#hylea

[valensolo12]

PoE journal part... 5? where i was forced to face the inevitable challenge of learning how to draw dragons (previous entries here)

entering spoilers territory maybe!

I loooved speaking to the gods and reading those dream-like encounters with them, probably one of my favorite parts of the game so far.

also the adra dragon fight? big fan of her killing everyone in the party in one hit! what the hell

[solas-backpack-mug]

you are correct @ampleappleamble

also i think my initial sketch of galawain hugging a bear deserves recognition

[adozentothedawn]

Attempts at egg mildly confusing but progressing? I think? Really not sure how those wings are gonna look in end but we'll see.

[spacepigfanclub]

Maybe that's what Gaun's about??

He represents the harvest, and is associated with farmers

RimmyGrimmy is associated with winter

You could say spring is about Hylea, Berath and Eothas telling Rimmy to chill out, because he's been showing Kith a very small fragment of his domain and almost killed everyone

Berath is here, because it's because of them that death ends in life and life ends in death

Mayhaps Berath counts for both spring and winter because of that

But it's all unofficial, aka pulled out of my ass

Actually the Engwithans big major secret shoulda been obvious cuz I don’t think they have a creation myth? A ‘how the seasons change’ myth.

And of course, there’s still no god of fuck

[pavlikbuonarroti]

(if you're unfamiliar, they're in order from left to right in the picture, except eothas, who isn't pictured)

[joshbii]

"what a civilized breed we'd be" off the Elytis prompt list?

Prompts

What a Civilized Breed We'd Be

No matter how often she plucked the feathers from her face, they always grew back, and more strongly now; the plumes that formed her hair were but the least of her concerns. How long before her nose would be better described by ‘beak’, or before her brothers would notice the eyesores that had sprouted along her shoulders in an imitation of wings.

Still, she plucked. Each time she yanked a feather free, she wondered if this would be the last. If Hylea would finally relent. But the gods were never so merciful.

More and more feathers landed in the woven box she’d use to carry them, later, to the place that would be their pyre, each of their quills carrying her blood. She stopped to think on this, on more than one occasion – her blood, blessed by Hylea, so the others told her.

Blessed to bear beautiful plumage, blessed to carry Hylea’s love. Blessed to bear these chains, this curse, a brand that marked her as other. It was true that the gods could love one like a parent; just a shame they took after her father.

It was late at night that she found the animancer’s door. She stood silent at the threshold, watching on as he worked. Hand pulled needle, needle pulled thread, stitching and suturing the subject on the table – a young man with leaves for hair and root-like veins. Copper appendages fixed his corpse tight to the table, as if the animancer feared it would up and leave at any moment. Still the girl watched on.

“I have told you – you are not allowed to visit me here,” he did not turn from his experimentation, sparks coursing through the copper, “your commander’s words were rather… final on the matter.”

“And I have told you, a million times,” the girl cried out, wearing her armour with pride. She needed it today – not the steel over her flesh but the five suns over her heart. “I have told you… I would rather die, than live like this.” Her voice cracked, but she stood firm, grasping at the edge of her armour as if it would hold her together.

“I do so wish I could aid you, aimica, but you know as well as I do how dangerous it is.” The animancer turned now from his work and walked towards the child by the door. He bent over to match her height and looked her in the eyes, bitter and bold.

“I do not… I can not live like this. As a thing, not a person. As a godlike, not a Vailian. As a coward, not a paladin.” She inhaled as anger flashed across her face, “I will be a free woman, not a slave of the gods.”

“We are all slaves to the gods, my girl. Whether we wear their visage or not.”

The girl’s fists clenched as she stared into the animancer’s eyes; the eyes of a tired man, no more at peace with the word than she was. “What gives them the right-” she blinked hard, willing the first tear not to fall, as though its escape would signal surrender, “if they just left us all alone-”

“We would be better off for it,” he finished her sentence for her. His words were soft-spoken and carefully placed, but bore an indignant understanding. “What a civilized breed we’d be, aimica, if we didn’t have to bow.”

She thought to cry out, to scream at the unfairness of it all. No words came to her. Anger boiled inside her blood, beneath the five suns across her chest.

The animancer placed his hand on her shoulder, “But bow we must. That’s what makes us – me and you both, I mean – that’s what makes us human. Even when the gods try to make us something else.”

[voicesofeternity]

Xoti: What do you reckon you did to earn Hylea's chime? 'Cause it sure wasn't from potential for this life.

Pallegina: None of us did anything to deserve a chime. Do not be naïve. It is hardly a gift.

[dragonologist-writings]

Title: With Grace In Your Heart Fandom: Pillars of Eternity Rating: T Status: One-Shot Characters: Original Character (Desta), Aloth, Hiravias, Pallegina, Tekēhu Ships: Minor Desta/Aloth Additional Notes: Backstory, Character Study, Godlike Characters Word Count: 2.2k Summary:

They say she is a child marked by the gods. (One day, she will realize she is so much more.)

read below or here on ao3

Give back to the Lord of the Hunt what is his, they tell her, and it takes the woman nearly a year to take the advice.

She tried. Hylea bless her soul, she did. But she doesn’t know what to do with a child like this. When she first saw the baby, she had thought it was gripped with a strange sickness, and she had mourned the child she thought would soon be lost. But the baby lived, and it was soon evident that this was no medical affliction.

The woman had given birth to a godlike.

Everyone knows the rumors of the strange kith touched by the gods at birth. Each god has their own markings that they grant to their chosen, and there is no mistaking this mossy, bark-skinned babe as anything but a child of Galawain.

The woman lays her bundle softly on the forest floor. She knows she is not the first who could not handle the so-called blessing the gods have given, and she knows she will not be the last. The baby fusses in its wrappings, and the woman gives the child one last, long look. Its sickly green face peeks out from the blankets, mottled by sprouts of fungus. The stubs that will one day grow into twisted horns are clearly visible poking out above its forehead.

Worst of all are the eyes. The woman believes- or perhaps wants to believe- that she could look past the strange features if she could only look into the child’s face and see a reflection of her and her husband, the way children are meant to be. But the eyes looking back at her are completely foreign; yellow and slitted and oddly luminescent, they speak of something the woman knows she will never understand, even if she had the desire.

When the child was born, the midwife warned her that raising such a thing would be difficult. Sometimes, she had said, it was best to return the child to the gods. At the time, the woman thought she could fight fate through sheer stubbornness. Now, she’s tired of pretending that this is the family she wanted.

So she leaves the child in the wilderness. This is Galawain’s child, after all, and these woods are Galawain’s domain. Let him decide what should be done. The woman wants nothing more to do with it.

(One day, Desta will stand before the gods and argue with them about souls. She will look up at Galawain and search his face for a hint of recognition. She will wait for him to make a claim to her soul, her life, her choices. She will not know if she can give him trust or forgiveness until he asks for it.

He will not ask. He will not call her 'child'. He will merely call her 'mortal', as if she does not bear his touch at all. Desta will almost lose her temper then, will come close to demanding he acknowledge her and tell her why. But she will not, because there are more pressing matters at hand, and because she refuses to give him the power of making her angry.

In the end, despite everything, she will have too much pride to plead for answers.)

The abbess says that all things happen for a reason. She says that Galawain led the group of hunters through the forest to where Desta lay in her blanket. She says that Hylea moved their hearts and told them to bring the godlike baby to the temple. She says that Ondra gave her the blessing of a fresh start, with no memory of the parents who could not care for her.

She says that to be born like this is a gift, one the ignorant villagers do not understand, and that Desta is meant for great things.

But Desta’s life is full of contradictions. Outside of the temple, people stare at her and recoil from her touch. Even the hunters who call her good luck are unnerved by her presence when they visit to make their monthly offerings.

And although she prays every day, Galawain is always silent.

(One day, Desta will split a bottle of wine between two friends that are the same as her and yet wildly different. They will speak of blessings and curses, and although their interpretations vary as greatly as their appearances, the common thread of the unusual will bind them together.

In the end, Desta will look back on all the odd things she’s seen in her life and think it strange that something as trivial as leaves growing from her skin was ever made into such a big deal. There are far more interesting things than that. There are men who embrace their gifts and use them to guide their people with compassion deep as the ocean. There are women who reject their shackles and forge their own fates with iron hearts and loyalty that reaches the skies. These people will inspire Desta more than any god ever did.)

The chapel is silent when Desta enters for the last time. She kneels and prays and meditates, and she waits for some kind of answer. When none comes, she goes to the forest beyond the temple walls and repeats the process.

Elayne wants her to stay with the clergy. Despite Desta's restlessness, the abbess still believes she was meant to serve the gods. Desta thinks of the future she would have there, all her days spent in sedentary worship, and she can feel the slow death it would be. The hunters agree with the abbess, but they serve their god in the wilderness, in the hunt. They would take her if she asked, but Desta has tried to learn their skills before and failed miserably. If she cannot string a bow or track an animal, what would she be to them other than just another offering of goodwill to their god?

In the end, Desta only knows that feels nothing from Galawain. She should, shouldn’t she? If she is truly his daughter? And yet he means no more to Desta than the mother who abandoned her so long ago. She has spent years learning his tenets, his teachings of survival and strength and the hardships of the natural world. For a long time now, she has been wondering if there is more out there than Galawain’s stark brutality.

So she refuses both fates and sets off on her own, ready to find out who she is when she is not in Galawain’s shadow.

(One day, Desta will compare stories with another who once prayed to Galawain for answers. He will have been less lucky than her, and will bear the scars to prove it.

Galawain, he will eventually say, is a god of tests and survival. He does not give what is not earned. He does not nurture. He lets nature run its course, and only when the strongest have proven themselves worthy will he then acknowledge them.

That won’t seem right to Desta. Life may not be fair, but perhaps the gods should be. The orlan will finger his eyepatch and shrug and reply that it’s all a bit bullshit, isn’t it?

Desta will laugh and agree, because this scarred man is one of the most resilient people she’s ever met, and if Galawain couldn’t see that to begin with he must truly be blind. And she will know that neither of them ever needed a god's permission to be strong, anyway.)

The Living Lands are wild and vast, and Desta spends years drifting through them. She keeps moving because she’s curious, and she wants to see the world and all the strange things within it. She keeps moving because it’s all she’s done since she left her temple, and she doesn’t know what else she would do with herself.

Most of the people she meets are wary of her- not all, but enough that she’s accustomed to the strange looks. They don’t bother her anymore; she’s long stopped caring what other people think. If all they see in her is a suspicious, bedraggled traveler covered in overgrown foliage, there’s not much she can do about it.

Desta keeps moving because she’s searching for something to call home, where people look at her and see something more.

(One day, Desta will meet a man with a sheepish smile and thoughtful eyes and a mind that never stops running itself in circles. They will travel and talk and save each other’s lives on many occasions, and it will take Desta nearly six years to finally kiss him. Her heart will pound with joy when he kisses her back.

When they’re together, she will feel a peace she’s not accustomed to, and he will look at her with wonder. Their love is their own, quiet and private, but when they go out in the city they will stand close enough that their knuckles brush. He will give Desta a small smile, and Desta will know that he truly sees her.)

The Kind Wayfarers light a spark inside Desta.

She is on the road alone, injured and cornered by a drake, and they appear from nowhere with weapons in hand. She can’t take her eyes off them, these brave warriors that protect her so valiantly and ask for nothing in return.

“What god do you serve?” she asks, because surely they must serve somebody.

But the paladin only gives her a proud smile and says, “We serve the kith who need us.”

Desta’s breath catches, and her soul fills with hunger for this light, so clear and strong. “I want to be like that.”

The paladin surveys the godlike girl, with her mace and her travel-worn clothes and her mossy skin and her undisguised passion. “You’re a strange one, all right. You’ll fit right in.”

They take her in and teach her their ways, and when Desta takes to the road again it is with a new mission burning in her heart. This is who she is- not a lonely child, an aimless traveler, an oddity whose fate is tied to the hands of the gods. She is, above all else, a protector. A guide. A Wayfarer.

(One day, Desta will be told what it means to be godlike, and her blood will run cold. Berath’s voice will betray no emotion when she speaks of how the godlike- their children, she calls them, their fucking children- belong so completely to the gods. How they can be possessed. How they can be absorbed for energy. How they would so readily use and discard the lives of those they claim to favor.

“Fuck you,” she will tell them, and she won’t care what they might do to her. “Fuck all of you.” She will see only proud indifference in response. No protest. No guilt. And despite her anger and her hatred she will pity them, these lonesome creatures who have lived too long and seen too much and have no grasp on what it means to love somebody.

“Just wake me up.” Berath’s gaze will be heavy, but it will not intimidate Desta the way it did once. They both know there's too much at stake to send her to the Wheel now. “We’re done talking.”)

Desta collects wildflowers from the fields and braids them into her hair. She decorates herself with blooms of purple, red, blue, orange, bright shining yellow. The flowers are woven into crowns around her horns, laced through the bands of her clothing, even wrapped into the grip of her mace.

Over time they fall away or wither, but new ones always take their place. The point isn’t to keep them forever. The point is that while they last, they’re beautiful and colorful and they make her smile.

Sunflowers are her favorite. She loops a particularly large one through her hair and studies herself in the makeshift mirror of her silver armor. The flower both distracts from and complements her mossy skin, blends with the ferny fungus that crawls down her neck. It takes her weirdness and transforms it, turns it around and throws it back to the world with a brand new color.

Desta can’t do anything about the weeds that cover her body. But she can always make sure there are flowers in her hair.

(One day, Desta will watch The Wheel itself crumble before her eyes. She will be angry and afraid and helpless to stop it, and for a moment she will wonder what the point was in ever trying. Then she will shake herself off, adjust the sun-dried flowers in her hair, and tighten her grip on her mace.

She was speaking truth when she told Eothas she believed in this world, and in the people’s potential to help themselves and each other. And now, more than ever, she has a lot to prove. She has a lot of work to do and a lot of choices to make.

She will make those choices on her own, without the help of any gods, and she will continue to believe in the goodness of the world with all her heart.)

[vaultsixtynine]

gods whose servants have directly caused anathema deep personal harm in the name of that god (or adjacent):

skaen (skaenite rebellion from her slave childhood gone effigy)

rymrgand (her mentor is an ex-bleak walker and a rationally fatalistic adherent to the inevitability of rymrgand more than like, the 'i'm gonna kms' flavor)

woedica (poe1, thaos, etc.)

wael (specific to some shit her soul ancestor did + i'm assuming he's about to cause issues in this forgotten sanctum dlc)

gods who have directly said 'i just fucking hate you so much' and/or directly tried to kill the world's most chill and yet most unfortunate agnostic:

woedica (many times.)

galawain (is disgusted that anyone could mistake this weak prey for his offspring, et cetera)

skaen

berath (lol)

ondra (MANY TIMES. she doesn't even spend that much time in/near the ocean ondra just fucking hates her guts because she keeps wandering into ondra's schemes and telling ondra she's acting like a child)

rymrgand

magran (took offense to some of the anti-magranite bits she did in poe1)

wael (actually doesn't mind her that much, but y'know, gotta keep their reputation somewhat intact) - this is a god ana has specific wariness for, because they are Overly Fond with her in conversation and sits very close to anathema's past portfolio(s).

the only gods who can hang:

hylea i guess. deeply not ana's vibe but whatever

abydon is minding his own business and still technically "owes her one" after white march

eothas - wait.

[echthr0s]

7.0 broke the mod hair I had been using for years + my actual WoL is now retired so it feels strange to still be using her appearance. So we are Viera once again 🖤 (feat. a photobomb by Hylea the very inquisitive chocofairy)

[solas-backpack-mug]

[adozentothedawn]

And so it is done! Praise be our bird lady Hylea, even though she was a dick to me while making it.

I tried getting multiple different lighting situations, but unfortunately none are great. If we're getting some sunlight tomorrow maybe I'll post another one in natural light.

Now, eagle (hah) eyed viewers might notice that there are two different shades of pink in this banner. This is definitely on purpose and not cause I ran out of the first one and bought a wrong one to stock up and then only noticed when it was too late.

You might also notice that wings don't look like weaving. That is cause they aren't. While the egg and the top part honestly went amazingly well on the round loom, the wings unfortunately bend into the wrong direction for the most part so it looked garbage when I tried to weave it the way I do usually. I then tried to weave it on top of the background, using the weft as another warp, but didn't look great either. Then I got the idea to maybe use the fact that I branched out in textile arts recently and just try something completely different. I ended up using a backstitch basically, but through the string itself to make it stick in one line. Honestly I'm kinda proud of that thing, cause it did come out pretty good. (Except that the one top line somehow got too long which meant I had to staunch the right wing so it wouldn't look too off kilter but at that point it would have been ludicrous to try and fix it so I did my best to work around it.)

Tbh I was too lazy to look up proper rim techniques but hey it works, so whatever.

The next project will take a while for sure, because I have about 5 million Christmas ducks to crochet, so we'll see when I get back to it.

[cilant-lis]

Questions 3, 10, 12, 13 & 16 for your wonderful watcher Variel? : D (feel free to leave some out if they're too much, I'm just really curious about her! < 3)

*cracks open my encyclopedia of variel lore*

3. what are your watcher's likes and dislikes (like the ones poe2 companions have)?

likes: lighthearted, animal kindness, worldly, impassioned dislikes: animal cruelty, piety, racism

10. which god did your watcher make a deal with? did they keep their end of the bargain?

variel made a deal with hylea, seeing as returning the souls to the hollowborn was the most compassionate choice in her eyes. she kept her end of the bargain, and does not regret her decision

12. what does your watcher think about the gods?

at the beginning of poe1, variel was a pretty devoted worshipper of ondra. it came from a desire to be seen and acknowledged by the goddess, for her to finally recognise her as her child and reward her for all these years of hardship. over the course of the game, variel grows more and more disillusioned with the gods, with the divine intervention she has been hoping for never coming. it reached a climax during the events of the white march, when variel saw all the atrocities committed in the ondran temple and ondra herself finally answered variel, only to tell her to sacrifice her life. by the time poe2 happens, variel has it out for the gods (only hylea is on thin ice) and will openly defy them. her personal grief towards ondra is only multiplied when she sees how the goddess clearly favours tekehu, and despite herself variel is resentful and jealous.

13. how does your watcher relate to their culture?

because of how she grew up and her godlike-ness, variel's culture is very eclectic and she never really fit in anywhere. though her mother was a pale elf, she never got the chance to meet her, so she has no ties to the glamfellen culture other than genetics. variel spent the first years of her life in an orphanage in aedyr, though she has not picked up on any aedyran culture. the biggest influences on her were the times she spent on vailian ships, being forced to go on all voyages by her adopted 'family' as a good luck charm; and her time in the living lands, in the paladin order of kind wayfarers.

16. how did your watcher react to the reveal that the gods were created by engwithans?

variel is not exactly the type of person to theorise on things, but the more interactions with the gods she had, the more suspicious of them she became (especially after white march). iovarra's reveal was not much of a surprise to her, and it only fuelled the crisis of faith she was already going through.

[silver-gm]

pillars of eternity ask! 1, 9, 16 for alteia :)

1. What is your watcher's class? How does it relate to their backstory?

Alteia is a wizard. Her parents were both mariners, and raised her on a million stories of exotic magical wonders, leading her to develop an ambition of working in a magic shop (which would much later cause an interesting interaction with Fassina). She studied magic formally so as to know what she would sell, and perhaps make some stock herself. Sadly, while she was a skilled wizard, she wasn’t much of a businesswoman, and her shop couldn’t make ends meet. After it went down, she headed north to Gilded Vale, seeking somewhere where her magic would be in higher demand.

9. Who are your watcher's favourite companions?

She’s very close with all the companions (Durance excluded), enough that “favourites” would be a very difficult question for her to answer. She is very close with Aloth, being a fellow wizard, and she is smitten with Pallegina. She’s also close with Sagani, both being from colder climes and with an appreciation for fluffy little foxes. She’s very much fond of Ydwin, the intellectuals from the White having much in common, and ends up in a romantic relationship with Maia.

16. How did your watcher react to the reveal that the gods were created by engwithans?

A whirlwind of emotions, but chief among them a relief that everything made sense. Being Godlike, the gods had affected every moment of her life, and while she hoped for some answers when the gods started talking to her, she was only further vexed. The reveal answered so many questions for her: Why Thaos did what he did, why the gods were so infamously fickle, what Thaos showed Lady Webb in her last moments, why the Glanfathans were ordered to protect engwithan sites, why the Leaden Key hated animancy so much, what was tearing at her past self so much, among others. While she had briefly been a devout Hylean, her faith was very much shaken by Hylea’s dismissal of Pallegina, so she wasn’t terribly invested in the gods. When she returned to the surface, she decided to subtly restart Iovara’s work; she knew outright claiming what she had found beneath Breith Eaman wouldn’t be believed, but she started to encourage animancy and unorthodox lines of thinking.