#nekhs

[serpentface]

The goddess Arweny, depicted in Setem-Whe ornamental style. She is usually described as a female elowey protruding from the jaws of a gigantic serpent, or as a small snake with a rat perpetually stuck in its throat.

She is considered to be one of many local spirits of the wilds across the vast forested region known as Nekhuatseth, and is venerated (and cursed) as the god of the hunt-interrupted. She is believed to lend strength and speed to hunted quarry, allowing them to escape predation against insurmountable odds. She is completely impartial, and will lend her mercy to an insect just as easily as she would to a person.

Hunters blame her when what seems to be a certain kill escapes, and pray to her when they find themselves hunted. In many places, it is believed that she will hide all prey if she is not appeased, and as such is left offerings of fruit and wine before any expedition. It is common in rural parts of Nekhuatseth to wear amulets depicting her likeness to ward off attacks from wild beasts.

A folktale from the Sykhilic cult (a Nekh and Setem-Whe religious order devoted to a lunar goddess, scattered in temples at the edges of wilderness areas) intends to teach youths about the dangers and impartiality of the wilds, and illustrates beliefs about Arweny's intervention in the cycle of hunter and hunted.

A young hunter walked alone through the wilds in the heat of the dry season. They were on their rite of passage, and as such were armed only with a knife and could feed only on what game and forage they found on their journey. They were three days in, tired and hungry and missing the comfort of the city more and more with every step.

The hunter stopped at the edge of a clearing to eat a few clumps of dry, tasteless grass. They chewed miserably and dreamed of the great feast that would be held upon their return, when they heard a sudden snap. The youth had only a moment to turn before a great beast seized them in its claws. A tyger had been stalking them, and now pinned them to the earth under one massive paw!

Thinking fast, the young hunter called upon one of the wild gods of these parts. 

“Arweny! Rat-Who-Chokes-The-Snake! Please, lend me your strength!”

And there was a great rustling in the bush, a sliding, slithering sound, and a cackle of frightful laughter. And the hunter felt every muscle in their body seize with a great strength, and they wrenched themself out of the stinking cat’s grasp.

The youth scampered up a tree and sat in its high boughs with their breast heaving. The cat paced below in helpless agitation, for the branches were far too lithe to support its great weight.

The great beast stalked away, and the hunter cried out their thanks to the lord of the triumphant prey and nursed their wounds.

The young hunter walked along deer trails all day, but there was no quarry to be seen, and the scents were weeks old and unpromising. With hunger now gnawing painfully at their gut, they came upon a great river. There were water lillies growing in the shallows with thick, tasty bulbs, and the air was alive with frogsong. The youth crept out into the muddy water, hoping to find something good to eat.

But a slight ripple on the water filled their gut with ice. Their instinct told them to be afraid, and in the fraction of a second, they whispered, “Arweny, lord of the hunt-interrupted, lend me your speed.”

And in that same moment, a colossal riverdrake sprang forth from the murk, faster than the hunter could have run. But their body was seized with a great quickness, and they leapt into the air, high above the drake’s head, and came down upon its jaws, forcing them shut with a snap!

As they sprang away from the beast, they heard a wet slithering sound, and that same cackle of triumph. They silently thanked the lord of the biting quarry, and ran far from the river and its dangers.

But now, the hunter was near starved. The small insects and dessicated grasses they had found along the way did little to abate their hunger. They needed to make a kill or they would surely starve.

And as if by divine will, they came across a river hog hopelessly tangled in a thorny mass of dead vines. It squealed and strained with all its might, but to no avail. The hog collapsed to its side and laid still, chest heaving and showing the terrified whites of its eyes. The hunter sighed in relief and drew their blade.

And suddenly, the hog trembled and burst away, ripping up and dragging all the vines along with it! The hunter was frozen in shock. How was this possible? The hog was as good as dead!

And as if to answer that question, they heard that same slithering, the sound of something heavy dragging its long body over the dry leafbed. And they heard that same cackle, a laugh of triumph, as the prey fled and the hunter starved.

[nekhcore]

conflict of interest

i like to imagine that misha and estinien have a lot of beef around the whole "the second azure dragoon chose to be a bard instead" thing. but after seeing estinien nearly fall to nidhogg, misha refuses to take that risk with himself. it scares him more than anything else.

[nekhnona]

my stupid stardew valley buttons

i made a bunch of stardew valley site buttons that are completely free to use with credit. terms of use and the buttons themselves are featured in the link below:

enjoy ::3

[zomb13friday]

Alexey Kotolevskiy

[nekhcore]

i answered this one on twitter but for misha it was after the raid on the waking sands. somewhere in gridania, quietly in his mother’s arms after he ran away from alphinaud and cid to become an archer.

the raid was the breaking point for him that let all those lingering feelings about the Eye come through. (DRG 50 happens before the titan arc in my canon) all of a sudden he wasn’t there, he couldn’t protect anyone, and now he’s worried that he’s also susceptible to the influence of the Eye and is a danger to his friends. he can’t possibly save them like this. so he goes back to his mother, puts up his lance, and doesn’t tell her why he changed his mind again after all these years.

8/20/24

When during the MSQ did your wol(oc) first cry? What was that moment like for them and those around them?

[quamaii]

Ur such a real one ::3

tyy :3

[serpentface]

Hai-Taihe, a minor spirit known in the rural north of the Nekhuatseth forest, seen in the spaces between major towns and cities.

She is described as a mangy, heavily scarred bitch bearing signs of past pregnancies. She's mostly a normal looking dog but closer inspection reveals paws with unusually long fingers and distinct thumbs, and the tail and eyes of an elowey. She appears to lone travelers in the wilderness, almost exclusively on moonless nights. She will sit down at the fireside and strike up conversations in fluent (though antiquated and overly formal) Nekh, and it's usually only after she disappears that one notices that it's "kinda weird" that a dog was talking to them.

She is variously interpreted as a protective local spirit who guards travelers, and as a minor god of death that guides the living through moonless nights where the boundaries between the living and the Otherworld of the dead are thinnest. Sightings where she does not speak are regarded as omens of impending doom.

This folklore is contemporary, with the Hai-Taihe figure only showing up in stories from the past couple centuries and having no obvious presence in older mythology. Some scholars connect her to relics from the Sethym culture, extinct for almost a millenia. They left few direct records and their histories are distorted by generations of oral retelling, but motifs of a dogheaded elowey figure are common in the area, often in conjunction with sword imagery. The figure is often found on intricate metal amulets left as grave goods for high ranking clanmothers, and in stone or clay figures left in the boundaries of settlement territories (the latter commonly depicted as heavily pregnant)

[The meta reality not known in-universe: Hai-Taihe is an actual physical entity, a living god once known as [NAME FORGOTTEN] who was worshiped as a tutelary deity to the ancient Sethym. She was conceptualized as a mother to the people and the tutor of the sword, companion to the hunting god [NAME FORGOTTEN], who taught the people the spear.

The demon [NAME FORGOTTEN], a god of cannibalism and the dishonorable hunt, is said to have devoured the tutor of the spear. The tutor of the sword was chewed on and spat out half-dead while trying to rescue her, and her consumed companion was twisted in the demon's stomach and excreted as something new and terrible.

The tutor of the sword lost her identity with the cultural extinction of her worshipers and has found new life as Hai-Taihe, unable to distinguish the boundaries between her own mythology and living memory, both of which are half-remembered at best. She feels a great affection towards mortals and wanders in an endless, futile search for her companion, the devoured god now known as the spirit Arweny. She wishes to kill her, as an act of mercy.]

[nekhcore]

fuck it. urianger osha card

[nekhcore]

misha disavows everything about dragoon, except for the jumps. you bet your ass he is still committing unnatural feats of verticality as a bard. nobody expects it.

We've seen many NPCs, the Scions in particular, have unique moves that their chosen jobs aren't able to use (i.e. Alphinaud's Obsidian and Moonstone Carbuncles) or moves pulled from other jobs (Gunbreaker Thancred's Perfect Deception/Souldeep Invisibility from his time as a rogue). Does your WoL have similar abilities that would be unique to them?

.

[nekhnona]

Hi. I'm posting out of impulse

[eversnark]

Rereading "Living After LIFE" by nekhs and remembering how fantastic of a series it is.

[nekhcore]

misha was born to a viera mother and miqo'te father. his mother is a traveling adventurer who settled in the shroud, his father was likewise an adventurer. they met adventuring, they worked together for a while, but he left them both when misha was very young. his mother was pretty beat up about it, but misha doesn't really remember him so he's not pressed about him being gone at all. he got all the red from his dad, along with his tail and fangs. i like to think he has some cat tendencies that only come out very rarely, otherwise he's just like his mom.

not sure about their ages, i think for viera reasons his mother is in her 60s. misha and his mother are very close but also very flighty, they only meet up once every now and then to catch up in passing. pretty much everything he knows or wants he learned from his mother. he wanted to become an adventurer because he looked up to her. she taught him archery and is the reason he had an alternate job to fall on when dragooning didn't work out.

he "reconnects" with his father when he's a teenager--in the sense that they are introduced and misha knows who that man is to him, but they don't really have a relationship. neither have any interest in it.

a quick wol question for yall while I'm thinking about it

what are/were your wol/oc's parents like?

and this goes for biological AND adoptive parents! how old are they and where are they from? how did they meet? does your wol/oc get along with them? how did they affect who your wol/oc became?

[quietluvr]

relistening to big naughty's whole discog (*^▽^)/★*☆♪

[uptheredslfc]

lad i couldn’t get the ball on me nekh -taa

[nekhnona]

marie gon eat this up when it releases

NEW KINDERGARTEN GAME!!!!!

I AM GOING TO BE PHYSICALLY ILL

[snap221sn]

Awa Laye wakhatina : "Yalla lou nex rek laye téré.... "Bégné bi thi khar tanki mo guena nekh, mom la goory di weur "

Awa Laye wakhatina : “Yalla lou nex rek laye téré…. “Bégné bi thi khar tanki mo guena nekh, mom la goory di weur ”