#sarkaz

[caffichai]

Hibiscus after a job well done!

[sargehev]

Sarkaz mercenary Mudrock, formerly a part of the Reunion Movement

[shanks]

MildT

[alkalische]

sarkaz sorted and shit

[thefigureresource]

Civilight Eterna [Arknights] 1/7 scale from Myethos coming December 2024.

[gancegancerevo]

One small thing I noticed while reading the latest AK chapters is how significant sound is to the Sarkaz

While blood is the most significant form of power for them (see the Crimson Court and the Confessarius), many other culturally significant things involve sound

The biggest thing I can point to is the Bone Whistle of the Elegaic Court/Banshees. There's a real significance given to the Death Knell and the witnessing of a dying Sarkaz. The spoken word seems to cement the death into the collective memory. Those who heard the Death Knell of the first Damazti Lord somehow knew that this was a true death.

And then, the prophecy of the Last Wendigo. The way he shouted it into the sky. Kal'tsit even told people to not listen and yet his voice was heard, so far that even the Damazti knows about it.

It remains to be seen if this amounts to anything but I do find it interesting how a deaf Sarkaz would navigate their heritage considering how important hearing is to them

[sleepy-crows]

This is probably just a mistake in her character design, but aren't Sarkaz supposed to have pointy ears?

[kurozu501]

cant believe all those theories about the angels actually being corrupted versions of the "devils" were casually confirmed in a single throwaway line.

[honouredsnakeprincess]

I don't think arknights' "races" are strictly biological categories, for obvious reasons. like, i'm pretty sure we already have confirmation that the sarkaz are a group of biologically distinctive peoples that just use the same name for historical/political reasons.

but see, i think the same can be said of the aegir. sharks and orcas are very different animals! so i think it's probably best to view the aegir as more akin to sarkaz than, say, lupo.

[sunder-the-gold]

Trophy-taking and terror between Kazdel and Laterano

W's first Archive File

W belonged to an independent mercenary team during the war in Kazdel. The team gained notoriety for its frequent raids on Laterano business convoys, and many of its members have claimed guardian guns as trophies. These guardian guns, often awarded through formal ceremonies, can fetch a very high price at the Scar Market, Kazdel's infamous black market. W herself still has a number of guardian guns in her collection, but this collection was marked as contraband and confiscated following her onboarding in order to avoid inciting the ire of our Laterano operators. Among the many weapons that she often uses, is an explosives-launching device with obvious signs of modification. As for its source… after thorough consideration, we decided to not investigate the matter any further.

Sarkaz Mercenary Lounge - 'At Work' Set furniture piece, "Bounty Display Rack"

A display rack full of Sankta guns. Some Sarkaz have a habit of showing off their spoils of war to their clansmen.

[Guide Ahead] GA-8 "Shadow and Ash" Before

Fiammetta, thinking about her last mission with Andoain:

I often think back to what happened that night. At first, it was just an ordinary cleanup mission, just another group of Sarkaz raiders. We tracked them down as they made their escape, and came upon the place.

So, a band of Sarkaz conducted a raid against Laterano, then escaped back to Kazdel, and Andoain's team tracked them back to their hide-out. Possibly just for retribution and prevention of future raids, possibly to recover any stolen goods and patron firearms.

That is to say, Andoain's team were not sent into Kazdel as an act of unprovoked aggression for the purpose of "thinning the population of Sarkaz". They weren't even sent to find and take the Lock and Key staves, as they were surprised to find the bandits frozen in time. Those bandits just happened to try and hide in the place where the owner of the staves was holing up.

And in any case, why would Laterano risk four soldiers on a raid to just kill Sarkaz inside Kazdel when Sarkaz already kill other Sarkaz as a matter of business? The Scar Market is a thriving industry of Sarkaz mercenaries paying each other to kill each other.

Angelic Wild Hunts

Fiammetta says it was "just a clean up mission. Just another cleanup mission!!! Why did it have to happen like that? Where did it all go wrong?"

She seemed to consider such a counter-raid routine and unremarkable. She apparently couldn't believe that her four-man team could have suffered such a terrible loss. She'd been so confident that her three Sankta friends could handle themselves that she left to chase a distress signal.

How many Sarkaz civilians watched from afar, seeing Lateran counter-raids destroy camps of Sarkaz without knowing about the targets' own earlier raids?

How often do these Lateran raids seem, to unrelated witnesses, like a horrific Wild Hunt tearing through the night, snatching up and killing anyone who happens to get in its way? Soldiers on a mission in enemy territory will not stop to explain themselves.

How many innocent Sarkaz get caught up as collateral damage in Lateran counter-raids? Mistaken for raiders themselves? Killed by Laterans simply on their way in or out of Kazdel to prevent them from raising an alarm, so that the soldiers could get back home safely to their own families?

War is hell, and all soldiers sold their souls along with their bodies.

Halo Empathy

Whenever a Sankta becomes mentally disturbed enough to consider desecrating corpses and collecting human body parts as trophies, the other Sankta around that individual can feel their emotions. I imagine that Sankta's comrades would swiftly call for professional help to take the one away for counseling. If the entire unit shares and reinforces the same mental imbalance, I imagine they would be shunned by Lateran society as a whole.

That doesn't mean it never happens. Because war is hell, and you cannot kill someone else without killing something in yourself.

But it does mean it should be even rarer than among soldiers of other countries.

Gerald's Plea for Mercy

Entirely apart from the question of whether Gerald was right to assume that his death would be necessary to ensure any of his people would be allowed to leave the mobile sanctuary alive...

No Sankta suggested to him that his sacrifice needed to involve suicide, let alone literally offering his severed head on a platter.

Psychological Projection

As defined by Wikipedia:

Psychological projection is a defence mechanism of alterity concerning "inside" content mistaken to be coming from the "outside" Other. It forms the basis of empathy by the projection of personal experiences to understand someone else's subjective world. In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing untold interpersonal damage. Projection incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping.

TL;DR:

"Unhealthy psychological projection is assuming that someone you hate wants to inflict upon you the same acts of spite that you want to inflict upon them."

Taking a dead sankta's gun, even if it's useless for sarkaz, has the practical benefit of denying Laterano one more gun to defend itself with.

But if sankta halos and wings didn't vanish upon death, and could be harvested and worn by their killers? The Nachzehrer are explicit cannibals, the Wendigo were cannibals, and the Vampires are blood-drinkers.

There is a sort of person who will accuse of others of committing the most heinous acts, with the unspoken assumption, "Because it's what I would do." And people who never hear those unspoken assumptions can believe it and repeat it, never knowing where the thought really came from.

Lies travel half-way across the world in the time it takes Truth to put on its boots.

[newerpaper]

Chapter 10

[armedwooper]

No I'm not saying that Surtr would fail the pocky game. I am saying that she would consider the game stupid, hyper-munch the pocky, and kiss you full on the lips because lets be honest with ourselves, if this woman is playing the Pocky Game with you your hips are already gone man you just don't know it yet.

[alkalische]

WOAG! it's the kazdel military commission!

[exoticalmonde]

Arknights Chapter XI - Return To Mist

So... Chapter Eleven is at its end and because I am desperate to have enough Originium I need to go through as many chapters in Adverse level as I can so this terrible Clown Fiesta of a skinset coming out tomorrow would be mine.

And conveniently enough, Dr. Kryo is here to help me out.

SPOILERS OF THE STORY AHEAD

Mandatory Opening video because it's too good to skip. I love re-watching these after I'm done with a chapter.

Me, frantically: "Kryo, Gummy is gonna be eaten." Kryo: "AH- UH- STALL WITH GRAVEL." Me: Stalls Gravel: *Gets devoured* Pinkie, returning out of nowhere: "I see Gravel has been used. They really took 'Eat dirt' to a next level."

---

I have had this woman ever since I started playing, and I have spent all this time almost not reading anything about her. My lass was in Kazimierz, she's here in Victoria with us now, she's a follower of the wendigo, a witch... and I still gape at the mention of her actual relations and experience.

She's a necromancer and a Sarkaz with the funkiest horns ever and just refuses to elaborate, uses her dark arts to heal as a mock of redemption... or something.

---

Me: "IS THAT--" Pinkie, amused, sarcastic, smug: "Yeah?" Me: "Now I don't care who it is."

---

HOLY HECK IT'S THE --- GOOD GOD OH MY GOODNESS AAAAaa--

Kal'tsit lore, Kal'tsit jumping in front of us to save me, to save Amiya little baby saw so much and she's sobbing limp in my arms after the wall crumbled underneath her tiny little bunny feet!!!

I am so sad oh my golly Mrs. Cat lady you are in the middle of all the drama, you are THE historical event you horrendeous fossil you, all the horrible things that happened happened because of you and now everybody is mad; what does your brain see that we do not, what sort of demons haunt you, whose voice do you hear that guides you, I need to know. ---

...

---

Pinkie: "Oh hey Kal'tsit, what are you doing there?" Me, who already knows: "I don't want to." Kryo: "Are you ready to hear the team comp? Oh, it's pre-set. Tell me when you're ready." Me: "... Let me go through the story first. I feel like I need to learn the context before I witness it." Pinkie: "Yes please." Me and Pinkie: *Reading* Kryo: *Falls asleep* Me: "Alright, we're done now. I'm ready for guidance." Kryo: "..." Me: "Kryo?" Kryo: "..." Pinkie: "Is he gone? I have time. Let's do it." Me: "... Alright." ---

Me: "I want to save her." Pinkie: "You can't stop a canon event." Me: "I don't want it to be a canon event."

Pinkie: "O, he's coming." Me: *Sad whimpering*

Pinkie: "Oh, here it comes." Kal'tsit: *Dies* Pinkie: "Now he's gonna leave. So long, losers. Refuses to elaborate."

---

Me: *Pogging* "It's the sword!" Pinkie: "Wow, now we have TWO swords that only work if the one destined and chosen by the sword is wielding it."

---

Man... My life in Operation 11-18, am I right?

---

Kryo: "Why is he panting in my ear? Dog, chill!" Me: "Thank you for your services... Both Hung's VA and Hung himself."

---

Me: "I don't know which one is worse, a level where the enemies are only three 'No Data' boxes, or the levels where there are three rows of them." Pinkie: "Hey, but you get to find out for yourself, right? It's the fun part of it. Trial and error." Me: "I don't want trial and error..." ---

Me: "What was the Steam Knight music called again?" Pinkie: "You don't need to know." Kryo: "Sexy Vampire music." Pinkie: "Damn it... It's Vampire Sex Music." Me: "Reverse-psychologises you into telling us the name because you think we got it wrong and you always need to be right." Pinkie: "... How dare you."

---

Me: "So, the Vampire Sex Music." Pinkie: "Yeah." Me: "..." Steam Knight:

---

Pinkie: "I wish he was someone we could get as a character one day. Imagine being able to deploy the Steam Knight." Me: "He's gorgeous. Look at that."

---

Me: *Squealing* "Look at her! Baba! Look at her tiny ears. Oh my god her teeny tail. I love her." Pinkie: "I remember when people were super surprised to just... see baby Siege out of nowhere."

---

Lord, this scene...

Absolutely insane.

---

First try, here we go-

OH NO

EBENHOLZ

...

Pinkie: "I think you need a better Hoshiguma." Me: "..." Kryo: "My Hoshiguma was lvl40 E2, I think hers (lvl25 E2) would be fine." Pinkie: "I struggled and mine was lvl60." Me: "Maybe because you didn't have Ebenholz E2 level 90." Pinkie: "WELL! You're right. You'd think that I'm missing the boss-killer on the Boss stage and would do something about him sooner, but I just haven't been able to around all the other things I need to do for this game." ---

Me and Kryo: *Finish the stage on the second try* Us: *Celebrating* Me: "It was so much easier than I expected. I've seen so many elaborate videos that are... Really nothing in comparison." Pinkie: "It seems I am the problem. Skill issue."

[multiversetravelingjournalist]

Sarkaz Lethality on nouns and verbs

Pretty simple.

Nouns are marked for whether they were/are/will be dead or not (nouns considered "inanimate" are not exempt from this).

Verbs have a special mood for if the action resulted in the death of someone. the verbs terat 'to be dead', trat 'kill', and tetra 'die' are exempt from this marking.

[the-cornuthaum]

It's even more poignant when you remember that the Sarkaz Revenants - the restless remnants of Sarkaz whose souls cannot be literally, VERY LITERALLY, consigned to the furnace of souls in Kazdel - are beyond rest, beyond respite, mired in a seemingly ceaseless cavalcade of suffering of their people that they can perceive but not affect.

Peaceful rest is a gift to the Sarkaz. Everyone else too, but the Sarkaz in particular.

Thinking about the recurring motif of "sleep"/"rest" in Babel in particular and in the Sarkaz storyline broadly.

The event "begins" with the Doctor being awoken from 13,000 years of stasis in the Sarcophagus (it doesn't actually, but much of the events of Babel are set in motion by that) and it ends with the Doctor being placed back in the Sarcophagus to heal.

Theresa repeatedly phrases her ideal as a wish for the land to be able fall into "peaceful slumber," while the Doctor's goal of allowing the Originium to devour all is framed similarly.

Minus a few things (like, you know, the blood), the CG of Amiya and Theresa lying on the ground almost looks as if they are just sleeping.

Theresa's last words to Amiya (although she can't hear them at this point), is to tell her to "sleep in peaceful slumber" and that she will "always be with [her]."

And finally, in Act 2, she is revived to become a puppet in Theresis' and the Confessarius' plan, and is denied even the peace in death that she so rightfully deserves