#gilded gorgon

[nanowatzophina]

Now for my monthly @exilethegame doodles.

I’m so bad at finishing things.

[punkrangerdraws]

Last oc kiss, the very acrobatic snake boy belongs to @the-rebel-archivist

[samdravvs]

2021 vs 2024

My gorgon MC from @exilethegame ❤️

For @bweirdart s mARTch challenge day 28: redraw something old!

In three years, i seem to learn: How to draw blood, cleaner line art, contrast, better proportions and better composition 💪

[thegildedgorgon]

The Hanged Man

Upright: Uncertainty, letting go, sacrificing

Reversed: Discontentment, negative patterns, fear of sacrifice

my gorgon commander, tobias, from @exilethegame !! (ve/vim/vimself pronouns for vim pls!)

[nevesmose]

Dicking about on a character ai thing:

I guess it makes sense that he'd respond evasively to Poirot while not caring about Columbo. Good job, AI slopbot.

[harbingersecho]

“You feel sick to the stomach every time you remember what happened. You're a monster, a killer, and that's something you'll have to live with for the rest of your life. No amount of good deeds can fix what you've done, but you'll keep trying anyways.”

Ex-Commander of Plaithus, The Gilded Gorgon

[heraxic]

I’m sorry if you already answered this (I didn’t find it mentioned) but why was Kyril/Karl mutated, imprisoned and hunted in the Greek Myth AU? This definitely feels like Miranda/Athena was punishing him. What happened?

Thanks for asking!

Here’s pre-curse Kyril (story under cut, body horror/gore warning)

Yes, it was meant as punishment (unlike Alina and Daphne), and to no one’s surprise his crime was hubris.

Kyril worked at his father’s forge, far surpassing his skills in both metalworking and stone masonry. As such he was blessed by Hephaestus himself.

He got commissioned to make a statue of Athena in honor of her craftsmanship. He rolled his eyes and set to work, complaining that it’d be more fitting to make one of Hephaestus, who picked up the slack, since Athena abandoned her craft and stopped making beautiful things for the sake of her sick game (Athena’s Gauntlet of Monsters, so far containing a living whirlpool and a sphinx, was widely known and many daydreamed of or even sought the glory of defeating the beasts). In spite of his grumbling the statue came out stunning with clean cut stone and gilded detailing.

The next day, a weaver came to Kyril’s forge saying she’d heard his complaints about her goddess, which confused her cause with a statue that beautiful a blessing would naturally be in order, yet he burned that bridge. ‘What if she could give you the power to make the most life-like statues in the world?’ Kyril laughed and said it wasn’t her domain, and besides he didn’t need it.

Refusing a blessing from a god is one thing, but to mock them and be telling the truth at the same time is unforgivable.

The weaver lifted her shawl from her head and revealed a brilliant blue plume and with it a golden helmet. Athena arose to her full dreadful height, one hand holding her winged spear, the other pointed towards the terrified sinner in front of her. ‘You will know what power is when you see it. You shall have my blessing whether you wish or not.’

In a second, Kyril fell to the floor screaming with blinding agony, feeling horrible squelching and crunching as bone and muscle grew where it shouldn’t. His nails fell out and out of the raw empty spots grew thorny black claws; his spine extended to accommodate a tufted lion tail; the skin of his back ripped to tatters to unfurl two sets of bloody grey wings; his black curls turned to angry, writhing snakes, each more venomous than the last; his teeth grew sharp and pointed, cutting rifts on his tongue so blood filled his mouth; and lastly his eyes grew heavy in their sockets as they were imbued with the last of the goddess’s curse.

Hearing the commotion, Kyril’s father rushed in and cradled the strange figure he knew was his son, turning his head towards him. He instantly froze in place, a perfect image of paternal worry, and the monster felt the arms holding it turn hard and grating like stone.

Athena took him away to her islands somewhere in the Cyclades to become the next glorious creature on her roster, the Gorgon. There he lied writhing in pain for 12 days without sleep or food (besides the right leg of Pallas, which further changed his body and gained him far more muscle and size). When the pain subsided enough to let him speak he prayed for his patron Hephaestus to help him, but alas gods can’t break each other's curses. Instead he carved out a spacious cave for him in which to seek shelter as well as several unbreakable stonemason and smithing tools to keep up his spirits.

700 yrs later Elias comes to the islands.

[the-dragonshard]

Based off a post by @sister-lucifer

Choose an unknown magic item, and when the poll is over I’ll reveal what each of them do

[artemis-potnia-theron]

Personal prayers based on epithets 🤍

Athena 🦉 🗡 🐎

Praise to Athena. Gilded in armor. Defender and keeper of the city. She of the bronze house. Filled with divine influence and all-powerful. Sharp-eyed maiden of the cypress grove.

She of the wings and of the ivy. Protectress. Destroyer of giants. Gorgon-crested. Champion of the Anchorage. She of the eyes.

Victory worker and counselor. Owl-eyed healer. She of war-trumpets and of the horses. Savior of the road. Worker and healer. Exceedingly wise warrior sought with many prayers. Praise to Athena, splendidly honored.

[nnschneider]

Halloween Crochet Project

Last year, I made an octopus balaclava which became my first Tumblr post.

This year, I saw a Medusa knitted hat on here and said to myself, "Make That."

So I did.

I didn't follow the instructions for the knitted project because I went with crochet instead. (I am scared to learn knitting in the round, and don't want to buy more needles.) I made a ton of crochet snakes. 🐍🐍🐍 So many snakes! 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 And then I attached them to a beanie. Then I realized I didn't have enough snakes and had to make even more. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

The snake pattern is below. Basically, rows 1-8 are the head, rows 9-11 are the neck, and all the rest is the body. As these are attached to the hat, I didn't need to do the tail.

Magic circle. SC × 6. Slip stitch to close the loop. Tighten the ring. (6 st)

Increase: Ch ×1, (SC × 2 in a SC, SC × 1 in a SC) × 3. Slip stitch to close the loop. (9 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (9 st)

Increase: Ch ×1, (SC × 1 in a SC, SC × 2 in a SC, SC × 1 in a SC) × 3. Slip stitch to close the loop. (12 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (12 st)

Decrease: Ch ×1, [ (SC × 1 in a SC) × 3, SC 2 Together, SC × 1 in a SC] × 2. Slip stitch to close the loop. (10 st)

Decrease: Ch ×1, [ (SC × 1 in a SC) × 2, SC 2 Together, SC × 1 in a SC] × 2. Slip stitch to close the loop. (8 st)

Decrease: Ch ×1, [ (SC × 1 in a SC) × 1, SC 2 Together, SC × 1 in a SC] × 2. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC, HDC DC, DC, HDC, SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Ch ×1, SC in every SC. Slip stitch to close the loop. (6 st)

Repeat 12 & 13 until your snake is long enough.

The body as I did it has a bit of a wave to it to give it some natural movement, but go with whatever makes you happy. I also stuck pipe cleaners in them so I could try to position them later. It wasn't as effective as it initially sounded; it gave them more shape but not to the point where I could make the top layer stand up and look menacing.

The first row was 8 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

The second row is 10 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

The third row is also 10 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 I can feel the weight pulling the hat back so that it rests higher on my forehead. I suppose this means I need to balance it a bit. I had put pipe cleaners in all snakes in the first two rows but decided to only bother with them in the front 4 by row 3 because the pipe cleaners weren't as effective as I wanted. I probably should have not bothered with pipe cleaners in the bottom rows and done more with them in the top rows.

The fourth row is 9 snakes. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍 And the snakes are shorter on top than the bottom rows, so they take less time and less yarn! The cap is feeling loose but the weight distribution is relatively good so it's not sliding off my head. I'll probably feel more secure if I bobby pin it in place.

Enough snakes! Something like 10 or 13 on top. I feel like a fricking Gorgon. 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

But am I done? No. Gotta gild that lily.

I added bead-y yellow eyes and forked yarn tongues to the snakes because it adds.

The tongue was fun and easy, just knotting the yarn until it was a good (variable) length and then changing up the last knot to make the forked tongue seem more or less forked.

Oh, and. The snake heads each have a top and bottom, but the bodies have a little wiggle and don't all lay flat and easy. My point is that it's not obvious which side is the top side for sewing on the snake eyes, especially when a blob of yarn noodles is laying in your lap. I had to put it on and then stand in front of the mirror, marking the top sides with safety pins so I would know which ends were up.

True confession: I'm running out of momentum to finish the snake eyes. I plan on wearing this to hand out candy so I don't need to gild every snake, just the ones ppl will see.

And if my kids get any costume ideas (they don't beg from door to door anymore but they do get into the spirit), I'll have bandwidth to work with them.

As a couple's costume idea, I need my husb to coat himself in gray face paint and stand as still as a statue.

[bonesif]

You were great once. You were prideful and skillful and cruel. You still are these things, you think.

And maybe you can successfully drink and laugh and flirt and chase your pain away. But the person that you were grips your jaw and demands attention. You have no title to hide behind, no way to look away. You wouldn't deserve to.

They told you that you'd be great. It's time to face that you were never good.

Enter commander Emery Belrai, the gilded gorgon.

[ from @exilethegame ]

[nanowatzophina]

Another set of four. Cuz… wow… I just got a vibe apparently.

Doodles. That’s all I got.

I apologize.

@exilethegame I’ll tell u again. I’ll tell you a thousand times. Go read this fragging story. It’s amazing.

[punkrangerdraws]

Huevember part 7: Aurelian for @the-rebel-archivist

[huntertarot]

It's nuts when you're playing a ttrpg and you have the best, most concise, perfect for the Lore(TM) name for the party, but realize it's a sideways step to a popular one.

So, context, we're playing Curse of Strahd. The party consists of a Ghostwise Halfling Paladin, a Gorgon (homebrew) Bard, a Shadar-Kai Barbarian, and a Reborn Wizard (effectively a Drow skeleton that's been gilded and jeweled by a Lich; also me). We've all got rumors about us from Waterdeep, and we all very obviously have some proverbial (or, for me, literal) skeletons in our closets. When we get to Barovia, it's recalled by the Wizard that Barovia was a scary bedtime story sort of place where bad children were sent. And that was that. We were the Bad Children. Honestly, the fastest our group has ever come up with a group name, with this being session 2 when we were resting in the library of Death House.

And then I very suddenly had Dimension20 Fantasy High flashbacks stunlock my mind, and I was like, ah. Yes, I see. The Bad Kids. I felt vaguely guilty that my suggestion for the group name was probably secretly influenced by my love of Wennan Wee Wulligan and the Intrepid Heroes, but I have since pushed that aside. Everybody likes it, and it's not impacting anything, and it is a fairly appropriate and funny party name.

Long story short, my brain has rotted from quality content, and there's a group of chucklefucks running around Strahd Von Zarovich's sandbox effectively calling themselves naughty youths.

[ghaniblue]

I'm trying something new, posting a WIP for @hp-fearfest Every prompt will be one chapter. Wish me luck. 31 days of Regulus Black. Updates will go live on AO3 first. Rated mature overall. This is for a horror fest, beware.

‐------‐------

Prompt 1 : Body Snatchers

There was a book in the Grimmauld Place library, its pages frayed, the gilded spine cracked and darkened by countless hands. Sirius used to read him stories about hags and basilisks and merfolk: the Muggles who wrote the stories called them witches and gorgons and mermaids. "That's Muggles for you," Mother said, "they know nothing, and they lie."

Regulus was five and could already read—because he wasn't a baby, no matter what cousin Bella said—but Sirius always did the voices when Regulus crawled into his brother's bed at night when the creaking and groaning of the house made him want to hide under the blanket so the Muggles couldn't snatch him.

Mother said that's what happened to disobedient children, little boys who talked back to their parents and didn't eat their dinner, who associated—Regulus had to look up that word—with the filth that was taking over their peaceful world: Muggles and Mudbloods and blood traitors. "Listen to your mother," his father said, not looking up from the Daily Prophet. Regulus didn't have to be told twice—not like Sirius, who played with his food and argued with the ancestral portraits in the hall. Regulus was a good boy, he always listened.

When Regulus was fifteen, his mother's predictions came true: Sirius didn't come home. He got snatched. Sirius had been disobedient all his life, talked back and associated with scum, and now he was gone. His brother was a blood traitor. He was the filth Regulus had to avoid or get snatched himself. For the first time in years, Regulus took the book of Muggle lies up to his room at night and read out loud to himself about hags and basilisks and merfolk, but it wasn't the same. Sirius had always been better at doing the voices.

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[the-rebel-archivist]

unusual muse associations.

not tagged by anyone, Aurie is just noisy and demanding tagging nobody explicitly but if you want to take a stab at it please do

Aurelian Sidewinder, the Gilded Gorgon (the exile)

SEASONING: honey, tamarind

WEATHER: blistering, rock warming heat waves

COLOUR: iridescent green, burnished gold, warm brown

SKY: starless night

MAGICAL POWER: enhanced senses, glamour and manipulation, a lifetime of training in war

PLANT: edelweiss (courage, perseverance, devotion), snapdragon (deception, graciousness)

WEAPON: envennomed fangs and twin daggers, Fang and Talon

SUBJECT: psychology and military strategy

SOCIAL MEDIA: [cancelled immediately]

MAKEUP PRODUCT: bit of oil for half-translucent scales, patented Fantasy Fuckboy cologne, you know he smells good when he's not knee-deep in mud and blood and hate him a little for it

CANDY: too cloyingly sweet on his tongue, milk chocolate pretzels at most

FEAR: (you are a murderer, you have always been a murderer, you will always be a murderer, you are fit for nothing else)

ICE CUBE SHAPE: anything that won't get sucked up a twirly straw

METHOD OF LONG-DISTANCE TRAVEL: horse, griffon taxi (once)

ART STYLE: baroque

MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE: is gorgon too on the nose?

PIECE OF STATIONERY: long-travelled diplomatic pouches full of other people's doodles

THREE EMOJIS: 🐍🗡💔

CELESTIAL BODY: the sun