#shindaerey peak

[kg-clark-inthedark]

voidkeeper’s voidtober days 3-4 - Company

“They never paid us any mind before, but lately this one follows me. It watches me write. It watches me sleep. It stands over my cot as the stone bursts new fissures through my skin, pairing my screams with its own gravely moans of despair.

An attempt in solidarity? A warning? No matter. The only way to understand the Envisioned’s wisdom is to become one myself. Any day now…

In the meantime I’ve come to appreciate the company as my body grows weaker. Perhaps the Outsider himself granted me this usher. Perhaps in my steadfast suffering, I’ve earned his favor.”

[invisiblestation]

[pregnantsecondo]

SO FUCKING TRAGIC 😭

[meglosthegreat]

If Dishonored 1's element is water, Dishonored 2's element is air. Karnaca is described as a city "at the edge of the world", and is defined by its elevation, its towering trees, and the wind currents that provide the city its power. Almost every map in the game has you climbing upward, away from the water that is your home and haven, until you reach the Dust District where the clouds blowing through obscure it completely. Bloodflies are the game's primary environmental hazard, replacing the river krusts and rats of Dishonored 1.

The wind is a double-edged thing in the story. It brings prosperity, allowing Karnaca to escape the need for whale oil in the face of rationing. But that prosperity does not extend to those facing the brunt of its effects; those condemned to toil in the silver mines and live in the district poisoned by their exploitation. The wind powers homes; it also powers the devices used to exert control over the city's population. In short, the wind is like the Empire - as easily put to harm as it is to good. All it took was one Empress deposed by another, and those forces shifted with all the fickleness of a breeze.

Even the Void changes from the serene, underwater-like place in Dishonored 1. It becomes a wasteland of howling emptiness and tall, jagged spires. Shindaerey Peak is the place where the Void meets the world, and the gulley connecting it to Karnaca is where the city's wind currents originate. It is a city at the edge of the world not just in the physical sense - it also lies at the boundary between this world and the Void.

When you leap from Coldridge Prison at the beginning of Dishonored 1, the water is there to greet you. But in Dishonored 2, the water is withheld. When you fall, there is only empty, unforgiving air. Which makes it all the more compelling when the Outsider reaches out to catch you.

(Also, I should point out that there are two more Isles yet to be featured in a game and two more elements yet to be thematically implemented...)

[void-damned]

The 'Worshipped Outsider' AU

This is the masterpost for the Worshipped Outsider AU, originally developed by me and one lovely person that remains anonymous for now. Additionally, thanks to these wonderful people for being interested and asking questions that helped me develop this story further, @no-light-left-on, @kg-clark-inthedark, and @astheturtlemoves Additional information will be added over time! Feel free to send asks about this - I will be using the Worshipped Outsider tag for people to keep track of the AU!

_______

The Outsider functions as the primary God worshiped through the Isles - he's a funky guy, honestly. Things are very religion-heavy - instead of being purist and violent, the Abbey preaches about His Intentions (instead of the Strictures), though it is merely their interpretation of the things the Outsider supposedly stands for*. They are still the Abbey of the Everyman, but the everyman here is dedicated to their God and behaves accordingly, denouncing any false God, leaving offerings, etc. But otherwise it isn't too strict about any form of worship. They are more oriented towards spreading faith and keeping it alive among the people, while the Oracular Sisters/Oracular Order are more spiritually based and focus on communicating with their God. 

The people carve charms and runes out of bones and antlers to leave him as offerings; everyone flies indigo and various purple fabrics decorated with gold. Households. commonly hold such cloth and hang it on their walls or drape them across private shrines. Even the Abbey's banners match the very same colour scheme. 

The Outsider himself scarcely appears, sometimes speaking to the Oracular Sisters, but there are many instances documented across the millennia - people speak of the Outsider walking among them, always in the same shape and same Void-filled eyes (but sometimes he appears with pale Pandyssian eyes when he is feeling like blending in more). They never talk about him doing anything big or remarkable, any miracles, nothing, really. He's just kind of there, though sometimes he's seen watching the whales or people in general. 

(Speaking of the whales, they would be sort of sacred but that does not mean that they aren't poached and used. The people believe their existence is a benevolent act of their God who wants them to use his gift. It's an Abbey made excuse, though*. )

Paloma used to be particularly religious and often took to carving charms, even as much as including pieces of carved bone in the clothes she would make; when Corvo was younger, she would make him kneel (even by force) at their makeshift altar and press a piece of singing whalebone into his hands for safekeeping - he was never as pious as his mother, nor as his sister - there was always with a streak of rebellion in him. 

Jess, much like his mother, had been an image of faith and as an Empress, she was an Avatar often said to be aided by the Outsider himself - she certainly had to be approved by him to reign; both her and Paloma would have often joined the pilgrimages across the blackened erratics that climax in the Shindaerey Peak where the Outsider had been made once. The pilgrimages happen once every 2 or so years as a 'celebration of suffering' or whatever the Abbey calls it. 

The Marked are respected for being blessed by the Outsider, no matter who they are and what they do; in fact, they are rather hounded and sheltered, considered too precious to be left wandering around freely, lest something happens to him. In a way, they are also seen as Prophets. Those like Corvo and Daud hide their marks, not wanting those to define them - neither could ever bear to live such a. lifestyle. Some tend to fake their marks, and such an act is often seen as offensive and punishable by the Abbey. So is worshiping false Gods and icons. Vera Moray was a Marked kept like a precious pet but the treatment had made her insane, leaving the Abbey to further isolate her and pretend that she's doing just fine. Meanwhile, Delilah yearns to be treated like a Queen and keeps threatening the Outsider, trying to take his position as a God.

That and either Jessamine never died of Daud's hand and Corvo had never been blamed, a different man held the blade and paid for his transgressions,or, well, honestly, the Marked are pretty much worshipped, though the way the Abbey goes about it is more or less forcing the other Marked people to hide their marks overall. Corvo could still get labelled as a false worshipper and framed for murdering the Empress as an act against their God. It is eventually revealed that his marking has been real this entire time and that he was framed by people who wanted to oppose the Outsider. Still not Daud's job, though. 

There is a potential connection here to be made, a parallel where the circumstances of the Empress' death also lead to the metaphorical death of the Outsider.

*Not to mention that the Abbey is still very much eh and often seems to hide sacred texts, preach about everything in the wrong way, and only ever interpret them the way they see fit. The shit His Intentions speak of are hardly anything the Outsider would have ever said/meant. Some bits do hold truth to them but the way they are presented indicates a lot being lost in translation or simply being translated falsely. Any runic expert who had been asked to see the scripts or tried to research them had been chased off in fear of translating things differently and therefore invalidating the Abbey and their preaching. 

There's still a lot of ground to be cover but this is the gist of it. And in case you're wondering why the Outsider doesn't correct them or do much himself, he absolutely refuses to speak to the Abbey or have anything to do with them.

[no-light-left-on]

the Eyeless have been around since before the Outsider was created. Ivan Jacobi mentions, at some point in the game, that the Eyeless are the same cult, or they descend from it. they have been around for over 4000 years, collecting knowledge on the occult and possibly on the world, too. just how much information have they gathered since their creation? how much information have they saved from before the Great Burning? what everything do they have in the library at Shindaerey Peak?

[overseermartin]

Have you played the Death of the Outsider, if yes what do you think about it?

I have, yes! I pre-ordered it and played it the day it came out. At the time I really enjoyed delving back into the Dishonored universe after a long break and found Billie's POV refreshing and fun, and thought the game was pretty good. I wasn't thrilled by what happened with Daud and was a little...disappointed by the ending.

I've played it once or twice in the years since, and honestly find it to be the most forgettable of the series. I do have memory issues and often struggle to remember details, but for DOTO I have a hard time remembering what actually happens. This could be a me issue, and though I don't have this issue with DH1 (I know that game inside and out by now lol) and find DH2 a little more memorable, there is just something about DOTO that I struggle with.

I have been quite harsh about this game in the past, particularly in Discord servers, but right now I think it's generally fine. The writing wasn't as strong as the others in the series, I found the characterisation of Daud to be...questionable, and though I love Billie, this story didn't feel like hers. It feels like Daud's, and that she carries out his wishes without displaying any real autonomy of her own. I think its a shame the context of the game is in a novel that very few have read, and even less actually enjoyed. But I did enjoy the hollows, and the Eyeless Cult, the Eye of the Dead God, and all the interesting lore implications of the ending.

The gameplay was fun. I liked the powers, I liked the settings, though I didn't like the repetition of areas much. The bank was very cool. Shindaerey Peak is incredible.

Overall, I think it's fine. Just as Dishonored 2 is fine. Neither are as special to me as Dishonored 1 is.

What did you think about it? I'm always interested in hearing others opinions on it!

[lunasmusemenagerie]

Name: the Outsider (Triton, which he's warped into Trenton because he's a bastard)

Race: Human, god, no one really knows.

Type: Canon Divergent

FC: Shiloh Fernandez

Background:

The Outsider is a mysterious, morally ambiguous supernatural being, neither good nor evil. He usually appears to people of interest as a plain-looking young man with short brown hair and black eyes, wearing a brown coat, blue-grey pants and black boots.

Though many people worship him, such is considered heresy by the Abbey of the Everyman and punishable by extreme measures, up to and including death. Created to be the Void's representational figure, he appears to be the source of all magic in the world of the Dishonored franchise, and his shrines can be found across the Isles.

the Outsider became a "being of insatiable curiosity about what people do when given power over others" spurring him to appear to those he finds "interesting".[10] The Outsider decides whether to make contact with these individuals through their dreams or during prayers at his shrines. He can mark them of his name to link them with the Void through him and grant them Supernatural Abilities.

The Outsider was born over 4000 years before the events of Dishonored. When he was 15 he was sought and taken by the Envisionned who saw in him all signs to become one with the Void, notably his age and bits of prophecy (the celestial movements and events like the mass dying of fish)

The cultists brought him to the Void through a place in Shindaerey Peak where the boundary of the ethereal world is the thinnest. There, they prepared him for a ritual: "he was bathed and dressed" in painted clothes, his eyes painted over "his hands were adorned with [golden] rings" and he was drugged with potions and smokes that made him forget his memories.

He was then restrained to a sacred Altar in a deeper layer called the Ritual Hold by the cultists. There, they slit his throat with the Twin-bladed Knife and he "merged in part with the Void". His name was also eternally lost to the world, which was essential to the ritual. Unbeknown to him though, the Outsider's Mark is in fact his name, written in a language only the dead can read.

he has aged himself up to be in his early to midtwenties.

[first-stricture]

This one has a greater destiny, beyond Dunwall, beyond Karnaca.

[justdishonoredthings]

[kg-clark-inthedark]

So my fic is corvosider and all that but today I’ve been rereading it to help with writers block and was reminded again just how infatuated I am with the city of Karnaca. Dumping some examples of my love-letter-ass descriptions of that sweet sweet Jewel of the South below the cut because why not:

Corvo returning to Karnaca by ship (ch 13):

Karnaca emerges dreamlike from the morning haze when the shoreline comes into view days later. Where my attention would normally be drawn by the sprawling metropolis, its edges touched softly by the summer sunrise, I instead watch the mountain overhead. Shindaerey Peak slices a sharp, bleeding edge through the mist. Pale, pink streaks of light from the east lie, refracted through the early fog, upon the side of the mountain that faces the city. But that curious crevice that splits the mountain in two is cast completely in shadow. A dark, mysterious wound carved into such seemingly unyielding stone. It appears to me an omen of the Void that lies within.

The Outsider looking down on Karnaca from up on Shindaerey Peak (ch 12):

The view of all that is below flourishes before my eyes. The beautiful spectacle that is the Jewel of the South is distant and sprawling, showing how far up we’ve come. A low fog has settled into the valley, streaming down from the mountains and dissolving away at the ocean’s edges. The city persists through the mist with its brilliantly colored rooftops and emerald umberwood canopies, unable to be rendered pale by the gray, unsaturated filter through which the sun radiates. I can make out the northern Campo Seta District from here and dare to wonder if I can spot my old apartment building…

The Outsider briefly stopping in Karnaca for supplies before embarking on a dangerous journey (ch 12):

I follow him down the bustling street and familiar smells of Karnaca fill my nose - the spices of a street vendor cooking meat, raw seafood hanging from the stall nextdoor, the summer humidity bringing earthy, leafy aromas with every breeze that flows down from the wind corridor to mingle with the salt-tinged air of the bay. The comfort of it all is intoxicating.

I end up hurrying past him. If we dawdle here too long, I’ll never want to leave.

Corvo and the Outsider leaving Karnaca together (ch 7):

The ship begins moving now and we quiet down. The two of us watch as the city we both love fades further and further away. As the minutes pass, its details begin to blend together in the windy seaside haze. Individual buildings become whole city blocks, masses of beige plaster and painted concrete shining in the late morning sun. The towering wind turbines appear as thin as dandelion wisps at this distance. Now from this vantage point, the mountains look like great hands, cradling the city and lowering it to drink at the water’s edge.

[invisiblestation]

[jadensageillustration]

☀️🎵🍐⛏ "And what about you? Who will you leave to pick up the pieces here in the Jewel of the South?"

✨It's been such a joy, painting this view of Karnaca at sunset, with Shindaerey Peak in full splendor. I really love the world of Dishonored, from the smoke stacks and grey stone of Dunwall, to the hot, sticky seaside of Karnaca. I hope one day we get to see Morley and Wei-Ghon, as well! ✨Acrylic on canvas, 16"x20"

EDITED 9/7, high quality photo has now replaced the top picture there--please reblog this version!!

[lavenderwhalebones]

The Rat and the Crow

@pallideinanis

The first time he felt it, every hair on Corvo’s body stood up at once and he was convinced that someone, something, was watching him very closely. The mark upon his hand convulsed and pulsated as if his heart were at his fingertips. For the first time, in over fifteen years, The Lord Protector had to take a day off of work. A splitting pain shot through his skull like a bullet he couldn’t dig out. 

And then an immeasurable feeling of loss, and emptiness. A feeling he cradled at his chest all night long, until the fire burnt out in its hearth, and the room went dark and cold. Emily prodded him, every so often, leaving tea at his door, an occasional bowl of porridge with those brisk Tyvian pears, just the way she knew he liked it, but nothing soothed the weariness upon his shoulders, so heavy and inexplicable. 

He half expected The Outsider to make an appearance, cryptically describe some new, world bending adventure he’d need to go on to save his empire. Or perhaps just pass some words of condolences to ease the pain. He received neither. It seemed The Outsider only showed his face when it was least convenient to Corvo, never when he actually wanted him there. 

---

“The ship gets hot.” Billie warned, staring into the sea as they parted ways with Shindaerey Peak. They could go anywhere, really. She briefly considered heading straight to Tyvia, she had the extra coin to make it there. Now that Daud was gone, there was nothing keeping her here, in Serkonos. She wouldn’t mind seeing Sokolov’s grumpy old face again, until he eventually died, and then she’d have to figure out what to do all over again.

Until she too...died. It was depressing when she thought about it too much. 

“So sleeping isn’t always easy.” she added, trying to make any conversation at all. They’d been quiet almost the entire way down the mountain. What were they supposed to talk about? Two people scorned by the void, scarred in more ways than one, walking away so casually from the place that had threatened to distort reality itself. 

There wasn’t much to talk about. 

“You can stay here...if you want.” Billie couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. What it felt like to breathe again, to walk on his own two legs, to piss. Living was so raw and visceral and /instinct/. 

And probably fairly traumatic. 

“It’s not much, obviously. But I got food and I got booze, and you seem like you might need a drink.” She offered, though it was only a thinly veiled attempt to promote some kind of camaraderie between them. Was it wrong that she wanted to talk about this? She kept so much deep inside, buried beneath all the shit she needed to deal with presently. Maybe The Outsider didn’t want to talk at all. Which was fair, understandable even. Who else was she going to talk to though, about everything she’d just seen, the cracks in the void, the eyeless, the towering beings of rock and energy, wandering in no specific direction, for all of eternity.

...And Daud.

“And I wanted to know too...I can’t just keep calling you “The Outsider,” or…”black eyed bastard.” She joked, rubbing the back of her neck with her one good hand. She wondered if The Outsider could see her arm the way it really was, all fragmented rock and pure, unabashed magic.

[lowchaosenthusiast]

for the prompt thing: remortalized

It was strange, how time contracted around him. He had been barely a man when he was slaughtered, an unchanging figure of myth for four millennia, and man again. His hands held the same callouses and cuts. His wrists still carried rope burn. The cut along his neck still stung when it rubbed against the leather of his collar jacket.

On the way down from Shindaerey Peak, he must have vomited his last meal – stale bread and thin gruel.

There was a benefit to it, he supposed, as Billie speared another rat over the fire. He had expected living again to be a painful ordeal, like a newborn colt finding its’ footing. But the crisp air did not burn, his body endured the long trek down just fine, and the roasted rat settled pleasantly against his stomach.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Billie asked, as the night was crawling over their makeshift encampment.

The man that was once the Outsider let a crooked smile grace his face, projecting the authority of a thousand years into his voice. “What I have always done – be insufferable.”

He wasn’t sure whether Billie huffed a laughter or a sound of exasperation, but he was glad for the company, at least.

-.-

Sending a letter to Emily and Corvo had been surprisingly difficult. Not the physical delivery – a couple of whispered words to Royal Protector’s hidden agents was simple enough. The letter itself had a thousand iterations of a million different phrases, in the scratchy script of hands not used to wielding a pen.

In some ways, he did not expect an answer. A strange man bearing the right code-phases claims to have been the Outsider and now, re-mortalized, requests an audience with the Empress – absurd did not begin to cover it. But he waited nonetheless.

He did not expect Emily herself to rush to Karnaca, arriving under the guise of a diplomatic visit to the Duke.

He did not expect her to track him down to the apartments he shared with Billie, in the depths of the night.

In the depths of the Void, sensations and emotions were muted – searching for silver under dark waters. You could feel them, brushing against your leg, glinting at the corner of your eye – but you could never reach them.

Nothing had prepared him for the brunt force of Emily’s presence.

She embraced him, fisting her hands into the linen of his shirt. His heart keened in delight, beating an erratic pattern against his breast bone. His lungs shuddered, protesting at the need to inhale air which was not tinged in her perfume. His body yearned.

So, he was wrong in his assessment from before – there were some things which he had yet to learn.

[kaseven7]

The Leader of Envisioned is barely mentioned, but after giving this person some thought, (s)he could play a more significant role in Dishonored story.

Spoilers from D2, DOTO and books below!

We saw the Leader of Envisioned in D2 cutscene about the Outsider’s origin - a person holding the Twin-bladed Knife, at the head of the altar. In TRoD book the Outsider looked directly in his/her face just before his throat was cut.

Breanna mentioned that the anomaly at Shindaerey Peak is similar to the disruption caused by the ritual performed in Stilton’s manor, but probably much older. Does it exist because miners discovered the Eye there? Or maybe someone powerful tore through the boundary of the Void, just like Delilah did, and came back to reality many years ago? ( “How many of the founders are still there?”)

All Envisioned at Shindaerey Peak have been already transformed into immortal stone-like creatures by their constant exposure to the Void. But there is one thing to consider: Delilah managed to regain her human form after harnessing the power of the ritual grounds in the Void, growing stronger and becoming a part of the Outsider. The Leader could probably do the same, maybe even more with a knowledge given by The Eye of the Dead God. The ritual altar is still a powerful source of magic even after DOTO, just like Billie’s artifacts.

The Leader was once the owner of the Twin-bladed Knife, used to create the Outsider. The knife was discovered later in a Tyvian salt mine by Zhukov, 4 years before D2. What happened in between, it hasn’t been revealed yet.

Can the Leader be somehow related to the Abbey of the Everyman? There is a striking similarity between the Twin-bladed Knife and the Overseer’s swords. The creation of the Abbey is still a mystery – at some point they rose up as a militant group and ruthlessly wiped out other religious factions, including followers of the Outsider at Whitecliff. It was revealed in DOTO that the high-ranked members of the Abbey know the true nature of the Outsider (as the boy sacrificed in the ritual) and perceive a possibility of his fall as a catastrophe (just like the Cult of the Outsider). The Abbey might be also responsible for erasing all records about Shindaerey Peak in Karnaca ("Here, the Void is closest to the surface of reality, breaking through and spilling out all the fear and power the Abbey of the Everyman tries to hide.").

Now about the Outsider… Many parallels can be drawn between the Outsider and Billie, the two of them have lived lives that mirror each other, including a savior/mentor figure (The Outsider seems to have a strange sentiment about Daud, chose to die from his hand, and did everything to make it possible, before Billie jumped in). There is little mention of his relation with Envisioned - he died a horrible death by their hands, but I got the impression that maybe he wasn’t killed right away after they took him from the streets. He speaks more like someone who was betrayed.

“When I knew them, they had names – and ambitions.”

“Daud spared you life, all those years ago. But I was taught the lesson that you still haven’t learned: some wounds stay with you even in the Void.”.

„You think you are alone, Daud? You think you are the only one who is in pain? Running from a past you cannot forget, the memory of evil deeds a fire inside your mind – a fire that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot extinguish, not fully.”

If we will ever get D3, I would like to see a confrontation between the human Outsider and the Leader (if both of them are still alive, a lot of "if" here ;) ).