#Cepheus

[defilerwyrm]

Today is Cepheus's 13th birthday!

He and his siblings were born on a pet foster's front doorstep on October 30th, 2011. We've been through a lot together and I hope we can spend many more years to come in each other's company.

Happy birthday, Cepheus! 🥳🎂💙

[sparkofthemachine]

forgot how nice it feels to draw when it's actually a good drawing day

[vanade]

one of these onslaught bounties is not like the others...

[the-wolf-and-moon]

IC 1396, Cepheus

[myketheartista]

We've hit the colder months in campaign now, so I drew winter fits for Exodus and his besties since they all got to meet up ^w^ I also wanted to experiment with patterns that reflected their personalities and respective cultures/lifestyles so I had a bit of fun designing the gang

Aside from that, I wanted to include the trio's original outfits since I've had them done for some time now and never really shared them. I like seeing how my style differs from this one and their winter fits since I was focusing on realism more the second time around.

And then Exodus' fae ball outfit!! The in-between art where I was starting to alter his shapes a bit more... I really love this one since I was just taking his original outfit and spiffing it up with the dragonfly wing design :3 my boy is so handsome and cool

[para-imperium]

Scavenger: Caches and Prizes has launched on Kickstarter!

Thousands of years in the future, the Federation connected dozens of stars with its wormhole network. Colonizing hundreds of planets with transgenic "parahumans" using technology that seemed like magic.

And then the wormholes collapsed, taking the Federation with them.

Now colonies struggle to survive, free of their imperialist overlords but bereft of the technology they provided. Fabricators and medical nanotech alike failed with the Federation's network. Former admirals turned pirate warlords prey upon defenseless worlds. Unrestrained corporations suck planets dry of resources. And mysterious probes wander the depths of space.

But hope is not lost, the wrecks of Federal starships and abandoned stations hold the promise of advanced technologies that could alleviate hunger or unlock the stars again, in the right hands. If you're brave enough to chance the dangers of radiation leaks, malfunctioning robots, or the dreaded Kessler cascade you may bring back great riches. You may find anything from a laser rifle to a technomage's staff that might as well be magic to you. If you're lucky you might even find a ship that you can patch up with scrap.

Scavenger: Caches and Prizes runs off the Cepheus Engine's simple 2D6 system. Just roll two six-sided dice, add modifiers, and if your total is 8 or higher you succeed. Character creation is a mini-game in and of itself: Create parahuman characters based on a variety of pre-made species or create your own from an array of genetic traits and adaptations. Then develop your character's backstory to determine their starting skills and equipment, maybe you'll roll up your own ship.

The Cepheus Engine is a fork of the classic sci-fi RPG Traveller released under the Open Gaming License by Samardan Press and refined by many other publishers such as Stellagama Publishing and their Cepheus Light or Cepheus Deluxe systems. Scavenger will contain a fully playable copy of Cepheus Light as well as being fully compatible with other Cepheus products. 

The rules for the setting's unique technology and species-creation system have been developed. All I need now are more illustrations. If you can help me commission just ten more pieces, the book will be a lot more colorful when it's published.

You might even be able to commission a cameo of your original character in the book.

[aleyaprocrastinating]

Modern AU KOTS has me in a chokehold aaaaa

Somebody please help these two

@thisnameisnotspokenfor

[sarafangirlart]

There’s something to be said about that one scene in Euripides Andromeda, where Perseus sees Andromeda from a distance thinking she’s a beautiful statue, only to come closer and realize she’s flesh and blood. I’ve been thinking about that scene again, it made me realize that metaphorically, when Perseus first sees her, he realizes that Andromeda is a person, not an object or prize. Which comes in stark contrast to how other ppl in her life view her, even within the play (at least depending on how you interpret the fragments).

Cepheus viewed her as a political tool, to marry her off to whoever he wanted, Cassiopeia viewed her as a status symbol, to flaunt her around like she’s a priceless treasure, Phineus saw her as a means for power, as nothing more than a bride, hell even the ppl of her country didn’t see her as a person and pressured Cepheus into sacrificing her. Perseus might have been the first to see her as a person.

Knowing Euripides this was definitely intentional, after all it’s straight up a romantic drama. So it’s especially disheartening… when I see ppl claim that Perseus only saw Andromeda as a prize… as if he wouldn’t fight for her still regardless of whether her father would let them marry, as if he straight up didn’t demand that the god of love himself help him rescue the woman he just met.

[thisnameisnotspokenfor]

Fixed/Cleaned Valentine's pic

Happy Valentine's Day!

previous post

What's your favorite Nadya/Ceph moment? Let me know! ^^

[amorphousbl0b]

Something fascinating about Perseus is that his famous journey is a stitching-together of two separate myths.

First he kills Medusa, then on the way back he takes a random diversion to slay a Ketos and rescue Andromeda. This is hardly unusual for Greek stories, which often feature random diversions, but what interested me is that both seem to actually be explanations for things rather than the usual “a hero killed a monster here and that’s why these particular random crossroads are cool and important” formula these things follow.

First, the story of Perseus and Medusa is connected to the image of the Gorgon, a heavily widespread artistic motif. The gorgoneia are hideous heads that adorn architecture, shields, and coins all over Archaic and Classical Greece. They seem to have served a similar function to gargoyles in Christian myth, driving off evil spirits with their fearsome visage. And Perseus cutting the head from Medusa was the tale of how that icon came to be. Well, that might be a bit backwards: the story would’ve been around for quite a while during the Dark Age before it was written down in the 7th century BCE, around the time those gorgoneia started appearing.

Andromeda is entirely unconnected to this except by the single thread of Perseus himself. This is epitomized, in my opinion, by the recurring indecision over whether Perseus killed the ketos with his sword or with Medusa’s head. Did he even have Medusa’s head in the early tellings of the story? Were they connected later? Because what’s interesting about the story of Perseus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Cetus, is that you might recognize all of those names from the stars. Every single character in this myth was a constellation!

Except Phineas, screw him I guess.

Of note, none of the characters from the Medusa adventure are constellations. Not Danaë or Polydectes or Dictys or Medusa herself, all of whom were much more important to Perseus’s life than Cepheus who did absolutely nothing even in the one story where he matters. Unlike Heracles, whose whole life is an extended constellation myth, Perseus has this one incident, but it’s a dense one, producing five whole star formations from a single monster fight.

It’s hard to figure out when and from what this would’ve arisen, given all these transformations happened during the Dark Age before the reinvention of writing. Nonetheless, this is a great example of the evolution that I find incredibly compelling about studying mythology. Every tale has its seams, stitches haphazard or clean, reminders that this was a living culture and all of these stories we might fall into the trap of treating as fun fictions with quirky characters were as real as any of our modern religious texts and histories.

[galusandmalus]

"LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT"-perseus choking cetus lmao the other sea divines are running away imagine some teen coming out of nowhere and bodying your epic monster

bro the one eyebrow raised lmao also like one of the few artworks to more emphasis the aeithiopian I guess qualities? das a real question I don't believe in rhetorical questions.

Usually, it's Cepheus who takes the center of ideas like that, here is meant to have a "mongrel" or "half breed" design.

honestly can barley see the black guy next to him, frankly I understand why the ancient greeks mostly had to use whole ass vases to depict a black person I cant see shit on here.

-Perseus and Andromeda, Campanian Red-Figure Bell-Crater, 375–350 BC I like bros drip what can I say

[sparkofthemachine]

yassifies ur glasses man + bonus comic

[vanade]

sound idea tbh

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Cepheus. Cosmic Zoo

[defilerwyrm]

loud purrs

[para-imperium]

Scavenger Kickstarter Last Week!

Scavenger: Caches and Prizes is in the last week of its Kickstarter campaign and only halfway funded.  If you have any interest in old-school style tabletop roleplaying games with transgenic human-animal hybrids salvaging the wreckage of a repressive empire, please toss a few bucks my way at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joel-kreissman/scavenger-caches-and-prizes A couple of the illustrators have even agreed to draw cameos of your characters if you pledge at the $100 or higher level.

Posted using PostyBirb