#daeva nanghaithya

[daeva-agas]

Crack animation 2: Crispmas. There's a HP/MP bar because in the initial scene it was meant to look like someone actually playing a game and switching around party members to decorate the room.

Never finished for the same reason as the other one: I forgot the script/plot. Was making these between school/college activities, and then like... Woops.

Why are the daeva just chilling there with the druids having "Crispmas party" together together and everything's fine? It was supposed to be explained in the thing, but yeah, silly me for not actually writing down the script.

Funny scenes from the "footage" I already did:

Inside joke about venisons from Ye Olde Forums (courtesy of @druidofdarkness).

Breaking the Fourth Wall

And references to AV3

[satohqbanana]

Aveyond Divergent Fate Part 13-5

A/N: Short one this time. Versus Zarich!

--

The party meets up at a long corridor filled with vertical metal bars: first to arrive is Dameon, then Elini, then Rhen and Lars, and finally Te'ijal, who arrives from the ceiling.

While everyone walked through the hall of mirrors and faced something unpleasant, Te'ijal tells the group that an undead monster grabbed her and lifted her to the next level. After defeating the monster, she realized she was in Rashnu's room. There, the petrified body of her former teacher stood.

She did not know where to go from there, but she just followed the scent of blood when it came. Rhen's blood to be exact. Te'ijal couldn't find a proper way to the lower level, so she simply tore a hole through the floor to meet up with everyone.

They have no time to check out everyone else's stories, as they all feel an ominous presence from the other end of the corridor. They brace themselves - it is the daeva who took control of the Cathedral.

To open the metal bars, Te'ijal helps them answer a set of questions about darkness and its druids, something she learned as an ex-acolyte of darkness.

And at the end of the corridor is a lone door. The resonating power is stronger, and they decide that the daeva is hiding behind it. They divide their supplies among themselves, and they cautiously enter the door.

There, the daeva Zarich floats above the room. He hisses in greeting.

His abilities involve lightning, and that makes it tricky for Lars' water-element magic to work out. However, when Elini summoned Nanghaithya, the controlled daeva countered his former comrade’s spells with earth-element magic. The spells within the Sword of Chaos isn't too effective on him, but Rhen is at least thankful that the sword still packs a punch.

Te'ijal keeps from a distance to shoot arrows at Zarich and make him lose focus once in a while. Dameon supports the party by healing or rousing them from the Zarich's spell of sleep. The party's strategy to split resources among them is effective, as Zarich also tries to siphon away their mana.

One against five, Zarich grows weak. Finally, Rhen deals the final blow, and Elini binds Zarich's will to her.

The party finds themselves exhausted after the fight, most especially Rhen and Lars. Perhaps, the mirror maze was meant to weaken them. At the least, they were all alive. And now, they have Rashnu's soul.

[daeva-agas]

Crack animation from around 2010 or so.

No matter whether it's a canon compliant or AU scenario, in my headcanon Derez and AV1-Gavin and all the random warlock/sorcerers/etc in AV2 and 3 that are recolours of that same base sprite will always be "Nanghaithya clone minions".

Man, I suddenly kind of want to replace that Vohu faceset, because I just grabbed a random drawing that I had on hand and it was a bit bleh, but I don't wanna reupload this stupid video. It's short but for some reason it takes forever to upload and process.

I really was also gonna make the capture scenarios of all the druids, but at the time I was like "I don't need to write this down, I can remember all my dialogue script". Well, of course I forgot everything afterwards LMAO. The idea was that all 6 daeva had a different spell/method for it, plus chaotic interactions.

I did make Eithera and it's even sillier than this one and I now have second hand embarrassment from it LOL. I'll show the "soul capture" spell at least:

[daeva-agas]

I was thinking "I should clarify my designs/mental image of the AV druids some more because of Lore (TM)", but LMAO I can't help thinking of the daeva all the time...

I've had this mental gag for the longest time that "Rashnu looks kind of creepy, and Nanghaithya looks more like the druid than him". Wanted to draw visuals to compare (also Nanghaithya's full face without the covering on his mouth).

Rashnu isn't actually fierce, he just... has permanent frown lines from years of overthinking. Nanghaithya has a few braids that can turn into vines and thorns (because of his Earth element thing).

I probably should make a more detailed character drawing/profile someday... I originally wanted to try to fanfic it, but it's been like 5 years and the words still aren't working.

This version of Nanghaithya is different than this one because the one pictured in this post is for a specific AU/canon divergent lore. Mostly canon compliant, but there's a few flights of fancy taken. That other one is more fully canon compliant.

[daeva-agas]

Nanghaithya

Element: Earth

Original species: Quarem

Special ability: Mind control

The quarem uses song to snare their prey and eat them. Nanghaithya is of the ascended class of the kind who has evolved the skill so that he can control others with normal spoken words. For that reason he had to wear a sealing cloth on his mouth, to prevent him from using his powers.

Quarem are, typically, immune to the mind control abilities of their fellow kind, and more perceptive of other methods of hypnotism.

---

I can't believe I forgot to post this here. Or, if I did, I tagged it incorrectly because I can't find it. Was going to make a full set of "encyclopaedia profiles" for 'em, but I got sidetracked while doing Zarich and never finished.

Because of Elini's summon animations, I always headcanon the daeva as being associated to a specific element. How it works has been evolving in my head over time, but currently they are "elemental guardians" who are each assigned to one element. They individually have other spell abilities based on whatever demon species they are.

Also, walking cactus, one of Nanghaithya's minions:

They're about as ridiculous and dumb as those yellow Minions.

[daeva-agas]

Redraw of old art I found in my old folders. The old painting is from 2009. I’m amazed how old that drawing is. It wasn’t that bad, so I had assumed it was newer.

Pre-redesign Nanghaithya is so... well, not soft per se, but he’s nicer. 

I feel like. In Saiyuki terms. He's vaguely reminiscent of Hakkai ahaaahaha my Saiyuki phase is showing.

I cannot remember for the life of me why I designed Nanghaithya with (mostly) Chinese aesthetics despite the typical Western fantasy RPG setting. I guess I was just trying something different.

Since in the older drawing it’s just a flat art with no environment/BG I took the BG design from an even older art. It’s some lake with falling stars and for some reason I called it Lake Averne just because it sounds cool. It has nothing to do with the mythology/legends. 

[satohqbanana]

Aveyond Divergent Fate Part 11

A/N: Let’s take a slight detour to deal with a plot point that I deliberately wrote out a few parts ago: Devin!

--

Halloween Hills can be accessed via the Wildwoods, and Rhen and Lars get a victory welcome from the Wildwoods hunters. Both teens tell the hunters to shut up because they're there for business. While the two get busy getting info about Halloween Hills, Elini and Dameon are told the apparent story of how Rhen and Lars defeated the hind and rescued all the petrified travellers. Rhen and Lars appear embarrassed by said tale, much to their companions’ confusion.

Rhen and Lars are both told to stake some vampires, but both disagree as they only plan to find the portal to the Cathedral of Darkness. The hunters think they're being insane, as the only way to that portal is littered with vampires.

Lars thinks the vampires can be avoided, so the exasperated hunters give their party some garlic necklaces. Rhen thanks them for their concern as Elini drags a fuming Lars threatening to singe all the garlic he'd just been given.

Elini grows curious about Rhen and Lars’ relationship. True to their truce, the two sum it up as a rivalry carrying on from their time at school. Dameon feels suspicious of it, even thinks it might have to do with slavery, but even he cannot goad Rhen into telling anything.

As the party travels, they find a cabin in the woods with trails of blood. Alarmed at the struggle, the party cautiously approaches the cabin and finds Devin lying there. Rhen almost faints at the sight, but Lars and Dameon examine the man. He is still alive!

The party stays with Devin for a while. While Rhen and Dameon nurse Devin back to health, Lars and Elini try to figure out what happened. There is too much blood for Devin for be the only victim, and the blood trail leads to outside. The trail slowly turns into merely drops of blood, meaning the other victim(s) either healed themself/ves or was/were carried.

Being away from the siblings, Elini decides to mention Rhen to Lars.

“You know, I’m envious of you and that girl.” “What?” “You and Rhen are so in sync! Like you know each other inside-out.” “...n-no?!” “Have you seen yourself fight against Nanghaithya?” “Yes, but we haven’t known each other for too long! What are you even saying?!” “Alright. I stand corrected. You don’t know everything about each other. But still, you guys are as tight as threads in a waterproof pouch.” “There’s nothing between me and her. I swear! We’re just schoolmates and that’s it!” “Schoolmates with a history, methinks.”

It gets Lars blushing in embarrassment, and leaves Elini with the wrongest of ideas.

Meanwhile, Devin wakes up. Rhen hugs him tightly, telling him that she thought she lost him. Devin assures him he’s strong and he can handle himself… except when swarmed by vampires.

He tells Rhen and Dameon that he met Danny, who was worried about both Rhen and Dameon. Danny reported that he lost Dameon on the ship to the Eastern Isle, and that he had toured around the Empire without seeing any signs of Rhen. Devin decided that he’d accompany Danny back to Clearwater, before Clearwater loses another one of its children.

However, when night came, Devin and Danny were attacked by vampires. The vampires took Danny, who is of “young blood”. Devin doesn’t know how long he’s fainted, but he urges the two to find Danny immediately.

Rhen is filled with sorrow to learn of Danny’s fate. Dameon feels guilty because his actions led to Danny’s fate. The two swear to Devin that they will find Danny, but for now, they give him a travelling rune so he can meet up with Talia in the Sun Temple.

They also inform Devin about the current state of affairs - the prophecy, and daeva-hunting. Devin regrets not telling Rhen sooner about the prophecy, but if she needs him to explain more about it and Thais and her biological mother, he’ll gladly tell her all about it. Rhen chooses not to know more about that side of the story. For now, she will enjoy the knowledge that her father is safe.

Later on, Rhen informs Lars and Elini that they should stay with Devin for now until he is well enough to walk. Lars thinks this is unnecessary since they can just teleport Devin to Aveyond and have Talia take care of him, but Rhen tells him that she’s the leader of this troupe so they will follow her plans. Of course, an argument ensues.

“You?! The leader?! If it weren’t for me, you would’ve never turned that hind into stone!” “And if it weren’t for me, you’d have gone into stone the moment you stepped into her cave!”

Due to this incident, Elini thinks they used to be on-off lovers as students, and they probably still are. Dameon disagrees and thinks it’s because the incredible Rhen managed to overshadow the pompous and overconfident Lars during their youth. Devin remarks that Rhen is so strong to have befriended a boy who… has personality… 

[satohqbanana]

Aveyond Divergent Fate P10-3

A/N: Onto Land's End! Versus Nanghaithya! Elini reveals her real intentions, and sus… Lars’... dream demon…???

--

Rhen makes the offering at the altar of Mt. Orion, and her party is granted access to cross the great river separating the mountain from the lands.

Their trek up Mt. Orion is challenging, as ravwyrn kings and fire griffins try to fling them off the mountainside, and crazed cave spirits try to keep them from advancing. Rhen inspires the party to move forward - to save a druid, to restore Land’s End, and to quell the fears of the old priestess.

As they go through the caves, Lars calls for a timeout to wash his face and rest. While doing so, a light casts from the roof of the cave, and the demon from his dreams appears in the small pool of water.

“Don’t expect too much from this one, my boy.”

“I’ve no clue what you’re talking about.”

“I’m just trying to go with your plans, Mr. Nobody.”

“Shut up.”

“Now finish washing your face, or else you’ll lose her trust. Or, is that what you’re planning?”

Just then, Rhen calls for Lars. Lars dismisses the demon as a figment of his imagination, a result of the fatigue that burdens him. If there’s a way for Elini to siphon this demon out of his dreams, he’d let her do it and he’d remember this favor forever.

Other than defeating the crazed guardians of the mountain, the party does not encounter much more trouble. They eventually reach Nanghaithya at the peak of Mt. Orion. Nanghaithya eagerly mentions how Ahriman would reward him for Rhen’s head.

Nanghaithya tries to target Rhen. His fire powers, however, are no match for Lars’ mastery over water. Nanghaithya can heal himself, but not as fast as the trio attacks him. He tries to paralyze them to stop them from moving, and charm them to give in to their fatigue and sleep, but the trio persists.

When someone gets injured, Lars heals them. When the teens need to rest and catch their breaths, Elini steps forward to defend them. When her teammates open the path for her, Rhen makes sure to deal heavy slashes.

Finally, Nanghaithya falls. As he does, he mentions how it must’ve been the fault of the demon Agas, all while staring at Lars. Lars gets frozen where he stands, but he figures out that the name of the demon bothering him in his dreams is Agas. Rhen meanwhile acquires the soul of the druid.

Elini binds Nanghaithya to her, sealing his mouth and gaining command of his will. The daeva loses light in his eyes and becomes her servant, disappearing into a sealing circle. She mentions that it will take some time before he is ready to serve her, but for now, he will never terrorize anyone again, as long as Elini is alive.

Once again, Rhen and Lars look at each other.

“Nice husband you got there,” Lars teases. “Ahem, daeva, I mean.”

Elini stiffens.

“Could you kindly explain why you lied about that?” Rhen asks.

Upon Rhen's encouragement, Elini gives in and tells them her story.

“When I left Veldt, people never took me seriously. When I said I wanted to fight and defeat the daevas, people looked at me like I was strange. And they told me, why would a Veldtian woman be interested in daevas? I’m a summoner, but to outsiders, all Veldtian women are only lustful for men."

Lars asks, "So why hunt daevas?"

Elini smiles. "I'm a summoner, after all. And I want to help. I want to try and deal with the evil spreading throughout Aia. I know it's their power destroying this world. And if I bind them to myself, no other person may command them but me. That way, no greater evil will be able to use their power.”

Rhen and Lars look at each other. Finally, Rhen turns to Elini and holds her hand. “Thank you for your honesty, Elini. We’re glad to have you in our team. You can bind all and any daevas and demons you wish.”

“Thank you, Rhen.”

Lars tries not to roll his eyes from the absolute sappiness of the scene. On the trek down from Mt. Orion, the teens share the goal of their journey with Elini.

As a token of their friendship, Elini gives the teens one nazar amulet each. It would help them ward off evil in such a perilous journey.

And Lars wonders, will this be enough to hold that dream demon back?

[daeva-agas]

Now I finally understand the old forum folks when they said Nanghaithya was just sitting there in the basement and there’s no Mount Orion to pass through first LOLOLOLOLOL... 

When I found Aveyond 1 way back when it was already the Build B release. I eventually found this Build A demo in Wayback Machine, and it miraculously still installs. 

I don’t think any of the daeva even said anything if you fight them. Battle just starts immediately when you interact with them. Damn, imagine not having the very snide comments Agas made at Dameon... 

[daeva-agas]

If you don't mind me asking, where did you get the inspiration for your username??

There’s this RPG series called Aveyond, and in the first game the sub-bosses are called daeva, named after the Persian myth daeva. One of them is an “Agas”, who is... by Persian myth is not actually a daeva, and I dunno why the developer switched out the actual daeva with this one. There’s really no mythological reasoning for it in the game. The daeva don’t talk much, they have no lore, they are just there for you, the player, to beat up. 

Buuuut way back when in the community players started talking and a bunch of them ended up making up lore for the bad guy group and it got me curious enough to look up the actual mythology. So once I joined the community, I named myself this because I’m getting a kick out of “Agas” being the weird one who kinda shouldn’t be there. Also because the other daeva I was somewhat fascinated with is Nanghaithya, and that is a pain to type, so “agas” is the less troublesome option. Our browsers don’t have autofill function way back when in 2007. I have to type in the username every time I need to login.  

I’m rather averse to change so I tend to have the same usernames across many platforms. I made my Tumblr back when Aveyond is still my main fandom (I’ve been here since 2011 or so), and I don’t like changing my ID, so it’s been my ID the whole time.

This is why “my name” is actually the “agas” part (in lower case, to differentiate from Agas the character LMAO) and not “daeva”. "daeva agas” is kinda the equivalent of saying uh... “Jedi Luke” or “wizard Dumbledore”, you know?  

[daeva-agas]

This probably means absolutely nothing to 90% of my followers OTL

Aveyond 1, how I got my username, long story, don’t worry if you don’t get it.

Anyway between that old drawing and now, I tweaked the daeva squad so that they’re less cutesy/silly and more... well, semi-serious. Mostly just more deranged, though with slightly more organized backstories. It also entails minor redesign of appearance, so in human AU they look different too. Due to the personality change the Hogwarts AU house alignments would shift too, so... 

I’m mostly just horrified that Nanghaithya looks like some sort of anime Snape and Agas looks like anime Malfoy that I see on Twitter or Pixiv fanarts. Maybe it would look less weird if I preserved their bizarro hair colours, but I enforced a strict Normal Human Appearance on myself this time, so eh. I’ll live. 

[daeva-agas]

Zarich, Agas, and Nanghaithya

Uh, way back when I was playing Aveyond: Rhen’s Quest I think I was thinking “Wouldn’t the daevas like... get bored while waiting for us to get there?” and then it just grew from there...

I mean, hey, I’m still using “daeva agas” as my ID in a lot of places 

My “current” incarnation of the daeva designs are grittier because I gave them Plot And Backstories, but the more fun-and-lulz version from, oh, maybe 2008? They had their own charm too.

ETA: Plus speed-coloured version

[daeva-agas]

Hello a aveyond 1 question, why do you like agas so much? Im mere curious, I really like his sprite, it reminds me of kain of ff4. Also do you have headcannon for him?

It's time for ~Deep Lore~

Believe it or not, it's actually not like that. Among the AV daeva my first favourite was Nanghaithya because "his" sprite is the one that looks most normal and stuff. You can't even see Agas's face, so it's like meh. I just paid attention to Agas sort of because of the cutscene where he makes snippy comments at Dameon.

(I'm not sure how long have you been in the fandom, but back in the day a lot of us players do not like Dameon, so like, I cheered on him because he makes Dameon look really bad in front of the other team members)

But anyway, my gag crack ship involving Agas somehow stuck permanently, and he ended up just being my focus of attention because I had wanted to make a fanfic out of it. I wrote 1-2 chapters, and I never managed to finish writing, but I already did pretty extensive plotting for it so yeah.

I shifted stuff around for a bit, but I kinda settled for my daeva "mains" being a trio of Agas, Nanghaithya, and Zarich.

Funny thing is, those three are literally just default RPG Maker XP sprites. Agas is a default lance warrior, Nanghaithya a default wizard, and Zarich a default ghost/monster.

Also. My headcanon is like... Really Long. Like all amateur fantasy writers, we all want to be like Tolkien LOLOL.

The short version is that Agas's dad is Saurva, his mother is human, and he is a fake daeva. This ties into another long-winded headcanon where the daeva are not actually evil, they're the mirror/shadow version of the druids and the Ahriman thing happened because of a huge mistake. The daeva actually are more powerful than Ahriman, he isn't their master, but things just happened.

Also he knows Gyendal and Te'ijal at some point, back when they were still human. They just don't remember anymore.

If... uh... you wanna hear more, please come by to ask again, I'm not sure you want to hear me ramble about this really ridiculous dramatic tale that I came up with.

[herecomesremi]

I’d like to think that trusting and respecting someone usually results after seeing their true nature and especially judging that person’s actions and how they would act in a rough situation.

Since trust usually comes slowly I thought of two points:

Defeating the Hind. It’s true that there was only one mirror, but I’d like to think that Lars quickly helped her to hold that mirror with Rhen since it was mentioned that she was somehow weakened looking at the hind and any wrong moves might have made this end badly. Really bad.  He must have been nervous too no matter how confident he actually is. So him feeling relieved, he probably realized that they can actually work together properly, especially since she never took all the credit for herself, but rather she acknowledges that they did it together. 

——

Fighting Nanghaithya. Witnessing one of the daevas working for an evil sorcerer that’s planning to turn their world upside down must have made him realize that this is no simple matter and he should take that more seriously.  Seeing how courageous and strong Rhen can be, while at the same time realizing that she also needs Lars to help defeat the daeva with her. She considers him a vital companion in her quest who also trusts him with his suggestions and plans. And like you said before, also her good luck charm ;-) .

In short, anything that would force them to team up and be codependent on each other. Being in a dangerous situation enhances that trust even better.

Out of curiosity: in your opinion, at which point in the journey does Lars begin to actually respect/trust Rhen?

[herecomesremi]

I do feel a bit guilty for doubting Elini tbh, but I think her reason for lying was honestly funny and somewhat concerning regarding the nature of people in Veldt and their way of thinking.

The way Agas said to Lars to not expect a lot is like him low key roasting Nanghaithya for being the weakest daeva XD

Aveyond Divergent Fate P10-3

A/N: Onto Land’s End! Versus Nanghaithya! Elini reveals her real intentions, and sus… Lars’… dream demon…???

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