#divine warriors irene

[jacob-the-human]

(this is gonna be interesting)

[wyverndreamers]

The Matron

[gumbootillustrations]

UGH I FUCKING FINALLY FINISHED THIS

so yeah, have the divine warriors of the second war of the magi!!

more deets n closeups under the cut :3

aph!! i like to think that although the incarnations of the divine warriors r generally pretty similar, they do have some minor differences. for example, whereas the matron of the first war of the magi (irene) had one of the sets of wings on her head covering her eyes, the matron of the second war (mcd!aphmau) has both of them held back. this is bc whereas irene had lost her humanity (and therefore the ability to connect with mortals), aph hasn't - and, therefore, her eyes are open to the struggles of humanity. additionally, i took a lot of inspiration from honkai impact 3rd for these designs - in aph's case, i was inspired by elysia's herrscher of human: ego battlesuit and how it looks like a wedding dress (which a lot of folks have interpreted as an expression of her love for humanity, which is smth i want to convey w aph).

i think my favourite part of aaron's destroyer form is his seal (the thingy behind his head like a halo). i wanted to rlly play into the whole destroyer/devourer aspect of his abilities and domains, and i thought a black hole would fit perfectly! it also sort of (unintentionally) plays into how i see the dynamic between the matron and the destroyer and how they're both mirrors of each other; whereas the destroyer, well, destroys (and his black hole devours everything in sight), the matron creates and nurtures (seen in how aph's seal is almost like a white hole). i also wanted his armour to look a lot like the armour that shadow knights wear, albeit without all the spikes and spines and whatnot given that he isn't a shadow knight himself (shad's destroyer form from the first war probably looks a lot more similar to traditional shadow knight armour).

i'm lowkey suuper proud of how travis's keeper form turned out (even if i had to go back right at the end n fix it bc i forgot to add his tail 😭). i wanted this form to sort of be a mix between a high mage and a rogue: whereas the keeper embodies knowledge and magick, travis himself is a prankster who relies on cunning and trickery to gain the upper hand on his opponents. as a result, he's the only one who doesn't automatically manifest a weapon when he shifts into this form - instead, i feel like he chooses to rely more on magicks and witchcraft during combat.

katelyn's design was lowkey the hardest to pin down. originally, i wanted to go for something that was suuuper inspired by roman armour and had a copper and teal/turquoise colour scheme, but it wound up feeling too magical girl-ish and i scrapped it. i've retained the roman inspirations, but i headcanon that her flames are so hot they burn blue, so i settled on a blue-and-white colour scheme w some purple elements. i think my favourite part is her gauntlets! i feel like she uses them as an extension of herself/another pair of hands to punch with. the blue elements also lean into menphia's association with the moon - in ashes, ashes, tu'la is based on the roman empire and, as a result, is where werewolves originate from, and with werewolves having such close ties to the moon.... yeah. i'll probably do a post on tu'la later on at some point.

my blorbo

garroth's design is probably the one that's changed the least, but i'll still need to update his ref sheet anyway. i don't know if i conveyed it very well but the sort-of wing-things on his back are slabs of earth that can be shaped into a shield - originally i had him holding a shield but i wanted him to look a bit more divine warrior-ish so i retooled his design.

the boy! i was tossing up between having vylad or dante fill the role of the wanderer, but i settled on dante as i feel like vylad fits better as a sort of weird guide sort of figure within the narrative. plus, i have a real soft spot for dante and wanted him to remain in the limelight a little bit - i love his dynamic with garroth and laurance and i wanted to explore that further. i sort of wanted to play into his whole red-and-blue colour scheme that we see in canon diaries, but bc kul'zak is a nature deity (specifically of the wilderness), i wanted to incorporate some greenery into his design. i hope i've done an okay-ish job here - overall i'm pretty happy tho, but i can't promise that there won't be any tweaks in the future.

this is a redhead laurance propaganda spreading blog and i Refuse to apologise for it. i'd like to think that laurance's original colour scheme is similar to his justiciar form - lots of beautiful reds and golds and oranges to match the flames of his father's forge - but after he comes back from the nether with a Severe fear of fire he switches to the greens and browns that he's known for in canon. eventually he slowly begins to reclaim his fire and returns to the golds and oranges that he's introduced with (haha colour symbolism go brrrrrr).

but yeah. the special interest is special interesting. let me know if u have any questions!

[laurancezvahlslefteyebrow]

this is unacceptable

[warlocks-and-phoenixes]

[jurassiccraft]

Day 3: Divine

Based on Alphonse Mucha’s Summer

[goat-guy-tm]

Wowie those Divine Warriors are pretty cool. Hope nothing bad happens to them-

Would you believe me if I told you I didn't touch this for months and then finished it in one go pulling an all nighter.

[opel164]

The art from tonight’s stream~! (Also, Shad wasn’t supposed to be lookin so confused but he does and I love confused villains so it’s fineeeeee)

[stellisketches]

The Destroyer

[irenes-journal]

After nearing two months of work on and off, I finally completed this! This is the artwork that is discovered in s2 ep86 of MCD, and was kinda a pain to try and recreate lol. Some creative liberty was taken with the colors, (either to make it more readable to give the divine warriors each a unique color) but I tried my hardest to make it similar :) under the cut off is the original from the series and a close up!!

(Original piece created for season 2 episode 28)

Close up of the divine warriors :)

If anyone is curious about the dimensions for the canvas I used, it is 1 x 3 feet (or 30.48 X 91.44 cm)! It doesn’t match the original perfectly but it’s close enough lol. I just spread out the red space to be larger. The colors are also warmer/brighter because I wanted it to have more of a “new” or restored feel to it!! It’s not perfect but hey, I think I did pretty good

[kurithedweeb]

As it turns out I have a LOT more to say about veils! So now I will inflict these discord rambles I did for @irenes-journal on y'all too.

OKAY SO veils are very commonly seen in worshippers of Irene and the Church of the Matron. The standard devotee veils their eyes to protect them from her divine radiance when looking up to her in worship, which is said to allow her to hear your prayer above that of others because she can get closer to you thanks to how you don't have to shy away from her. These are the most common and the only ones that can be taken off outside worship but some people like those employed by the church or living in church housing don't take theirs off. Members of the church such as priests and nuns cover the lower half of their faces because in the eyes of the public, their word mingles with the goddess's, they are the messengers of her word and middlemen between her and the masses and are never ever to be seen in public without one - they show a seamless united front and it's very scandalous in the church for someone to be stripped of their veil. The High Priest himself is to cover his entire face, for anyone outside his immediate family and lover to see his face is equal to seeing the face of Irene herself, he is her vassal and it's said that should she come down to the mortal realm he might even be her vessel, he has different veils and masks for different ceremonies and tones he wants to convey because you can't read his expression the way you're still able to with other kinds of worshipping veils. Zane is so lucky that he can't show his face because he can so sweetly talk circles around absolutely everyone but there's always something a little too sharp about his smile.

Followers of the Destroyer (illegal divinity :( so they're mostly considered cults) also sometimes use veils that very closely resemble the ones the Church of the Matron use except the eyes are always covered. Whenever we see Shad when was human, there's always a sort of shadow over his eyes, right? Their veils are meant to resemble that, and since it's very similar to worshippers of Irene it also helps them hide in plain sight in cities. They have to be very careful with their ornamentation already, but it's also just a little bit to twist something of their lord's enemy's worshippers into something of their own. Ask me about ornamentation in the Divine Faith sometime.

Veils do sometimes come up in the other Divine Warriors' divisions of the Faith because they're seen as a group under the leadership of Irene. Like, if you're a follower of Esmund or Xavier you might not wear a veil over your face but have a veil that goes over your hands and weapon during certain ceremonies or holiday-specific worshippings. Graduations at the guard academy usually involve the headmaster veiling the graduate's arms while they kneel with their sword to swear their oaths, after which the veil is wrapped around their shoulders or clipped to their pauldrons like a cape. You can tell when someone graduated from their oath veil.

Veils were a thing in Irene's time but they weren't popular until the rise of the Divine Warriors; Irene herself only got married after their ascension to what's basically sainthood and she wore a veil when she and Shad were married so it really got popular after that and eventually became standard practice in Ru'aun to be married with a veil. The tradition of both spouses eventually dies out and sheer veils become fashionable about the time of MyS but really devoted followers of Irene or Shad will still follow the old MCD traditions.

Wedding veils have a ton of variety, they are made special for the wedding day by either the elders of the family or a specialized tailor/seamstress. You can have layered ones, colored ones, shiny, silken, whatever you want, it's your day! The only real rules about the wedding veil are that people should not be able to see your face through it, you need to be able to get your arms out so sometimes the veil is sectioned/has slits cut for the arms, and there is usually a dictated length based on how religious your settlement is. Both people being married wear veils, not just the bride, and different lengths are chosen depending on gender: a man's wedding veil will usually fall in the range of his shoulders to his elbows, a lady's will usually fall in the range of the knees to the ankles, and if you're neither then between the elbows and knees is usually a happy medium. Both parties are veiled because the first person who should see your face when you're married is your spouse. After you're pronounced married, you and your spouse lift each other's veils and that's when you kiss.

Since you don't pass on your veil and you likely aren't getting rid of it, it's usually repurposed into something for the family. Maybe you'll stitch it into a blanket or something to keep it as a record of your personal history. Very commonly, your child's first swaddling will be made from your wedding veils!

[vylanka]

the eternal warrior, irene

[gumbootillustrations]

divine warriors loredump!

so yeah, the divine warriors! admittedly, i'm fascinated by them - i rlly rlly wish that we'd gotten to see more of them + their powers/domains/abilities in mcd, especially considering that they're a driving force behind the plot. so, i've gone ahead and done some redesigns for the sigils (above) and expanded on the domains and abilities of the divine warriors within the context of ashes, ashes.

more under the cut!

irene retains her matron title. for her domains, i rlly wanted to lean into her being a deity of life and family; as such, her official domains are  life, light, healing, childbirth and parenthood, fertility, marriage, tradition, beauty, and romantic/familial/platonic love. menphia also has domains over aspects of love (namely over sexual/carnal/manic love), but i wanted them to sort of have an aphrodite ourania (irene) and aphrodite pandemos (menphia) sort of vibe. in terms of the abilites that her relic gives its wielders, its a lot of what's seen in canon mcd: lots of healing and light abilities, but also some dimensional manipulation and time manipulation stuff thrown in there for the shits and giggles.

for shad, i rlly wanted to play into him being both a mirror and a foil for irene. where irene creates, he destroys; where irene brings life, he brings death. his official domains are that of death, darkness, chaos, the afterlife, change, rot and decay, the Nether, bloodshed, and madness. although he's also a war deity like menphia (and, to an extent, esmund and xavier), he's mostly associated with the worst bits of battle - the blood, the rot, the awful awful deaths, that sort of thing. his relic grants its wielders a lot of destruction-associated powers like disintegration and rot/plague/death stuff, but also some shadow and blood manipulation as well.

like a lot of other folks, i felt like enki was the best fit for a knowledge deity. he looks after scholars, librarians, witches, and inventors; officially, his domains are those of knowledge, air, magick, prophecy, the weather, winter, reason, and lightning. from here, you'll start to see pretty much all the warriors having some sort of like. elemental association? is the best way i can put it. i've sort of based it off of the minor arcana of the tarot; the suit of swords, which is associated with air, is the suit of knowledge and the mental realm, which i thought was fitting for enki. enki is also one of the four seasonal divine warriors (the others being esmund, menphia, and kul'zak); he gets winter, mostly because of his centre of worship being in gal'ruk. wielders of his relic get air and weather manipulation powers, as well as powers related to memory and access to witchcraft (if they aren't witches already). they also gain clairvoyance.

esmund! again with the tarot symbolism; esmund is associated with the element of earth and the physical world, hence the mountain in his sigil. his domains are those of protection, earth, wealth, autumn, boundaries, earthquakes, guardhood, and the harvest. the domain over the harvest might seem a little left field but it makes sense i promise! i sort of saw esmund's association with the harvest not only being because of him being an earth deity, but also because i feel like being able to provide is a form of protection, and given the setting of mcd, i feel like being able to provide a good harvest is a part of that. this is also why he is associated with autumn. regarding the abilities that his relic provides, there's a lot of earth manipulation and barrier/force field creation stuff in there; his relic wielders are also freakishly stronger and more durable than those who wield other relics, sort of playing into esmund himself being a tank.

i changed menphia's title to 'the conqueror' because i thought it'd be a bit more fitting for her, especially considering how i'm working tu'la in ashes, ashes (more on that later). i also changed her colour scheme to more of a blue/copper theme despite her being a fire goddess - i thought it was neat, considering that blue flames are those that burn the hottest. her domains are those of warfare (the glorious bits), fire, soldiers, political power, summer, passion and courage, festivals and celebrations, and sexual/carnal/manic love. i'm still not suuuper sure on the abilities that her relic gives its wielders, but there's definitely some pyrokinesis and emotion/heat manipulation, along with some combat-specific foresight in there. i'm open to suggestions!

nothing much really changes regarding kul'zak. he's a nature deity and watches over journeymen and particularly sailors, given that he's a water/ocean deity; he's often worshipped by pirates. officially, his domains are travellers, water, animals, the wilderness, the cardinal directions and navigation, hunting, and spring. i really wanted to lean into him being a man of the wilderness and not really having a home in urban environments. as such, his relic grants its wielders a lot of wilderness-based abilities, like shapeshifting, water and plant manipulation, and camouflage, with a bit of teleportation in there for all your wandering needs.

xavier is probably the divine warrior that i've changed the most. first off, he becomes a divine warrior in ashes, ashes where he isn't in canon mcd. i also really wanted to lean into him being the founder of the jury of nine, hence his title - the justiciar. he's associated with the domains of guardhood (along with esmund), loyalty, metal and metalworkers, justice, balance and order, peace, brotherhood, devotion, and artisans. where esmund looks after the more physical side of being a guard (being your lord's shield and spear, aka the protection side of things), xavier looks after the more emotional side of being a guard - the devotion to your lord and the comradery that you share with your fellows. his relic's abilities capitalise on that, with its wielders being able to both amplify and nullify the magick of the people they're fighting alongside/against. there's also a bit of metal manipulation and a lot of supportive magick in there too.

and, as a fun little tidbit - a lineup of the divine warriors! (the layout is inspired by @star-boi0720 - the way you lay out your drawings like this is mint as 🤩)

i'm still not suuuper happy w kul'zak or irene's designs but i'll get there in the end i guess :)

[laurancezvahlslefteyebrow]

The Divine Warriors and their sins

Irene: Pride .. Holds herself in a high position, self appointed leader.

Shad: Envy .. Jealous of Irene and the praise she receives, jealous of the life she’s lived, self pity king.

Esmund: Sloth .. Doesn’t often use his full abilities, preferring not to get involved.

Menphia: Wrath .. Quick to anger, slow to calm.

Enki: Greed .. Keeper of more than just knowledge.

Kul’zak: Gluttony .. A taste for wine, mead, ale, you name it.

Xavier: Lust .. Irene is his entire being, everything he lives and yearns for. He exists to love her.

[xielians--lver]

I have all the Divine Warriors deaths in mind. I'll eventually draw somethings about them but here you go.

Shad: Never truly died, as we know. Which is funny. God of death yet she continuously tries to live. He wears clothes not meant to be buried in a casket. But ones made to attend the funeral because they are alive. Even after becoming who he is today, her "armour", although reaks death. Shows how he will kill to live.

Irene: She never really died, just "disappeared." (or something I haven't thought that far). Much like Shad but different. God of life yet she tries every waking second to die. All those that she has loved, have been met with a tragic end. Her clothes resemble that of the body laying in the casket. Even in her new form she can't help but wonder when her death would come.

Menphia: She died while saving the one she loved. Enki. In the fierce fight with Shad she was the first to go. The one to make the sacrifice that saved centuries of people. Menphia wasn't one to make sacrifices, she was a selfish woman. Yet, Enki and Irene were important to her.

Enki: He set fire to himself inside his library. It was suicide. He took all the knowledge with him. No one knows why, as they never found his journal.

Kul'zak: He died doing what he loves best. Getting drunk and dancing on a ship. He death was peaceful, and calm. Mature if you will. Much like himself.

Esmund: He was mauled to death. Perhaps it was Xaiver, the boy he helped build into a man. Xaiver was the first Shadow Knight. But who knows. It was a gruesome sight. Despite Esmund's eagerness to protect those. He seemed to have failed at protecting himself.

[wyverndreamers]

in honor of Hades 2 i offer THE OFFICIAL most underrated divine warrior in a style study attempt