#locked tomb au

[fishfingersandscarves]

adept morpheus and cavalier hob <3

[fineartonly]

I watched rite here rite now yesterday and during the performance of twenties my locked tomb brain rot went like "Ooh! That's the emperor undying! That's friggin John surrounded by dancing skeletons!"

Headcanon AU where John doesn't fuck up his reputation. Instead he and his friends start a band and go on tour to promote their cult. John leans into the evil necromancer cult leader bit, while the others become the nameless ghouls.

.. that's it, that's the post.

[coversbymeta]

The cover for my own fic "Serpent Error Wandering", made by me in GIMP+Canva :)

[hopelessnecromanticc]

Touchstarved Locked Tomb Au Headcannons

i plan to draw / ramble about this a lot so these are based on the made up lore ive crafted. feel free to leave your own ideas/takes :).

Kuras

sixth house necromancer

i feel like he would already be a lyctor. not as old as some lyctors but not a new one either

feel free to imagine who his cavalier was

Vere

third house cavalier

a part of me wants him to secretly be a necromancer but doesnt want anyone to find out

he reminds me of ianthe imma be so fr

Ais

third house necromancer

his vibe doesnt rly scream third house but i need him to be with vere or else ill be upset

my explanation is that he originally was from a far off place but was sent to the third for some reason (BoE spy perhaps. idc if it makes no sense i find the drama exciting)

Leander

eighth house necromancer ofc

i dont have much else to say about him rn

hes just spooky and off putting

Mhin

cavalier of the ninth house

was supposed to be a necromancer

still studies necromancy when they can

(i based them off harrow nova ngl)

the "story" is completely separate from most of the actual locked tomb lore (the only things im keeping are the houses and the general rules of their society. none of the characters in the actual locked tomb series exist in this au. the universe is just the setting)

[afterthequake]

Au in which Lyctorhood is attended through independent research so the fourth teens do stupid challenges with Gideon and occasionally Naberius shows up because he would rather duel Gideon or Jeannemary than follow Ianthe around. After a while, Corona joins and teaches everyone a proper skin routine.

[littlecactiguy]

Cavalier Yang

@yellowmagicalgirl on your theory about Yang being the Second's Cavalier in my recent Qrow fic in the Locked Tomb AU, I have some Ideas

(I have have thoughts on Maria/Alecto, but they'll have to wait bc this got long)

there is a nonzero chance I end up writing a fic set at Canaan House from Yang's pov at some point but I really really do need to sit down and sort out all the things I'm writing

Yang, by birth, is the first daughter of the Ninth House, and so should have been its heir. Except, she isn’t a Necromancer.

As a young child, she was raised on the Second, with Raven and Tai coming in and out of her life between missions (and Tai likely spent longer periods at home with her until his duties as Cavalier called him away). Thus, there was always a degree of separation between Yang and the other kids on the Second. They, and she, were constantly aware that she was a child of the Ninth (not truly one of them).

Then, Raven became a Lyctor, and the reason for Yang being on the Second—her parents keeping her relatively close while they where on missions—stopped being valid. Tai was gone, and Raven could no longer return home. Yang loved the grandmother she lived with, but she also fully expected to be called back to the Ninth (even as a child, being on the Second would instill a sense of duty in her, and the Ninth was her House).

Except the summons from the Ninth never came. Yang, so soon after losing her parents, felt rejected by the last family she had left.

In truth, politically, the situation was a bit more complex than she was aware of (due to being a kid).

At the time, the Ninth was going through a transitional period. It was slowly realizing that Qrow would be the Head of the House permanently, since Raven would never return, and begrudgingly coming to accept that.

Additionally, the Second saw an opportunity to exert power over the Ninth in Yang. They could withhold her from Qrow until he gave way to their demands (something like ‘we want to be sure the conditions on your house are suitable for the Child of a Lyctor, who we’ve been raising, so we won’t give her to you until you do x, y, and z’).

Qrow, who was already dealing with the Ninth truly recognizing his authority, considered what it would mean to bring a non-necro child, whose homecoming would be accompanied by the Ninth’s loss of autonomy to the Second, into the mix and claiming her as the heir, and decided against it.

From his perspective, Yang had her grandmother, probably friends, and an entire life on the Second, it would be cruel to drag her away from everything she’d ever known, just to force her into the center of a politically tumultuous situation. She probably didn’t even want to come to the Ninth anyway.

Except Yang did, and that rejection stayed with her as an unresolved hurt as she grew up. Especially as, a couple years later, news would reach the Second that the Ninth had declared its Heir, a girl child that Qrow adopted.

(I have the idea that Qrow would try to pass Ruby off as his bio kid, who he claims he didn’t know about for the first years of her life. He had a reputation for being somewhat promiscuous, so there’d be enough plausibility that, outside of the Ninth, where everyone knew the truth, it would be hard to challenge. The other Houses suspected but never saw enough reason to make the contestation.)

As a tween/young teen, Yang definitely would try to make a challenge. It hurt immensely that her uncle not only had refused her (that she wasn’t enough for him), but accepted some random kid as his own. Reaching those angsty years, Yang would realize she does have a valid claim to the Ninth. However, her efforts would never make it far. Though she had the bloodline, she’d still be a non-necro challenging a necromancer who could potentially claim that same bloodline. The support she’d need to succeed never materialized.

Back to those those first years after Raven’s Lyctorhood, Child!Yang would decide that she wants to train as a Cavalier. Her reasoning being that it’d be a way she could still go home to the Ninth. She could never be her House’s Necromancer, but she could do this one thing instead.

Except then Penny arrived on the Ninth, so that never panned out for Yang either.

So, Yang would grow up and be trained as a Cohort Cavalier. Her combat skill (as well as her status as a Lyctor’s daughter) would allow her to become the Cavalier Primary and travel to Canaan House when the summons come.

After some thought, I’ve think I’ve decided that the Second’s Necromancer will be Cordovin. Yang won’t be her first Cavalier (Cordo has extremely high standards for what she expects from them and isn’t afraid of demoting anyone from the role if they don’t meet them), but she will be her last.

Yang is vehemently against Lyctorhood. She doesn’t know the specifics of how Raven and Tai achieved it, but she does hold it as the thing that took her family from her. Yang goes to Canaan House not to achieve it with her Necromancer, but to stop everyone there from achieving it.

During her teen years, Yang’s reputation as being hotheaded at times and socially isolated from her peers (who also never forgot she’s of the Ninth), caused her to be targeted by the Blood of Eden to potentially turn as a spy/informant. The person they send to recruit her is Blake.

At Canaan House, Yang secretly works with Blake (off-planet, but who she maintains a covert line of communication with) to try to ensure no one comes close to becoming a Lyctor.

Cordovin finds out, and blames Yang for everything that’s gone wrong at Canaan House (including some mysterious deaths), but before she can act, Cinder makes her final move.

(I haven’t quite figured out Cinder, and, by extension, Salem, but they’re definitely A Threat similar to Cytherea).

Cordovin dies in the fight against Cinder (largely because she refuses to work with Yang at that point), while Yang and Blake manage to get the survivors off-planet.

They witness Ruby becoming a Lyctor from the sky, where they see her, in her grief over losing Penny, use a massive amount of necromancy to kill Cinder.

(Yang has feelings she can’t quite describe about it. A personal motivation for her coming to Canaan House was wanting to meet the girl who replaced her in the eyes of the Ninth, but she wouldn’t wish Lyctorhood on anyone.)

[honeycreammilkshake]

okay so i've been re-reading parts of the locked tomb, biting my fingers for the new book coming out hopefully sometime this year, but now i can't get the idea of a locked tomb greenflame au out of my head....

like... lloyd would obviously be the necromancer, and kai is his cavalier. lloyd's family comes from a line of really powerful necros and he wants to live up to their expectations, but kai sure isn't helping... that hotheaded impulsive idiot follows him everywhere, super protective, swinging his sword at anyone who gets too close to lloyd for his liking (even if it's completely innocent) and calls him names like "my dark overlord" "the green-eyed, curly-haired angel of undeath" "he-who-wields-the-bones" "my beloved master of gloom"

also kai knows absolutely nothing about necromantic theorems, even the most basics concepts non-necros have heard of, so lloyd has to keep explaining things over and over again and kai is just like "sure yeah of course i know that stuff you don't have to explain to me" but lloyd does have to.

kai uses an inordinate amount of hairgel and is an arrogant playboy like naberius tern but he makes inappropriate puns like gideon nav whenever there's opportunity… and lloyd is just sitting there in the corner like "please end my suffering" but he has feelings for that spiky-haired idiot that he just can't ignore.

.... and now i will think about this all day ;-;

[jeeyonshim]

"Being a cavalier suits me. I was made to fight.”

Self indulgent AU sketch of ttrpg home campaign characters to keep my morale up in between my (many, many, many) calls with the hospital today

[silence-of-autumn42]

Having thoughts about an Academia Locked Tomb AU I kinda want to write. Gideon is a post-grad or PhD student studying Medieval weaponry, looking at how they were forged and their chemical makeup. Harrow is a newly hired doctor, specialising in tomb archaeology, with a focus on remains. The two are forced together on a dig site when Harrow requests some help from their university identifying the age of a burial based on the grave goods contained within, which includes some swords. Palamedes is a historian assigned to the dig looking for the historical records of burials in the area. Camilla is his assistant and a translator. Ianthe is one of Harrow's former classmates, having had the same PhD supervisor. They hate each other, but also had an explosive and doomed relationship during their studies. I'm imagining lots of low stakes, high intensity, petty drama in the Medieval studies department of a university, full of sniping about lacklustre publications, accusations of fraud and giant lesbian nerds making out while talking about buried swords.

[mikaorangeart]

I think about this AU a lot idk

Been a little while since I did traditional lineart, hasn't it? I had this piece in my mind for a little while, so I thought I'd test how fluid I could make traditional inks look. I still have a lot to learn, don't I...

[mja]

The Reverend Daughter and her Cavalier, 1962.

[runekeepershymnal]

Okay, fuck it. Today has turned out truly shitbox, as our apartment complex was evacuated by the fire department due to some problem with the system that required them to shut off the water. We’re entirely fine, we’ve fucked off to a hotel with the four-legged minions in tow, and we’re extremely fortunate to be able to do so.

Since IMYAMT has been fighting me (I am trying and failing to understand Ronan Lynch’s musical tastes and hybridize them with my own and honestly I’m a horrible hipster and haven’t listened to the radio in so fucking long, let alone when BLLB came out) I wrote some nonsense in which I have transplanted some of the Raven Cycle and Dreamer Trilogy blorbos into The Locked Tomb universe for some one-shot shennanigans. I don’t know how many there will be, there will not be a full AU series, just whatever bits strike me.

So, if you think you might want that, enjoy.

[jirnkirks]

pt 1: tigers & locked tomb au

lyctorhood suited lottie poorly.

i went a little off the rails and wrote a short locked tomb au for lottie & famous 😔 this is one of my fave fics of the year i think. famous & lottie siblings forever btw.

spoilers for gideon the ninth's ending

lottie ceilingfan (lovelot triskelion) & famous: 3rd house

Lyctorhood suited Lovelot Trikahelion poorly. It roiled in aer like the whiskey ae learned Famous loved to drink too deeply. It was a furious thing, a despairing thing. Lyctorhood was Famous Trise in all their wretched, blazing glory, screaming and railing as they locked themselves in the cage of Lottie's eyes.

Lovelot was named for aer eyes- rose pink and numinous, fitting for the heir of the Third House. And now the sloe-eyed pink is frosted in Famous' pale grey, deepening, no- pulsating around the aorta of aer pupils.

And it's true- it is Famous' uncanny eyes that flit about the Gentle Emperor's ship. It is Famous' surety pressed between aer palms and the handles of their hatchets, their rank disrespect needled through their aer teeth when the Emperor Undying turns his kind face towards aer.

Quiet, quiet, Lottie begs for the first, for the ninth, for the infinitely many times since ae had pinned their heart down. Pressed Famous between aer molars and down aer esophagus, held them in aer guts until Lottie had reconstructed two into one. Infinite, because everyday ae wished they would stop speaking from aer own nerves and sinew, and come from beside aer instead. The first because Lovelot will take it back each time, because this is the closest ae will have to their viper tongue and sharp wit. Because Famous had given to themselves to aer- not to the Emperor Undying, not as the shining dead of the Third House nor to the promises to Queen Melusine Trihelia of the Third House. To Lottie, and even if it had been the hardest thing, it had been the surest thing. Their sister, in all but name. Aer brother, in all but name.

Their spirit roiled and heaved, because Famous could not stop themselves, even if it was sorry for the wretchedness it seeded in their necromancer. Famous stomped to their death, wretched and sure and Lottie walks into lyctorhood the same way, carrying two hearts on the pink of aer tongue.

[dykerory]

I am thinking about. And smart people look away please. I am thinking about necromancer Anakin and cavalier Obi wan.

[blackestnight]

22: rumor has it

Prompt: Veracity

Word count: 787

Borrowed @holyja​’s Hyana, with permission, because over a year ago now they messaged me and were like “I see your Fray/WoL Locked Tomb brainwyrms and raise you Hyana and Minfilia as Sixth House,” and then I died. Doesn’t contain any major Locked Tomb spoilers, and all you really need to know if you’re not familiar is that necromancers from each of the Nine Houses have sworn partners, who are not necromancers, called cavaliers. Also, a House’s number can be used to refer to the place itself, or to a person from that House (ex. “Ninth” could mean “the Ninth House” or “Hanami the Ninth,” depending on the context; it’s also considered part of a full proper title.)

The Sixth is for truth over solace in lies, but sometimes you need a good old-fashioned ridiculous rumor to get your necromancer out of a funk.

Canaan House, when the world had not yet died and been reborn, must have been a truly spectacular place; as it was it seemed cavernous with less than twenty people to fill it—discounting the skeletons—and with half its ceilings falling in and its walls slowly disintegrating. Hyana’s home was small, claustrophobic to those unaccustomed to life on the Sixth, where everything and everyone was allotted the exact amount of space it needed to exist in perfect health and preservation, not a centimeter more. The grand mausoleum of the First held too many shadows for her liking.

Minfilia seemed uneasy, too; she didn’t particularly have a reputation for paying spectacular attention to her worldly needs but Hyana had been forced to remind her to actually eat her dinner instead of staring through it twice, which was unusual, because Minfilia did pay attention to manners and people and hated to seem rude. Then again, if the echoing shadows of Canaan House troubled Hyana, everything else about it troubled Minfilia, particularly the further they went into its underground laboratories. She’d brushed her gloved fingers over an exam table that morning and immediately had to retreat to the hallway and do deep breathing exercises.

As the Master Warden of the Sixth House, as a necromancer, it was Minfilia’s charge to unravel the mysteries of Canaan House: as her cavalier, it was Hyana’s duty to unravel the mysteries of Minfilia.

“Any theories on why the Ninth never join us for mealtimes, Warden?” she said.

Minfilia hummed; Hyana, three steps behind her and one step to her right, couldn’t see her face, but she didn’t need to when she could see her shoulders.

Hyana assessed the hallway ahead of them: the flagstones were relatively even, with no treacherous-looking floor joists or suspicious sags in the walls. Safe enough for her purposes. “I heard,” she said, “they can’t take off those masks of theirs because they’ve permanently disfigured their teeth.”

To her credit, Minfilia didn’t stumble. She snapped to attention, and turned on her heel, leveling Hyana with an unusually stern glare. “Hyana the Sixth,” she said, “what in the name of the Mother would possess you to say something like that?”

“No theory may be discredited outright, no matter how unlikely it may seem at first,” Hyana reminded her, pleased at Minfilia’s quiet upset. “The little Fourth twins made an interesting case. I simply thought I would share.”

“The Fourth are children,” Minfilia said, “and there’s no reason to repeat such an unkindness.”

“They hypothesize that they practice osseomancy on themselves,” Hyana continued, dogged, like when she’d circle her sparring partners in the ring back home waiting for the first sign of weakness. “Which I suppose wouldn’t account for the cavalier. Maybe her necromancer practiced on her, too.”

Minfilia drew herself up to her full height—unimpressive next to anyone but Hyana—and said, “Stop this at once. You are being cruel, and disrespectful, and inaccurate. Teeth aren’t even bones. They are layers of soft non-living tissue coated in enamel, which I know you know, Hyana.”

Minfilia really was glorious in the middle of a righteous lecture. Hyana favored her with a smile, which abruptly took the wind out of Minfilia’s metaphorical sails once she realized what had happened.

“There are better ways to lift my mood,” Minfilia reminded her, gently this time. “I would ask you not to stoop to the level of schoolyard gossip.”

“Of course, Warden,” Hyana said, and gave her a proper genuflection for good measure. Minfilia sighed.

“Stand up, there’s no need for that,” she said. “I need you at my side, not on your knees. We have work to do.”

“Yes, Warden,” Hyana said, and settled back into her spot, three paces behind and one to the side, to watch her necromancer, this time with steel returned to her spine.

—

(Later, Hyana wondered whether she was partially responsible for the Fourth’s rumors permeating the rest of Canaan House: the Ninth startled everyone by appearing at dinner three days after her conversation with Minfilia, even if they ate at a table at the far end of the room, masks set carefully next to their plates. The cavalier ate almost mechanically, glaring into her bowl of stew, eyes hidden behind her pink-fringed hair, but the necromancer made uncomfortably deliberate eye contact with the little Fourth cavalier almost the whole time, his sulfur-yellow eyes glittering.

She was close enough to hear when the Ninth pair stalked back out of the dining hall and paused by the Fourth’s table so the necromancer could whisper, “The masks are easier than sewing our mouths shut,” which made Fourth’s necromancer drop his spoon. Hyana stuffed a piece of bread in her mouth to keep from cackling.)

[andrewminyardslawyer]

PSA for those writing coffee shop AUs, bakery AUs, etc.

I have worked in the food service industry for 20 years and I just wanted to make an informational list of common mistakes or misconceptions I see in writing about said industry. Not trying to be a jerk, just thought I would try to make a helpful list! I will add more if I think of any and please feel free to ask any questions you may have!

- it's cookie dough, not cookie batter. Doughs are for thicker stuff, typically something you can pick up in your hand (cookies, bread). Batters are more liquid and pourable (cakes, brownies, muffins)

- one person cannot make all the products from scratch and bake everything themselves unless they are a very slow business. Most of the time someone has a specific thing they do weather it's focused on specific products or split up like one person does the batters/doughs, one person preps and bakes, one person decorates. Sometimes one person does multiple things but generally not every single thing every day by themselves

- Front of House = people interacting with customers like barista, waiter, person at the register. Back of House = people making the food (line cook, baker, etc), dish washer (the worst job in the world, I salute all dishwashers everywhere)

- if they're doing stuff like bagels, doughnuts, breakfast pastries, cinnamon rolls, bread, etc they are there EARLY. Depending on the product some people start working at 2 in the morning. I saw a published book that had someone making dozens and dozens of cinnamon rolls from scratch in like one hour. Not possible even though I wish it was

- frosting, icing, and glaze are all different things. Frosting is the thicker stuff you see on cakes and cupcakes. Icing is typically for cookies, especially the decorated cut out sugar cookies. Glaze is thin, like what you get on doughnuts

- 99% of people who work in the food service industry will immediately go home and shower. I've seen lots stories where the character gets done at work and goes out. You are covered in various substances with powdered sugar in places you didn't know it could get, a shower before Literally Anything is a must