#Shadow Sentinel

[lairofdragonagelore]

DA2: Sundermount as an elven graveyard

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

Sundermount is the tallest mountain in the Vimmarks and has a fearsome reputation. Legend says it was the site of a vicious battle where the ancient Tevinter Imperium and the elves of Arlathan unleashed horrors into the waking world, and creatures prowl the heights to this very day, unaware that the war for which they were summoned is long since over.

Here, Merril informs us that this place is not a mere graveyard, it's a place where the Elvhenan came to reach Uthenera. Clearly, the war with Tevinter in Sundermount or the chaos unleashed by Tevinter/Elvhenan, or the demon attached to the strange idol destroyed this place and made it a true graveyard, where the soul of those elves do not rest.

We can see in several opportunities that when we reach these altars, there is always a “shadow” enemy, something very similar to the elvenhan sentinels we found in DAI in the Temple of Mythal. They are wearing something similar to the Arcane Warrior’s armour from DAO too. When you kill them, you can see their bald elven shape. The design of these elves have been determined since DAO, as we can see it in The Gauntlet when observing Shartan.

The codex Enasalin confirms our suspicions at the same time it gives us more information about Abelas in DAI: defenders of slumbering elders. In abelas’ case, we know Abelas and his sentinels have been sleeping to defend the well.

In the almost top of the mountain is where Merril does her ritual to raise Flemeth. She recites a part of Leliana’s song in DAO [we know she learnt it from Dalish]

emma ir abelas souver'inan isala hamin vhenan him dor'felas in uthenera na revas

which translates

now I am filled with sorrow weary eyes need resting heart has become grey and slow in waking sleep is freedom

And in that last line, Flemeth appears. I'm not sure if it means something in particular, if it's hinted with this shoot that Flemeth is "awakening" from a waking sleep which, ironically, it's not freedom for her as we can suspect in DAI she has been bound to a quest for revenge of ages of plotting.

If we consider the codex Sundermount plus what Merril and Fenris tell us about this place [not exactly reliable narrators since they are repeating what Dalish legends and Tevinter magisters know about this, which we were already informed many times they have some hint of truth but most of the time they are children's tales], we can summarise it as:

This place was, in the time of Arlathan [or before], an elven graveyard. Back then, we know, the elves went into Uthenera. So, considering this hinted piece of information, if in this place were elves in that state, it makes sense the Varterral defending the zone. [We already saw a fact of this in The Masked Empire: Varterrals defend places of Uthenera or with great value for the elves]

In this place, after Arlathan fell, Elvhenan [merrils is not specific here, but we can be so with out knowledge of DAI] fought Tevinter. The Tevinter unleashed chaos to teach elves that resistance was futile [this piece of information provided by Fenris, which comes from Magisters, and its perspective is pretty clear in the statement].

We find the Strange Idol here. We don’t know who, but we can be more or less certain that one of the two sides bind the demon to the statue, and it has been living there since that war.

On top of the mountain we find a cave called Pride’s end, which contains a chamber where we find three of these  Strange Skull-Dragon totems

And the Strange Idol, beside a Felandaris, a plant that only grows where the Veil is thin.

At the sides, we find small altars [their true name is inuksuk, and there are many types that will be see in DAI] with bowls of green fire, probably emulating a kind of Veilfire.

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore ]

[aboutzatanna]

So, when Zatanna debuted in Batman: The Animated Series she was just an ordinary stage magician with no magic powers but later when she appeared in Justice League Unlimited she had actual magical powers. So why didn't she initially have her magical powers?

In the JLU tie in comic, Justice League Unlimited #40 by writer Ben McCool and artist Dario Brizuela (link), we get some answers:

We find out that as a child Zatanna misused her powers so Zatara had them taken away from her:

(Shout out to the artist Dario Brizuela and colorist Heroic Age, this sequence is beautifully drawn)

Zatara comes off as a good parents in sequence; fair but not harsh or stern and willing to correct his child when she does wrong.

In the present day Zatanna wakes up and we learn that her father disappeared at some point and since Zee can use magic, it's likely she figured out how to tap into some of her abilities over the years:

Zatanna and Doctor Fate head to Central City where Shadow Thief has run amok causing everyone's shadow to come alive and attack everyone.

After some light dissing on Captain Boomerang (oh hey, look it's Alan Scott):

The JL takes on the 8 story tall shadow monster whilst Zatanna and Doctor Fate track down who could be responsible for augmenting the Shadow Thief's powers which leads them to....

......the Warlcok of Ys and Zatara himself! The Warlock is from one of the earliest Zatanna stories (link).

Despite Warlock's attempts to restrain them, Zee manages to tap in to her power and take on the Warlock:

"You're so gonna wish I had my morning coffee!" XD Ngl that panel cracked me up.

Sadly the father/daughter reunion doesn't last but we do get a touching moment nonetheless:

Zatara doesn't come off as the best of fathers in this story but I love the continued affirmation that the League members are her family. The power pulsating in Zatanna's mind is obviously referring to the Medulla Gem and the line about 'his people' is a reference to the Homo Magi, both of which are pulled from Sindella's story and Zatara being forced to stay away from Zatanna is pulled from Zatanna's debut story 'Zatanna's Search'. It looks like the writer combined both stories into one.

Sadly, this plot point is never followed up on. But it was cool to see a writer, especially one for a tie in book do a deep dive on a characters history. Usually tie in comics are treated as an after thought but there are times when the stories are as good if not better than the show.

As for Shadow Thief, well no story, especially one with a Green Lantern, is complete without a trebuchet showing up in some form:

[jennyo-thewoods]

I wanted to share this little Darkling sticker that I got for Christmas, because I think he’s just the cutest thing. 😭

The artist is LaurenBerryArt! You can find her here: Etsy, Instagram, & Twitter! ✨ (She has The Crows as well as other Shadow & Bone characters!)

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Very real X-Men 97 leak because I am hoping so hard that they include my favorite OZT girl Daria

[eyestrain-addict]

Unpopular Elden Ring opinion: Ik that its probably just the death blight making Fortissax's scales black, but I like to imagine he was always black, simply because it would suck if one of the most important dragons lore-wise just had the exact same model as the other ancient dragons. (as is, it still sucks he's just a reskin, but at least he has a unique color palette)

[cantsayidont]

July 1988. An art book for a show that never quite came to be, ROBOTECH ART 3 is also the official account of how the planned sequel to ROBOTECH fell apart. if you've heard of ROBOTECH, you're almost certainly aware that it was an amalgamation of three similar but unrelated Tatsunoko anime series, tied together with a new storyline by American producer Carl Macek as a multigenerational saga with enough episodes for American TV syndication. The dilemma this presented (other than for aggrieved weebs insisting that the new storyline was a bastardization of the presumptively superior original series) was that characters from the different generations couldn't really interact, and some important plot elements could only be presented through exposition. ROBOTECH II: THE SENTINELS was to be a 65-episode original series that would chronicle how the survivors of the first generation (adapted from the popular SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS) set out to make peace with the Robotech Masters of Tirol (the villains of the second generation, adapted from SUPER DIMENSION CAVALRY SOUTHERN CROSS) and ended up embroiled in a war with the Invid, the villains of the third generation (adapted from GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA), who eventually conquered the Earth. This was to lead up to the finale of the original series, which would be the starting point for a subsequent series.

For various reasons chronicled at length in the book, the project collapsed after only a handful of episodes were completed. (The surviving footage was later released on home video.) Macek's story outlines were then adapted in several similar but distinct ways in a series of prose novels by "Jack McKinney" (a pseudonym for the writing team of Brian Daley and James Luceno), in the Palladium roleplaying game, and later in American comic books by John and Jason Waltrip. There was also a fanon take that mostly rejected all of the other versions as incompatible with the actual scripts and footage of the original show, which eventually led Harmony Gold, the American production company, to retroactively declare the entire project apocryphal. Harmony Gold then hired the Waltrip brothers to create a five-issue comic book prelude to its truly dire 2007 direct-to-video animated sequel, ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, which is heavily reliant on the events of the SENTINELS storyline without being entirely compatible with any previous version of it, and is frustratingly unsatisfying to anyone who actually liked any of them. (Nobody won, in other words.)

THE SENTINELS is often derided for no particularly good reason. The basic storyline has its clunky aspects (in addition to the continuity issues the RRG contingent identified), but so do the original Japanese shows, and the Japanese MACROSS franchise has subsequently gone a lot of weird places that tend to undercut the claim that ROBOTECH is categorically inferior. Both have their flaws, but ROBOTECH and THE SENTINELS are hardly without merit. (The dismal SHADOW CHRONICLES is another matter …)

[h3raklion]

Sentinel Smirnoff

The Elder's Matryoshka

[bh-52]

The reality of the Jedi Code:

[lairofdragonagelore]

Arbor Wilds: Temple of Mythal - Part 1

Main Quest: What Pride Had Wrought

The Arbor Wilds is a thick forest located south of the Dales in Orlais. As most of the forest is uncharted and unexplored, many that daringly venture into this alien-like land never return. Some believe that dryads inhabit the area. In fact the "Sentinels"—Sentinel elves— guard the land against outsiders. Many ancient Elven ruins lay dormant and abandoned within the forest, rich with ancient elven artefacts and treasures, such as the Temple of Mythal.

This post contains the following sections

The Forest

The Gates of the Temple of Mythal

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

The forest

With Morrigan’s advice, we head to the Temple of Myhtal, thinking that Corypheus wants an Eluvian to cross the in-between planes and access to the Fade physically. However, it’s never explained in the game why and how Corypheus would get “godhood” powers just by accessing the Fade.

This dense forest is filled with elvhenan ruins and statues. Usually the archer statues are used to guide us to the entrance of the temple. We find the typical elven statues: Elven hart statue, Elven Archers, Howling Fen'Harel statue, Elven Owl statue and Sitting Fen'Harel statue. 

It seems this forest had a lot more of structures that were reclaimed by nature. We can see the remaining ceilings of enormous chambers. I assume that, considering what we learn in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal, if we are reaching the Temple of Mythal, it is likely that a big set of buildings would have grown around it, as the cities used to do around the main temple. Probably the remnants of this city is what we see along the jungle. [The Temple of Mythal]

We also find along the path Red Templar encampments which have little to offer.

At some point we kill a sentinel, and the game brings our attention to their unique design: they don’t look Dalish. They are bulkier and bald. The armour of these elvhens can be seen in detail here. I find it curious how they pauldron and knee protectors are made in the shape of a face, iconography more typical of Orlais, because in Orlais’ case, it represents Andraste. Would this mean that for these elvhens, this face in their armour is a representation of Mythal?

Hard to tell. Mythal’s face has never been seen in her iconography, not even in her concept art.

The Gates of the Temple of Mythal

When we finally reach the entrance of the Temple, we notice it is surrounded by a lake, a configuration that may be considered similar to the Citadel du Corveau, in the Exalted Plains [main fortress surrounded by water].

The entrance to the temple is flanked by two Dragon Myhtal statues that work like a defence system as we see when Corypheus tries to force his entrance to the temple. In the background we have some enormous Humanoid Mythal statues, and a bridge made of yellow/brown mosaics [typically found in elvhenan buildings, easily seen at the final chamber of the The Lost Temple of Dirthamen or in the Cradle of Sulevin].

The temple lies on a circular platform surrounded by Elven hart statues.

The entrance door has the typical dragon-like shape associated with the dragon form of Myhtal. As usual in Elvhenan design, the frame of this door is surrounded by typical elvhean patterns.

The cinematics of Corypheus forcing his entrance while the sentinels defend the temple shows to us that after Corypheus is stricken by a deadly ray that comes from  Dragon Myhtal statues, and dies disintegrated, he is reborn in a Grey Warden [blighted creature]. This process is exactly the same that Archdemons have. This is a hint for us to suspect that Blight (magic?) allows a kind of effective immortality. 

Then Corypheus' dragon appears and the whole group has to run across the bridge and close the door of the temple before it attacks, giving us access to the main section of the Temple: the rituals [aka puzzles]

Arbor Wilds: Temple of Myhtal - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

[seyaryminamoto]

Fic-to-Art #31: The five winners of Gladiator Brawl

This month's artwork is... maybe not so uplifting :'D Gladiator Brawl was a chaotic event, where Sokka and Toph, the most promising new gladiators, took on the old guard, The Millennium Dragon and Combustion Man, facing them in a very fierce battle. While Toph managed to keep Combustion Man on his toes, he also managed to deal damage, if not too seroius, that burned her even with her agility and defenses... whereas Sokka, driven by desperation, beat up the Millennium Dragon in a display much more violent than anything he had ever done in the Superior League to date.

While the idea by the patrons might have been to make this super epic... I can't really separate this scene from Sokka's anguish upon coming back to himself and realizing what he'd done. It's not only the way he hurt Renzhi, but how he impulsively slices off Combustion Man's prosthetic with his sword... he was basically giving some very strong signs of being A Menace in this arc, and a lot of people (notoriously, Combustion Man) certainly took this as a warning of how dangerous he truly was. Even so, Sokka didn't feel triumphant about what he did... even if this was a catalyst for more character growth for him, in the end.

Anyway! From left to right we have Combustion Man, Twist of Shadow (first time I draw her, she was the fifth winner!), Sokka, Toph and Ruan (the Sentinel Knight). Revisiting these moments of the story is certainly wild when I'm in the middle of writing and posting some MAJOR battles... and this was one of the big challenges, as far as mass battles were concerned, in the first two parts of the story. We've dialed up the action by a lot... but perhaps that's why it's good to return to the story's roots at times, and remember the foundations upon which our newer developments were built...

Hope you guys liked this artwork! If you'd like to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 pledge on Patreon makes you eligible for suggesting prompts and voting every month, as well as providing you with access to snippets of the upcoming Gladiator chapter, 6 days before release!

[gundamfight]

[jennyo-thewoods]

Tolya: Its really muggy out today

Tamar: If I go outside and all of our mugs are on the front lawn, I’m going to kill you

Tolya: *sips coffee from a bowl*

[doctorslippery]

(via X-men Rogues Gallery 11x17 Fine Art Print - Etsy)

Really only two who I can’t identify, and one of them, I’ve seen before. I’m going to look it up, but that would be cheating, so I’m not including that post-post lookup. The woman next to Pyro, over Sabertooth’s shoulder in the purple mask, I know I’ve seen her before and i should remember her name, but I don’t. The other is the woman standing between Sebastian Shaw and Donald Pierce, who I just realized is Selene. So there’s only one I can’t identify. ... ... ...I know way too much about the X-Men considering that it wasn’t ever really my favorite comic book. Was always more an Avengers and JLA comic reader...even FF before X.

I take it back. There is another character I can’t identify. Over Stryker’s shoulder, the woman in the hood with the headband and the hoop earrings. 

So, I spoke too soon. There are still two people I can’t ID in this group shot. Helluva nice one. If you like it go to Etsy and buy yourself a copy. 

[pinks-wizards]

I'm thinking about my YW Roslyn and specifically about how she's a myth wizard. I imagine myth students are heavily encouraged to befriend their minions by Cyrus (or at least build a positive business relationship) and while Roslyn doesn't get those classes (busy saving the spiral) she naturally wants to know and befriend them. She's borrowing their power so it's only polite and when she spends so much time travelling and alone she wants someone to talk to.

Roslyn knows her minions well. She knows their names if they have ones, and named the ones who wanted them. She calls on them to help her often outside of battle. She's a 4'0" forever 11-year-old body she's going to need help reaching stuff and has a habit of calling them to sit on shoulders so she isn't always looking up. And importantly, when things go badly, she trusts them to keep people away from the fight. To protect people where they can. She might only have one in the dueling circle with her but she has many. The wooden minion is her go to when she needs a voice to yell in her place.

And like everything related to the YW, this can get sad. Because myth minions are less usable as time goes on. I basically never use them now in game. And I think Roslyn in lore doesn't include them in battles. She's grown protective of them. They trusted her, so she wants to prove they can. Their biggest notice of this is likely Azteca. Roslyn goes on a mad run across the entire world to guide everyone to the spiral door she's opened to wizard city. And she does it alone. She doesn't dare summon them both because her brain is racing and she's already exhausted from a fight but also because she doesn't want them to experience it. The death, the blood. The glass shattered around her. And because if they go hit, they are too weak to take it. Despite needing the help she does it alone.

I imagine that hurts them. But they can't fault her either. They, like everyone close to Roslyn, just have to watch as she tears herself apart for failure. As she constantly pushes and pushes herself to the limit doing it all alone. She is still as nice to them as ever when she does see them. The breaks. She's always asking about them. Never letting them help her the same as they once did during the journey to Maliaster.

While I don't use shadow spells in game I imagine Roslyn does. She gets to know the shadows she calls. More hesitant, they are more likely to call her out on everything she represses, but still caring. Shadow Sentinel is her favourite, and is the one given the most chances to help Roslyn when she needs it. She calls them for others, to protect them, and after the fighting is done they take care of her. The backlash will only apply during duels, because carrying her (or dragging) her to the nearest healer isn't demanding work. I think myth wizards can befriend shadow casts more easily, if purely because befriending those they call the power of is part of what makes a good myth wizard.

Her minions are family and close friends. Be they myth or pure shadow. And they care for her too. So I imagine it hurts as even they can't keep up with her. As she grows stronger and faces stronger enemies she can't rely on them anymore. So they watch out for her in other ways. Warning (or threatening) those who could harm her. Seeking out those who can help her. They aren't always with her but they know her full story because her magic betrays it all.

[cantsayidont]

March 1992. Probably the most interesting change the ROBOTECH storyline makes to the plots of the three Japanese anime series from which it's derived is that in ROBOTECH, the Invid, the snail-like alien race that conquers the Earth at the beginning of the NEW GENERATION/GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA storyline, are a colonized people, interstellar refugees. As explained in the Jack McKinney novels and later dramatized in the six-issue miniseries ROBOTECH GENESIS: THE LEGEND OF ZOR, based on Carl Macek's story notes, centuries ago, the Tirolian scientist and explorer Zor visited the Invid homeworld, Optera, and discovered that the Invid "Flower of Life" could be used as the basis of a potent form of bio-energy he called Protoculture. Zor stole the secrets of the Flower and took them back to Tirol, where Protoculture soon sparked a technological revolution that created space fold travel, reflex weaponry, and bioengineering. The lords of Tirol, calling themselves the Robotech Masters, used this power to annex their neighbors, and created the giant Zentraedi to police their new empire. The Masters then ordered the Zentraedi to defoliate Optera to monopolize their control of the Flower. The surviving Invid split into two factions: one, led by the Regent, fixated on vengeance against Zor and the Masters, and the other, led by the Regiss (or Regis), determined to find a new home and a new evolutionary form that would enable their survival. The Invid later killed Zor, but not before he sent the last Protoculture factory to Earth (as shown in the 1986 ROBOTECH graphic novel), hoping in vain to put it beyond the reach of the Masters.

When Zor Prime, a clone of the original Zor, destroys that factory at the end of the ROBOTECH MASTERS/SOUTHERN CROSS segment of ROBOTECH, it effectively seeds the Earth with the Flower of Life and draws the attention of the Regiss, who invades in hopes of finally reclaiming what had been stolen from her. (This isn't the case in the original MOSPEADA storyline, where the Inbit simply invade Earth because it seems like a habitable spot for their eugenics project.)

This is a clever amalgamation of ideas from the original shows, and it gives ROBOTECH a very different perspective on colonialism than the original series. MACROSS says explicitly that the devastation of the Zentraedi holocaust makes the colonization of other worlds a moral imperative for the human survivors; the original SOUTHERN CROSS storyline is about defending a human colony world (established after a nuclear war devastated Earth) against the return of that world's weird and malevolent original inhabitants; and MOSPEADA ultimately suggests that the Regess has been a more-or-less benevolent, religiously motivated colonizer who leaves the Earth better than she found it. The ending of ROBOTECH is a series of moral reversals: The Invid Regiss has gone from refugee to conqueror, doing to the humans what the Masters and the Zentraedi did to her, but at the same time, the human survivors of the war with the Zentraedi have in effect become the new Robotech Masters (something the Regiss says pretty explicitly in her final monologue), prepared to replicate the devastation of Optera and the Zentraedi holocaust to keep the Regiss from winning. Her ultimate departure, which also destroys the attacking REF fleet, is driven by shame, and a desire for a very literal kind of restorative justice that seeks to redress the humans' sins as well as her own, which makes for a morally complex and bittersweet finale for the saga (the misbegotten SHADOW CHRONICLES notwithstanding).

[bh-52]

Jedi couples Headcanons.

Barriss and Ahsoka have no concept of discretion in their love life, yet nobody notices they're a couple.

Ahsoka and Senator Chuchi went on one public date, and the paparazzi went wild.

Petro and Katooni are a young couple adored by everyone who finds out.

Ezra and Sabine are mischievous lovers.

Luminara and Obi-Wan flirt more than Nightwing and Starfire.

Shaak Ti and Kal Skirata fell in love while taking care of their kids (the clone army).

Cal and Merrin heal each other's trauma.

Depa and Grey are happily married, and proudly Caleb Dume's parents.

Aayla's on and off with Kit and Bly, but she loves them both equally.

Jocasta Nu and Dooku are the sweetest elderly couple giving love one last chance.

Mace and Vokare Che are the we take everything too seriously power couple.

Galen Marek and Maris Brood are feral lovers.

Stass and Neyo because he's crazy and she knows how to heal him.

Adi Gallia and Eeth Koth hooked up after Grievous kidnapped the latter.

Meetra and Visas Marr are the lovebirds who don't need eyes to see each other's beauty.

Atton and Mira are a delinquent power couple.

Brianna the Handmaiden and Mical the Disciple are as passionate and dedicated to each other as they are to history and lore, they go on dates to libraries, museums, exhibits, galleries, and archives.

Yoda and Maz Kanata have been married since 500bby.