#scar ring

[myfckingnameisnuwanda]

The New Knife Game (Klance)

"There is an old tradition, a game we all can play You start by getting liquored up and sharpening your blade You take a shot of whiskey, you grab your knife and pray And spread apart your fingers, and this is what you say"

Keith turns around on a corner, half listening to Lance’s voice in the distance.

"'Oh, I have all my fingers, the knife goes chop, chop, chop If I miss the spaces in between, my fingers will come off And if I hit my fingers, the blood will soon come out But all the same, I play this game 'cause that's what it's all about'"

A rather creepy song, if you asked Keith. He wasn't sure, but he thought he had heard it somewhere before.

"No, you can't use a pencil, you cannot use a pen The only way is with a knife when danger is your friend And some may call it stupid, some may call it dumb But all the same, we play this game because it's so damn fun"

What even was that incessant tactactac sound?

"Oh, I have all my fingers, the knife goes chop, chop, chop If I miss the spaces in between, my fingers will come off And if I hit my fingers, the blood will soon come out But all the same, I play this game 'cause that's what it's all about"

There was Lance, in the sort-of-living-room they used at the Castle. He was doing something in the common table, but Keith couldn't see very well what it was...

"Oh, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, I'm picking up the speed And if I hit my fingers, then my hand will start to bleed"

Was that a fUCking knIFe?!

—

Keith screamed his lungs out, and now Lance has a scar all around the base of his ring finger.

[nhyhu]

smile

[skywerse]

HANDS!!!!!

[loquaciousquark]

Cazador's Ritual Runes, Translated

Inner: AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR [sic] Middle: WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE Outer: WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD [sic]

Mephistopheles can't spell for beans.

(Detailed analysis & conjecture regarding this text, the Rite of Profane Ascension, & Astarion's translated scars under the cut.)

The second ring was the easiest, as the characters are very similar to Latin letters and clearly read out "WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE." Characters were now known for C, E, F, H, I, L, O, R, T, and W. It wasn't clear yet if there were cases.

I was struggling with the first ring, though after decoding the second, I could get a likely "_M_LIF_ + _IM + _LOW + EM_OWR". Guessing the character for P, Y, and A based on context gave me "AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR", but I had doubts over the first characters for words two and three. I suspected they would be HIM and FLOW, but the H and F characters didn't match the H from the second ring's "THE" or the F from "AMPLIFY". Also, "empower" was misspelled, which made me pause.

Abandoning those for a moment, the third ring mapped well onto "WE _ATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE _OWER OF _LO_". Ruling out known letters which were not present, I could guess "WE GATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE POWER OF _LO_", but again the P from "POWER" was not the same as the P from "AMPLIFY" in the inner ring. However, it was very, very similar, and nothing else fit, so I committed, now suspecting there were capital versions of some letters included in the text.

At this point I went digging for resources. I found a copy of an Infernal alphabet on the Forgotten Realms wiki, and while it looks like the typeface Larian used is a bespoke creation for the game rather than a 1:1 copy of this alphabet, the letters for lowercase G, N, K, B, and D were nearly identical. Y (from AMPLIFY) also matched perfectly, confirming that earlier guess. This gave a clear "WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD."

This resulted in: AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD

Looking at the wiki for capital letters, the only ones I could find which might reasonably fit the _IM missing character (assuming the Larian alphabet was based off this wiki typography) were A, B, H, O, T, V, and Y. Of those choices, only AIM, HIM, TIM, and VIM were words, and as cheesy as Cazador is, I couldn't imagine him saying AMPLIFY TIM FLOW EMPOWR. Given the alternatives, HIM was the only choice which made sense.

I went through the same process for _LOW, but this character seems unmatchable to me. By far it looks the most like the E from the Infernal alphabet, with maybe a capital Y being a distant second. However, ELOW and YLOW are certainly not words, and absent all other comparatives, the character in question does resemble a fancy F. Barring other languages, FLOW with a capital or unique F fits best.

AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD

I did double-check the texts available in Cazador's mansion just to make sure this hadn't been translated elsewhere (after I'd done all the work, of course), and the only written text of relevance is from the Black Mass scroll you find near Vellioth's skull. It reads:

The Rite of Profane Ascension Oh, piteous dead! Oh, ravenous dead! Immortality is your gift, but darkness is your prison and hunger its gaoler. The Rite of Profane Ascension will release you. Walk in the sun. Suffer not from hunger. Grow your power beyond anything you imagined. A pact has been made with the Lord of Hellfire. Deliver unto him seven thousand souls, each bearing an Infernal mark, and you shall be free of your chains. You shall know true power. Deliver the souls. Speak the words. Ecce dominus, Has animas offero in sacrificio, Nunc volo potestatem quam pollicitus es mihi.

The Latin translates (as best I can tell with my incredibly weak Latin) to:

Behold [the] Lord, I offer these souls in sacrifice, I want the power thou hast promised me.

Which is interesting, but not clearly mapped to the Infernal above. Then I started wondering what relationship Astarion's scars have with all this, but thankfully, someone else has done the work here!

Astarion's scars have been transcribed and translated in a wonderfully detailed Reddit post by northpaw_s in 2020, but the salient points are that they appear to be in a mishmash of mangled Latin and Romance languages ("Infernal") and read:

Hoyc inferiu non iurare per igneu Naec virba loquor Eoai mundo muoat

Which appears to roughly translate to:

This soul swears no oath by fire Nor words does he speak In the realm of death

This makes sense if it's a fragment of a contract. I suspect the other spawn's scars are all identical to Astarion's for game mechanics/development reasons, but it'd be wild if they did have minor differences to complete the rest of the phrases! I know the scars don't show on their backs they way they do on Astarion's outside of the moment of the ritual, but it really does make me wonder if there's a complete text of the poem in some writer's documentation somewhere.

Anyway, what did you do with your Thursday night?

[laddertek]

etho the tango girl TM

Etho: You shoulda seen Tango this one day, when we were tryna figure out the statistics math for voting and stuff. Oh my goodness. Tango...Tango knows some math. Bdubs: Really? Etho: Yes. Tango: [giggles] What are you talking about? Etho: Remember when we were tryna work out what's fair voting and all that? And you went into all this probability stuff. How there's actually no such thing as a fair vote, and everything's biased. Tango: Yeah. [laughs] I kinda remember that. Etho: Oh, it was...And he proved it! And I was like, wow... Tango: [giggles]

[jeena-says-hi]

This came to me in a vision

[puppyeared]

my brothers been playing elden ring recently and he let me draw his character ^_^

[sysig]

Puts the “plates” in “Fellplates” (Patreon)

[fantasykiri5]

Cashing in a bribe (and good luck!) — can i get a Doc mayhaps?

I think I’ve finally settled on a Doc design. Also I’ve decided the new skin has a crop top actually because I said so

(Vote proof screenshot under the cut, thanks for sending it in a second ask lmao!)

[malignedaffairs]

The anchor ring that houses the base

[nerdpoe]

Rok Soo, his entire life, never gained a single scar no matter how serious the injury was.

He didn't realize that all of his scars were going to what was going to be his future body until he woke up as Cale Henituse.

[kayawolfhorse]

Hello Mr. GoodTimes! What’s up with this

[somewhatsentientspellbook]

if nydas had survived, do you think he would've followed zerxus like fy'ra rai followed opal?

[veone]

idea is how he looks sometimes from the pov of don.

thanks @skaterboisims i want to do more with theses soon!

[stiffyck]

i think scar deserves some horns

[tsunosagun]

thinking about if plants had rings like trees

thinking about rings as a promise, a shackle, a cycle