#ethereals

[the-scrombler]

A collection of silly little doodles of the workshop gang

[madame-helen]

[ramencat12]

DATE NIIIIIIIGHT

[sandstormedd]

Back at it again with the wb shenanigans in anticipation for the next update :D

[sparkle-k1tty]

ethereal workshop stamps !!

[eluviannaa]

In this week's written Umbral scene, our Ethereal, Zarath'anar, doesn’t have many lines, but I made sure the ones he does have are dialed up to 11. He’s from the Consortium, an Ethereal faction focused on trade and shady deals.

Most of my research is pretty focused but I absolutely loved digging into Ethereal lore. Usually, I dig further than I need to, obviously for context but also, you never know what threads will be useful later on.

For this, while the Consortium wasn’t front-and-center during Legion (the story's timeline), it still felt lore-consistent that he might be in Dalaran as a vendor at my imagined market—especially more so than other Ethereal factions in this context.

Writing Ethereal dialogue is a time—it adds another layer of formality, which feels a little different from the bits of high fantasy and poetry I usually do.

By nature, Ethereals are cryptic, mysterious, detached from mortal concerns, and more focused on broader cosmic forces. Some of my favorite lines from Void Ethereals like Locus-Walker, Saprish, and Ashaal really get at that :

"Our bargain does not require me to wait until you are ready." — Locus-Walker

While these scenes serve more as a script/draft for the comic, visuals being sparse, I'm excited to draw all of it! The scene was a bit long overall but we have a little time before I get to the panels in Act 2. I'd love to do a revision of this but as is, it was nice to finish it.

Excerpt from Act 2, Scene 5: Echoes

At the Ethereal’s stall, Eluvianna found a collection of odd trinkets and crystal fragments. The Ethereal, barely more than a shimmering silhouette, stood quietly behind the array. As a simple stone caught her eye, its surface swirled with colors that seemed to shift.

As she leaned closer to it, the ethereal inclined his head. “In all things, the Sin’dorei have an impeccable sense of timing,” he murmured, his voice carrying on the wind. Eluvianna glanced up from the wares, momentarily meeting his gaze—or where his eyes should have been.

“Am I… late?” Eluvianna asked, compelled to respond despite the uncertainty.

“Quite the contrary—you are early. And as such, perfectly on time.” He nodded with sincerity. “It seems the past is not doomed to repeat itself entirely.”

From the folds of his fabric, he produced a small, tightly wrapped package, offering it to her with a spectral hand. “As agreed.”

“I don’t recall meeting before. Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else?” Eluvianna protested.

“Promises hold weight across all realities,” he replied, his voice like the air between worlds.

Despite her confusion, something in his words compelled her to accept the package. As she reached for it, he held it a moment longer, his grip firm but not unkind. “Alas, even I cannot glimpse the final patterns of the currents we navigate.”

Eluvianna furrowed her brow. “Currents?”

“Perhaps our paths will cross again when the echoes of this moment return,” his form shimmering faintly.

Somehow the words were familiar. Perhaps the echoes he spoke of were tied to her dreams. They had become more vivid, and last night they felt like a future destined. Though she had shrugged it off as merely a wish, she knew her studies had opened her mind to more. Just not quite any such path of an oracle.

[msmsillyarts]

pentumbra!!

[vulture-k1tty]

you go girl !

[townofcadence]

The first time Artair taps into his potential too far is--- messy, to put it lightly. It's like one of those pop-up tents, where once it's out of the bag, getting it back inside the original dimensions is a struggle. Even folding it at the seams isn't enough, you need to twist the frame, contort the body, until it's forced to fit back inside.

Once Artair taps into that part of himself too much, it's a bell that can't be unrung. His body doesn't know how to configure itself, and he has no control, no understanding of how to be what he is. What happens instead is a body that seems to be fighting itself, shifting with a mercurial nature into so many configurations, manifesting one power more and then another in rapid kaleidoscopic shifts. He has too many limbs, arms that shouldn't be, hands disconnected from his torso that still move. Each one is tipped with long, inhuman claws and growing thorns from darkened palms and fingers, except where shallow lacerations bleed gold. He has feathered wings growing from his back but also from places they shouldn't be coming from, until he's a massive sprawl of them-- they unfurl in a shimmering array of colors, and some vanish just as quick as they came. The arms appear, disappear, split into even more hands.

His eyes blink in and out of existence, a dizzying perception that sees more than humans and leaves him churning in the vertigo. His body bleeds gold like rivers and his hair floats like it's underwater and there are mouths not on his face but tucked in the strands. Flowers twine their way around his bones, his form, and long antlers tipped with cherry blossoms bloom on his head, too large, too long, too heavy.

His ribs shimmer through his skin in lines he can see despite what should hide them, and parts of his skin lose color until they are just voids of nothing, numb and cold. His body fractures itself into pieces in a moment, his irises shattering to pieces and the same happening where from his skin to his marrow a shard of him breaks off, floating away. The wind whips around him, but he is untouched in the vortex, centered in the eye of the storm that reaches the sky and breaks it open.

He contorts as his bones move where they should be, as his body continues to break until he's no longer recognizable as anything but a fractured mess-- and then in a blink he is back to the same moment, the same beginning, where he is unfurling all over again, too much spillage to control.

This time it's different too, a different amalgam of limbs and eyes and formless shape, rain drowning him and lights arcing along his skin like electric circuits, as he struggles to have a body at all, one that makes sense. But in the pain and contorting and the terrorizing change, it's hard to remember what a body is, how one felt to have.

It's hard to even remember what he looked like, except broken, and that thought only twists him further until he's melting with kintsugi lines of lightning cracking through his form. His mouths are filled with black ichor now. The flowers in his antlers are dying and dropping off in petals. The flowers wither beneath him and the water ripples in a pool around him. Moss grows on him and he can feel all the world in his heartbeat, all the tangled emotions that make them. Wounds open, old and new along his form that cannot rest.

His body breaks and reforms faster. What is a person? How do you be one? Has he ever been? Monster monster monster. What's real? What's him and not just someone else? Where did he ever begin? There are whispers all around him and they are all him, different versions, different times.

But he is just him, and he is so small except he's not, he's as vast and limitess as the universe, but he's also constrained in this form, a vessel of meat and blood and physicality. What's inside him strains against it, like a beast against a snare. But he's just not ready. Not yet. Not enough.

His form falls apart again, breaking into stardust. It begins again, and his mind struggles to collect the pieces. It's too much. All he can do is beg his own body for respite.

It doesn't know how grant such a thing. He begins again, again again again, dying and cycling and changing and shifting over and over and knowing he's only just scratched the surface-- until oblivion takes him.

He wakes up human, except now he knows he never was.

[the-nocturnal-writer]

The Ether was long ago created by the three gods; The Goddess of Fate, known more commonly among Ethereals as the Seer, Morri is a being of secrets and knowledge to scholars and those seeking guidance, being the wielder of all mortal destinies. 

The Goddess of Life, The Mother, is considered the main deity of The Ether, Mihnna the titaness and bringer of hope, representing life and rebirth. 

The God of Strength, an old deity of the Lost Oasis that came to the aid of their sisters before taking their place as The Warrior, protector of man and a deity worshiped by any seeking guidance in combat.  

The Ether is their home and the place they combined their power, creating Ethereals to protect the realm of mortals from The Infernis and their chaotic siblings. Over time, it became a home to many seeking peace after death or a chance to have a place as an Ethereal, these particular individuals often being referred to as Devouts. 

Some rumors speak of the gods ripping out a fragment of their powers, each blessing a chosen champion with a gift that continues through their bloodline to this very day.

[the-scrombler]

Who up auging they lur?

Bonus:

[bi-dykes]

Can i please request a trans version of your etheral bi flag?Totes cool if not^

Yes you can! Here ya go:

Ethereal Trans Flag 💕

Based on my Ethereal Bisexual Flag <3

[ramencat12]

You don’t have to be perfect for me to love you

Because I love you just as much

[sandstormedd]

Hi, I speedran Ethereal Workshop this morning in a violent bout of excitement and zeal.

[nightshadesz]

fuzzy bug, purple cat, and smokey bat