#kilven softember

[theomaru]

Im bad at screenshots but im so in love with how we can have shirtless female charr now. Thank god. Its made me give her a new outfit and... not me falling a little bit in love with kilven lol

[bloodysart]

You know this somehow isn't the most bizarre au/fusion thing I've made but it's close.

For context I made my friend @theomaru read the Heralds of Valdemar books and he was like 'I think my Guild Wars 2 OC would be a Companion. but a fucked up one' and I was like 'awesome can my Guild Wars 2 OC be her Herald?' and now we're in too deep and I think I've finally got the whole fake anime screenshot deal figured out tee hee.

(Yes I know the companions are all blue-eyed in the books I explain why I changed that under the cut and give context as to what the hell is going on)

Okay so for those of you who don't know:

Heralds of Valdemar is a fantasy novel series that got started in the late 80s and is still having new installments published. It's about Valdemar, a fantasy country whose forces and government include Heralds. Heralds are people who are Chosen by Companions (magical horse-like beings) and Heralds, once Chosen, are proven to be fundamentally decent and uncorruptable people and also get psychic powers. As a result, the ruler of Valdemar always has to be a Herald to prevent a shitty ruler from taking over. The books run all over the place in the timeline, from the founding of the country to hundreds of years later. One of the main themes of the series is the power of good over evil and what exactly those mean, and how exactly you can use your magical horse-angel-friend and your psychic powers to become a fully realized person and save the people you love.

Guild Wars 2 is a fantasy video game about a fantasy world under threat of Elder Dragons who are primordial forces of nature that corrupt and blight the world and eat magic. In the game, you as the player character end up becoming second-in-command of an organization dedicated to killing the Elder Dragons to save the world as we know it. One of the five playable races are the charr, giant militaristic cat people with horns. One of the main themes of the game is unity, and how all the disperate peoples and races of Tyria need to unite to fight against a threat to all of them.

So Theo and I ended up making an AU wherein Valdemar is an originally human kingdom, but over time different groups of the different races were integrated into the country as a whole, more or less. Valdemar has no magic, except for the Gifts (psychic powers), and most within Valdemar believe that magic isn't real anymore. The themes of the AU are finding the fundamental goodness in yourself, accepting yourself for who you are and finding the people who love you, and finding unity with different people in the face of the end of the world.

Starriean Greybone has recently been made into a gladium, put at the lowest rung of charr society, and is targeted by a group of bullies who plan to frame her for desertion and possibly beat her to death. She's saved what she thought was a feral horse, who reveals herself to be a Companion after making short work of the bullies and Chooses Starriean, which I depicted here.

Kilven (the Companion) has pink eyes because the actual design for the OC does, and meta-textually in the anime the animators gave her pink eyes to make her stand out more as a protagonist because goodness knows covers and adaptations love to fib about what the characters of the book look like.

[noivern]

at least three times now ive run into a charr in gw2 and been like wAIT! ive seen drawings of you on tumblr! and its great

[theomaru]

did a doodle of my gw2 character Kilven Softember [now with lore!]

[bloodysart]

Been getting really into Guild Wars 2 lately :3

Trixx courtesy of @prismatixxkhaos, Kilven courtesy of @theomaru

[theomaru]

trying to learn how to draw charr, featuring my deadeye. The main sticking points are the neck and the legs- i still dont think ive quite got it.

[theomaru]

I saw some people drawing their charr as cutesy animal crossing characters, and I was inspired! I can't really do the AC art style, but here's a little cutie Kilven !!

[theomaru]

You have to seize on their very first childish instinct to kill

Quote by Menecia Cubminder in Plains of Ashford.

Growing up as a cub has gotta be rough... especially considering the kinda things you gotta do to be a good spy.

(Click for better quality, tumblr blurs the pixels)

[theomaru]

People have been reblogging that old piece of Kilven before the identity change (not that theres anything wrong with that, the internet is forever!) But I wanted to do a redraw in my current style.

Not a polished drawing at all, but the old one was really sketchy too. I got a lot more cartoony nyehehe

[theomaru]

Couldnt finish the full piece, so heres a headshot. I might return to it later.

[theomaru]

Bjora Marches is fuckin wimdy

[theomaru]

My charr deadeye, Kilven Softember. She's not actually the commander, my engineer is. They're dating and Kilven uses her ash legion training to silently support the commander from the shadows. With a gun. Relationship goals.

[theomaru]

KILVEN SOFTEMBER 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

shes a brown weasel thing now instead of a gray kitty cat. the pink eyes STAY.

i do not actually own this outfit in-game yet and that saddens me greatly. i gotta get like.... 40 more gold. No i do not want fancy sparkly armors i need kilven to look like some random guy.

I wanna get some fancier town clothes for EoD as a vacation outfit but god theyre so expensive. i just want her to be stylin’ humbly while going on a fishing trip

[theomaru]

I drew kilven softember literally last week but now i wanna change her ingame model. Pain and agony. I gotta draw her again after i change her look.

Im gonna make her look more weaselly >:3 literally, not in an insult way. Theres a charr head that has a nice sleek mustelid look to it

[theomaru]

Kilven Softember sends the pact this postcard when they ask her to come back

The "Scion and champion" stuff in gw2 is so funny because in my run the actual champion died/was so horribly injured after the balthazar thing that they had to call her neurotic ex girlfriend to run things and said girlfriend became a cowboy while she was gone

Scion and the feral cat they dug out of the trash