@strange-gods / strange-gods.tumblr.com
The thing lay amongst gnarled, primeval roots, a misshapen hulk whose ceaseless droning was consulted by those holy travelers who survived the journey to its arboreal throne. Its eyes were terrible with stars shining there strange and alien to our skies, and its song terrible with secrets.
Sleep not upon fraught water, for the serpents below writhe and hunger.
The Spider of Hidden Thresholds
The spider walks thin passages, and appears through corners of untouched space. Those watchful upon the path mark its manifestation as signpost to quiet places where the black earth runs deep.
St Expulsion's Mule
St Expulsion traveled to the horizon of the gulf with his mule, who had toiled by his side through the many trials upon the road. The transfigurations of the saints upon their illumination are myriad and instructive.
In the mouldering corpse of this empire the leavings of its destroyers are enshrined by hedge priests. Muttering copromancers stare into piles of excrement before throngs of illiterate worshippers, praying to the heavenly void that no gods return to this place.
Upon the skyward peak, where the celestial vault mingled with stone, the hosts of heaven gathered and screamed and hungered. In that place did the pilgrim subdue them.
Along the transit there appeared structures that bore the marks of angelic destruction. These ruins were reverentially maintained in state, great statues installed therein and adorned in blood-red flowers, they were the sites of worship for a people decimated by glory.
The Ascension of St Duress, whose bodily transportation into the void is celebrated to this day. Her elevation was marked by abnormal crop growth in the surrounding land, many farmers forced to decapitate and burn the year's harvest lest it destroy their homes.
In that year, only one peregrine was deemed capable of the long pilgrimage, and so Zeal-For-Toil set out alone upon the first transit beneath the gaze of those honored saints dwelling within the holy void.
The bishop worm, seabound vessel of Grandmother Leviathan, rises above the waves.
The Opening of the Veil
After the night of the great sorrow, a night of frozen time and bloodshed, the great veil in the north fell. Behind that light-shod bulwark the church rose, terrible with mystery, towering upon a monstrous threshold between the world of matter and the unimaginable expanse beyond.
The procession winds through fog and trees, through liminal spaces and the grand vaults of time and creation.
To each of the places there, to each town and village, to each castle and fortress, the Venerable Redeemer came.
And from the east did the silent apostles arrive, with crimson raiment and void-crowned in dreadful forms. The patreon is live! Monthly stories can only be seen there until publication. Behind the scenes, full length painting time-lapse, sketches, q&a, and a pdf of the month's story at the end of each month. Join us, ye undying shades, for the black gulf illumination!
Book pre-orders are live! The collected works of October, paintings and writing introducing a world of awe and dread beneath the gaze of terrible gods. Including detail notes and sketch pages giving a look at what’s to come.
Inktober day 31: the new arrival
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Thank you to everyone who followed along this month, it's been a crushing but satisfying road. I'll make an announcement soon regarding future plans etc. I want to turn these things into a book.
