#divine warrior

[biblebloodhound]

The Mighty God (Isaiah 9:2-7)

For unto us a child is born...

The people walking in darkness    have seen a great light;on those living in the land of deep darkness    a light has dawned.You have enlarged the nation    and increased their joy;they rejoice before you    as people rejoice at the harvest,as warriors rejoice    when dividing the plunder.For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,    you have shatteredthe yoke that burdens them,    the bar across…

[nogetron]

Anat, Canaanite goddess of the wild and war. A rambunctious deity, Anat’s strength is nigh unstoppable, leading to her family and even her mother to fear her presence, with her father El being quoted as saying “I know you, my daughter, that you are a manly sort, and that none are emotional as you.” It is possible that El gave her the responsibility of a dispenser of justice, as many of the gods audibly fear for their lives when they’re in her presence. During the campaign for the throne of the king of the gods, Anat was asked by her father El to not intervene and help her husband Baal during the competition, following her father’s orders Anat went as far as to physically stop Baal from confronting his rival Yam during a meeting between the gods. Eventually Baal succeeds in claiming the throne, allowing Anat to support him once more. With Anat, Baal was able to be forgiven by their mother Asherah for fighting Yam, as well as securing permission to build Baal’s palace. However during a feast held by Baal, the death god Mot consumes Baal, killing him. Distraught over the death of her husband, Anat ambushes Mot, completely annihilating him from the world. After the resurrection of Baal and the defeat of the undefeated Mot, Anat went back to Baal’s side. In another myth Anat grew jealous of a prince, as the prince was gifted a great bow crafted by the god Kothar-wa-khasis. Anat asked the prince for the bow, but the prince in his arrogance insults Anat, ironically asking her if women are even capable of hunting. After confiding with El over the prince’s sexist remark, El grants her permission to punish the prince. Anat orchestrates his murder with the help of a nomadic warrior, however in the scuffle the bow breaks, causing Anat to roar in frustration over the futility of her actions.

Anat is heavily associated with her sister and fellow wife of Baal, Astarte, with whom they almost always share a presence together. Anat’s name has remained nigh unchanged throughout time, with the other renditions of her name being Hanat and Anath, Anat itself is believed to mean ‘violence’ or ‘force’. Because of Anat’s popularity she held many epithets, such as “Anat the Maiden”, “Anat the powerful”, “the mistress of domination” and the “mistress of the high heavens” among many others. Anat’s name is attested in several Sumerian sources, with some cities in Sumer being named after her, this implies that the worship of Anat and the other Semitic gods possibly predates that of the Sumerian pantheon, as their spread of worship had already covered most of Mesopotamia. The Sumerian goddess Inanna is believed to have developed from Anat along with many other warrior goddesses like the Greek Athena. Anat held significant influence in Egypt, with her earning a spot among the Egyptian gods. Her husband Baal was absorbed by the Local Set, with Anat following along with Astarte to become Set’s wives. In Egypt Anat and Astarte were believed to be the daughters of both Ra and Ptah, the two highest deities of Egypt. The Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II was especially known for his fervent devotion to Anat, naming his war dog, sword, and even his daughter after the goddess. Her status and lordship over typically masculine qualities a has lead to intrigue by many, with it possibly serving as inclusivity in her worship, bringing in more liberal worship with her inversion of gender roles.

[dryya-doesnt]

Heirloom and Honor:

In which we feel the weight of our history and bear the burdens of our responsibilities.

This took… way too long… here’s the background only version w all the little Easter eggs and such.

Some progress images! From layout to finish.

This is my most ambitious piece to date…maybe my last fanart for a while haha 😞😞

Some lore thoughts going into this illustration — feel free to ignore:

I was thinking this takes place in S2 in the Zianna Ro’Meave rescue arc, where Garroth returns to O’Khasis after many years to rescue his mother…He comes across their oldest (historically, the first in Ru’aun) cathedral and finds it in a wrecked and pillaged state.

The pious folk have pretty much abandoned the cathedral following Zane’s disappearance for 15 years and the Tu’la invasion was the nail on the coffin. The cathedral is completely barren of life except for the few intact stained glass windows that recount the history of the Divine Warriors.

Around this time it’s revealed that Garroth is the current holder of Esmund’s relic— is he anxious? Lost? Jumpstarting his quarter-life existential crisis?

I hope that everything here in this illustration captures my vision and conveys it to you. This is pretty much a love letter MCD HAHAHAHA

[1caru]

hi!! I saw your art requests were open, if you ever wanted to would you be willing to draw LU Sky, Warriors, and Twilight? I love the older brother dynamic and would love to see them in your style!!

all tuckered out after a long day of being the big brothers <3

[wyverndreamers]

The Matron

[number-one-zara-fan]

Decided to draw Minecraft Diaries Tarot cards but can't figure out who'd be what, this is the current match-up. Begging for your opinion on this + I really wish I could fit KC or Levin and Malachi in somewhere

[gumbootillustrations]

UGH I FUCKING FINALLY FINISHED THIS

so yeah, have the divine warriors of the second war of the magi!!

more deets n closeups under the cut :3

aph!! i like to think that although the incarnations of the divine warriors r generally pretty similar, they do have some minor differences. for example, whereas the matron of the first war of the magi (irene) had one of the sets of wings on her head covering her eyes, the matron of the second war (mcd!aphmau) has both of them held back. this is bc whereas irene had lost her humanity (and therefore the ability to connect with mortals), aph hasn't - and, therefore, her eyes are open to the struggles of humanity. additionally, i took a lot of inspiration from honkai impact 3rd for these designs - in aph's case, i was inspired by elysia's herrscher of human: ego battlesuit and how it looks like a wedding dress (which a lot of folks have interpreted as an expression of her love for humanity, which is smth i want to convey w aph).

i think my favourite part of aaron's destroyer form is his seal (the thingy behind his head like a halo). i wanted to rlly play into the whole destroyer/devourer aspect of his abilities and domains, and i thought a black hole would fit perfectly! it also sort of (unintentionally) plays into how i see the dynamic between the matron and the destroyer and how they're both mirrors of each other; whereas the destroyer, well, destroys (and his black hole devours everything in sight), the matron creates and nurtures (seen in how aph's seal is almost like a white hole). i also wanted his armour to look a lot like the armour that shadow knights wear, albeit without all the spikes and spines and whatnot given that he isn't a shadow knight himself (shad's destroyer form from the first war probably looks a lot more similar to traditional shadow knight armour).

i'm lowkey suuper proud of how travis's keeper form turned out (even if i had to go back right at the end n fix it bc i forgot to add his tail 😭). i wanted this form to sort of be a mix between a high mage and a rogue: whereas the keeper embodies knowledge and magick, travis himself is a prankster who relies on cunning and trickery to gain the upper hand on his opponents. as a result, he's the only one who doesn't automatically manifest a weapon when he shifts into this form - instead, i feel like he chooses to rely more on magicks and witchcraft during combat.

katelyn's design was lowkey the hardest to pin down. originally, i wanted to go for something that was suuuper inspired by roman armour and had a copper and teal/turquoise colour scheme, but it wound up feeling too magical girl-ish and i scrapped it. i've retained the roman inspirations, but i headcanon that her flames are so hot they burn blue, so i settled on a blue-and-white colour scheme w some purple elements. i think my favourite part is her gauntlets! i feel like she uses them as an extension of herself/another pair of hands to punch with. the blue elements also lean into menphia's association with the moon - in ashes, ashes, tu'la is based on the roman empire and, as a result, is where werewolves originate from, and with werewolves having such close ties to the moon.... yeah. i'll probably do a post on tu'la later on at some point.

my blorbo

garroth's design is probably the one that's changed the least, but i'll still need to update his ref sheet anyway. i don't know if i conveyed it very well but the sort-of wing-things on his back are slabs of earth that can be shaped into a shield - originally i had him holding a shield but i wanted him to look a bit more divine warrior-ish so i retooled his design.

the boy! i was tossing up between having vylad or dante fill the role of the wanderer, but i settled on dante as i feel like vylad fits better as a sort of weird guide sort of figure within the narrative. plus, i have a real soft spot for dante and wanted him to remain in the limelight a little bit - i love his dynamic with garroth and laurance and i wanted to explore that further. i sort of wanted to play into his whole red-and-blue colour scheme that we see in canon diaries, but bc kul'zak is a nature deity (specifically of the wilderness), i wanted to incorporate some greenery into his design. i hope i've done an okay-ish job here - overall i'm pretty happy tho, but i can't promise that there won't be any tweaks in the future.

this is a redhead laurance propaganda spreading blog and i Refuse to apologise for it. i'd like to think that laurance's original colour scheme is similar to his justiciar form - lots of beautiful reds and golds and oranges to match the flames of his father's forge - but after he comes back from the nether with a Severe fear of fire he switches to the greens and browns that he's known for in canon. eventually he slowly begins to reclaim his fire and returns to the golds and oranges that he's introduced with (haha colour symbolism go brrrrrr).

but yeah. the special interest is special interesting. let me know if u have any questions!

[laurancezvahlslefteyebrow]

this is unacceptable

[jurassiccraft]

Day 3: Divine

Based on Alphonse Mucha’s Summer

[goat-guy-tm]

Wowie those Divine Warriors are pretty cool. Hope nothing bad happens to them-

Would you believe me if I told you I didn't touch this for months and then finished it in one go pulling an all nighter.

[iridiss]

Mystreet AU where all of the Phoenix Drop High staff are the divine warriors. MCD!Aphmau is a reincarnation of the last Irene, and she restarted the world when the final battle against Shad was going poorly, and Mystreet was created instead, with MCD!Aphmau being reincarnated into Mystreet!Aphmau. The other Divine Warriors (including the first Irene), were recycled into this school with no powers and new lives, completely powerless to the universal change that Aphmau has made. So now they’re forced to adapt to this new world and blend in, whether they like it or not, effectively trapped in this school until they can figure out what the hell happened, and somehow undo it. They all have retained most or all of their memories from their previous life. This makes staff meetings incredibly awkward

Shad is the principal, he runs this school very begrudgingly. He hates his job, but hey, he was able to lead an army in Hell! How much harder can leading highschoolers be?

Irene is the school counselor. The only one. She still has no emotions. This makes her not very successful at her job, but hey, she tries. The students are theorizing that she and the principal are divorced, or exes in some way or another, because of the incredibly grudge-filled looks they keep giving each other. They are forced to work in vague proximity with one another, and no one is enjoying it. They have to maintain workplace diplomacy and after learning what kind of world Shad is trapped in now, he realizes that he can’t actually kill her unless he wants to be arrested and thrown in jail forever. Which would suck ass, because he’s pretty certain the source of their new predicament is somewhere in this school alongside them, and if he wants any luck at getting out, he’s going to have to play along.

Irene and Shad are at least able to remain thinly diplomatic with one another. Shad and Esmund, however—never in a million years will they be civil with one another. They have gotten in very confusing shouting matches in front of the kids before. And yet Esmund never gets fired, (…i don’t think Shad has figured out that he can do that yet…) so the kids start to spread rumors that Esmund is hooking up with or used to be hooking up with the principal. Esmund and Shad find out, and all of the students get in ungodly amounts of trouble for this.

Enki tried to reconnect with his old friend Shad at some point. It didn’t go well. He left his office as quickly as he came in at the first sight of his glare.

It becomes surprisingly easy (and very existential crisis-inducing) to finally be able to tell Aphmau and Irene apart when they’re two entirely separate people standing in the same room. Shad realizes that this Aphmau is probably what caused this, but problem 1. She doesn’t remember a damn thing and is therefore extremely unhelpful, and problem 2. That’s A Child. That’s A Literal Actual Child. That’s some 13yo baby that is entirely innocent and bright-eyed and oblivious to anything and everything that went down in her past lives. And in my mind, Shad has a soft spot for children. Like, a HUGE soft spot, because he used to be a father and his daughter meant the world to him. He’d do anything to get her back and protect her from all the horrors that he could not save her from. Thats his entire villain motivation. Thats the entire reason why he hates Irene and becomes The Shadow Lord and raises an army and pillages the world and everything else. The Shad in my head would be physically incapable of hurting a child.

So I can see Shad calling Aphmau into his office very early in the first semester, ready to confront her and duel all over again…only to realize that, no, this is an separate, innocent child who remembers nothing and might even be an entirely different reincarnation of who she was before. Her memories might even be wiped, completely inaccessible and gone forever. He has an existential crisis, awkwardly apologizes and plays it off as some sort of joke, asks if she needs anything (putting back on his “I’m a normal human being” mask). She says she needs directions to her classes, so he scrounges up a random map and hands it to her and sends her off. He re-evaluates everything he’s known for the past 900 years.

Shad becoming strangely protective of 13yo Aphmau,,, this is just some kid,, he’s forced to re-evaluate everything and adjusts how he sees his students. From “oh good a new army I’m gonna have to mold from scratch /sarc” to “i…i have gone from zero children…to thousands…. thousands of children put under my care…i need to protect all of them at once” man goes mega mother hen mode, especially since his dangerous traitorous ex-wife is in the same building as them, he definitely sees her and the other divine warriors as threats to his kids.

Irene bringing Aphmau into her office as well, but she approaches things very differently from Shad. She cuts straight to the chase, and tells Aphmau she needs to remember. She’s done something terrible, and needs to reverse it and put the world back in order. She needs to remember her old life and become the newest Irene, take on all the power and the responsibility that being a Goddess entails, and set everything right. 13yo Aphmau freaks out, confused and lost. Irene lays the pressure on hard, and keeps pushing when Aphmau insists that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Shad opens the door, sensing she was here with her, and looks like he’s doing everything in his power to hold himself back from punching her square in the face. They have a very terse, carefully worded micro-argument, and Shad insists Aphmau must return to her classes, her education is more important than anything Irene has to stay to her. He gets very protective of her and basically professional-business-talk tells her to fuck right off and never speak to her again. Aphmau is still confused. He ushers her out, and awkwardly asks if she’s alright. She says…i…think…so???? What just happened??? Shad tells her to be careful around that woman, and don’t believe a word she says. She’s full of lies, anyway. Aphmau’s like. you mean the school counselor???????? It’s a very strange day for Aphmau.

insert the kids joking about how Garroth/travis/aaron/Aphmau must be related to certain members of the staff here

[biblebloodhound]

The Divine Warrior (Isaiah 59:15b-21)

The Lord looked and saw there was no justice. He did not like what he saw.

The Lord looked and was displeased    that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one,    he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;so his own arm achieved salvation for him,    and his own righteousness sustained him.He put on righteousness as his breastplate,    and the helmet of salvation on his head;he put on the garments of vengeance    and wrapped himself in zeal as in a…

[of-ether]

going full warrior mode and then signing off 😍

[stellisketches]

The Destroyer

[mye-chi]

okay listen sometimes as an artist you wanna do warm-ups for aphtober. and sometimes that means crudely drawing that stupid shitpost that popped up in your head (based off this image)

[marblerose-rue]

halsin (as a warrior cat)

(request)