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cursedbeasts · 2 months ago

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Zakuulan seasons, zodiac cycle, and Chosen of the Gods

My trippy fucking Zakuul zodiac thing.

Credits:

Zakuul crest in the center was made \ extracted \ drawn by @impe-comic

SWTOR fonts were found online, I sadly don’t have the places anymore, but they are called “customtor” for the fancy title font, and “OldRepublic” and “Eurofont” for the text. I also used a Zakuul runes font that I made.

Notes:

I don’t know how long the solar year is on Zakuul, so I just kinda divided it into six parts of unknown duration that correspond to seasons.

Winter is basically Zakuul going into the shadow of another planet or moon or both, blotting or partially blotting out the sun.

Disclaimer: I made this all up. It’s not confirmed nor denied in swtor lore.

Also, tag yourself, I’m Nahut’s Shadow, lol

[Scyva’s Mercy]

Scyva’s Mercy, also known as Scyva’s Tears, marks the beginning of spring and the year cycle as Zakuul leaves the shadow and starts receiving sunlight, leading to warmer weather, thawing of snow if it has been present, and the return of foliage and plants. It is said that people born in this time are protective and caring of others, be it their children, friends, loved ones, or people under their command. Force Sensitives born under this sign may become Chosen of Scyva, manifesting healing powers and in some cases, ethereal wings.

[Aivela’s Bloom]

Aivela’s Bloom follows Scyva’s tears and is marked by warm pleasant weather and the blooming of plants (and allergies). Think your late spring - early summer. A festival dedicated to the goddess is held during this season, titled the Feast of Passion. It celebrates love and beauty, and weddings are often held during the time. According to belief, people born under Aivela’s sign are passionate, often outgoing, and driven, but can also be vain. They can be the guiding light to others, or they can be blinding and confusing. Force Sensitives born under the sign can become Chosen of Aivela, basically granting them a boost in charisma and drive. Twins born during Aivela's Bloom and Esne's Hunger have a chance to have the signs of both goddesses.

[Tyth’s Flames]

The hottest part of the year, and the time when droughts and forest fires can happen. (it’s hot and everyone is sweaty and pissed) Like those born under Aivela’s sign, people of Tyth can be passionate and determined. However, they are prone to anger issues. Force Sensitives born under Tyth’s patronage can become Chosen of Tyth, and are born warriors, usually becoming Knights of Zakuul, although Scion Chosen exist as well. On the darker side they are prone to violence and recklessness.

[Izax’s Harvest]

Izax’s Harvest is the beginning of fall and the time when the crops would be gathered in the old times and in the agricultural parts of Zakuul. Zakuul starts entering the shadow of the other planet \ moon and weather gets colder. Think early-to-mid autumn. There’s a Harvest festival held during Izax’s harvest, that used to be dedicated to thanking Izax for a bountiful harvest. The festival was expanded to a more general theme of gratitude and reflection later on. People born in this season are said to have a commanding presence and a level head, but on the flip side they can be overpowering and stubborn. Force Sensitives born under this sign have a chance to become Chosen of Izax. Born leaders, with potential to fall into tyrannical tendencies. It is said Valkorion is a chosen of Izax. Although some argue he is a chosen of Zildrog.

[Nahut’s Shadow]

Nahut’s Shadow starts when Zakuul enter the shadow of the other planet and\or moon. It is marked by weather getting progressively colder, plants withering or going into hibernation, and overall gloom. Nahut’s Shadow ends at the darkest day of the year, marked with a feast dedicated to honoring the dead. People born under Nahut’s Shadow are often said to be secretive and brooding, and often rebel against their surroundings. They take no shit but can do a lot of harm, to themselves and to those around them. Force Sensitives born under Nahut’s Shadow can become Chosen of Nahut. However, Chosen of Nahut are rare and there is a high mortality rate among them as Nahut’s blessing is more akin to a lycanthropy curse. Those who survive long enough slowly change into sentient beasts, receive visions of the future when interacting with blood, but those visions are often violent and horrifying, corroding the Chosen’s mind. If the CHosen survives with their mind intact, they are granted the strength and senses of the beast, as well as the ability to hide in the shadows. Usually the surviving Chosen are taken in by the Scions of Zakuul, but there hasn’t been a Chosen of Nahut in over a century. It is believed that the founder of the Scion order was a Chosen of Nahut.

[Esne’s Hunger]

The coldest and part of the year. In the past it was often marked with famines and fighting for resources among Zakuul tribes. People born during this time can be cunning, resourceful, and ambitious, but jealousy is their downfall. Force Sensitives born under the sign can become Chosen of Esne. Theirs is the power of speech and manipulation, and they are often at the center of trouble as envy gnaws at them from the inside. Twins born during Aivela's Bloom and Esne's Hunger have a chance to have the signs of both goddesses.

[Chosen of Zildrog]

There’s a constant debate in the Zakuulan community whether or not Chosen of Zildrog exist, and people argue if Valkorion is a Chosen of Izax or Zildrog. If they exist, they are extremely rare, and are not confirmed to exist. Basically Zildrog’s sign is to Zakuulan astrology as 13th Sign (serpent bearer) is to Earth Astrology lol.

#swtor #swtor worldbuilding #swtor headcanon #zakuul #c: worldbuilding #verse: bestia's wrath #verse: back at it again

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tiredassmage · 17 days ago

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⛓️ for tyr, 🍻 for alucren, and 🧨 for enok

(you can answer these for any version of the above guys, or even multiple versions if you have the motivation to /lh)

[ a collection of symbols & headcanon asks ]

Well, I thought I was gonna maybe have a straight line of swtor editions for this one, but I think Tyr's actually makes better sense for his xiv rendition.

[ ⛓️ ]ㅤ.ㅤ what does guilt feel like to them ?

In a few words? Tyr too often comes to wear his guilt like shame.

Sometimes it falls upon him like the blinding morning sun, making him duck his head and cover his eyes for want of relief. It's something almost heavy, but indescribable in his chest. It turns to lead in his veins, weighing down his limbs, making each step feel heavier and harder than the last.

He can't always place it. Much of what chases him into guilt are things he knows are, by logic, beyond his control. They're things he would not hold against another - one can hardly control where they're born, after all. But plenty of them are scabs he's had picked at by others all the same.

It drives him into himself. Against the demands of duty, he can't let any of that shake him, right? He can't give attention to the way the mortar crumbles under the weight, how cracks are setting in to the wall of resolve. If it's not their fault.., is it his? If not directly, then for showing weakness long enough for them to doubt?

A lot of this really digs its claws in during Stormblood, and a lot of it is Tyr trying to grapple with the bloody legacy of Garlemald - inescapably his, and also... not. He's marked as one of theirs, but what remained of his kin and elders of Lapis Manalis fled the northern cold while he was so young he has the barest memories of the caverns in which they would have one day trained him.

So, when every time he turns around, an introduction requires a thorough explanation, and no log of historic exemplary deeds will suffice for the here and now..? Was it enough? Is it enough? Will it ever be enough? Does he even have a right to care if it will be?

What that cost him in the long-run is added stress and strain on him and the ones he loves that do want to stand beside him - people like Astor and Yroh'a (@dawntread) that aren't asking him to bear that weight alone, and are fighting against the idea sinking in like venom to Tyr's veins that he knows it shouldn't hurt like this, there's an explanation for these things, so he'll tuck it back behind his teeth until he can swallow the bile and the feeling, because no one else deserves to bear that rotting feeling. So he tells himself, at least.

And ultimately? It clouds his judgement on the First. It makes him reach beyond his means in an attempt to lesson the load on his fellow Scions and adventuring companions, and instead he ends up probably in more trouble than he was already with the lot of them, given the state of the world. That's what drives him to attempt to call on his very limited training in the ancestral arts of the Reapers, and instead get himself saddled with a sineater companion he tries to make the most of in the hunt for the Lightwardens in Shadowbringers. Ultimately, what all that Light corruption compounded costs him is sight in his right eye.

And some would say this is why we need to talk about our feelings. /lh. Thankfully for Tyr, Yroh'a and Astor are about as stubborn as him, and can stick with him through the long process of learning the hard way about keeping too much knotted up in his chest, and he can finally start on working some of that out in their later adventures on the other side of their challenges on the First.

[ 🍻 ]ㅤ.ㅤ what kind of drunk are they ?

Admittedly, drinking isn't Alucren's vice of choice - and a lot of how she is while drunk is largely dependent on her reason for drinking.

As a general indulgence, it's something she's more likely to do socially; it was a common staple of the galas and parties her family used to often host or attend in years past on Dromund Kaas. A glass or two or three can be nursed easily while gossiping away the hours with the Empire's elite. It loosened even his tongue a little, though I'm sure it would surprise none to say that it just made her more prideful and showboaty about things.

And even at her lowest in the five years Taizi (@shadowsofdread) is missing in carbonite in timelines where we put Taizi up for commander, I'd say Alucren's preferred vice for numbing the grief of existence was more smoking than drinking, though he certainly performed plenty more of both than would be considered his normal. That and primarily sex, admittedly - with anybody that had a passing interest, and with very little of her usual strong boundaries. Several drinks, a few lazy cigarettes, and an unfamiliar partner that could easily be said to look ready to devour him were all easier things to pass the miserable rains and hollowed existence than staring into the mirror with knuckles white around the refresher sink and eyes aching from... Well.

The point was to not think about it. And certainly not to talk about it. On his slightly better days, enough of himself was present to complain when he could've been drinking some desert piss for all the good it tasted - though while such was more than enough to stop her or at least make her change her choice of beverage at her "best," before loss took over, such things never stopped her during those five years.

Understandably then, it's... not a vice she often indulges in after. It's wrapped up in memories she'd much rather forget - both for the haunting pain in his chest, and for the... amount of himself he gave up in longing to escape the worst of his feelings. She's really not keen to experience any part of that again.

Smoking on the other hand? Well, those were substances she was usually in a much better, comparatively at least, state of mind about consuming. That's something she mostly thought she did for herself, for fun - most of the times, at least. Though I think even that he tends to indulge in less afterward. Stepping into the Alliance and beyond with Taizi back at her side was an awakening in more ways than one, and it wasn't always a pretty one. A lot of days it looked like the galaxy's worst hangovers got together and threw a party, and then had their own hangover from that. She owes Taizi better than that.

And more importantly? She slowly begins to learn - and let sink in - that she owes herself better than that. And that's a life she'd like to be properly present for.

[ 🧨 ]ㅤ.ㅤ what’s the quickest way to set them off, even if they hide it well ?

Hrrrmmmm. Would you believe this was the one that gave me the most trouble? xD Not necessarily because there aren't a few times I could think of, but... synthesizing the inciting incident and... also trying to figure how that's consistent across the few versions of him that exist.

As a short rundown for those at home not in our dms /lh, Enok has a version in FFXIV (pictured above), is my Mourn Watcher in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and also has a SWTOR edition running around in our heads way more than I've posted about alkdnf;ladsfn.

In general terms, he's an old soldier, and has a rather limiting tendency to take on blame that isn't necessarily his alone to bear. But bear it he will, because despite his attempts to appear otherwise, he unfortunately can't stop giving a shit about the younger people around him that still have nice things in-tact like their hopes and dreams and ideals.

And it's not that he's dispassionate about any of these things himself. He's just found himself often enough on the end of getting corralled into acceptance and keeping his head down and falling in line. And he figures he can take that, if the world keeps spinning 'round like it ought to.

For that acceptance, he doesn't look to have an outright problem with authority. But authority has often left him out in the cold, so to speak, and he's had to make do with himself and whatever luck the universe deigned to spare at the moment. He'll even take having a bad reputation for it, if that's what helps people sleep at night.

But his temper gets shorter when that same authority tries to pin blame for shit he's taken on himself. Because he's done that shitty song and dance and let it beat a good amount of defiance out of him, and sometimes, that's enough to light a fire in him again that says he'll be damned if he's gonna just stand by quietly and watch it happen to someone else.

My best example of this is probably from his SWTOR timeline; Enok there serves as part of recon forces in the early attempts to resettle Taris. Him and the several units he leads in the course of those efforts were some of the earliest boots on the ground, before proper bases and safe zones were even established.

And, unfortunately, Enok is a man who had a talent for surviving, despite the doomed odds and hells of that planet. He's burned and buried more young soldiers than he'd like to keep count of at this point. And that kind of cost for 'success' both wears on a man, and comes with a pretty twisted reputation.

A few times it's been enough for him to try telling Command and their esteemed governor exactly what he thought of her "victory for Republic morale." That it was getting a lot of good young men killed and little else, was what.

It did not, however, expedite his retirement. Instead, the ultimatum was fall in line, do the job, or have what little power he had in directly running with units stripped to be left sitting in quarantine. And possibly official repercussions for that "attitude." The discussion got... heated. And involved raised voices. Enok's not... entirely above throwing a fist about poor authority, even if his 'better judgement' has saved him from letting it fly... most times.

No good choices, by his count, but there was only really one feasible one left out of that. So, he took his discontentment and ground out an understanding through his clenched teeth and got on with it. Even though it forced him to put bolts through a few more of his own men.

He never will manage to forget how the stories about his reputation change in the last moments - where it's a choice between the twisted certainty of rakghouls or a quick certainty at the end of a blaster. That should be enough to outrage anyone with even a bit of a heart left. For better or worse, it'd seem Enok managed to survive with that in-tact enough, too.

#answered #ffxiv ocs #swtor ocs #vs: ouroboros | xiv!tyr #ch: alucren #oouurrermmm.. enok how do i tag the several versions of u in here technically lmao #ch: a vagabond with a bottle / short a light | enok strand #ch: enok fletcher #to a slightly lesser extent his da version as well but. still part of it #the specifics of that verse are still not quite solidified in my mind #but it's a fairly important beat to his characterization so it's in there somewhere i'm sure

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