an escarpment between Náttfari and Knaggli, with Turibriga accessible through the pass to the north and Vangtand—the highest of all—piercing the sky beyond that. Salem’s horde nests in all four mountains and has excavated a vast labyrinth beneath (and pushing up into) these mountains; the peaks have become more or less equivalent to household gods—horde gods, as it were.

Balfyr is an important deity in the folk religion of the Vitrine Peninsula: a god of the ghastly ‘witchfire’ often seen at night in the marshes and bogs that dominate the region, traditionally held to be the lost souls of the newly-dead; Balfyr is a psychopomp who gathers these wandering spirits and guides them home. Salem has adopted them as a guardian of Alukah’s wetlands.

Tarth is the name of both the cold sea to the east of Alukah and the monstrous grimm that makes its home in the depths. Tarth is, by a wide margin, the biggest grimm in the the world: an eel-like behemoth massive enough to swallow an Atlesian dreadnought whole. Salem reveres her as a living manifestation of the sea and its dangers.

& On Belief and Realness.

Salem takes all of this very seriously. While she’s perfectly aware that little of it is accurate in the strict factual sense—and she’ll never shy away from factually discussing the Brother Gods and her ‘Elder Gods’ (which, being aspects of the Tree, do exist)—she feels it is all real in every way that matters.

Namely: she finds meaning and spiritual fulfillment in her beliefs, and her rituals work, and it feels true in some essential way that ancient worship of the God of Light (and Darkness, from a distance) didn’t. Ipso facto, it is true in some essential way that is deeper and more important than factual correctness.

Outside of contexts where factual accuracy is of crucial importance, i.e. recounting what the Brothers did and/or discussing Ozma’s mandate, she makes not the slightest distinction between gods who exist and gods who don’t. It does not matter to her.

She is going to start worshipping the spirits in the relics as soon as they’re freed and integrate the Ever After and the Tree into her cosmology, as parts of the Garden of Thorns, once she learns about them. None of this remotely fazes her; she merely slots new information or new gods wherever they fit best into her existing belief system.

Her actual praxis is exactingly methodical and constructed around reciprocity—do ut des. The purpose of every act of propitiation, every prayer, every vow, and every ritual is to either receive something in return or repay a favor in kind. Broadly speaking, her rituals do work even when her gods do not actually exist because she’s had thousands upon thousands of years to figure out how to make things happen, whether by creating the conditions that will cause it or by magic; that knowledge undergirds her religious praxis.

(Salem’s absolute disdain for the God of Light is less a response to his cruelty in and of itself than it is his violation of that reciprocity, not by refusing but by brutally punishing her for asking at all; likewise, although her feelings about him are complicated, she made her peace with what Darkness did to her long ago and began to worship him in memoriam because he did act reciprocally before his brother intervened.)

#MAIDENS AND KINGDOMS ( hc. )#THIS DARK THING THAT SLEEPS IN ME ( hc: salem. )#[ when i say she’s a polytheist—hrgshk #she stressed ozma out so much #during the lux aeterna days #bc it wasn’t just her and them #receiving cult as god-rulers #she also had her own gods #and kept blithely adopting more #and ozma was like ‘wait no–’#ozlem weren’t not on the same page they were reading different books. bfgrhk ]

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ao3-kintou · 2 years ago

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Thinking about homesick for a mountain’s song Sasuke.

#feeling soft #about #homesick for a mountain's song #today #averno #auguries of a minor god #devotions #the living mountain #sasuke #sasuke uchiha #uchiha sasuke #sns #sasunaru #sasukecore

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aohendo · 2 years ago

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Blood and DNA 👀 Especially curious about the dna

You don't know how long I've been waiting to talk about fate/destiny/prophecy in this thing.

So long.

blood: what would your OC would sacrifice everything for? what does “everything” entail—their life, or something else? how far would they go?

It's fairly normal for Kiris to sacrifice his chances at living the life he wants to live due to a misplaced and misguided sense of 'selfishness' (something that Toor Temple's Headmaster was sure to instill in him--they recognized that Kiris was a people-pleaser early on and wanted to be 'good,' and so anything that wasn't working with their plans for Kiris' prophecies very quickly became 'bad'). Other than his freedom, Kiris doesn't think he has anything worth sacrificing (or sacrificing for). However, once he gets some friends (partners? lovers? we'll see how it plays out), and once he finally realizes that they mean what they say, that he can trust them, he would do just about anything to keep them safe. His one vow to himself is that he will never be like Toor's Headmaster and force people to do things against their will, but if that were the only way to save the ones he loves? He'd immediately sacrifice what he perceives his last chance at redemption.

(For some context: Kiris is one of the most powerful magic users in the last several centuries, and is considered a master (professor) in Empathic Projection, which can be twisted into mind control. Couple that with his prophecies, a beginner's ability in Erosion, and an unrelenting desire to keep his people safe? YIKES.)

dna: does your OC believe in fate or destiny? what about soulmates? is this all a coincidence?

So.

Kiris is what's called a True Prophet. There are other people capable of what's deemed "minor" prophecy--it's an optional course of study for Waters or Lights affiliates--who are able to tell several probably outcomes of an event. These minor prophecies are more akin to physical augury, in that the event being predicted isn't actually witnessed. That's the key difference: a minor prophecy is an interpretation of signs and clues to discern a host of potential futures; a true Prophecy is the selecting of one of those potential futures and the witnessing of the event.

All that to set up this: Kiris believes in fate, so much as he has witnessed it. The events he sees in Prophecy will occur--this has been tested repeatedly with both his near-future prophecies, and those of the previous True Prophets. Anything outside of what he has directly witnessed, however? That's what's subject to change, and is complete coincidence (unless one of the many gods is manipulating it, but that's a whole 'nother topic). For example: say Kiris sees that someone's going to get stabbed. That person WILL now get stabbed (Kiris has locked that future into place--it's a fixed point, if we dip into sci-fi terms). What he hasn't witnessed are the events leading up to that person getting stabbed, and, arguably more importantly, the events after. Sure, the person was stabbed, but someone could have stocked medical supplies in advance and brought a doctor into the next room. Kiris sees the fated event; the results of the event, despite the intentions, are variable.

Especially for the particularly painful events, Kiris feels extremely guilty for having locked the prophecy's subject into that fate, and does his best to ease the pain he thinks he's caused. It's actually for this reason that he refuses to use Prophecy to see if his mother is alive; he fears that he might force her into a horrible illness.

I'm... honestly not sure if that made sense. Think of Prophecy like Shrodinger's cat. Minor prophecies can determine that the cat is in the box, and that it is either alive or dead. A True Prophet's Prophecy randomly selects either "live" or "dead," and opens the box to witness the cat alive or dead. The cat's status is now immutable. That doesn't prevent a vet nearby from trying to resuscitate it!

Can you tell I haven't actually had a chance to discuss what Prophecy means for this world yet?

#princeforhire #kiris na suem #he's basically a big old bundle of pick-pocketed guilt #prophecy's cool tho #even if he doesn't think it is #no soul mates tho #not unless one of the more powerful gods decides on a realms thin day they're very bored #ask game #wip #not? writing #fantasy

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pomegranates-and-blood · 2 years ago

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Before the devouring (Daughters Anthology)

Daughters Masterlist

Pairing: Gen Fic, but as per canon, some Bjorn/Gunnhild and some minor Bjorn/Ingrid, and because it’s me, hints at Ingrid/Gunnhild.

Summary: Gunnhild starts her journey as Queen of Kattegat with the counsel and augury of the women who carried the title before her, finding in their sagas written her own. With Gunnhild as Metis (an Oceanid, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. She is one of Zeus’ wives, the one that helped him defeat Kronos, but she was prophecized to give him children that would overpower him and thus she was killed -eaten- by Zeus. She was already pregnant though, and she stayed in Zeus’ head long enough to raise her daughter before dying/fading away. She is Athena’s mother, and she made armor and weapons for her daughter, the helm she is usually depicted in, and her spear and aegis).

Word Count: 4.8k

Warnings: Canon divergence for the outcome of Gunnhild’s pregnancy and her death (and tweaking to the timeline, as the baby is 1) born, and 2) born a few months before the battle for Kattegat). Some injury descriptions, themes of (somewhat graphic) death and allusions to/mentions of domestic violence. The usual Ragnar&co. bashing for this anthology, and my incredibly rusty writing. As always, this might be OOC, especially in this case. And finally, this is the least canon compliant part of this anthology of sorts, because season 6 is a fucking mess and I cannot for the life of me find a plotline that I would enjoy writing about, no matter how much I like the characters/dynamics of it.

A/N: Poem (italicized bits) is Metis, the Forgotten King Maker by Nikita Gill and Gunnhild gif credits to @underragingwaves, from this set, the Margrethe one is also hers but I can’t find the link to the actual set, the Lagertha one I found on Pinterest and I couldn’t find a source, and the Freydis one is mine. There’s also a line from Nikita Gill’s The Metamorphoses of Zeus spoken by a character, specifically: He destroys. He devastates. He devours.

Is there a word for this?

The waiting before the devouring.

The knowing and unknowing

of what is soon to be the ruins of you.

There is something about Kattegat her husband doesn’t know, his brothers don’t know, and his father never knew.

Ever since they first retook the town, Gunnhild has had to get used to unusual sights plaguing the kingdom she is supposed to rule over.

She sees a shieldmaiden with the weight of years slowing her gait searching frantically for the daughters only she cannot see, and as the mother wails her loss Gunnhild is left looking at four girls still cowering in a corner of the longhouse, holding onto each other as if the Gods were kind enough to make girls able to withstand the aftershocks of a man’s ambition.

On some nights she catches a familiar face looking at them too.

Lagertha’s ghost never lingers next to those girls or any of the others, she turns her back soon enough, and each time she does her back curves further under some invisible weight, some unshakeable guilt.

On the nights Gunnhild spends alone, talking to her pregnant belly trying to offer her baby the certainty she herself lacks, into the room stumbles a ghost of dainty features and sad eyes, and each and every time Gunnhild is frozen when Kattegat’s last queen takes a step towards her, hands stretched as if to feel her swollen belly, before her expression crumbles and the bruises on her neck get darker, and remembering the lie, remembering the end, she instead folds her hands in front of her own empty stomach and bows a goodbye.

Freydis’ ghost never wanders far from the longhouse either, but it isn’t the painful tie to those girls that keeps her tethered there, Gunnhild realized that fairly early. No, she stays where there aren’t burn marks etched on the houses and the streets still, she stays where the grief of countless families isn’t so thick in the air, she stays where her guilt cannot reach her.

And Gunnhild wonders if she also stays there as to not see her. The one that was both always and yet never a slave, the one Gunnhild sees walking the streets of Kattegat fervently, rabidly, tearing at herself and clawing at the edges of the town searching for a way out.

And she wonders if Freydis is afraid of her, of her madness, of her pain.

After all, she has seen the woman that whispers still speak of as the one that single-handedly sealed Kattegat’s Fate, the woman that stood her ground before a tyrant and a murderer without flinching; cover her ears like a child and cower in some corner of the longhouse when Margrethe’s screams threaten to tear the very earth in two as she is once again forced to accept she won’t be able to leave Kattegat.

On some nights, when Gunnhild hears her cries she has to grit her teeth to keep at bay her own, and her ring finger bruises and bleeds as Freydis’ neck did, and Kattegat’s walls grow taller and taller as a reminder that she too is trapped here.

“I built them,” A revered woman tells her in one of those nights, a woman made legend. To Gunnhild, she looks as real and as brittle as the day she realized the thing she wanted most in this world was to see her son one last time. Lagertha doesn’t look at her, and Gunnhild isn’t sure if she even knows she is talking to her, “I built them because I thought…I thought they would keep me safe, keep us safe.”

“From whom?” She asks, forcing strength into her voice to keep it from trembling, lest someone hears her talking to a ghost and thinks her mad and weak. She realizes then, with that thought, with that compulsion, that she already has her answer.

“I thought I was…keeping us safe.” Lagertha’s shadow repeats, suddenly not looking at the walls anymore, but at the horizon behind it, at the sea that carried the boat of a once-queen many times over, at the sea across from which her heart died. “But Kattegat needs its monsters, shieldmaiden. It will make one out of you if you try to keep them out.

She turns to her then, clarity in her wide eyes as she meets her gaze, the unwavering strength of the shieldmaiden she admired, the pain and regret of the woman she came to love.

“It -we- made one out of him. Out of all of them, and…ourselves too.”

She notices her husband’s restlessness again that night, the way his thoughts seem to chase themselves in circles as what was supposed to be the mountaintop offers no change from the very bottom. It isn’t the first time she is a witness to it, she was privy to the way he is pulled between the search for glory and the dread of the chains that come with it, long before they made themselves king and queen.

But tonight it is the first night that it worries her, that she puts a hand over her pregnant belly and she fears.

Her husband reminds her of a caged beast, and Gunnhild has too many scars to think to approach him, instead keeping her distance, keeping her shield close and herself ready for the moment the beast strikes.

Because that is the thing, about an animal in a cage. Even a cage it let itself be lured into with promises of glory, even a cage it was prodded into with the weight of legacy. It will lash out, eventually.

It will kill, if it has to. Once it is backed into a wall, or a step away from freedom, it will strike against both friend and foe for a chance to survive, to win.

If given a chance to, it will sacrifice anything for a chance at glory, or at freedom. He has before.

He is a God-King after all.

And I just his consort.

So what if I was his king maker.

Better women than me

have made gentler kings

and still met their ends.

Her worries do not leave her, just as her husband’s restlessness does not leave him, not with another wife by his side, not with a kingdom at his back, not with a daughter in Gunnhild’s belly. She wonders if it is perhaps because of those things that his restlessness grows, that he seems hungrier with each passing day.

She wonders if it is perhaps the life she is growing inside of her that awakens in him this hunger for glory, this instinct to devour. She wonders if he knows, just as his father did, that it is a child’s burden and privilege to live to become greater than their father.

And so her worries grow, as does her belly.

After all, she has seen the Norns taking their children from mortals, ripping them from their mother’s arms be it in a sickness that overtakes their body or because of the bravery they blessed them with. And she has seen men call themselves Gods and do the same, ripping children from their mothers’ arms, men of the same blood as her husband.

She thought she wanted glory, for herself and for her children. She thought she would never want anything more than bringing to this world a child that could claim a demigod as their father, but war and strife loom in the horizon as Fate demands the blood of legends be spilled; and Kattegat’s throne is just a piece of wood and so are the walls around it, and she wants, more than anything, for her child to be safe.

Gunnhild knows she is not a gentle woman, nor has she ever had any intention to be. When she was more child than woman, and times after that as well, she has thought of it as a fault on her part, as a flaw to be fixed. That would be fixed, once she grew, except growing only showed her that the world has teeth and it will sink them into supple flesh and left her no choice but to harden herself, once she married, but she married twice over out of ambition and she knows soft things hunger for love not power, once she had children, but life grows inside of her and all she wants is to find a way to arm her daughter with shield and armor before she leaves her womb.

“Neither your love or your shield will keep her safe from everything,” A familiar figure now sitting beside her says, voice sweet but sad. When the woman lifts her head, she bares to Gunnhild’s eyes dried blood caked around deep bruises that circle her neck. At the sight, disgust wages war with anger, Gunnhild’s lips part and her stomach tightens as if a snake had curled around her middle; and without even realizing she has let her hand fall to her side, searching for the sword that no longer lies there. Freydis lowers her gaze for a moment, but her eyes are still clear, she still holds this inhuman serenity as she states, “You needn’t concern yourself with the likes of me.”

“I decide who I concern myself with.” She retorts without hesitation, a furrow between her brows, in her mind the bruises on her neck the same shade, the same curse, as her mother’s blackened eye. She takes a breath, and admits to a failure that has haunted her since she first saw the once-queen lifeless beside the bones of her child, “I’m sorry I couldn’t kill him.”

It seems to take her aback, her harshness, or maybe the softness hidden underneath it. Regardless, Freydis leans back, clear eyes a little wider, expression a little less controlled, considering Gunnhild for a moment before she offers yet another smile.

This one is dimmer, but it feels more honest.

“Death, by your hand no less, would be too merciful,” The admission is quiet, but she hears the iron underneath. “You needn’t worry, he has paid. And when he returns, he will pay again.”

It is then, meeting her clear gaze, that Gunnhild wonders if some remain because they want to, not because they are trapped here. She wonders still if, even though she keeps herself tied here with nothing but her anger, she will be able to let go and rest one day.

But then in her mind echoes Torvi’s wail, a keen more animal than human but still mother, echoing in the quiet of the village as she learned of her son’s death; in her mind Gunnhild feels herself again upon that bed curling in on herself to try desperately to keep the pain from her heart, to keep the dread from her bones as she heard just outside Torvi mourning. And she realizes now, with those memories aching in her chest and guiding her hand to caress where her daughter grows, that she needn’t know if Freydis will one day be able to rest, for she knows Freydis herself does not care as long as her son is avenged, as long as his murderer is forced to pay.

And because anger always pairs itself with regret when it comes to grief, Freydis’ strength wavers, dims, and her voice quietens as she speaks again,

“I thought…I thought not even a God’s hunger could stand a chance against a mother’s love,” Freydis admits, seemingly steeling herself against the pain her words remind her of, head held high, jaw set tight even though her lip trembles. “I was wrong, and it cost me…everything.”

“Are you trying to warn me?”

“He hungers, you know that. They all do.”

She can only swallow thickly at the truth the woman so bluntly offers, at the reality the wisdom of the dead forces her to see.

Gunnhild closes her eyes with a deep breath, and when she opens them, Freydis is gone. Behind where she sat, just in the direction Gunnhild was looking as she uselessly searched for a remnant of the ghost’s presence, Ingrid approaches, smile tentative but kind as she looks at her.

Her stomach churns when she realizes she seemed most likely a mad woman, talking to herself in the quiet of the longhouse, and just as she is to voice an excuse, Freydis speaks again, her dainty voice somewhere in the crackling of fire, in the cadence of Ingrid’s approaching steps,

“They get that from their father.”

Ingrid eyes the empty seat, big eyes returning to Gunnhild after a breath, and where she expects to find doubt, or mockery, instead she finds Ingrid offers warmth, and a secretive smile.

“Don’t worry, she will be back,” Gunnhild notices the way her fingers are intertwined nervously in front of her, a contrast to the warm disposition Ingrid tries portraying. After a moment, she adds in a mumble, “There aren’t many places for her to go, after all.”

But there’s light in her eyes as she says that, there’s fondness in her voice, there’s the ease of companionship in the curve of Ingrid’s smile.

Gunnhild is certain it isn’t only directed at her, that smile, and finds herself smiling back, cautiously, hopefully, at both the ghosts and the woman before her.

People think having the power of prophecy

and cunning means you can avoid your fate.

No, my loves,

you are simply driven mad

by the knowledge of what is coming

and that you cannot stop it.

She cannot help but wonder, as spring and war and death draw nearer and nearer with each passing day, what her husband is willing to sacrifice for victory, for glory.

It isn’t for them that he fights, it isn’t for the future of his children, but for the past of his father, after all. And what a man isn’t fighting to save is what a man is willing to sacrifice, this she has learned, both in the battlefield with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, and in her once-home with both hands clasping tightly at the skirts of her mother’s dress.

At night, when sleep eludes her, Gunnhild takes to sitting in a small balcony in the back of the longhouse, letting her eyes focus on the night sky and hating how her mind reminds her of the passing of time, the dawn of war in the horizon, each night just by the changed positions of the stars and the moon.

Sometimes there is company by her side, the cold presence of a dainty woman of sad smiles or the warm hold of Ingrid’s hand in hers, but still her thoughts do not still, her dread does not leave her. Because Gunnhild knows, she knows like she knew Lagertha wouldn’t be allowed to be anything but what the world wanted her to, she knows like she knew her husband was too prideful to deny himself anything in favor of loyalty, she knows she is amongst that which he and the world around her will sacrifice for glory.

And more than ever she is now filled with the urge to find a way to don her daughter in armor before she is to leave her womb, to find a way to gift her a shield and sword of her own before she is to even open her eyes, to find a way to teach her the ways of the world and the ways of men and protect her from both.

She fears, more than anything perhaps, that she won’t be able to, that her child will be left alone in this world, that her husband’s hunger will consume her before she can raise her daughter. She fears her child will grow, unknowing that the one she must trust the least is her father even if she must strive to be his favorite, unaware of how to guard herself so what happened to her mother does not happen to her, having forgotten who her mother is and what her own name is.

“Are you-…you are afraid of being…devoured too, aren’t you?” A voice startles her, a slight trembling edge to the words. Gunnhild turns to meet Margrethe’s wide gaze, able only to stare back as the other woman nods her head to herself, as if confirming her own words, “You feel it, you felt it before, like…like hands around your neck. Or a ring on your finger. Only this time, this time you know you can’t fight back.”

She has gone mad, she was once told, we couldn’t take her with us to England.

So you left her behind, she wanted to argue back, because she is nothing if not someone willing and able to make others say what they mean to instead of letting them hide behind prettier words, but instead she merely asked, I wonder what became of her.

She asks herself now if then it was that she started down this path, when before the glory of legends she let her own hunger be ignored, and she wonders if she started letting pieces of herself feed them then, when she kept quiet instead of demanding to know what happened to the last woman that dared hunger more than one of them.

Regardless, silence answered her that day, and in her musings, she finds herself answering with the same to Margrethe’s words.

“Fear it all you want,” Margrethe spits with a shrug, evidently slighted by Gunnhild’s lack of response, with a childish cruelty that for some reason manages to tug at the shieldmaiden’s heart. “You can’t escape it. None of us can, not even them.”

“Them?”

“Them. The kings, the legends, the…the sons. Them,” She repeats again, as if Gunnhild had to have known what she meant from the beginning. Margrethe takes a breath, a shaky inhale that makes her stand taller but makes the tremble in her lip more noticeable, the pain in her wide gaze piercing. “He devoured them all, you know. He was hungry, and…and…”

“They were a threat to him.” Gunnhild states, not really sure why she is speaking as if any man was eaten alive. But still, a realization weighs on her chest with the weight of secrets her husband exchanged with her once, admissions of how he worried he could never be greater than his father, of how he feared he could.

Margrethe’s eyes focus on her with a glint she saw before, in the eyes of a once-slave too, a fierceness and an instinct to protect there that the world was never kind enough to deserve from her, from either of them.

“They were children,” She hisses, sorrow breaking her voice, perhaps forgetting she was a child once too, or perhaps remembering just that. Then again, perhaps she never was. Ingrid has told her, in secrecy, with the vacancy in her chest of no family to speak of past the one her ring gave her, of how no slave is allowed to be a child. Margrethe does not seem to mind her silence, or her prodding gaze, instead nodding to herself and whispering, “He ate the first two drowning her in the river, and another one when he forgot to come home.”

“I don’t…”

I don’t want to hear this, I don’t want to know.

“He ate the younger one across the sea. His own wrists were shackled, so he gave a shackle to him too, one made of gold, and ate him whole with two words,” She turns them to meet her faze again, suddenly steadier in her madness as she asks, “But the first one, th-the last one, him…him he never could keep down, could he?” The giggle leaving her lips is manic, terrified, and Gunnhild can do nothing but stare back, frozen. “Too alike, I think. Like eating your own heart. But they weren’t alike, once, so maybe it was like eating a…a stone. Unnatural.

She is musing aloud, and Gunnhild is left to wonder if it is her madness that made her so, or her loneliness. When the few ghosts of this town that are still more than remnants hide in the longhouse to keep their eyes from their mistakes, or as they did in life now in death offer to her pain the unwavering strength of a shield-wall, Gunnhild wonders if Margrethe has anyone but herself to hear her thoughts, her words.

“But it doesn’t matter why his father couldn’t devour him too. Still, he destroys, he devastates, and he…he devours instead.”

Gunnhild leans back, suddenly more guarded, suddenly angrier, at the mere idea that the man she has chosen to love, the man she has admired from afar and up close is unworthy of such devotion. At the mere idea that she has made a wrong choice, at the mere idea that this, the devouring, is inevitable.

“My husband is a good man, a good king.”

Margrethe’s answering laugh makes a shiver run down her spine. It is a cackle, mad and broken, that dies in pieces as she shakes her head and says,

“They all are, can’t you see? Because they are the ones to tell the stories. He…he never talks about his father’s absence, does he? Or his selfishness?” She nods to herself, not needing an answer, or perhaps aware she won’t get one from Gunnhild. “Neither did my husband. He didn’t talk about the bruises on his mother’s face either, but I saw them, they were there even after all those years. She had the…the mark, like teeth sunk into her flesh. We all do.”

“You aren’t making any sense.” Oh, but she is, she is, and Gunnhild is too proud to beg her to stop.

The blonde shakes her head again, reaching with a bony hand that impossibly grasps firmly and tightly to Gunnhild’s, that chases off the chill of the night with a warmth unnatural to one so far gone, so long gone.

“They…they get to devour until glory finds them, or they find it, or…or however it is that goes,” She dismisses her own words, her own confusion, with a gesture of her hand, and focuses manic eyes on Gunnhild, leaning closer as she says, voice a plea, “But we…we-…glory devours us, instead. If you just get close, you…you are eaten whole. It doesn’t matter who you are, or how much you want to devour instead,” Her eyes search Gunnhild’s, and after a breath she softens her expression, she offers a sad smile, an apology for the truth she cannot help but reveal. “I hungered, once. She did too.”

It is at her last words that her eyes finally stray from Gunnhild’s, and she follows her gaze only to find Kattegat’s last queen standing by the dim fires, quietly, with lowered eyes and bruises around her neck darker than she has ever seen them.

She hears approaching footsteps, and tonight Lagertha’s gait is marked by the limp of her final years, even though when Gunnhild catches sight of her face by the fire, she looks younger and more alive than she ever knew her.

“As do you. As will she,” She says, eyes on Gunnhild’s stomach and face strained with the nostalgia for a world that never was, for a past life she lost, for a future she will never meet. “She is your daughter, and my granddaughter, after all.”

“Lagertha…”

“I couldn’t win, I couldn’t escape. You can’t either, but she can,” Her eyes meet hers again, with the iron she lost once, after too many mistakes, under too much grief, and Gunnhild knows it is an order before she even tells her, “Raise her to devour.”

Until you learn the way I did,

how to alter a foretelling’s truth,

weaponize sadness and deconstruct it

into a life that works for you.

She awakens from the same dream she has had for so long now she cannot fathom it not being a memory instead, only this time she wakes to the soft coo of her baby’s cries, that the healer tending to her husband’s grave wounds tries shushing before Gunnhild tells her she will take care it.

She holds Signý close to her chest, feeling her little head rest lightly over her beating heart, and lifts her eyes to find Ingrid’s gaze. There is much they don’t say, Gunnhild holds it already as one of her greater regrets, but there is much that they needn’t say at all, not when with their eyes they share their fear, their grief, their pain.

The earth under their feet rumbles with the marching feet of the invading Rus, and when her husband calls for her to, Gunnhild grits her teeth and puts her baby back down in her crib to help him don his armor one last time.

And when the time comes, as he readies himself to fight for the legacy of his father to the last of his strength, she stands by his side, certain she will fight for the future of her daughter to the last of hers.

The world buries a legend they adored and admired that day, Ingrid and Gunnhild a husband they loved despite the pain, Signý a father she barely knew.

But even as they lay the last of the stones that seal the door to his tomb, Gunnhild still feels this dread, this gnawing fear, that even in death her husband’s hunger will reach her. Perhaps only in death it can, for she would fight him to the death were he to try and devour her alive.

The world has long ago decided she is to be the devoted wife of a great man, of a demigod, of a legend. The world has long ago decided her story starts and ends with him, no matter her hunger, her name.

The world has long ago decided there is no place for her, for her as the woman she wants to be, the woman she is, now that he is gone.

The woman they decided she was would endure her husband’s failings and disloyalty, and so she did, and found understanding and love in Ingrid’s soft smile; the woman they decided she was would fight alongside her husband, and so she did, to the very end, and kept on that fight months after his death to hold onto the power she was owed but robbed of; the woman they decided she was would honor his memory by raising his daughter to stories of his glory, and so she did, but told her in whispers of how there was a reason she was Signý before she was Bjornsdottir.

The woman they decided she was would refuse to live in a world that didn’t have her husband in it, this is what she has known and refused to accept, this is what his hunger demanded.

So Gunnhild has no choice but to arm herself one last time, grasp onto her shield and call her shieldmaidens to battle one last time. She strides into the battlefield with a war cry that she knows is a lie, fighting for a cause she has fought for half a year now and still knows is lost.

But that is what the woman they decided she was would do, she would fight with her husband’s name on her lips in the campaign he died for, and so she does, but with the certainty that it is willingly that she ventures into the beast’s stomach, that it is knowingly that she is devoured.

And when they strike the finishing blow, the distant feeling of the cold iron of her enemy’s sword running through her feels exactly like the opposite. It feels like an old knife broken free from a festering wound, it feels like relief, like freedom.

For she knows, as her shieldmaidens carry her to the ship and stall the blood flow with cloth a witch she once loved chose and wove a spell over, that she will live long enough to die in Kattegat. She had made sure of it, long before the Gods showed her so in her dreams.

Ingrid’s bitter and grief-stricken smile welcomes her home, but Gunnhild has no regrets about what keeps her here, and neither do the ghosts that guide her in this world in between worlds, now she understands this much.

Gunnhild had ordered long ago that they lay her sword not to rest by her body, but to be saved in a sheath by her daughter’s bed, for it will serve, before it serves Signý in battle, as the reminder to Gunnhild herself of what she ought to do now, of what she is to be for her daughter.

Her daughter, who cannot understand why they speak of how her mother is long gone when she sees her hand grasping Ingrid’s as the now-queen falters, who refuses to accept her mother sits in Valhalla besides her father when she knows each night she sits by her bed and softly sings her to sleep.

____ ____ ____

I originally didn’t mean to avoid saying the names of the men of Vikings, it just happened and I noticed halfway through and decided to go through with it to the end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyhow, thank you for reading! I would love to know what you think!

Yep, again with me and ghosts in the Daughters anthology. There’s a lot of tragedy in Vikings, ok? Especially surrounding women, and the best way my writing manages to try to show that is through remnants of those people lingering by or returning, either because of the grief of the living (My daughter, my girl), the guilt of the living (I often wish), or in this case, the pain of the dead.

And in case you were wondering who the four girls and their mother from the beginning were, it was Queen Gunnhild, King Horik’s wife, and their daughters. Lagertha leaving the men to kill those children in 2x10 always stayed with me, and thus I headcanon that it also stayed with Lagertha, because no one can stop me lol. I love me some guilt for Lagertha, as you know if you’ve read the previous Daughters works.

Also also, the last-ish part of this was most definitely inspired by (again) Nikita Gill’s work, specifically Athena’s Tale, in the book I already mentioned a thousand times already, Great Goddesses. I just really like it man, idk.

Anyhow, idk if anyone reads these, but hey, thank you for making it this far! I promise I’ll come back with some shippy/reader-insert stuff soon, I’m just trying to get my writing motor going again so whatever romance stuff I finally write isn’t total garbage lol

#gunnhild #gunnhild vikings #Daughters Masterlist #I'm really sorry if this isn't good #my writing hasn't felt good in a while lol #im trying to get back to it #but it'll prob take time #im rusty as fuck #again #sorry lol

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cntarella · 1 year ago

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but you know how you had me made how you turned me in/ to a craven being/ merely a mouthpiece/ for your disaffection

Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, “Fugue for young & fugitive” from Auguries of a Minor God (2021)

#nidhi zak #aria eipe #auguries of a minor god #poetry #poems #my collection #HELLO???? HE L L O?????????????????#this collection has me clawing at the walls #something something you are the knife I turn inside myself

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ashley-face · 3 years ago

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Note: For you, baby birds - an Egon Spengler x fem!reader (bordering fem!OC) multi-chapter fic that no one asked for, but I started typing out the moment Ghostbusters: Afterlife revived my hyperfixation for the first time since the 2016 film came out.

I wanted to play around with different source material that mentioned Ray Stantz having siblings (mostly because Egon and he are god-tier comfort characters. We’ll see if I’m in a really silly goofy mood; I might do a Ray x reader one-shot, too), namely basing a lot of the reader’s backstory on Ray’s sister Jean from the novels. I mean, a polyamorous pansexual journalist? Please. So, used that as the foundation, then took a metric fuckton of artistic license for the rest. Drop me a comment if you like it. :)

Not beta’d ‘cause we’re gonna live forever - let’s goooo! (and happy holidays!)

Rating for this chapter: Teen

Warnings for this chapter: Some strong language, OCs, minor angst/mention of childhood trauma, my desperate need to pretend like I know diddly about physics and a criminal lack of our Egie himself.

Already Dreaming | Chapter 1

Roman author Pliny the Younger claimed the specter of an old man with a long beard and rattling chains was haunting his house in Athens like a proto-Jacob Marley coming to torment Ebenezer Scrooge.

In 856 A.D. the first ever poltergeist was reported tormenting a German family in their farmhouse by throwing stones and starting fires.

Several millennia later Einstein posited that since all energy of the universe is constant and that it can neither be created nor destroyed - it can only be changed from one form to another - what happens to that energy when we die?

The energy in our bodies that releases in the form of heat goes into the wild animals that eat us, worms that digest the dirt we decompose in, and the roots of plants that absorb the nutrients we’ve left behind. During cremation energy in our bodies merely releases in the form of heat and light.

But what about those little ghosts Wolfgang Pauli theorized about? Those invisible neutrinos that once never existed in the realm of particle physics, and that he claimed could conserve energy throughout the beta decay process? Where does that energy go? How is it metered?

Why are we so reluctant to give credence to existence after death in physics?

Will we ever fully quantify the universe to its smallest components using our limited resources for testing fundamental particles at such a large scale, casting an enormous net to trap a fairyfly?

“The poet William Blake wrote, ‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And Heaven in a Wild Flower / Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an Hour’,” you gasped, unable to contain yourself as your brother Ray eagerly awaited your response, 20 July 1956 issue of Scientific in his hand and a school print out of “Auguries of Innocence” in yours.

Ray laughed, elated that you were employing critical reading of a totally different material to show proof you had understood what he had been talking about, and at the tender age of 13 years old. He rested his chin in his palm, listening with rapt attention.

Carl, the oldest of you three, had thankfully departed for basic military training (to the dismay of your parents and your relief.)

It had been so long since you could talk to Ray like this without Carl’s constant snide remarks sprinkled in. You were free to wax poetic about prose and protons, wraiths and Sylvia Townsend Warner.

Ray knew you, understood your quirks better than your own mother did. You weren’t "difficult” to him, you were his sister and he would always protect you.

Especially after your father, one of Islip’s beloved general practitioners, tested you for hypoglycemia and anemia when you showed symptoms of hypotension, bouts of vertigo and arrhythmia.

The weekend that Carl temporarily moved back to your parents after graduating from boot camp he found you in your room on your knees, swaying. You were clutching Ray’s old Dopey Dog stuffed animal in a death grip.

“Pops!” Carl shouted, dropping next to you, clueless as to what to do.

You immediately snapped out of your trance-like state, a deer in headlights and only a bit worse for wear, unable to recall when or why you had gone into the attic to grab a toy you hadn't touched in ages.

Ray, having heard Cal, rushed into the bedroom and joined you on the floor, taking your wrist so he could check your pulse like dad had taught him.

“I’m okay Sunshine," you soothed, then assured your oldest brother earnestly. "Really Carl, I just get low blood pressure sometimes."

Carl's brow furrowed, frustration mounting as he became more aware at how out of the loop he'd been, squashing a writhing resentment that festered under his ribcage.

Soon you started to daydream and disassociate constantly. Ray ruled out low blood pressure and suspected that the incidents were brought on by remnants of forgotten dreams being triggered by outward stimuli when awake - a familiar sight, sound, smell. Déjà vu. He’d be able to sense it, recognizing a particular far-off look you’d get, and acted as a tether to bring you back to earth. If anyone gave you grief or called you “space cadet” he’d gently put them in their place.

Ray was a Stantz, after all, and that name carried a certain reputation, no matter his uncanny resemblance to a large teddy bear. Carl had been a star quarterback (as well as a bully), simultaneously adored and feared grades 7-12, but Ray had not been on any sports teams. Yet he still towered over a good portion of his peers, broad shouldered and strong from tinkering in all manner of electronics, heavy equipment and car work. He was also unfathomably kind. The sort of kind that brought to mind, “Demons run when a good man goes to war.”

To make up for his absence Carl showed you how to shoot a rifle (badly), and tried to teach you how to perform basic maintenance on pedestrian vehicles, just like he had with Ray. You watched him work underneath the chassis of your father’s old 1960 Chevy C10 while holding an oil pan, providing the correct tools as needed. It was stilted and a bit awkward, but an attempt none-the-less.

Where Carl was impatient and hated too many questions Ray explained the science that went into a modern combustion engine no differently than your father would tell you a bedtime story, drawing rough figures on paper, thrilled to have such a captive audience.

The oldest Stantz sibling didn’t stick around too much longer once he got into the U.S. Airforce Academy, and not a moment too soon. More often than not he’d stumble in late three sheets to the wind drunk, picking fights with your father.

Mom always wrapped her robe tight, shuffled on her house slippers, fixed him the blackest cup of coffee a human could consume without it becoming sludge, and would let him unload. Her side of the family, the MacMillans, did not let bad blood come between them.

Carl coldly shrugging off a hug from either you or Ray before climbing into dad’s car on his way to the airport is the last you see of him for a while, leaving a void.

You were Ray’s shadow throughout your formative years as he encouraged your rants about Pablo Neruda’s changing writing style or cryptozoology being labeled a pseudoscience, the implications of a soul, the composition of the spirit. He’d sneak you out in the middle of the night, tromping through wet farmland in oversized wellies and carrying heavy flashlights to unveil the Great Mysteries, owing that the Great Mysteries were located in the backwoods of Long Island.

At some point you ended up wrangling a few neighborhood kids around your age to join the cause.

They became your best friends and Ray dubbed you the Scooby Doo gang.

Victoria Ertl, the Daphne Blake of the group, wanted for nothing. Her father worked for an up-and-coming computer sales company by the name of Apple Computer, Inc. Her mother frequently went missing or excused herself to “go take a nap”, leaving Vicky to her own devices. Those devices being extraterrestrials and witchcraft.

Christine Marcu, who shared the unofficial title of Velma Dinkley with you, bothered Ray about invention ideas and had a particular affinity for spirit photography.

Tony Bacheldor turned out to be an odd combination of Fred Jones, Shaggy Rogers and Scooby as despite being highly intelligent his fervent desire to explore the unknown was usually outweighed by the fact that he suffered from acute nyctophobia. He also had a voracious appetite and attained infamy for eating 8 Vienna hot dogs (buns included) in one sitting.

The event was entered into a shared notebook utilized for miscellaneous experiments, simply titled 8TH WONDER OF THE WORLD(?).

Ray claimed he saw himself more as an amalgamation of all five, but you weren’t convinced - he was Fred Jones.

As you reached puberty your “episodes” were less and less frequent, unofficially filed under “unsolved” to your friends’ disappointment, chomping at the bit to see you in action for themselves.

A fateful trip to Queen of All Saints Cemetery irrevocably changed that.

Ray got a tip from a fellow paranormal aficionado about a ghost sighting there. Vicky, Chrissy and Tony meet you at the Railroad Ave entrance to sneak through an unrepaired part of the dilapidated fence.

Fog obscured the pathways that wound through the grounds. Chrissy switched on a headlamp she had found while dumpster diving for parts, signally for you to do the same with yours, then she huddled with Ray to verify the exact coordinates of the sighting.

"I will excommunicate you if your 'reliable source' is Sagar," Chrissy slapped a tree branch out of her way, heading off the gravel paths to a particular cluster of headstones. "He hasn’t paid me back the money that I lent him to buy the newest issue of Captain Steel. Stupid jerk."

Ray pouted, fiddling with a contraption he’d brought to assist them.

"Damn, I'd meant to pick that up for myself today."

Tony took great joy in debating Ray about Superman being a superior hero to Captain Steel and almost butted in. You subtly motioned for him to not interfere.

Chrissy's button nose scrunched in irritation, but Ray missed it and persevered with his lament.

"What a cliffhanger, too! Dr. Destructor was just about to--"

"Knock your block off if you don't zip it," Chrissy bared her teeth, braces flashing.

Vicky diffused the situation by leaning over to Ray, overexaggerating her interest. "Is that an Atari controller?"

Bloodshed successfully avoided, Ray held up the controller-esque item in question, "Good eye, Vicky! It’s a modified electron capture detector, a device for detecting atoms and molecules in gas. Tried tweaking one of the multiplayer ones for a Sears Tele-Games Super-Pong IV console ‘cause it helps make finer adjustments for picking up heat signatures or cold spots--"

He rambled and the others hung on to his every word. Soldering the reconfigured wiring was no easy task, but--

Your vision went fuzzy around the edges, a spike of panic lancing through your stomach as the fog circling everyone crawled along the dirt, through the dark, alive. Tendrils coiled up Ray’s thigh and you blinked rapidly to dispel the hallucination.

Oh my god, oh-my-god, is this real? I’ve never been lucid like this before during an episode. Je-sus, Y/N, be rational, you spaz. It’s an actual ghost and-

You struggled to warn the others, paralyzed and powerless like a waking nightmare. Run!

A faint figure formed in the mist, ethereal and evocative; a middle-aged woman in a Gilded Age gown staring at you, and you become fully cognizant that no one else can see her as she gets closer and closer. Suddenly you could hear her, slipping into the air, into your lungs, through your consciousness, an echo chamber of noise.

"Do not be frightened, I mean you no harm. I'm here as a warning, dear girl, and I must be brief.”

"Be not afraid," said the angel that was pure eldritch terror. Absolutely passed frightened and straight into pants-pissing hysterics, but that’s fine.

Ice ran through your veins, but you pushed on. You have to.

A warning? A warning about what? You concentrated, praying she heard you. “What is your name, ma’am?”

The apparition smiled sadly in acknowledgement, “My name is Veleda. At the turn of the 20th century a selfish, wicked man and his foolish sycophants attempted to knock on Hell’s Gate. They used myself and others like us to usher in an era of gods. His insidious plans have been unfolding long since after his death, beyond the veil, and–”

She was gone - vanished without a trace. The fog dissipated as swiftly as it came.

You collapsed like an unstrung marionette, dropping limply to the grass.

The stars sparkled blindingly without light pollution above you, but the view was obscured by Ray as he pulled you between his legs, his chest a grounding presence at your back, frantically whispering, “breathe in 1-2-3, exhale 1-2-3.” Chrissy, Vicky and Tony joined in a circle around him, gasping as if they’ve overexerted themselves.

Wait, you’d stopped breathing? So you gulp in oxygen, heaving and clutching Ray’s knee. Breathe in 1-2-3, exhale 1-2-3.

“Y/N, we strongly believe you were under some sort of possession from a free floating entity,” Ray recited from Spate’s Catalog of Nameless Horrors for his own benefit so he wouldn’t unravel, hiding in the nape of your neck to block out the terrifying image of your limbs seizing in a rictus that he could only assume was painful.

Tony leaned back, heart rate gradually returning to normal, propped against Vicky whilst Chrissy lay half-sprawled in her lap. “Shit. Goddamn it,” he shakily wiped sweat from his brow. “This is what we wanted. What I wanted...To discover what goes bump in the night. To face my fears. But I…I thought...”

"It'd be like Laurel and Hardy's A Haunting We Will Go?" Vicky barked out a laugh, then groaning at the irony. "Not that we’d have to wrangle her to the ground and make sure she didn't swallow her tongue?"

Ray stopped matching your breaths once you could confidently resume on your own and said sincerely, “Hey, don't beat yourself up. We do this for for anyone that has ever been doubted and taken for granted in what they believe in, or what they’ve been through. We want them to know that we're ready to believe them. If it's too much, you tried. That's more than I can say about…a lot of people.”

At home you plead your case to Ray as he took your vitals, dad’s medical bag at his feet. You’re convinced that your parents will keep you apart if they found out about what you dubbed “Graveyardgate”. You'd been running around playing supernatural detective of your own volition and beating himself up wouldn't solve anything.

Ray conceded, only because you agreed to research further into your situation together. And though you both barely fit in your full size bed you asked him to stay.

He does.

Carolyn and Daniel Stantz don’t discourage your adventures owing Ray kept his promise. Your mother readily quizzed you both in the kitchen about the differences between gray aliens and little green men as she tasked you with chopping root vegetables for her great-grandmother’s neeps and tatties recipe. And your father may have been a small town doctor, but his medical zines were a proverbial kindle to the fire, fueling your fascination with the human body.

They nurtured Ray’s natural aptitude and excitement in whatever subject he applied himself to (math was another matter entirely - pairing mathematical problems to the correct formula was his kryptonite) from infancy, and in turn they made sure you received the same.

Unfortunately, a handful of cousins labeled him and you as the black sheep of the family. Aunt Lois, a matriarchal figure on the Stantz’s side, barred each person who brought such slander up in front of her from receiving her delicious Christmas korolevsky cake and she sent Ray a detailed account of the occult called Tobin’s Spirit Guide.

As the inevitable influx of college placement tests and applications begin to take Ray away from you in his last two years of high school you face the music head-on. You had mentally prepared yourself for him leaving the nest - he was destined to do something great for humanity.

It was cruel to be greedy.

During your sophomore year you started a book club with you as president, Tony as vice president, plus Vicky and Chrissy as treasurer and time keeper respectively.

This is a temporary substitute for your paranormal escapades. “R & D” as Tony called it. Better to be safe than needing an exorcist.

Miss Scarlet, who was gracious enough to allow you the use of her English room, straddled her desk chair backwards at the first meeting and asked point blank if this was a coverup for a ghost and monster hunters club.

Vicky shook out her curls, feigning aloofness, “I can neither confirm nor deny such an accusation Miss Scarlet.”

Miss Scarlet turned into a silent benefactor and sometimes provided great research material to show her support.

Eventually the club spiraled into a Ray Stantz fan club the second Vicky and Chrissy started to see boys as not just boys, or friends, but boy-friends. You and Tony (who firmly established himself as the "no socio-sexual contact or reactions" X on the Kinsey Scale) were glad that Ray was graduating.

Attraction and hormones were a double-edged sword.

However, you make the most of the girls’ adolescent infatuation by…well, pitting them against each other.

For important behavior analyses, of course.

Vicky and Chrissy cottoned on to your scheme and refused to speak to you or Tony for 48 hours. Hour 54 they approached you, swearing you to secrecy, and pursued other romantic prospects.

—

One day, during a gathering for your Aunt Lois’s birthday in her eclectic Victorian home, the same conservative and catholic side of your relatives who did not think highly of you reprimanded your parents for Ray’s wayward thinking and its influence on you over dinner.

No one let you interject, holier-than-thou cousin Gav suggesting Ray join a seminary to answer life’s mysteries with the most reliable source mankind could ever need.

The Bible.

Oh great, goodbye Roman Catholicism, hello full-fledged 17th century Puritanical radicalism. They would’ve burned me at the stake.

Carl turned to his fiancée (a mousey, subservient woman named Mary-Lou he’d found who-knows-where - you curbed the urge to slip her a note asking if their engagement was a result of Stockholm syndrome - blink twice for no, scream for yes) and sneered that Ray hadn’t been disciplined enough, a mistake that would bite him in the ass.

Silence followed.

Ray calmly laid his silverware down and advised if anyone had a problem with him they could hash this out some other time. Today was meant for celebrating Aunt Lois and everybody owed her, your parents and you an apology.

I cannot imagine how cathartic that felt. You had to bite your lip to keep from losing your shit at the collective wave of shame that went around the room, you and Aunt Lois sharing a look across the table whilst she sipped her merlot, hiding a coquettish grin.

Of course Carl had to get in the last word, baiting Ray on the sidewalk as you tried to go your separate ways afterwards. Your mom sighed, coming between her sons to keep the peace.

“You don’t give a flying fuck about me or anyone else! You’re all insane and you live in a house of horrors!” Carl roared.

The moment he stepped forward and insinuated violence toward your mother an uncharacteristic surge of raw anger overcame you, consumed you, and you sent all six and a half feet, 230 pounds of Carl stumbling.

Your dad and Ray strongarmed Carl and Mary-Lou to the curb, hailing them a cab. Daniel Stantz stated in no uncertain terms that they were not welcome in his home until Carl checked himself into anger management or rehab, trembling from residual fear of finally standing up to his own flesh and blood.

Realistically, even if he was unsteady from drinking all evening, you should not be able to exert enough force to push him, adrenaline notwithstanding.

Ray whispered your name, cupping your tear-stained cheeks as impotent rage was replaced with remorse.

You wanted to love him. You wanted him to love you. Why was Carl such an asshole? Why was everyone against you?

Carl and Mary-Lou got into the taxi - Carolyn Stantz watched the car set off with profound sadness, heartbroken that she had failed her firstborn.

The family did what they could to erase the events of that evening and the toxicity that surrounded it.

However, to everyone’s astonishment, Ray did apply to the Union Theological Seminary alongside the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University at the same time that he applied for MIT’s School of Engineering and the California Institute of Technology.

Of course he got into all of them and chose Columbia.

On the day Ray left for university, eyes bright like a G dwarf star and full of potential, he handed you his well worn copies of Phantasms of the Living and Tobin’s Spirit Guide - you nearly refused them, likening the gesture to him breaking off a piece of his incandescence.

Incidentally, his seminary studies were cut short. Ray rang home to tell you that even if he dropped out (you suspected the seminary asked him to leave) he had learned quite a lot and found a profound intersection between science, spiritualism and religion.

Your fingers tangled in the living room phone cord, disregarding how expensive the bill was going to be as you chatted to him until your body begged for sleep.

Yup, Raymond Francis Stantz was going to be extraordinary and you couldn’t wait.

_____

1978 April

It’s spring break of your senior year and as luck would have it Ray’s spring break is over. Vicky went on vacation to the Bahamas, Chrissy would be back from visiting her bună midweek and Tony went AWOL at a convention in Texas. You convinced your parents that Ray being a train ride away, and you being a responsible 17-year-old with a part-time job to purchase a ticket for said train ride, you should be allowed to pay him a surprise (unchaperoned) visit.

Daniel sighed at his desk, knowing you would not be denied, and ruffled your hair affectionately. You were smart, generally disliked most people, and would avoid strangers. There was no reason to worry.

So you threw a few favorite books into a messenger bag alongside your amateur star charts of Long Island and dad's pocket transistor, then walked to the Central Islip train stop. You boarded with your thoughts whirring and a soft soundtrack of rock playing, making the commute downtown fly by.

Arriving at Penn Station was akin to stepping into a macrocosm totally separate from the rest of New York - you had never been there by yourself outside of trips with your parents to see a couple of Broadway shows, Christmas tree lightings and museums, so your gaze bounced around in awe as you headed to the subway for the remaining leg of the journey, everyone a swarm of intensity like vibrating molecules. Once you get off at 116th St and head upstairs you are jostled so hard by a hasty business woman you start to fall, but keep your balance and recover, freezing when you spot the building in front of you.

Whoa, there it is. Columbia University, in all its Roman classical style glory. A possible peak into your future.

You crossed the street as ELO’s Mr. Blue Sky filtered out from your transistor, somehow not drowned out by the general din of the city. A crisp wind encourages you to hurry.

The steps to where Ray claimed to have a post-lecture smoke are mostly people-free, so you hunkered down for, per your watch, about 40 minutes. The time passed uneventfully as you got lost within The Haunting of Hill House.

“Y/N!” a cheerful, welcoming voice disturbed Eleanor Vance as she reminisced on childhood memories about encountering a poltergeist.

Ray had spotted you first, elated at your unexpected presence, leaving the lecture hall with someone matching his stride. An unlit cigarette is tucked back behind his ear.

You scrambled up to throw your arms around him, melting into his powerful embrace and the smoky scent that permeated his leather jacket. You could finally, properly breathe again and you whispered, “Surprise, Sunshine.”

His smile widened as he pulled away to introduce you to his friend Peter Venkman, a psychology major.

“Sunshine, what a cute nickname,” Peter teased, hazel eyes sparkling with simultaneous blackmail fueled glee and a hint of genuine amusement, then he snapped his fingers, “Because he’s Ray! A ray of sunshine!”

Peter is the type of guy who perpetually exudes an aura of “butter wouldn't melt in his mouth”, which you find out quite early on is true, only because butter wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near it.

There’s no reason to feel embarrassed about the endearment you’ve used for Ray since you were a kid, and your brother isn’t flustered by Peter’s remark as he explained the meaning of it in correlation to your passion for astrophysics.

You still feel your cheeks flush all the same.

Peter is relatively harmless and his teasing is unlike the sort of mocking or disingenuousness you faced in the past. But your skin still feels too tight and you’re unsure how you should handle this sort of attention.

Romance wasn’t a complete stranger to you outside of stories, but unlike Vicky and Chrissy, you had turned down admirers throughout high school (excluding a platonic date with Tony to senior prom). Thus, engaging with professional lotharios like Peter was definitely out of your wheelhouse. In a moment of panic you compare the situation to being in a debate and try to match his energy in hopes that it’ll throw him off.

“Tell me Venkman, do you want to major in psychology to have a better grasp of the conscious and unconscious phenomena, or are you going tens of thousands of dollars into debt so you can be the one to answer Freud’s most pertinent question: ‘what do women want’?”

Ray’s brows shot into his hairline as he glanced at the other young man.

Peter's posture relaxed, hands shoved further into his jean pockets and lips turned up in a satisfied expression. How was it you got the inkling that you’d passed some sort of test and now he seemed handsome without the roguish façade?

“Thank God, I was dreading you being Francis's mini me. She’s got moxie.”

Ugh. Moxie? Are you Al Capone? Referring to you in the third person made you scoff in disdain, and then annoyance, “I refuse to believe you call him Francis like I call him Sunshine.”

“To be fair I also call him Francine. Gotta switch it up a bit, lest the honeymoon phase of our budding relationship grow stale.”

The honest confusion that puckered Ray’s lips as he lit his previously abandoned cigarette was comical. The soft utterance of, “we’re in a relationship?” that succeeded it was legendary.

—

1978 September

If your relatives were the betting type they would have put money down on your following in Ray’s footsteps - and they would've been half right, as you were accepted into Columbia University's brand new computer science undergraduate course with the intention to pursue a masters in journalism.

You are assigned to the ancient dormitories of Furnald Hall on the 10th floor. It’s a double suite and your roommate’s name is Azucena Olvera.

On move-in day your dad insisted on dragging your sparse luggage filled with hand-me-down clothes and texts into the shoebox-sized space, ignoring your protests. Your mom ladened you with homemade sweets.

They can’t stay long as traffic will be abysmal getting back and your mother is forced to drag your father out before you have more vitamin supplements to your name than sense.

It turned out your roommate was there. Her bedroom door is open and you find her black-clad form curled up on a twin sized bed, buried in a novel you'd learned about a year or so ago called Interview with a Vampire. After introducing yourself you inquired about the premise, to which she regarded you blankly for a beat, mumbling it was pretty self-explanatory by the title.

Undeterred by her sarcasm you admit to being fascinated by the concept of some no name reporter taking a chance on such a strange tip, offering to lend her Carmilla as a trade when she was done. Azucena smirked as you started to unpack, initiating light conversation about how general classes will go, somehow segueing to the West Virginia Mothman, telling her about your friends back home and where they’ve gone to study or work.

You looked down at your watch - 7:46PM. Ray called before mom and dad dropped you off, saying he was touching base with a professor and would meet you in front of the dorms to treat you to "the best Chinese on the northeast coast" at 7:30PM. You tossed on a windbreaker, snagged An Elementary Treatise on the Differential and Integral Calculus, mom’s snacks, nearly forgot your keys (priorities), bounded down a set of precarious stairs and burst outside in record time.

Ray just about spit his cigarette out at your grand entrance (or exit, really), coughing and chuckling. "Did you think we were gonna leave without you?"

You beamed at him, noticing that Peter was there and not out with his flavor of the week.

This goofball. He'd be so smug if he knew how much he'd grown on you.

Peter winked your way. "You're the lady of the hour, kid, and we would've just sent Spengs here to fetch ya. He's all about the history of some sketchy secret tunnels in the basement of this place. Which are dime a dozen in the city, but what do I know? I’m just a pretty face."

The aforementioned "Spengs” was what some may describe as an elongated version of Poindexter from Felix the Cat; the epitome of an academic or caricature of a genius scientist. Tall, lean, sensibly dressed, his eyes obscured by a nearby street light reflecting off his glasses. You easily imagined him in a pristine white lab coat, holding a beaker overflowing with some dubious concoction.

But as he approached you, posture stiff and hand outstretched to perform the globally widespread greeting of introducing oneself via handshake, his attention shifted downwards.

More specifically, to your jacket pocket, where An Elementary Treatise on the Differential and Integral Calculus poked out.

He remembered himself, large hand engulfing yours, fingers warm, chemical rough, but a nice weight as his severe mouth softened and the streetlights finally allowed you a glimpse of umber irises with a bilateral hint of evergreen.

"Dr. Egon Spengler. A pleasure. If you do not mind, after we’ve eaten, I would appreciate hearing your opinion on Babbage's calculations. Are you familiar with Ada Lovelace?"

An effervescent sensation spread from your stomach to your throat, and you know logically that you're not actually turning into bubbling liquid, but your brain has trebuchet logic into a blackhole. The pitch of his voice is so low you wondered if he’s ever used an oscilloscope to measure the Hertz.

You couldn’t help but stare, and it's your turn to remember yourself. The moment lasted a span of minutes, but seemed so much longer, stretched into decades as you replied, star-struck, “Y/N Stantz. The pleasure is all mine. But uh, yes, Ada Lovelace translated parts of Luigi Menabrea’s work on the Analytical Engine and collaborated with Charles Babbage. I apologize, Sun-” you caught Peter and Ray observing the entire interaction with varying degrees of curiosity, “Raymond said he’d met someone else he deeply admired in his field of study, but you’re–prodigious to already have a PhD or a doctorate of some kind. You can’t be much older than us.”

Peter took that as his cue to insert himself back into the conversation, pulling you into a one-armed hug, “Ah yes, our very own savant. Met him in a women and gender studies class he signed up for by mistake ’cause Dr. Spengler left us plebs in the dust testing out of every core curriculum and taking his ‘accelerated sequences’. Degrees are old hat to this guy. Also, kid, did you know they started a new parapsychology program this semester as well?”

No, you didn’t, but you’re pretty sure the question was rhetorical.

“Introducing a parapsychology class is a golden opportunity to capitalize on a niche as hell field. Imagine the funding for graduate research, the accolades. Naturally I thought, ‘I’ll introduce my favorite eggheads to one another so a: my ears stop bleeding, and b: they’ll go feral at the chance of getting in on this, too.’ Bless their nerdy lil’ hearts, they’ve been attached at the hip, to my everlasting regret.”

“That’s only because together we’re on our way to convincing you that the existence of manifestations and apparitions is scientifically viable–” Ray remarked in a sing-song lilt, coming around to your other side.

You snort, well acquainted with the fact that if your brother found anyone that showed a modicum of inquisitiveness in not only anything involving engineering, biology, physics, chemistry, etc, if they ever had a passing thought about the Fermi Paradox, the Arrow of Time, the location of the Ark of the Covenant or how the Nazca Lines were formed, he was in their life like an Alabama tick.

Peter showed genuine interest in psychological phenomena, but his hard stop was Casper the friendly phantom.

Egon headed down 115th St toward this infamous Chinese restaurant Ray recommended, and as the other two men continued to banter he glanced over his shoulder at you.

What the hell happened? Had he experienced the same subtle full-body shiver as you touched? The same sort of pins and needles caused by the compression of nerves, or static generated when cathode ray tubes bathed the inside of a TV with electrons, triggering the front glass to fluoresce and emit an electrical charge?

Out of your peripheral you noticed him flexing the hand you just shook.

You’d accidentally (other times purposefully) shocked plenty of inanimate objects and people, but–

“Ray, you gotta convince Y/N to let me do a full interview about Graveyardgate. She would be the best person to start as a control variable for–”

“Vex-man, I told you that in confidence,” you chastised Peter, introspection put on the backburner. Vex-man was a derogatory moniker you only used when he crossed a line.

Peter squirmed away, ensuring he was no longer within punching distance.

Too late, you groaned internally as Egon fell back to take Peter’s place, his laser focus once again on you.

Despite not enjoying having to discuss it, and despite having just met Egon...these guys might be the best people to talk to about it.

My first day on campus and we’re dabbling in unauthorized behavioral experiments. You turned around and started to walk backwards, gesturing wildly and hamming it up, “Well doc, it was summer of ‘76–”

Peter clucked his tongue at you in mock exasperation for your brattish snark that he was solely responsible for.

Ray rolled his eyes, but internally he was happy you were ready to exorcise a figurative demon - a part of him hated remembering too, even if it had solidified his motivation and purpose to keep doing what he was doing, skeptics and critics be damned.

And Egon.

Egon deadpanned, “I know where Venkman lives. And I work as a coroner part-time.”

“Alright H. H. Holmes, we’re gonna need to unpack that before I end up as a statistic.”

You tripped on uneven concrete, cackling.

#ghostbusters #the real ghostbusters #ghosbusters ii #ray stantz #egon spengler #peter venkman #winston zeddemore #egon spengler x reader #egon spengler x original female character

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monstersdownthepath · 3 years ago

Text

5e Otherworldly Patron: The Mothlight Three

(Pic source)

In the wilds of the Fey there exist few creatures more loathed, more feared, more respected, more ridiculed, more avoided than the Mothlight Three. This coven of hags--Mother Marigold, Mother Mandrake, and Mother May-I (or is it May-Eye?)--were once but shall never again be Four, having betrayed and devoured the Madam from which they draw their name at the cusp of her divinity. Now they covet their own divinity, working to gather supplicants and sycophants beneath their mantle to secure their place in the hall of gods.

And you have been (un)fortunate enough to draw their attention. Mortals should be no stranger to receiving the blessings of the Archfey in moments of whimsy, but the Mothlight Three only gift their power for a reason.

What is it that drew them to you in the first place? Was it your Cunning, bending the minds and wills of peers and puppets, which caught the eye of Mother Marigold? Was it your Brutality, taking what you desire and destroying what you cannot have, which amused Mother Mandrake? Maybe it was instead your Ambition, your reach and your greed, your dissatisfaction with all you have and a bottomless desire for more, which drew the attention of Mother May-Eye (or is it May-I)? Or maybe, just maybe, it was a combination of the three aspects which stirred the raging, cursed spirit of the Once-Fourth, the Eaten Light, the Torn-To-Thirds, the Madam who was once but will never be again?

Maybe you didn’t draw their attention on your own. Perhaps it was an ancestor of yours which promised a firstborn in three generations, or your own parents who promised their third-born. Perhaps three tragedies struck you, and in a moment of rage and despair your agonized soul called to them without prompting. Or, rather mundanely, there may be some far-flung plan the trio require a mortal for. Whatever the case may be, be warned: no gift from such wicked creatures comes without a price. It just may not be a price you pay.

EXPANDED SPELL LIST

The following spells are added to the Warlock spell list for you.

1st: Bane, Inflict Wounds

2nd: Enhance Ability, Augury

3rd: Stinking Cloud, Lightning Bolt

4th: Polymorph, Divination

5th: Raise Dead, Contagion

-Threefold Blessing

At 1st level, the Mothlight Three each offer a minor boon to you, a token offering of things to come should you not disappoint them. After completing a long rest, you may choose one of the following blessings to gain until you next complete a long rest:

Blessing of Cunning: You may choose to roll a single skill check with advantage, but after doing this once, the blessing ceases functioning.

Blessing of Brutality: Whenever one or more creatures or objects are damaged by a Warlock spell or cantrip you’ve cast, you may use your bonus action to deal an additional 1d8 damage of the same type. After using this blessing, it ceases functioning.

Blessing of Ambition: Whenever you fail a saving throw, you may add 1d6 to the roll, potentially turning it into a success. Once you use this blessing once, it ceases functioning.

At level 6, the Three are impressed enough with you that you may use your chosen blessing a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus before it ceases functioning. By level 14, all Three see that you have been a worthy investment, and all three blessings can be taken at the same time.

-Threefold Aspect

The Mothlight Three bless you with spells that let you distract, disorient, or duplicate others once you reach level 6. After you complete a long rest, you may choose one of the following blessings to gain until you next complete a long rest:

Field of Marigolds: Mother Marigold’s hypnotic beauty rarely requires disguise. Her horrid collections, however, frequently do; thus, you may cast Major Image twice before the blessing ceases functioning.

Sensory Seal: Mother Mandrake is the least subtle of the Three. If stealth is required, she seals the minds of those around her. You, too, may thus cast Hypnotic Pattern twice before the blessing ceases functioning.

Face of Paupers and Kings: Mother May-I’s (or is it May-Eye?) myriad bids for power saw her wearing the faces of dozens a day. You may cast Alter Self twice before the blessing ceases functioning.

These blessings require no components, nor do they expend any Warlock spell slots.

-Threefold Boon

By the time you’ve reached level 10, the Mothlight Three have grown impressed enough with you that their secrets have begun to open to you. Each time you complete a long rest, you may select a single Eldritch Invocation which lists the Mothlight Three Patron as a prerequisite. You must still meet the Invocations other prerequisites in order to take it. You gain access to this Invocation until you next complete a long rest. Once you’ve selected an Invocation with this ability once, three long rests must pass before you can select it again.

-Fourfold Gift

Upon finally reaching 14th level, Madam Magdalene Mothlight, the Once-Fourth, stirs in the slumber of death, called by your growing power. The Three take notice of this, as it marks you as a grand servant of the coven, and gift to you the greatest boon they can offer: a servant of your own, formed from Madam Mothlight’s stolen essence. You can perform a special ritual which requires 10 minutes of unbroken concentration to call a manifestation of Madam Mothlight’s power, which takes the shape of a Night Hag. This Night Hag possesses a Hearthstone (which vanishes if taken from it) and obeys your commands for 8 hours, until it’s reduced to 0 HP, or until you’re reduced to 0 HP, at which point it disappears. Once the Hag disappears, you must complete three long rests before you can call it again.

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Invocations

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WARNING: This section is a little longer than most of my Invocation pages because I went completely ape with it. Why? Because Threefold Boon gives you a flexible slot, thus a wider selection could be appreciated.

3,330 Pies Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, Pact of the Tome

Your Book of Shadows becomes Mother Mandrake’s monstrous though unimaginatively-named cookbook, listing recipes for making a meal out of just about any creature you might come across. This grisly tome grants you proficiency in Intimidation, or doubles your proficiency bonus in Intimidation if you’re already proficient. In addition, as an action, you can read aloud a section of the book to grant yourself advantage on one Intimidate check you make against a single creature. You cannot use this ability again on the same creature until you complete a long rest.

Nazar Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, Pact of the Talisman

Mother May-Eye (or is it May-I?) knows boundless hexes, curses, and vile spells, and as such knows how to turn such effects away. Unfortunately, this comes at a great cost. If none of the Talisman’s uses have been expended, the wearer may choose to automatically succeed on a single saving throw against a spell targeting them rather than rolling a save. If they do, all uses of the Talisman are expended at once.

Loyal Underling Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, Pact of the Chain

The gentle touch of Mother Marigold alerts your familiar to the unimaginable pains she can instill upon them should they fail their mission. They become desperate to succeed, gaining additional maximum hitpoints equal to your Warlock level each time they are summoned, and whenever they would make a saving throw, they may use your save in place of their own if yours is higher.

Beast of Ill Omen Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, must be able to cast Find Familiar, level 5

Mother May-I (or is it May-Eye?) afflicts your familiar with a dangerous curse that lashes out at anything that attacks it. Any creature that damages your familiar with an attack or spell becomes affected by the spell Bane until the end of their next turn, without receiving a saving throw.

Bubble, Bubble Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron

You can never go wrong with a nice, sturdy iron cauldron. Each of the Three have one, and are willing to grant you one, as well. You gain access to a Tiny iron cauldron, which appears in a space adjacent to you upon gaining this Invocation. As an action, you can cause the cauldron to magically heat or cool its contents, and once per long rest may command it to fill with roughly 10 gallons of pure, fresh water. By spending 1 minute of uninterrupted concentration, you can call the cauldron and all its contents into a space adjacent to yours from across any distance (including other planes). The cauldron can be used as Alchemist’s Supplies or a Poisoner’s Kit for the purpose of crafting potions or poisons. If the cauldron is ever destroyed, a new one is supplied after you complete a long rest.

Unbreakable Charm Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron

Mother Marigold‘s supernatural charm allowed her to keep hold of her victims’ minds even as she began extracting her souvenirs. Whenever the charmed condition would end on a creature that is within 30ft of you that you can see, you may use your reaction to refresh the charm effect for just a moment more, preventing it from being broken. If you do, the charm effect is automatically removed at the end of that creature’s next turn. You cannot target the same creature with this ability again until you complete a long rest.

False Cure Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron

A bargaining chip given to you by Mother Marigold, the promise of health and safety... until you have what you need, and leave the poor fool to suffer. As an action, you may touch a single creature and suppress any or all of the following conditions on it: blinded, deafened, poisoned, cursed, stunned, diseased, or frightened. While suppressed, the duration of the conditions--if any--is paused. The conditions cease being suppressed and their durations resume 10 minutes later. You cannot use this ability on the same creature again until you complete a long rest.

The Evil Eye Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 5

The cruel gaze of Mother May-Eye (or is it May-I?) can sap the strength and will of anything it falls upon, a technique she begrudgingly shares with you. As an action, you can level your gaze at a creature you can see within 100ft of you. That creature must make a Charisma save against your Warlock spell save DC or become cursed. Choose one: Ability checks, saving throws, armor class, attack rolls, or skill checks. The cursed creature suffers a -2 penalty to the chosen statistic until 1 minute passes or until you use the Evil Eye again, both of which end the curse. Upon reaching level 10, this penalty becomes -4.

Cutting Cunning Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 5

There are some foes that simply won’t listen to diplomacy. In these cases, Mother Marigold encourages you to cut them down until they do. As an action, you may designate creatures up to your Charisma modifier that you can see and make a Deception or Bluff check opposed by an Insight check that each of them must make. The targeted creatures must be able to see, hear, and understand you (you must share a language with them) to be affected by this. Any creature who fails the opposed roll takes 2d6 points of psychic damage as you cut them down with words alone. Any creature damaged by this ability has disadvantage on the next attack roll they make until the end of your next turn. Any creature that fails their Insight check by 10 or more cannot take reactions until the end of your next turn. You may use this ability a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, after which you much finish a short or long rest to do so again.

Green Stride Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 7

Abhorrent as she is, Mother Mandrake can move silent as a falling leaf when needed, and grants you the same power. You leave no physical evidence of your passage, such as footprints or fingerprints, and cannot be tracked without magic.

False Care Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 7

With a touch, you can sooth a creature’s greatest pains... for a time. As an action, you may touch a creature to grant it temporary hitpoints equal to your Warlock level. While these hitpoints last, the touched creature also has +1 to all saving throws. These hitpoints fade after 10 minutes. You cannot target the same creature with this ability again until you complete a long rest.

Toil and Trouble Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 7, Bubble, Bubble

Mother Mandrake, perhaps impressed with you making it this far, gifts you a secret list of recipes you can use to brew potions and poisons much like she can. She uses more... exotic ingredients than most, however, and not many have the stomach for it. You may spend 10 minutes harvesting supplies from the corpse of a Small or larger creature which has been dead for less than 1 day and possessed an Int of 3 or greater in life. These supplies remain viable for 1 day before becoming unusable. You can only harvest one batch of supplies from an individual corpse. You may use these supplies in conjunction with the cauldron you get from Bubble, Bubble in a ritual which takes 1 hour to perform (this may be done as part of a rest), mixing them into a potent brew. At the end of this hour, you create a single potion or poison of Common rarity. If you use three batches of harvested supplies, you can create one of Uncommon rarity instead.

Bewitching Perfume Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 10

While Mother Marigold claims to be above such petty trickery, there is no arguing with results. Each time you complete a long rest, you gain a small bottle of perfume. This minute glass bottle has three sprays within. As an action, you can spray one dose on yourself. For the next 10 minutes, any creature that begins its turn adjacent to you must make a Wisdom saving throw versus your Warlock spell save DC or become charmed by you for 1 hour, until they receive any damage, or until they spend at least 1 minute further than 30ft from you. A creature that succeeds their saving throw can no longer be charmed by that particular dose of the perfume. The bottle remains viable for only 24 hours before vanishing, any remaining perfume lost.

Grisly Apron Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 10

Mother Mandrake’s horrific appetites have stained this cloth apron with enough muck and gore that it’s turned almost completely black. You can call this apron to you as an action or dismiss it as a bonus action. This mystic apron can produce a wide variety of tools and mundane substances as needed, allowing it to act as a set of Cooking Utensils, a Poisoner’s Kit, an Herbalism Kit, or Alchemist’s Supplies as needed. You gain proficiency with each of these tools while you wear the apron, and items you craft using these tools take half as long to create.

Hex Poppet Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 10

Mother May-I (or is it May-Eye?) wasn’t satisfied with elevating herself, she had to lower everyone else around her. This is one such tool she used, her favorite, an ugly doll stuffed with bone and hair that appears near you each time you complete a long rest. As an action, you can target a single creature within 60ft of you that you can see while holding the Hex Poppet to target it with a Bestow Curse spell cast at 3rd level. Once the Hex Poppet has been used three times, or after 24 hours pass, it disappears.

Blood of the Coven Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 10

The presence of the Three instills a certain awe and respect in other Hags. You have advantage on Diplomacy, Intimidation, and Deception checks against Hags, and count as a Hag for the purpose of being able to form a Coven, create Hag Eyes, and participate in Shared Spellcasting. Hags in the same coven as you (including yourself) may cast spells you know of 5th level and lower by using spell slots from Shared Spellcasting.

Crushing Misfortune Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 12

With a single baleful utterance you can call foul luck down upon a creature like rain. As an action, you can force a creature within 60ft of you that you can see to make a Charisma saving throw against your spell save DC or become cursed until the end of your next turn. A creature cursed in this way has disadvantage on attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks. Once you successfully curse a creature with this ability, you cannot curse another until you complete a long rest.

Cauldron-Born Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 15, Bubble, Bubble

Should the aspect of Madam Mothlight not be enough for you, there is another shadowy creature you can call to your side, gifted by Mother Mandrake alone. By placing ingredients carefully harvested from a Medium humanoid or humanoids whose total combined CR equals 8 or greater into the cauldron called to you by Bubble, Bubble, you may enact a dark ritual to call a Banderhobbe to your service. This ritual requires 8 hours of uninterrupted concentration and the sacrifice of a live toad at its conclusion, which calls a Banderhobbe from your cauldron. The Banderhobbe obeys you unquestioningly for 1d6+1 days, after which it dies messily. You may have only one Banderhobbe in existence at a time; summoning another one causes the previous one to die messily.

False Peace Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 15

A favorite spell of Mother Marigold, this is, hiding her entire home from prying eyes until she lets it be revealed. You can cast Mirage Arcane without expending a Warlock spell slot. You must complete a long rest before being able to do so again, and using this ability again causes the previous illusion to end immediately.

No Rest for the Wicked Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 15

... Or those who’ve earned the ire of Mother May-Eye (or is it May-I?). You may cast Dream without expending a Warlock spell slot or material components, but only to send nightmarish visitors to the target. After targeting a creature with this ability, three days must pass before you can target that creature again.

Mothlight Legacy Prereq: Mothlight Three Patron, level 20

Whenever you use the Fourfold Gift ability to call forth a Night Hag, she is a fragment of Madam Mothlight and thus lingers permanently, or until one of you is reduced to 0 HP. She has 40 additional maximum HP and adds your proficiency modifier to any d20 roll she makes and to the DCs of her innate spells. When summoned, she has both a Hearthstone and a Soul Bag (which vanish if taken from her), and may be directed to use them as you will it. If left to her own devices, she acts as a cohort or sidekick, working to advance your power and prestige without your input, performing tasks at the DMs discretion (typically trading vile souls she captures with fiends for items and favors). Using the Fourfold Gift ritual while she still lives will summon her to your side instead of creating a new Hag, but will remake her Hearthstone and Soul Bag if she no longer has them.

more to come, maybe.

#original concepts #Dungeons and Dragons #d&d homebrew #5e DnD #5e homebrew

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