dinrelsanddragons

[dinrelsanddragons]

Headcanons Re: Erdan's Twilight Princess verse (also should I make Naal a muse cause this makes him Interesting to me)

Erdan is a twili who is a member of their royal guard. He's also married to a member of the royal family– Naal. This is not a coincidence. Naal's not strictly important in the grand scheme of things, but it is important to have heirs and spares in case of shit going awry, so he, a notably very gay man, was betrothed to a trans man, who could bear him a child but still... erm... satisfy him. (Because if you can't get it up, there's not much going to happen.)

Well, Naal is also quite the anxious individual who had a very quick escape plan in place when Zant began his bloody, Ganon-fueled revolution. He was able to squirrel himself and his husband away to some relatively safe part of the realm, and decided not to try to challenge Zant for the throne, knowing damn well the limits of his power and Erdan's, and figuring that not attracting attention was the best way to survive for now.

Naal is also a magically sensitive individual, skilled even among the Twili. It's not hard for him to determine when the Mirror of Twilight opens a rift between the light and twilight realms. He quickly takes any and all items (including magical artifacts) he thinks could be remotely useful to the hero, and proceeds to man a shop whose owner was turned into a shadow beast in order to cheaply sell these to the hero and improve his odds against Zant.

After Link heads into the Palace of Twilight (main) with the Light Sword, Naal and Erdan use their last magic artifact and dip. Naal's more than a little frightened of Zant, and very pragmatic; he doesn't want to be turned into a beast or killed, so he and Erdan leave the twilight realm. Sounds suicidal... without a pair of magic earrings that allow one or two wearers to survive in the light. It's their final insurance policy in case the hero and Midna still fail to defeat Zant.

They didn't count on Midna destroying the mirror of twilight and effectively stranding them. Naal and Erdan couldn't have known the danger that the mirror was.

So, fuck it, they decide. Might as well make the best of it. This world is beautiful. They've never seen the sun until then and it's incredible. Time to start something new.

[dinrelsanddragons]

I think more historical fantasies and alt histories that have gay marriage be allowed should mess around with the societal implications of this. If your aristocracy allows gay marriage, why? As a release valve for inheritance problems, like monasticism was in parts of medieval Europe? As a way of removing your failchild from the line of succession by legally binding them to the failchild of your political ally, ensuring any offspring they both have will be illegitimate? How about a society where the lower classes are allowed to be gay but the nobility aren’t? Idk there’s just a lot of options that are more interesting than “homophobia just doesn’t real”

[dinrelsanddragons]

there's a reason why i specifically choose muses that, as parents, care. whether they're successful as parents or not remains to be seen, particularly with rhoam*, but I'm just. sick to death of poison and abuse from parental units, particularly fathers, and I'm just not (typically) about the life of taking it out on their offspring characters.**

*I will kill on the hill that rhoam is not an abusive father, but not now.

**exceptions exist, but that is 90% because I have a lot of thoughts about Chrom Fire Emblem's father and he is very enjoyable to rip to shreds sometimes.

[dinrelsanddragons]

loaded fucking holiday for me. yay abusers.

[dinrelsanddragons]

[dinrelsanddragons]

Gateni's kids, Sareni and Tharival. I've had Sareni modeled for a while, but only today realized that she should have a big huge tail. So I made it big and huge. I've also had Tharival, the younger of the two, for a little bit, but he got a lot of touching up (and a likewise bigger tail) recently. They're half sky dragon and sky dragons are rather serpentine (being modeled off of oriental dragons) so it only follows that their tails are kinda just... extensions of their torsos.

Bonus: Grownups! Also edited a fair few times since their initial 'finish,' with big huge tails.

[dinrelsanddragons]

Also edited a couple of muse pages to include updoodled kids. As in, Gateni has a son as well as a daughter, and Raithyon has a baby son too in addition to Lambda and Reownha.

[dinrelsanddragons]

General headcanon (but also a change): Hyrulean dragons (in Lambyverse) don't have a concept of marriage in their culture.

Long post, so I'll continue under a cut.

Ask a dragon (who was raised by dragons and knows their heritage well) and they'll say marriage is unnecessary. They're rulers of the wild that have trappings of civilization as a luxury, perhaps even a bragging right. But also? They're a bit flighty when it comes to mating. When dragons are (SUPPOSEDLY*) rare and every egg that makes it to adulthood counts, they know they can't be as stingy when it comes to partners as humanoids are. There's also that dragons live for ridiculous periods of time, up to and even past a thousand years in some cases, and if a pair decides they don't like each other, then it's much simpler to just move away/break the partnership than either deal with a divorce or wait for the other to die. Why complicate it unnecessarily?

As a result, this means OCs who are dragons (and also raised by other dragons**) will not be married to their humanoid spouses. Although this technically makes their half-dragon offspring into bastard children in the eyes of humanoid society, I feel like there is something of an exception when it comes to draconic children. They're not expected to have been born to married parents, but there's also the fact that some people may still consider it freaky that their humanoid parent got dirty with a dragon.

So Bryn, Gateni, and Halcyon, who all have half-dragon offspring, were not married when they had these kids, nor are they currently married. Meaning: They're both open for ships***. Their respective partners, Dalal, Saryfel, and Moradace, are pretty open and understanding about the fact that their humanoid mates might choose to marry other humanoids. It's akin to a polyamorous relationship in that Bryn, Gateni, and Halcyon are still welcome as mates to their partners even if they return sporting wedding bands from some other humanoid. One hopes their humanoid spouses are open to the extra partner of a dragon too, haha!

Footnotes:

*Yes, I know this blog has a number of dragon OCs linked to the royal guard, I just love dragons, kill me.

**Armok (and Ragna, who is not currently a muse) are dragons, but they were both raised by Hylians and know little to nothing of draconic culture. Armok is aroace and doesn't do romantic or sexual relationships, but Ragna could very well choose to marry a romantic partner.

***Bryn's draconic partner, Dalal, was previously considered by this blog to be deceased, but as of these headcanons, why not resurrect her? If draconic partners aren't in the way of ships, then let's do it.

[dinrelsanddragons]

Character Design Process: Armok

(He's been on my brain a lot today. Long post.)

One day, I was playing with names of Hyrulean monsters to try and grasp the language behind them, trying to see if I could get some inspiration from that knowledge. I was successful, as my research pointed out that many opposing dragons, such as Argorok and Gleeok, have the same suffix: "-ok." This led me to say: Okay, well, it's time to populate Hyrule with more variety of dragon types. I came up with two kinds of dragons based on name fragments: Moldok (sand dragon, from Moldorm, Twinmold, Molgera, etc) and Armok (statue dragon, from Armos).

"Moldok" was kind of interesting, and I can still play with that concept later. "Armok," however, really grabbed my interest, and I thought about a dragon that wielded a sword and shield like the Armos statues in A Link to the Past.

Initially, I thought that an 'Armos dragon' would be a little small (ten feet maximum height) and have an upright anatomy, similar to a humanoid, with wings and a tail, much like the half-dragons I later designed. I wasn't quite content with that. It didn't feel impressive enough. Looking for inspiration from different sources, I bumped into my old Dragon Cave account (Dragon Cave, for the unfamiliar, being a website where you adopt dragon eggs and raise them to mature dragons by feeding them clicks and views). I scrolled down and saw a stone dragon on my account...

(Image of a stone dragon's sprites, from egg, hatchling, winged hatchling, to adult, sourced from dragon cave's wiki.)

Well, hey! If I increase the scale of that, it's certainly 'impressive' enough, and that anatomy not only has hands with which to wield weapons, but it looks suitably draconic. Although my ideas on Hyrulean stone dragons are slightly different from this, this certainly is a good baseline to work with.

The idea to make this Armos dragon a royal guard arose at the same time as the initial anatomy (upright) did. I kept playing with the image in my head of this stony dragon in the uniform, and of course scrapped that idea once I decided on the dragon cave inspiration. However, I also recalled another large source of my inspirations... Dungeons and Dragons, wherein dragons of suitable age are shapechangers that can take on beast and humanoid forms. I borrowed that idea and watered it down ("nerfing" it if you will), removing beasts and imposing the requirement of a dragon spirit's blessing. The idea of an upright Armos dragon with a sword and shield once more looked viable: if this stone dragon took a Hylian form, it could certainly do that.

About this time I started playing with concepts in Heroforge for a baseline. I decided that rather than a 'stone-faced' or 'stoic' countenance (which I felt was a pigeonhole), this character would be silly and expressive. A consummate prankster, in fact. I decided that this character would be the oldest of the royal guard by a couple of years, making him very much an adult dragon, but nowhere near his twilight years. I decided to give him gray hair and a beard to give the impression of age and experience– though, when one considers that he, as a dragon, can change his appearance at will, this is very much a choice on the character's part: He wants to look gray and wise... which tells me he isn't that much so for his species.

(A custom heroforge character I built, labeled as "Armok Ailbhe".)

I put him in a dynamic pose that made him something of a challenge to draw, but felt interesting. He's intentionally smiling, as a person who doesn't take himself that seriously might, even in battle.

For his name, I stuck with the generic name that a stone dragon might have. Perhaps he's got a different name that his adoptive parents gave him, I could search for ideas. But he goes by Armok, and for his last name, I decided something of Celtic/Irish origin suited him, and I found the name "Ailbhe," which means 'pale rock.' Works for me!

I wondered what kind of stone dragon might enlist in the Hyrulean military and immediately decided he was raised by Hylians, hence his preference for a Hylian form. I also decided that his egg was found by farmers in the countryside– perhaps while foraging or hunting. Thus, Armok is absolutely a commoner in Hyrulean society despite being quite the novelty for a soldier.

From there I decided he was done enough, headcanons could come later, it was time to draw him!

(My own artwork of Armok in the royal guard outfit, colored with copic markers.)

He's come a fair way since I first introduced him, as he's been developed over discord rps. He's always entertaining to write, whether he's antagonizing Bryn with his pranks, grumbling at Raven's stories of his father Devin messing with him, or doing what he loves: coiling around a spire of Hyrule Castle and pretending to be a statue, occasionally swatting away pigeons looking to sit or drop excrement on him.

[dinrelsanddragons]

It's rare to see Armok sporting the same hairline for more than a couple of days. As a shapeshifter, he can take on whatever humanoid appearance he wants. He's largely content with his Hylian appearance, but for the life of him, he can't figure out a hairline that makes him content for more than a week.

[dinrelsanddragons]

The prank went over perfectly, deepening Lambda's smile and prompting more giggles from her. Reownha's expression didn't change other than her lowering her head a little, a little gesture acknowledging her sister's incorrigibility.

Curiosity then colored Lambda's expression, raising her eyebrows so high they might have been hidden by her bangs. "Swan? Why would you hunt something like that, they're just sort of there, being pretty..."

"Still made of meat," Reownha offered. "I've heard of people eating bear."

"Whaaaat?! That's crazy!" She turned to the prince. "I've never had swan, normally we never catch anything like that. But bear! Have you had it? When Pops and the others go hunting, they never bring that back either..."

"Er..." face burning, he threw a hand to his middle. It was all so strange. He didn't remember being hungry, and yet his stomach roared. Maybe he just wasn't paying attention, he thought. "Forgive me. It must have been a while since my last meal."

He turned around, leading them back into the kitchen. "I do believe you will enjoy our cuisine. We are having swan." A delicacy reserved only for special occasions like this! "Have you eaten it before?"

[dinrelsanddragons]

Blue eyes scanned the assorted rupees before he held out a hand, carefully closing Zelda's hands around the pouch she displayed. "I am your sword and shield. Whatever your need, I am here to provide. Are you ready for this mission?" Though his brow dipped to lend a steely and serious appearance, Raven could not stop a gentle smile from curling his lips and warming the expression in his eyes.

His eyes glanced up briefly, ensuring no others in the corridor took notice that something was out of place. There was but one person paying them odd attention, another man of the royal guard, but he only smiled and kept walking– and indeed, as the other guard passed by, Raven subtly pulled the document he had procured for his previous errand and turned it over to his subordinate.

Now having nothing pressing awaiting him, Raven turned his extended hand over, palm up, waiting for Zelda to take it. "At your ready, we shall go."

Zelda smiled up at the knight, green eyes sparkling as he guessed at what she was up to that day. "The biggest top secret mission!" she replied. "I gotta go to town, but I'm not s'posed to go alone. Can you 'scort me?"

She pulled a small pouch from her pocket, which she opened to reveal a handful of different colored rupees. Most of them were the typical green or red, but she did pull out one purple rupee. "I can pay you after we go an' get what I want. It's really m'portant - for my Papa."

Zelda looked up at Raven. "Please Cap'in Raven?"

[dinrelsanddragons]

KTHUNK!!!

Vair brought his claymore back to a ready position, then a resting one, after smashing yet another training dummy to bits. He took a breath, shifting away from his training focus, and turned to regard the Nohrian royal.

He nodded his head at her words. "Your Highness. I find keeping my skills sharp to be not only of the utmost import to protect my king, but genuinely relaxing to the mind. This training yard is somewhat... more than I'm accustomed to," he gestured about, as if this difference he saw was plain to someone not of Hyrule, "there are certainly more complex tools and exercises put to use here... But I find it more than serviceable. I'm learning much, and I look forward to taking these lessons home to Hyrule and using them there." A small smile quirked his lips, just briefly.

"But you do not strike me as the martial sort who comes to the training yard for your own use... I might venture a guess that you're here specifically to speak with me. Then, permit me to ask: How may I assist you, Your Highness?"

@dinrelsanddragons liked for a Starter:

"Sir Vair," the Nohrian Queen greeted in an amicable tone. Her shoes clicked lightly as she made her way down the marble steps to the training yard. She had no immediate guards with her, but there was a collection scattered about, by doors and other entryways.

"How do you fair with the royal training yard?" She asked, offering a pleasant smile. Very much the opposite image for Norian Royalty, but Daedra did is she pleased in that manner. "Siegbert tells me it's quite common to find you here as of late."

[dinrelsanddragons]

Examine Violet for any of the family. Baby or the time traveler your choice

(From Vair's PoV for giggles)

This tiny infant is supposedly a descendant of my husband, Shanz. I'm not sure how, even after his explanation of 'time lines.' She is small and has red hair, both traits of his, despite being his grandchild in some nonsensical regard. Yet I wonder if she has anything from me...?

[dinrelsanddragons]

Send “Examine!” and an item or person and I’ll write an RPG description of it/them.

topheavybrawler:

(For example, a stormtrooper mask:

 “A white mask with a black visor on the front. Putting it on, you realise that the visor isn’t even transparent. How are you expected to do anything competently like this?”)

[dinrelsanddragons]

Random thought: If anyone could put together the pieces on Lambda's heritage and figure out she's actually a Hyrulean princess by blood, it's Rhoam.

He met Lambda's mother Naivara at a formal event, and noted her resemblance to Princess Rhiannon and especially to the old portraits of Princess Enid. If he were to meet Lambda, he'd definitely realize that this is Naivara's daughter, because she takes after her so much. And it only takes a bit of digging to find out that Princess Enid had a child in the years between her vanishing from Hyrule Castle and being found dead– the coroner's report would mention it. The final piece would be unlocking the magically concealed memory of Naivara's early childhood, because it includes the face of her mother, Enid.

[dinrelsanddragons]

I can finally post my piece for @memorabiliazine ! I started this before age of calamity was released and I wanted to explore what the Akkala citadel could have been like 100 years prior to botw before it all fell to ruins. I’m so glad I can finally share this in its entirety!