#sage of lightning

[lolilou-lagaf]

When you have to make a false alliance and kill one of the most powerful people in Hyrule just to get a secret stone.

But then Rauru just, gave one to one of your ex-warriors. And now she's using it to spite you.

[hanromi]

Did a pose study, Urbosa as the Sage of Lightning! I love totk but I do miss the Champions TT

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Gantober #10 - Depths

Today, a short snippet of a vague TotK-adjacent story about this Ganondorf's childhood escapade! And including an arbitrary headcanon I played with, aka: Sage of Lightning being Ganondorf's younger sister.

Enjoy!

---

“Hey, slow down! I’ll tell mommy if you don’t wait for me!”

Ganondorf ignored his sister’s worried squeaks. She had bugged him all morning when he had tried to enjoy some rare alone time: she had wanted to know what he was reading, pinched his sides with weak jolts of electricity when he had refused to answer, and despaired at his cold disinterest in a shared play time. At the height of his annoyance, he had snapped his book shut and offered her his very worst smile. Do you want to go play explorers? he had asked, and of course the stupid brat had seen nothing concerning about that.

He would have gladly lost her in the upper layers of the ruins near Gerudo Town if she hadn’t been so insistent, following his long strides with a clumsy resolve he admired just as much as it drove him up the wall. Not losing her for real, of course. Just a little scare. She was the only child who wasn’t at least a bit afraid of him —and in the palace, her tears were so quickly comforted. Their mother the chieftain would throw some harsh words his way: that he was to be king and so ought to act with even more self-control than the noblest of their sworn personal guards, that power should never make room for cruelty. His sister would be hugged, and he’d be called callous in a way that itched.

But here, there was only him and the dark. If she cried, she would need to wipe the snot off her nose all on her own.

“Wait for me!”

He didn’t. Hopping past fallen rocks half-submerged in the sand, Ganondorf took a sharp turn left —froze.

The floor dropped into a hole.

It wasn’t a large hole. He could easily fit in, but his mother might have gotten stuck if she had tried to squeeze through. Underneath was pitch black darkness. Faint red, maybe. Or faint green?

Ganondorf knelt, and plucked a stone from the floor before dropping it in. The pebble was swallowed, its fall completely silent. Nothing ever echoed back to him.

“What is this?”

His sister loomed over his shoulder, nosy as always. He stared at her: her green pupils blown wide, mouth agape. Pointed ears. The kind he did not have. For a brief instant, he imagined pushing her down there, or rather: plummeting himself. There was an alluring call to that long drop. A chill ran down his spine. Something down there... yearned. The knowledge was both visceral and unquestioned. And somehow, the fear that should accompany that knowledge refused to take hold.

His sister’s fascination, however, took up a different shade. A paler one.

She gasped, plunging her tiny nails in his arm without thinking. He clenched his jaw in response. “It’s so deep! You shouldn’t get so close!”

“Let go,” he hissed.

“But...”

“If you can’t handle this, you should have played on your own.”

Her skin darkened in childish anger. “Stop being so rude! I’m gonna tell mommy you’re going to places you’re not allowed to go!”

“Go tell her then.”

She hesitated. Her long braid was powdered with dust and sand. A messy spectacle that would immediately betray she had gleefully followed her brother in forbidden, dangerous places. Ganondorf bared his teeth.

“Go!”

His sister jumped, hissing back at him like a stray cat. She turned around and ran off, the tapping of her soles echoing in the caves underneath the city they were born to inherit. He watched the wildfire of her hair disappear in the dark, then turned back to the hole.

Blowing between his palms, he invoked a small flame —blue, soft, the kind to bounce off its shrine across every sort of stone. The walls of the drop were jagged enough for him to climb down. He brushed his palm across its mineral skin, felt its coldness espouse the calloused bumps he managed to claim for himself in the midst of his life’s luxuries.

He didn’t even think. Blinked. Found himself several meters in, surrounded by rocks that wanted nothing more than to watch him fall. He considered forcing himself back up, out of vague concern for his sister and his mom, before deciding he didn’t really care. Something beckoned him deeper.

And he wanted to know what it was.

Long, long minutes later, far too long, the hole opened to a larger cave. Ganondorf’s magic indicated some sort of base floor waiting for him underneath, covered in moss, which he hoped would be enough to break his fall. Strange, unknowable flowers glimmered in what seemed like an infinite void.

He let himself fall.

The impact wasn’t kind to him. His ankles screamed, but he did not. When Ganondorf opened his eyes, all he could see was blackness, and the roots of immense structures of stone erected straight and far up. These looked nothing like gerudo architecture. Old, decrepit machines stood frozen and dead. Cold furnaces.

Ancient, silent, unwelcoming.

Ganondorf stood up and carefully made his way through the ruins.

[pocketseizure]

Designer's Note: It was a deliberate choice not to provide backstories for the Ancient Sages, so we were concerned about minimizing the narrative noise potentially generated by designs that had too strong of a sense of individual character.

Regardless, we needed to convey the impression that “these are people who should be feared and respected.” We therefore approached their designs with an academic abstraction and focused on their masks as art objects. The sheer strangeness of these masks weakens the sense of the Sages as individual characters while hopefully drawing a mysterious connection to the technology of the ancient Sheikah.       

[lumireis]

I saw someone wanting refs for the ancient Gerudo Sage of Lightning, so here you go!! I'm obsessed with her hair

[zelda-wiki]

Reworked turnarounds of Makeela Riju from Tears of the Kingdom, for reference material. A full version can be seen on her page's gallery.

One of our editors, Tartine, also captured a high-quality model of the Sage of Lightning.

[zelluna]

gerudo sage

[zelda-of-hyrule-tloz]

Echoes of Wisdom Headcanon Countdown

༺ Day 28▪︎ 73 Left

While in the ancient past of Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda witnessed history in the making and befriended the Sages she learned of in history books. They reminded her so closely of the Champions that she at first acted strange around them (even if she tried her best to hide it). In battle, she would throw herself between them and the attacks of monsters (and Ganondorf). She would take risks she knew were better not to take. It ended up being Naboris, the Gerudo Sage, who made the situation clear to Rauru and urged him to reconcile whatever made Zelda so altruistic. When Zelda found out, she was reminded even more of someone she lost... but she was more grateful than ever to know she was again surrounded by people who cared for her.

[loz-furbies]

Linktober 2023 #4: Sage

The ancient sage of lightning

[allegedly-human-uwu]

Actual dragon tear memory

[lolilou-lagaf]

I’m re-watching the ToTK cinematic and I was thinking about the story.

The sages are so undeveloped, but there's so much missed potential with the Sage of Lightning specifically?? (spoiler under the cut)

Like Rauru, just, gave a secret stone to a Gerudo after their goddamn king killed his wife, really? Why? How? And why is a Gerudo siding against her King? Yes Ganondorf is evil but they were chill with it when he sent a bunch of Molduga to Hyrule.

Well ok, they probably were not all chill with it. The Sage of Lightning definitely doesn't like Ganondorf, so she probably didn’t like him before the whole bloody moon thing. But how did she convince Rauru to let her join them? She had to give him a hell of speech and to prove herself if she didn’t want to be killed on sight after the death of the queen. Raaah I wish we could have seen this.

Not wait Zelda! Zelda know the Gerudo are going to be good guys(? good gals?) in the futur, and she saw Urbosa as a mother figure! When she saw a cool Gerudo warrior she definitly was like "yeah she's trust worthy and also her descendant is going to adopt me so we should let her join". But i wish we saw more interaction with sages.

I also wish to know what the hell was the sage of Lightning doing before Ganondorf stole the stone. Because there is only 2 option:

She was part of Ganondorf's clan, probably a lower rank that didn't know much about the king but still swear to fight for him and became horrified when she saw what he would do with power (less likely but interesting)

She wasn't part of the clan and was already opposing Ganondorf as the King of the Gerudo. (more likely but less drama, although she could already have some rivalry with him and make thing harder in his political maneuver in Hyrule)

And were all the Gerudo suddenly abandoning their king after he finally became the ruler of Hyrule? Yes yes, monsters and malice are not the best politics, but all of them? Ganon probably didn’t care about his own race, he was probably only seeing them as a tool for his egomaniac quest of power. But some of them had to stick around because they were following him for so long. They were probably even aware of what he wanted to do, so I don’t think they would be surprised when he became evil.

Wait, but there is some follower of Ganon, the Yiga! But they are descendants of Sheika??? It would make more sense if they were descendants of Gerudo that followed Ganondorf, even after his ascension. It could also link (haha) to BotW quest when the Yiga clan targeted the Gerudo's artefact.

In conclusion: I need more story about the Gerudo

[juiceb-ox]

Linktober day 23: Element

Sage of lightning. Not much to say here. I wouldn’t say this is my best work but it was quite rushed. I’ll probably redraw this eventually.

Inspiration because I’m incapable of creativity: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/246361042110933470/

[roshellow29]

Felt like drawing lighting and fire

Plus water and Mipha side comparison cuz I felt like I was drawing them the same

[florest-of-art]

I made a HC that at a certain age, the gerudo chieftain will have a leonine chimera form. And this form comes on a random day, but the gerudo has to be completely adult (over twenty-one years old). And this form will be inconvenient at first, as it comes without prior warning, scaring the chief, who must learn to control her new form and learn to switch to her humanoid form.

This form was actually a pact that the first Sage of Lighting made with the deities above, so that the Demon King no longer has any gerudo ties and that he cannot control them in any way. But for this to happen, the gerudo leader must give her humanity in exchange, or at least, what makes her looks human.

[lumireis]

I imagine the rift between Ganondorf and the Sage of Lightning started after the attempted molduga attack

[ninebaalart]

Sage of Lightning

maybe it was because I cleared this temple first and hadn't heard the spiel three other times or maybe it's because her abs are constantly on screen but i like the sage of lightning a lot