#ch: zephis marin

[lordcaptains]

i commissioned @zazrichor for art of my wotr knight-commander, zephis marin, and i'm a little bit in love with how it turned out? @zazrichor really got her down, and everything i love about their style comes through here. if you ever have the chance to commission them, you absolutely should!

[lordcaptains]

The Devil's Advocates, or a Hellknight Trial

Characters: Knight-Commander, the Hand of the Inheritor, Mephistopheles

Pairing: pre-relationship Knight-Commander/the Hand of the Inheritor

Summary: The training of Paralictor Regill Derenge is the only reason the Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade is still alive. If she wants to stay that way, she has to survive a Hellknight's trial.

Read on AO3.

[lordcaptains]

so when i started playing wotr again after over a year, it seemed like my love of the game was here to stay, and i was fortunate enough to commission @airagitt to draw my knight-commander, zephis marin

and here she is! @airagitt was wonderful to work with - they did such an amazing job of turning my description of zephis into a depiction of her, and i couldn't be happier!

[lordcaptains]

so i had fun with this excellent picrew by @deerinspotlight and made my wotr knight-commander, zephis! (i added in her necklace and tattoos from the amazing character sheet that @airagitt made of her)

i'm a bit behind on the latest trend, but i wanted to share her anyway!

[lordcaptains]

"You've not stopped pacing all evening." "The foul insinuations of that vile demon - " The angel cut himself off, his fist clenching. She blinked. "Is this about what Scocothbenoth said?" "His suggestion that I would ever defile you in such a way is - is - is obscene! That I might take you as a demon would, to be used only only to satiate my own rapacious appetites - "

[lordcaptains]

Yaker Ankelle had spent the morning kneeling in the courtyard, tracing out a large summoning circle in thick lines of chalk as the rising sun warmed the flagstones. The knight-commander of the Fifth Crusade leaned up against the wall of the keep, watching the Hellknight work. Beside her, back ramrod straight and hands clasped behind his back, stood Paralictor Regill Derenge of the Order of the Godclaw. "You know," the knight-commander said again, in the resigned tone of someone who didn't expect what she said to make a difference. "I've no intention of actually joining the Hellknights." "Irrelevant," replied the paralictor, sparing her a glance. "You have completed your armiger training. If you wish to continue under my instruction, you must undergo the initiation."

[lordcaptains]

She knew how to fight. The paralictor had seen to that, and his brutal regime had kept her alive. But she didn't think she'd ever have Regill or Yaker's ease before battle. Or the Herald's, for that matter. Even as she thought of him, a gold feather drifted past her face, its soft down brushing her cheek. She reached out to catch it and looked up again to see the angel haloed by the sun, his golden wings spread wide as he descended towards the courtyard.  Smiling, she tucked the feather into her gambeson and went to meet him.

[lordcaptains]

🦅Ulbrig - When he broke the roof of the Tavern

wrath of the righteous - companion opinions

"Lass!" A calloused hand clapped her heartily on the shoulder. "My new friends here tell me you have a trick for making the swill they serve here more palatable."

From behind the bar, Gemyl Hawkes gave the big man a dour look. Ulbrig ignored it.

Zephis looked up from her mug of beer. Behind Ulbrig, a boisterous table of crusaders were laughing and cheering each other so raucously that their drink slopped from their tankards. One of them, more sober than his fellows, caught her eye and hoisted his glass in a toast.

Wordlessly, Zephis lifted her hand and placed it, palm down, just above Ulbrig's mug. Then it was just a simple bit of kinesis, as easy as exhaling, and the pale liquid in the glass stilled as it cooled.

"Remarkable," Ulbrig said, turning his mug this way and that. Instead of returning to his table, he joined her, hoisting himself onto the barstool next to her. "You ought to be careful with that, though. A party trick like that could get you killed in Sarkoris."

A chill raced through Zephis' blood, and unbidden, ice crystals crawled up her arms, climbing over her exposed tattoos. Too late, she remembered who she was talking to.

"Are we going to have a problem?" she asked quietly, knuckles tight around her own mug.

"No reason we should," he replied, jovial enough. "Our traditions may be the wisdom of our ancestors, but we don't follow them blindly."

As if to prove it, he took a long pull from the mug she'd just magicked before continuing. 

"What you do, it's like no magic I've ever seen. You've proven yourself to no gods. But you fight with the strength of your arms, and you tire with them, too, just as any warrior would. Maybe that's all that's needed in the battle against these oglins and fey."

Zephis relaxed, the ice melting away. Still, she couldn't help but correct him. "Demons."

Ulbrig drained his mug. "Whatever."

In her own mug, Zephis hid her smile.

[lordcaptains]

5 & 10 for zephis and the hand of the inheritor!

How do they consciously realize that they like the other character? Does it take them a while?

Zephis should have realized how she'd come to feel about the Hand of the Inheritor when he abandoned her at Noticula's palace, and she wanted nothing more than to flee after him, to plead that she hadn't known what she was.

She should have realized in the mines of Colyphyr, when she saw him shackled, hanging from the wall, weak from months upon months of torture, and it felt like the ground had dropped out from under her as the Echo of Deskari's taunts rang in her ears. She should have realized when Baphomet ripped the angel's heart from his chest, and it felt like her heart had been torn from her own. 

It's not until they're in the depths of the Ineluctable Prison, and she's struggling to fall asleep over the faint, echoing sounds of his screams, that she realizes.

(It never even crosses the Hand of the Inheritor's mind that he might be feeling something more for his champion until Targona has a gentle conversation with him atop the battlements of Drezen.)

What scares them about entering a relationship?

He's an angel. And not just any angel - he's the Hand of the Inheritor, Iomedae's herald, general of heaven's celestial armies! Or at least he was, and more than one denizen of Drezen has witnessed the knight-commander having what appears to be a silent argument with a stained glass window in the crusader goddess' temple. 

(She's a mortal, and he knows, at the best of times, that he struggles to understand mortals, too.)

[lordcaptains]

The Herald remembered those doors. He could barely lift his head as the demons dragged him down the dark corridor that led to Baphomet's labyrinthine prison. A hundred faces stared down at him from its massive doors, each one twisted in unimaginable anguish, locked in an eternity of torment. The Herald knew that whatever fate awaited him behind those doors would be far, far worse. Perhaps, with the champion at his side, they could have broken down these doors. Perhaps together they could have freed those poor souls trapped inside that dark, defiled metal. Perhaps -  No. He should not think of her. But the pain made it so hard to think of anything else.

[lordcaptains]

12 and 24 for Zephis please!

How much independence do they prefer in a relationship—do they want to share their lives as much as possible with their partner, or do they prefer to mostly do their own thing and let their partner do their own thing? 

When she's with Yaker, she prefers her autonomy, and so does he. She's got to get on with learning to lead the Fifth Crusade, and he has his Hellknighting to do. They meet up to spar - martially during the day, verbally and otherwise at night  - and sometimes they'll share an evening meal and spend a bit of time together then, too. But their duties and responsibilities keep them busy and apart, and they both understand what this relationship will - and will not - be.

(Maybe, if Galfrey hadn't condemned her to the Abyss, it could have been different. But she's changed when they make it out, irrevocably altered in a way she can neither articulate nor return from. Yaker, consummate Hellknight that he is, already seems to know.)

With the Herald, it's different. He can almost always be found by her side, and she by his. She is his champion, and he is her herald.

What would their partner do that would really turn them on, perhaps unintentionally? 

She's sitting cross-legged on the ground in the Hellknight's encampment, leaning back against the log on which Yaker sat and basking in the light of the fire. The cold doesn't bother her, hasn't since her kinesis manifested years ago, but the flickering flames hold back the darkness of the wilderness beyond. They're weeks away from Drezen yet. 

She'd lent Yaker her copy of The Manual of City-Building earlier in the evening, and now it lays open on his lap, his head bent over it as his lips move softly, his finger skimming lightly over the text. She'd been surprised by the delicacy with which he'd handled the well-worn tome, the care with which he'd opened the cracked leather cover and gently turned the pages.

She shouldn't have been, of course. Hellknights were all about control, after all - control and restraint and a firm, exacting discipline, and suddenly it occurs to her that there might be something else he could be doing with those lips and fingers right now instead of reading an Abadaran holy text, and the heat she feels rising within her has nothing to do with the fire at all.

[lordcaptains]

Zephis Marin, Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade

"disdainful stroke" © wotc | "channeled storm" © zenimax | "jane foster" by miguel mercado

template by @jacobseed

[lordcaptains]

🌧️ 📚 for Zephis?

🌧️ What is your OC's favorite thing to do on a rainy day?

Go outside in it!

Her kinesis lets her wear a sleeveless tunic when most everyone else is wrapped in furs, and rain gives her just enough water to form armor or a shield, now that she's learned. She's comfortable dealing with the weather after years of wandering, too - she's able to keep the worst of the worst of the biting wind and driving snow off of them as they fight their way up the hill to the Lost Chapel.

📚 Your OC has to improvise a 10-minute lecture on a topic of their choosing. What do they choose?

Well, it's not exactly a lecture, but she and Yaker Ankelle have argued for hours about the Abadaran faith and the doctrine of the Godclaw. 

It starts almost as soon as they meet and becomes something of an evening ritual for them as the army marches towards Drezen. She seeks him out around the fire of the Hellknight's encampment, drops down to sit on the ground next to him, and picks up right where they left off.

("And another thing - ")

If by the end of the evening she's leaning up against him and he has his arm wrapped around her, it's no matter. They're still arguing.

[lordcaptains]

🗡️ Trever - Taking him into combat for the first time. (Or explaining why you won't.)

wrath of the righteous - companion opinions

The knight-commander approached Trever where he stood at the rocky edge of the Nexus, staring down into the Abyss. She placed a pile of plate and mail on a stone next to him and stepped back.

"We purchased armor for you in the market. The fit will be far from perfect, and I'm certain it's come from nowhere good, but it's not what you wore in the Battlebliss."

He lifted a chain shirt from the pile, inspecting it with a practiced eye. "Thank you."

"We can't afford for you to go unarmed here - "

He glanced at her sharply. "You would be a fool if you tried."

The knight-commander hesitated, then dipped her head in acknowledgement before continuing.

"But once we return to Drezen, the choice is yours. You won't have to take up arms again."

"I had not thought the Worldwound so close to being healed," he said.

"It is not, but there is more than one way to fight the Abyss," she replied, smiling faintly. "Only a fool would value the sword and spear over the scythe and plow."

Trever bowed his head. "I wish for nothing more than to return to my family's farm to work the land again."

The knight-commander nodded and began to turn away.

"But I will not leave my brother," Trever continued. "I had thought him lost to me forever. I will not lose him again. So long as Sosiel remains with this crusade, I shall remain by his side."

The knight-commander gave him a long, thoughtful look before fishing into a pouch at her belt and tossing him a coin.

"Then you'll be outfitted upon our return. Welcome back to the fight, Trever."

[lordcaptains]

She shifted her stance, hand tightening by her side. The weapon she gripped was almost invisible - a frozen sword of winter air, hilted in hoarfrost and edged with ice. It could never have been a scythe. A scythe helped civilization flourish. A sword defended it.

Her opponent charged, and she raised her blade, bracing for the bite of blackened Hellknight steel.

Zephis Marin, Knight-Commander of the Fifth Crusade

inspired by @camelliagwerm​ | template by @ulisaypo​ | “negate” © wotc

[lordcaptains]

Two days forced march had brought them to the brink of exhaustion - and to the ephemeral portal leading to the Ineluctable Prison, where the Hand of the Inheritor was being held. Opened by the torment and anguish of the herald as his soul reached for hers, the portal would not remain open for long.

The Knight-Commander faced it, fear and determination pounding in her chest. She would be leaving the prison with the Hand of the Inheritor, or she would not be leaving at all.

ACT V ↬ Knight-Commander Zephis Marin

"paladin class" © wotc