#middle praenost

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Forspoken Photo Dump 16: Praenost, Middle Praenost

[cruelfeline]

Let's talk about Vivus. Little village in Middle Praenost, right on the way to Sila's castle. It contains a chest with Nadezhda - one of Sila's necklaces - guarded by a bunch of her errant knights. It also contains a number of skeletons sporting said knights' spears.

Upon killing the knights and obtaining the necklace, Cuff remarks on how it might have belonged to Sila, or that perhaps "they" were planning on giving it to her. I assume "they" means the citizens because the knights really don't seem the gift-giving types.

Anyway, this is one of those environmental set-pieces that makes me think, especially when combined with another point of interest close-by.

Middle Praenost Hollow is a cave just a bit northeast of Vivus, and it, too, features a bunch of errant knights. These knights, however, aren't guarding a necklace. Rather, they are guarding the bodies of a number of executed villagers, children included.

Now, there's no clear, canonical confirmation of exactly what happened in these two locations, but I'll tell y'all the story I like to imagine.

I like to imagine that the people of Vivus tried to negotiate with Sila; specifically, they tried to win her over with a gift of a beautiful, power-enhancing necklace. They hoped that said gift would persuade her to let them go free. Some villagers the offering in Vivus. The others took the children and tried to start on the journey north, to Cipal.

Sila - no surprise - refused to negotiate, and those still in the village were killed. The knights then proceeded to stand guard over the necklace.

Those who had tried to make their escape were hunted down, corralled in the cave, and summarily executed. Adults and children both.

Twenty-odd years layer, Frey stumbles upon the aftermath and gets a spiffy necklace out of it while being appropriately disturbed by what was clearly a Tanta-sanctioned execution of innocents.

Two more interesting things to note:

1. The necklace Nadezdha is said to mean "hope." The word is actually similar to various Slavic words for hope - the Polish "nadzieja," for example - just with enough altering in spelling to make it unique.

This adds to the tragedy of the aforementioned imagined story because one can think of the villagers holding onto this necklace as their last hope, thinking that maybe it would save them from Sila. Only for it to not.

2. It's super interesting and very creepy to see the errant knights guarding things that don't need guarding, appearing to follow orders that were probably given decades ago. Unable to deviate from them, perhaps unable to understand their lack of significance at this point. We see that a lot with the Broken and with the Tantas' minions: this mindless adherence to old behaviors with no ability to move forward and out of this undead limbo Athia is in.

It's a haunting thing to see: manufactured soldiers standing guard over the skeletal remains of people they executed twenty years ago. Unable to do anything but follow a senseless, dead routine.

Anyway! I like using Forspoken's environment to piece together and embellish horrible tragedies. Game lends itself so well to that, and I'm making a point of looking for such little stories during this current playthrough.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

So apparently I forgot to post last night??? I had a post made! What the hell, past!me, get ur shit together

Anyway, Month 3, days 30 and 31 apparently, I did some photo editing instead of drawing. Top is what I did yesterday, bottom is the final result and what I was actually going for (photo editing is hard), and original is below the cut!

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 9, day 23

MY POWER GROWS!!!

Soon, soon I shall have the ability to make my own Forspoken 2! With blackjack and hookers! You know what, forget the blackjack. And the hookers. Just nothing but Forspoken fan-sequel goodness with the best girl and her wrist idiot! Muahahahahahahaha—*cough hack wheeze*

Uh, anyway, procedurally generated rocks! Middle is the default settings for the procedural setups, and the left and right I played with the settings just to see what I can do, and accidentally-on-purpose made Praenost and Avoalet rocks :D

I'm sure there's precise details I'm missing to make them accurate to the game, but I'm still so stoked with the results n_n

[cruelfeline]

Thinking about the concept of the level of madness befalling each Tanta corresponding to how unhappy Cuff was being tethered to her.

Prav is absolutely unhinged because Cuff hated Avoalet: cold and wet and utterly miserable for him. Prav herself was very set on visiting harsh justice upon the demon who harmed her lands and reviled him constantly. He despised it there, and his unhappiness translated into her falling fast and hard as his magic fused with hers in a dysfunctional, distressed manner. (This is also why she fell first. Nevermind; Sila actually fell first; thanks @phoenixiancrystallist!)

Olas retains much of herself because Cuff did better in Visoria. Open skies, fresh air and rising winds. Warm, agreeable weather. And Olas herself being less interested in justice or military consequence and more in learning for its own sake. Something Cuff seems to enjoy as well. She was relatively compatible, so to speak. As was her realm. So the fusion of their magics was less catastrophic.

Sila is in the middle. Praenost is hot and dry and has gross sandstorms, but it's not as awful as Avoalet. And Cuff can at least appreciate Sila to some degree: weapon to weaponized woman. She's still not as compatible as Olas and suffers accordingly.

Cinta is somewhat exempt from this patterning because she relies on Frey to keep herself steady. Though, one can argue, it may be Cuff's future compatibility with the unborn Frey that helps the situation. Junoon itself helps by not sucking like Avoalet and Praenost do.

Basically: if Susurrus hates you and/or hates living in your realm, your fusion with his magic is going to be rough. If not, then you might just weather it a bit better.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

That reminds me, I was dorking around in photo mode in Praenost, as one does, and I got a picture of a couple bugs! Kind of!

Right in the middle, I couldn't zoom in any closer than this tho lol. No idea what kind of bugs they are other than proof that there are still insects in Athia :)

A rare Athian sunset c: