Nova Draws Things

Grandpa loses self imposed popularity contest to fifteen year old, makes it everyone’s problem.

Or, alternatively, @catboymoments ‘s Gilded Cage AU, but with Philip there to add to the chaos. Love these goobers.

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Here’s the third in our Grimwalker line up, Adam!

Made near the beginning of Belos’ traveling preacher era, Adam is the Grimwalker we see in the first memory.

Created as an adult (about 20), he believed his memories to have been erased by a curse. He finds himself lucky to have found someone who knew him from before his memories faded. Although Belos does seem to confuse him with someone else sometimes… but what does he know, it’s not like such a devout man would ever lie to him, lying is a sin.

While he was given lessons on the Titan and wild witches, he never really believed much of it. But he owed Belos, and it’s not like anyone else would put up with him if he wanted to leave, and following the preacher around was decent work. Plus no other employer would give him opportunities to burn down houses and towns, so yknow. It’s a decent business model, if a bit unsustainable. It’s not like no one will ever notice that the only towns to be burned are the ones Belos passes through.

Eventually the criminal activity does catch up to them, and in a skirmish between bounty hunters and followers a hunter gets a lucky shot at Adam, a spell catching his lungs.

The only thing Belos has to say is that he’s going to need to find a new Stonesleeper.

Somehow in my “let’s see how terrible Belos can get” fic, I (the writer making him do these actions) manage to be surprised by how terrible he (the character whose actions are dependent on my writing) can get. This has happened several times.

I don’t know what to call this phenomenon, but it is fascinating that he still manages to surprise the omniscient god his existence is dependent on.

Next Grimwalker, Obedience! Or Bee, for short.

The next Grimwalker after Red, Bee was unfortunately punished for the crimes of his predecessor. Belos gave up on treating him like a person, as being betrayed by a human was too painful, instead using Bee as a whipping boy and servant. Bee was nothing but a tool to him.

Bee’s first memories- being created at the age of eighteen- were of being chained up in an abandoned building. He spent weeks there, the manacles eventually scarring around his wrists, until his “savior” found him. Belos told him he had been taken by wild witches and would have been sacrificed to their pagan gods, had he not been there to find Bee. Bee had no memories of life before waking up there, which he was told was due to the wild witches’ torture, and had nowhere else to go, so he pledged himself to Belos’ service.

The service ended up being housekeeping, mostly, as Belos hadn’t yet had need of a Golden Guard. Bee enjoyed things like sewing and cooking, thankfully, so besides the obvious abuse his life wasn’t completely miserable.

Although Bee was eternally grateful to his savior, he couldn’t help but feel painfully lonely, told not to talk to witches for fear they might be evil wild witches come to finish the job killing him for their god. One day, though, as he went to the market he met a vendor’s son and immediately he was enamored. Unfortunately Belos took this knowledge very badly.

Bee died the same way he lived- unobtrusively, unnoticed by anyone but those who he found absolutely necessary to talk to. The vendor’s son, whom he had promised a date, found himself stood up and moved on, quickly forgetting the charming young customer with a nervous smile and lopsided scar.

First in our lineup of Grimwalkers is Redemption Wittebane! He goes by Red for short.

The first successful Grimwalker after Caleb’s death, Red was raised as Belos’ son from the age of eight to about twenty. From a young age he was told his uncle Caleb abandoned his family and that Caleb’s selfishness had ruined his father’s life. Internalizing the burden of being the big brother (despite being a teenager), Red vowed never to leave Belos, no matter what.

Red took after Belos quite a lot, just as petty and manipulative, often throwing Belos’ grief back in his face to serve his own ends. He had a similar disdain for witch and demon lives, seeing himself as above the denizens of hell (an impression only fed by Belos’ codependency and pseudo worship of the memory of his brother).

Belos thought of Red as his second chance at saving Caleb, his “Redemption” (Belos has never been particularly clever with names but he thinks he’s hilarious). He was heavily codependent and parentified Red, but at the same time was a very hands off, indulgent parent, which led Red to a sense of entitlement and superiority.

They got along nicely up until the point Red found out that Belos had killed Caleb for leaving him. Red never planned on leaving Belos- the opposite- but learning about Caleb “being stolen away” and killed made him realize just how easily Belos could kill him too. The final straw was learning about the Grimwalkers, and learning he himself was a replacement, too.

In an attempt to make sure Belos wouldn’t kill him, Red struck first and tried to kill his father. This ended. Very badly, with Red lamenting his failure and stating he only lashed out because he feared Belos would get rid of him and try again.

Thinking about the fact that Belos named his first Grimwalker Redemption and his second one Obedience. Really says a lot.

More DnD AU!

Hunter, a half-elf paladin, has just aced his entrance exams to the Emperor’s Academy. Although his older brother is happy for him, there’s a deep bitterness in Philip’s eyes he can’t quite pinpoint the source to.

Philip tells him his father would be proud. Hunter hopes it’s true.

His uncle says nothing at all. Hunter hopes he’ll be valedictorian to finally, finally earn the man’s approval, since even this isn’t worth more than a single nod.

(Untorn picture under the cut)

Thinking about a fucked up little freak again (affectionate)

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Also this uncropped picture makes me laugh so here you go

Thinking about Grimwalkers. One fucked up one in particular.

This is Lucas, an answer to the question “Hey what if there was a Grimwalker who was just as bad as Belos and wholeheartedly submitted to the idea that wild witches are subhuman animals to be put down?”.

This lil guy has caused countless deaths

Basically he was created sometime near the end of the traveling preacher era as Belos’ perfect assassin. Rather than simply tell him memories he’d tragically lost as he did with most Grimwalkers, Belos actually recruited a family for Lucas to watch die in front of him (enemies who were to be disposed of anyway, making it doubly convenient for him).

This. Messed Lucas up. Because watching your family be brutally murdered in front of you does that to a guy.

He swore vengeance against every living wild witch and jumped at the chance to join Belos in his quest to remove wild magic completely. As someone only slightly less unhinged than Belos, he was a huge enabler of violence and torture against Belos’ enemies, going so far as to murder the families of witches who publicly mocked the Titan’s word. Belos was the one who had to restrain such a loose cannon from actively killing everyone who inconvenienced him.

Eventually, despite unwavering loyalty to unhealthy degrees, Belos killed Lucas since he was raising too much suspicion from the current ruling class. An unrestrained murder weapon was too unpredictable of a variable for him to control.

Some design notes:

-Lighter hair than Caleb and slightly sharper cheekbones (if my style of face was at all consistent)

-Cut a cross onto his arm for every five murders he committed. There are fifteen on each arm, with several being incomplete.

-Very bright red eyes even for Grimwalkers. As Grimwalkers were a folk tale at the time, he was rumored to be one, ironically enough.

-No full armor, his speciality was not getting hit during fights. He had a fully functioning bile sac and was particularly competent at fighting with construction magic.

-The scar on his face was from the wild witches who murdered his family. He was partially blind and depended on illusion magic to help make things more visible. His mask made things very difficult when it came to sight; as a workaround he’d only wear it during ceremonial events. For stealth missions he disguised himself as other people.

AU where no one dies, everyone is mostly well adjusted, and Philip and Belos are just really into angst writing. Because dammit these guys deserve happiness.

Themb.

Drew a mini comic yesterday (will not be showing the full thing because it’s full of spoilers), and this little sequence made me laugh.

No dialogue but for context Belos is trying to manipulate the person he’s talking to and playing up the sympathy card only to get immediately shot down.

Look at him he’s so genuinely offended no one believes his bullshit

When I say Belos is my favorite character I mean I want to see him in pain, writhing with agony with no defense against every atrocious act he has ever committed, dying slowly and painfully without any sort of comfort because he can no longer pretend he’s ever been in the right, with every delusion and lie collapsing around him, leaving him nothing more than a pathetic, broken man with absolutely nothing left to stand for.

When I say Philip is my favorite character I mean I want to give him all the best things, wrap him in a blanket pile, and let him be the happy, silly guy he used to be without fear of being hurt for his happiness.

Which is weird, considering how my fic has turned out.

Got new brush packs for Procreate and apparently a new style for faces to be slightly more proportional. I’m still figuring out shading/anatomy/my own art style but I think the process is fun and I like most of the results:)

A pal of mine recently mentioned I draw a lot more art of Philip happy than I write scenes for him, so instead of balancing this out the nice way I’ve decided to make him visually miserable as well. This is probably not what they had in mind, but oh well.

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I do love his dumb longer hair mullet tbh. Too bad it only exists because he’s depressed:(

PSA don’t stim with scissors it’s dangerous

GUYS

SOMEONE MADE FANART

IM GOING TO START CRYING IVE BEEN HAPPY STIMMING FOR LIKE AN HOUR

LOOK AT IT

THE COLORS

THE BLOOD

THE DAGGER

(How do you update wills I need to make sure they get flowers and chocolate before I die of happiness)

Introducing what I like to call the “Philip dies and everyone else (mostly Belos and Hunter) has a really, really bad time” AU

This boy’s name is Walker! (How original… in Belos’ defense he’s not in a good headspace, let alone a creative one) Physically he’s about fourteen, but he’s only been around a few weeks at this point. He’s a silly little guy who has not yet experienced any of The Horrors, and overall is doing remarkably well for the Grimwalker of the guy who Belos centered his entire reason for living around who only recently died and Belos has refused to let himself process a single iota of that grief.

Basically sometime between Hollow Mind and the aftermath Belos goes slightly too far and accidentally kills Philip. And sure, there’s only a week to the Day of Unity he can kill everyone and fix up a Grimwalker before he leaves for the Human Realm no problem he just needs to stay focused on the mission at hand…

Yeah, no. Cue murderous rampage because Belos has the emotional intelligence of a toddler and can’t control his curse or his murderous intent. Pretty much every witch and demon stationed in the castle dies, including several of the Coven Heads before the survivors manage to subdue his curse with the rest of the palismen in the reserves.

Welp. He’s just blown his shot at the Draining Spell, because, yknow, a hundred murders in the span of like three hours hurts your popularity and trust, not to mention half of the people he was going to use to channel the spell are now dead. He takes Philip’s body and runs to the Grimwalker lab, which further hurts his reputation because he just committed mass murder and peaced out, which, what the fuck.

In his absence the CATs manage to take over and keep the chaos at a minimum, the Draining Spell is revealed to the public, and Belos becomes the number one most wanted criminal in the Realm. No one can find him, though- between his glyph lock on the lab and his ability to teleport he’s practically unreachable. (The Collector is never found, as King’s Tide doesn’t happen)

Everyone is on high alert, but months pass and there’s no sign of Belos. Eventually people start to relax, assuming him dead, but the main cast (particularly Hunter) are all still hyper vigilant. Then, sooner or later, the Hexsquad is walking through the forest near the edge of Bonesborough and run into a kid with brown hair and red eyes holding an artificial staff in his hands.