#dirgecore

[majorasnightmare]

why are her kisses so fuckin cute and sweet help

[majorasnightmare]

LITERALLY yeah ajdnsnsbsndb

Love ships where its like some guy with autism and his special interest is his wife

[wildwren]

When the beat drops on the dirgecore accordion folk

[majorasnightmare]

also because im still thinking of it

like they arent FULLY people, are they? being a person is incidental to what they are, because what they ARE is a tool

people come into the world, and maybe have a destiny, maybe fate has something in store, but above all else they are free actors able to determine their lives for themselves, caught in a web of circumstances and social inertia but not beholden to it

dirge though? aylin? they have PURPOSE. built into them from the beginning, divine will etched deeper than dna, potent and compelling and powerful and utterly magnetic. theyre tools meant to interface with people, to be beholden and worshipped, to enact divine will where the gods cannot walk, to interpret the voices of the gods and communicate that vision to the masses

selune doesnt MIND that aylins a person, but it isnt a built in functionality, and isobel even points out theres times aylin isnt even particularly good at it! she doesnt understand time the same way mortals do and leaves on walks that last over a month. she copes with trauma by falling back into her role as selunes sword of retribution. the difference therein is just that aylin isnt punished for trying. when she reacts to lorroakan the same way she reacts to ketheric, it isnt satisfying, it isnt emboldening or empowering, shes traumatized, like a person would be, and not only does selunes retribution have no place punishing an upstart wizard whos main crime at that time is being an asshole, theres no place in that healing process to just. fall back on old habits. aylin was hurt like a person and can only heal like a person, but it isnt intuitive, less so than for other traumatized people, because aylin is a person by choice rather than by intrinsic nature

dirges trauma ive already dedicated a lot of word space to but essentially just. like hes a knife meant to bloodlet the world. hes a dagger shaped like a tiefling. if he has thoughts or schemes, its because a tool meant to kill people has to understand them to be able to competently execute its function. a Thing meant to mimic personhood to get close enough to maul and slaughter, clever enough to slink away unnoticed to go about it all again. divinity cloaked in flesh, limited in scope but narrow and focused in purpose and intent, like the narrowing sights of a railgun about to fire

and divinity is fueled by, tethered by, faith and worship and recognition, so it must be that, when cloaked in flesh and sensation, this amorphous conceptual power develops a tangible detectable presence, the way a snake can taste temperature. a core deep hunger for something that cant be swallowed, but a need that can be fed nonetheless. a spark that needs kindling, and every fervrent prayer and binding oath sets the embers to blazing.

theres the slayer form, of course, murder incarnate, but its a gift crafted by bhaals hands and bestowed upon whomsoever he finds worthy. its bhaals power, bhaals will, it doesnt reflect you or what you are in any capacity. but i think that each fragmented spark housed in godflesh warps and adapts to its casing, becoming something like but unlike its creator, something personal and intimate. a godspawn is not theyre creator, after all, a crafted tool but distinct unto themselves

tapping into that wellspring of divinity, shedding the shell meant to Talk and Evangelize and Guide, disconnecting that innate spark from the barriers that shield and shroud and smother it, to stop playacting at personhood and just Be, oh it must feel absolutely delicious. no doubts, no restraints, just Purpose and Doing, a sword unsheathed from its scabbard at last, all glorious Zeal and Horror and Beauty, nothing between you and the fire now, just Being and what you are is a tool, a weapon, and there is nothing but the faith and the certainty of it, and that being the proof more than anything just how much you are Not Like Them

a person loses their Self and its a nightmare, its horror and violation, because a person is Autonomy and Will and Choice and Desire, and to lose that is to lose the core of you, to become Something Else. but for them, for dirge and aylin and godspawn, its a bone deep satisfaction and rightness, its shedding everything unnecessary and irrelevant and existing fully, completely, nothing but Divine Aspect, haloed like the saints of olde, a holy messenger of Sacred Will incapable of being understood by mortals, for what mortal could understand having such a purpose etched into their very being? what mortal could truly understand the pleasure in being nothing more than what you are, a perfectly crafted tool that desires above all else to be used? a chisel craves a keen edge and a surface to bite into, to do its job and know it has done it well, to know without any shred of doubt (for what tool was ever crafted that could doubt itself?) what it was made for.

to be a person is a luxuriating indulgence, one only made possibly by their function necessitating an understanding of, a mimicry of, people. its an indulgence the gods crave and one that selune will never deny her daughter, and one that bhaal seeks to destroy, and its an indulgence both of them gleefully participate in with varying amounts of success, but its so easy to forget that underneath the veneer of flesh is something that was sculpted and made, not truly born. but there is nothing quite like them in all the world, not until you peel the layers of history back and back until you arrive at the era of myth, and even then mortalkind did not walk the land like they did now so even those lofty figures do not quite understand the urge, the desire, to trade certain purpose for ambiguity and choice.

just. ugh. dame aylin fully letting loose and her face becoming a blank canvas of holy vengeance, haloed by the symbol of her mother thats always, always, illuminating her from behind no matter what angle you view her from, a disc of light defying sense and physics, eyes a flat gold lit by burning silver, an incarnation of holy fire manifest, justice made flesh. no rage or anguish, just perfect inhuman composure, a vessel of mind boggling power that exists upon this plane but for the briefest of cosmic moments.

no slayer form, no oath to bhaal, just dirge finally shedding those final obstacles between him and what he is, finally wholly in tune with his own nature now that it is no longer cast as chains to bind him to anothers will. murder and slaughter incarnated. a disinherited bhaalspawn is still one made of godflesh, a chisel cast aside still carves stone. a halo of red, cracked through, ringed by the tears of bhaal. face blank and utterly devoid of expression even as bloodied tears stream down his cheeks. a prince of gore in a world of red. death, death, death in droves, death in numbers, death dancing upon a knifes edge, no gleeful indulgence or maddened joy, just sweet holy perfection, satisfaction all the way through his core, delicious and certain, blessed bliss

these things are not people, save for love. for the love of being a person, for the love of love, for the love of partnership and comaraderie and romance, an indulgence of the highest caliber and endlessly rewarding even as it brings pain and suffering and indecision and confusion, because who else could appreciate the wonders of it than one for whom it IS a choice?

[majorasnightmare]

also on Parallels

dirge is a tiefling, dame aylin is an aasimar

aylins represented by the full moon, dirge by the eclipse

aylin has a single mother, dirge has a single father

dame aylin is loved and cherished, dirge is guilted and isolated

dame aylin is a godspawn dating a cleric whos deity is aylins mother, dirge is a godspawn dating a paladin who swore her oath to him specifically, so both of them are children of divinity directly receiving faith from a religious individual theyve fallen in love with

both dirge and aylin are overwhelming forces of violence, almost manic in their enactment of it, and utterly shameless in their reveling of it

and both of them were also singled out and imprisoned specifically because of their unique traits due to their heritage, and heavily traumatized in the process (dame aylins immortality being used to bolster ketheric, dirges bhaalspawn physiology and will intriguing kressa enough that shed desire to experiment on him over and over (on top of being betrayed specifically for being bhaals scion))

and theyre ALSO both Wife Guys™️

[majorasnightmare]

its like. dirge is The Hand of Bhaal and aylin is selunes Sword Of Retribution, and in my world theyre both single parent godspawn (dirge carved from bhaals gore, aylin born from selune alone) and both are sent unto faerun to enact their parents will (to end all life, to enact vengeance upon the worshippers of shar who threaten and oppress selunites)

the difference is that selune doesnt mind that aylin is a person outside of that, and possibly even conspired to bring her daughter and isobel together for both their sakes, whereas bhaal gets angry every time dirge does things like "not being an object" and "having thoughts he wasnt directly instructed to have"

selune also seems to be more talkative to aylin than bhaal is to any of his kids (notably he seems to be pretty fuckn chatty with his cultists. no surprise there since shar does the same shit), so i think any differences between dame aylin and dirge wrt Divine Ability is just a matter of information access. selune cares enough about aylin and her wellbeing to fully instruct her on what she is, why she is that way, what she can do and how, and the risks inherent to her nature, whereas bhaal leaves dirge to just figure it out on his own, or more likely to never figure it out at all and instead receive that information as "gifts" for good behavior

so aylin has wings and a magical girl transformation and can summon silver tear holy ghost warriors and has a special moonlight spell and its not that shes inherently stronger or more powerful than dirge, she just has knowledge and skills he doesnt thats been deliberately kept from him. she also just doesnt struggle with her innate connection to divinity like dirge does because her relationship to selune is a lot healthier. like having a built in tether to moonmom isnt an issue because moonmom is chill and supportive, whereas bhaal likes to do shit like cause mini heart attacks as punishment for texting him at work

[majorasnightmare]

dont let anyone tell you to tone down your freak because this loser is saying unhinged shit from day one and canonically drives several people near mad with lust despite saying shit like

like your freak WILL be matched i PROMISE

bonus gith blasphemy that wasnt a durge option but he nailed it anyways

[majorasnightmare]

yayayayay tag games!!!

dirge has red eyes from his Father, but the light of his patron Caiphon has scorched one of them and now it glows as if burning from within. which is totally normal

fun fact! dirges regular eye is actually volos prosthetic, that flooded with his blood upon attunement and returned to his normal eye color (cough cough i modded it back). dude traded BOTH eyes!

dirge uses Red 2 (same as his adopted mother) and Demonic Black (Glowing) [modded] for his heterochromia!

no pressure tags but lemme see close ups from @the-weeping-dawn @maud-lin @alicelufenia @trappedinafantasy37 👀💜

new tav/durge tag game! :] show us your character's eyes!

Jahen's eyes are a dark silver color ("black 2," in the vanilla CC.) I love them because they're extremely reflective; almost any saturated light source just shines in them. the myrkul fight made them green, avernus made them copper-colored, etc.

created by @arcanearcherayz

I noticed the prev post was getting long, so I'm restarting the chain. ^u^ I was tagged by @tillysketch and I'd like to no-pressure tag @the-red-drow, @burnt-by-marigolds, @ignistigator, @riddlerosehearts, @themightynine-nine, @lofi-fried, and @yansurnummu

[majorasnightmare]

have you seen him?

now you have :)

[majorasnightmare]

also i never post about it but dirges career path post epilogue utterly delights me. his warlock pact is specifically to find or produce novel information to be witnessed through his eye for his patron, so in return for providing the magic fuel source and after fully deciphering the necromancy of thay, dirge just skips the skeleton and zombies bit of necromancy and gets to the "blurring the veil between life and death" part, and sets about transmuting dead flesh into chimerical abominations animated by necromantic ritual and powered by eldritch strength from beyond the stars. theyre technically soulless, with primitive notochords instead of complex brains, and theyre linked to his will via blood bond, so the risk of having a creation go beserk and kill him is relatively low, and theyre all technically aberrations rather than undead, but despite skirting most moral concerns he can think of (NOT grave robbing OR killing people in baldurs gate! its imported! its not the enslavement of the dead because he doesnt even summon and bind a deceased spirit! theyre not undead theyre abberrations!), the end result is still that most everyone is made profoundly uncomfortable especially because dirge models several features after human anatomy for no real reason other than he likes the look.

but most importantly it means that dirge is TECHNICALLY a healer now, after an entire campaign of being a killing machine, and thats so fucking funny to me because the dark urge healer lines are SO funny. he uses the default durge voice too so they come out really menacing, and hes just out here healing people marcille dungeonmeshi style. dirge holding onto gales severed arm looming closer while gale tries to squirm away to get shadowheart and dirge is just drenched in gore happy to help a friend and gale is praying to every god he can think of because this is legitamate nightmare fuel before dirge is just like "dont worry, ill kiss it better" and forcibly revitalizes and melts the limb back onto gales shoulder, no anaesthesia no painkillers just rawdoggin this shit, reattaching nerves and muscle tendons right there on the street, and gales scream hitting a pitch only perceivable to specific breeds of songbird

worlds worst doctor. youll fully recover but at what fucking cost. walk away with your surgery costs 0 but your therapy bill skyrocketing. dude who got his anatomy training vivisecting kidnapping victims and his medicine proficiency through torture and graverobbing. the only time in his life hes scary on accident rather than on purpose

it goes without saying that minthara takes it like a champ and also thinks his horrible homemade blights upon gods creation is the coolest shit and people should just stop being moralizing losers about it. its also unironically fantastic for his mental health like the fleshwarped blasphemous nightmare creatures are really tangibly improving the state of things for him

[majorasnightmare]

dirge being forced by his own beliefs and values to put down the disgustingly overpowered magic macguffin because the built in consequences render the power hed receive from it functionally pointless

[majorasnightmare]

HAHAHAHAHA YES

GO FORTH AND KILL!!! WITH MAXIMUM CUTES AND DRIP!!!!

My wol showing off @majorasnightmare 's Dirge around Eorzea in png form. Like you do.

[majorasnightmare]

ur honor i LOVE THEM

[majorasnightmare]

dame aylins whole thing is swords and silver fire, ofc, and punishing moonlight, so there isnt MUCH to elaborate on there. we just gotta crank that shit to 11 and blow the budget on her sfx

dirge tho. thats just free real estate

id imagine that tapping into that divine spark from his heritage post disinheritance is more difficult than it is for aylins, because the tether that bound him to bhaal, metaphysically, is severed, so the path to that strength isnt easily traversed anymore. instead of having a clear bright line connecting him to his nature, its a murky ambiguous fog he has to traverse. aylin has the benefit of both retaining that bond with her mother, AND selune being the kind of god thatd instruct her godspawn in their abilities, so going beastmode so to speak would be fairly easy and mostly just be a matter of will, and itd end just as easily. dirge though, has to fight for every inch and then once its triggered, it demands more of him than it does for dame aylin

just utterly exhausts him as it burns through all of his strength, and leaves him haggard and worn after, whereas aylin is frazzled and disoriented but otherwise energized and empowered.

ability wise dirge is one of those edgy deviantart creepypasta fuckers where its just. All Blood. blood and hands, hands from his time as bhaals assassin, hands as an extension of his patron, hands reaching out, grasping, holding, an endless garden, an eternal touch.

i think his first time triggering it is what lets him properly manifest a weapon, the way bhaal has bloodthirst and aylin has her greatsword. i still need to finalize some original details but the godskin peeler from elden ring is just already such a good fit. its even specifically MADE for skin peeling, and it fits so neatly into his bigger narrative of moving away from things ascribed TO him and more into things that are FOR him, a weapon thats both staff and blade, versatile and multipurpose while being unquestionably threatening. and as much as i like to point out that dirge is a loser, he is also still very cool and i think he deserves a special lil treat for getting through a character arc. wyll gets potentially TWO special warlock presents, dirge should have some for also being a special little guy with snowflake syndrome

its like how at a certain point we just have to acknowledge shadow the hedgehog having a shotgun and a motorcycle is cool. traumatized tortured godkin having anime blood powers may be edgy, but its cool. it is Known

[majorasnightmare]

also some details i rly like about dirges design is how i feel like the combination of scars+facial hair helps draw the gaze his mouth, and specifically i feel like the scars makes him look v kissable, to the extent that i RLY struggle with having him look right without the scars

obviously i enjoy the light dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose+his cheeks, but also the messy kindof widows peak he has is also v nice

also also. pointy elf ears. fantastic with piercings and i wish i could give him more

bonus where like. the specific layering of eyeliner overtop the tattoos gives him such a nice impression of both dark circles AND the eyeshadow and its just nice. helps the red pop imo, esp the eye with the glow

bodyplan wise bg3 just does not do it for me i need to give him a fatter ass and snatch the waist in a little more but the back view where theres those lil devil wings trying to break out of the skin in the shoulder area? THATS nice. also console mod for autopsy scars WHEN. the lil crossslash tieflings have over the bellybutton area is nice too. and like, for some reason all the bg3 body types come with ab definition, but i feel like ironically it works for dirge, in an unhealthy way. like he isnt really eating+drinking enough or regularly enough so you can see the muscle definition there. if he starts actually taking care of himself, it wouldnt be so cut, mostly flat where you could just feel the muscle underneath the fat layer.

also i just really love strong jawlines thats another fave detail. with the light scruff i feel like itd be very nice to rest your hand there and rub your thumb along the side of his face

[majorasnightmare]

dirges current favorite fleshwarped Sin Upon The Gods Creation is a massive centipede creature with human arms instead of legs, whos face is replaced with what appears to be an expressionless ceramic mask of a blank faced humanoid, whos mouth is covered by two crossed arms hiding it from view. which them opens to reveal a horrible slavering maw lined with teeth and the two "arms" hiding it from view are actually the centipedes toxicognates : )! they inject venom into prey through the hands which also holds prey items in place and helps to force it down the gullet!

her name is princess, her favorite food is fiend flesh, and she has a tongue specifically so she can speak and gesticulate well enough to open a hellgate into avernus, just in case karlach and wyll ever need help in the blood war c: her segmented body can also safely be severed alongside any of the segments and the half with her head just carries on as normal. she likes to protectively curl around things dirge feels concern for so her armoresque carapace takes the blows instead 💜