there are many things I can definitely improve here
The style I got here is something I am starting to question now. The draped shoulder and stick-neck were interesting at first, but looking at this I notice how goofy it looks
It is also probably because I did not consider much of the proportions of the character until the end, but the style of them being so long makes it happen. Oh well
"Whenever the silent chalice of sand tilts of its own will, the buried wheels beneath all things begin again their turning."
— Sang Dalang
Sang Dalang (shortened to Dalang) is an elder evoker and the leader of an illager tribe where Hilda and Rag live, narratively mentioned as "Dalang Mansion". He is greatly respected by his people despite his very minimal presence. Everyone calls him "father" or at least "grandpa".
He also has similar epithets such as "The Puppeteer" or "The Puppet Master" and "The Mastermind", although they are only for narrative purposes as he does not have any epithet in lore.
Gender: Male
Species: Gray Villager / Ager (Evoker)
Symbol: ⏳
Age: Physically 85
Birthday: November 7
Height: 2.37 blocks / 237 cm
Width: 0.4 blocks [base], 0.7 blocks [with robe]
Status: Alive
Afiliation: Dalang Mansion [Tribe Leader]
Relations: Kara [Oldest son], Kiri [Oldest daughter], Dalang's vexes [Children], The Nameless One, Numerous creatures.
Main Items: Eternal Knife, Totem of Undying [activated], Wisp Music Box, Various types of puppets, Branch Cane.
Image Color: Dark Green [#1F5539]
Appearance
Dalang is an old man with long white beard and eyebrows, and darker skin. He got black sclera and emerald eyes because of his own doing. He is tall and skinny, but his robes made him look wide. He wears glasses with long, thin yellow braids to keep the glasses from falling to the ground, and a pair of emeralds on his collar.
He wears a textured green robe underneath a black coat with oversized sleeves and evoker's signature gold trim. There is a unique gold ornament at the bottom of his black robe that symbolizes the infinity symbol (∞). He also wrapped a special long scarf for the tribe leader with gold ornaments and a pair of illager symbol (✜). He wears a turban-like hat. He always carries an Eternal Knife hidden under his black robe and tucked into his right waist. He will not use the knife as a weapon, instead he uses a cane that he sometimes carries.
Personality
"Rather than making the world mine, I prefer to craft it, and then pass it on. Basically I am just an artist. There will definitely be people who oppose your takeover of the world. But if you craft it, there will definitely be people who are interested and willing to support you, or even worship you. Although I personally dislike that."
— Dalang (translated by Kara)
A dalang who always stays behind the screen, mostly dealing with overseeing, especially for the big-nosed humanoid species (Ager). He is an expressionless old man with few words, constantly using intermediaries to speak such as his puppets or vexes. He only speaks directly in ancient verses that are difficult for anyone in the current era to understand, leaving his vexes to translate his words as intermediaries.
Dalang is shown as a wise figure who saves many people from various situations and incidents, and then recruits them to become his tribe members, offering his residence as a safe and comfortable place. He also performing his artwork for them, such as puppet shows, mechanical shows, and art exhibitions that also showcase the work of his talented members. In the back screen, he is shown to be incredibly manipulative. He does all good and bad things to make sure no one knows about his existence other than his people, and protect his ominous things, all for his self-interest of knowledge. He is obsessed with a desire for create and control, as well as having extreme devious and patience in gaining knowledge of the events in the overworld for eras without having to involve himself. It also seems impossible for him to forget the other dimensions. That explains how he could know about everything that had happened outside, yet prefer not to interfere. He is clever enough to make himself innocent by sending his vexes, his people or his victims to acquire anything he needs, and making them scapegoats. However, he had no interest in using the knowledge he had acquired for dominate the world, but instead just adapted them into his artwork.
Regardless of how much knowledge he gained, he will not stop until he gained the knowledge to unseal his active totem embedded in his body. He had tried various ways to kill himself for centuries, but the protection of the totem always destroyed his will, instead he only got endless pain, making him constanly end in distraught but his patience also strengthened him. He even killed Hrafn's raven, in order to awaken a great grudge on Hrafn to kill him. Dalang believed Hrafn to be the remaining spirit of the warriors who explained his strength, and believed that Hrafn's grudge on him was still not enough, until he continued to cultivate more anger, hatred and grudge on Hrafn in silence.
While he always appears expressionless, he will become emotional when mentioning family, especially when hearing someone loves him as a father. He considers all members of his tribe to be part of his family, though his vexes are more than that. He will not be hostile towards all the villagers since he is still part of them. That is how he allowed to Rag's rebellion to it.
Background
"The Illagers scoff at my ancient tales, calling them dust of forgotten tongues... Yet with unshaken breath, they bow to the unseen thrones.... Is not Foresight the oldest tale shrouded in silence?"
— Dalang
Sang Dalang has lived since Legends era, even when the Ager species were still not separated. It is possible that he was the one who adapted the events in Legends era into a tale book that is famous among the villagers.
He has become a person who is very curious about how the world works. As a gray villager who joined the illager subspecies, Dalang was one of the pioneers of magic that later formed the evoker group as the first Ager sorcerer. All evokers worked very isolated, no information could be known to anyone other than them. In an experiment by the magic pioneers, he inserting the Totem of Undying into his body in order to find the true meaning of the artifact, all to satisfy his curiosity. It was successful and gave him infinite protection from injuries and age, but unfortunately it affected his physical and mental.
In the current era, he is technically an undead who still questions his past decisions. He looks like a weak old man because the results of the experiment also gave him pain even though he has tried to erase it with magic. He always relies on Kara & Kiri who replaced his figure as the tribe leader. The only most obvious sign of his presence comes from the pipe organ melodies around his room.
Abilities
Expert Craftmanship: He is shown to be talented in various forms of craftsmanship such as making puppets that resemble his people or making a wisp music box. His room is filled with his crafts. He is able to make leather puppets quickly.
Wisdom: Despite having lived for centuries, he is still able to remember things and knowledge he has acquired, including how he remembers his victims who he will adapt into puppets, as well as their voices.
Music: The sounds of a pipe organ is often heard from his room as sign of his presence, indicating that he is very skilled at playing the organ, and perhaps other instruments as well because he also arranges melodies for the wisp music box.
Magic Abilities
Infinite Protection: Because of something he did in the past, His Totem of Undying remains active in his body, granting him limitless protection and would not die from age and injuries. Once activated, the totem receives rapid repairs from his body which has returned to the greatest state, allowing it to reactivate in a very short time.
Dalang's Vexes: Special vex summoned by Dalang with the characteristic of long eyebrows resembling wings and wider head like the guardian vexes. It is the same magic as the evokers in general, but with some adjustments to himself, such as using a music box with 3 wisp figures that is active to calm them down. They return to being aggressive if the music is turned off. The music box is technically a vex spawner which explains why they can stay alive. He is able to summon up to a hundred vex without any problem, but finds it difficult to control them all, which leads him to prioritize 30 vex to watch over his tribe, with the help of the music box. All vexes have their own souls and personalities, but the way they talk and act seems like controlled puppets. If Dalang takes over of them, their voices will be deeper with the same eye color as him. Kara and Kiri are directly bound to Dalang rather than the music box, which makes them more free, and they're the ones who replace his figure.
Kara and Kiri are his living creations so far, his other vexes are modifications (semi-creations), and the puppets are his inanimate creations.
'Wisp' Music Box (Vex Spawner) - sketch/concept
Evocation Fangs: Special magic for evokers as direct attack. He is able to make his fangs clamp and continue biting his target if necessary.
Replication: The true concept of his unique magic is imitation and manipulation, originally intended to control inanimate puppets. He duplicates his target's soul, stores it in his eternal knife, and then transfers it to an inanimate object as a vessel. He basically only controls the imitation of his target, but it also affects their true form, making him as really controlling their mind. The more similar and lighter the inanimate object is to his victim's form, the easier it is for him to control them, which explains why he always uses leather puppets.
Mind Manipulation: He can unknowingly control living beings by touching them directly, and can create hallucinations in his victims' minds from a dream. Dalang managed to silence all his victims from revealing him, which he did right after his magic worked. That explains how the entire illager society never knew about him. However, it's sometimes possible to escape his control if he and his victim come face to face, which explains why he barely appears. This also prevents anyone from knowing the mastermind behind any abnormal behavior his victims exhibit.
Inanimate objects: It's possible that he could use similar magic on the imitation objects he created and give them the "abilities" of the original objects. For example he create a replica of a knife (knife puppet) and then gives it the cutting ability of a real knife. This is only possible if he knows and has seen, touched or use the real object directly. His cane is an evidence to his ability. Despite being just wood, it can slash and stab like a sword.
Voice Mimic: Mimicking the sounds of living and inanimate objects he has seen and heard. Although he was already quite adept at mimicking voices, the magic perfected his ability, such as how he could voice several puppets simultaneously.
His leather puppet to control someone.
Dalang Mansion
His woodland mansion was built a very long time ago and remains maintained, anyone can find his mansion. Nearly half of his mansion is occupied by various art spaces, including a theater, a music room, and a museum of artwork by members, which is updated every three weeks. His private quarters; from the first to third floors, house a massive pipe organ and his own art room, which is centered underground.
Although he often plays the organ, its sound can only be heard by those inside the mansion. He could arrange for someone to not be able to hear his organ noises for any reason if he had control over them.
He frees his entire family (tribe members) to do whatever they want, provided that the secrets between them and their tribe leader is kept from the outside world.
The concept of his mansion with 'museums' inside comes from in-game woodland mansion which mostly contains replica objects, it also depicts him who has collected a lot of knowledge from the world that he has visited.
Known Members:
Kara & Kiri (Co-leaders, Majordomo)
Dalang's vexes (Staff)
Hilda (Physician)
Werner
Fredward
Rag
Etymology
I prefer the name 'Sang Dalang' because it perfectly fits his character. Translated as "The Puppeteer", it is based on the traditional puppeteer in Javanese culture (dhalang (ꦝꦭꦁ)).
The term Dalang is an acronym for 'ngudhal piwulang', meaning "dismantle, explain and spread teachings or knowledge" which describes how his obsession with knowledge and passing it on to various media. However, as time went by, the term became known to refer to just a puppeter or mastermind.
This character's concept has been established as a puppeteer (both literally and metaphorically), but I felt that "string puppeteer" was too generic, I tried to find alternatives. The idea of "dalang" came later, a wise old man figure is perfect for a dalang in wayang performances.
His black robe represents a beskap, and his hat is based on a blangkon. Both are typically worn by a dalang, which is part of traditional Javanese attire.
Old culture says that keris is important for wayang and its dalang which related to spiritual things, that is the reason Dalang always carries an Eternal Knife which resembles keris. In Minecraft Dungeons, the knife can be found in the Desert Temple where evokers sometimes spawn.
Relationship
Kara and Kiri - His living creations, they are both "special" vexes.
Dalang's Vexes - His vexes came from his past biological descendants, which explains his boundless love for them. He sometimes calls them with their real names, and explains the cause of their death such as from accidents, illness or age.
Statistics
Speed 7/10 B
Combat 4.5/10 D
Wits 11/10 S
Stamina ?/10
Cooperativeness 7/10 B
Spell 10/10 A
Trivia
Dalang's image music will use pipe organ accompanied by music box, gamelan, kepyak and some mechanical noises that move the puppets. It will emphasize the ancient, forgotten, forebonding and spiritual impression, which are partly combined with the arrangement of Evoker's music. It will be titled "Imagination in the Shadow" reffering to wayang.
His birthday, November 7 coincides with National Wayang Day. Although there are many Javanese references in him, I prefer to consider them as fiction in his lore.
This character uses references from owls. It can be the snowy owl (representing his past self), and the great horned owl (representing his current self). His eyebrow shape is based on the owl's plumicorns.
His stoic and silent personality yet frightening underneath depicts how great owls are at hunting in silence. The earliest concept for this character was to create a bad relationship with the ravens (which later focused on Hrafn), depicting owls and ravens as mortal enemies in nature.
He was originally intended to have yellow eyes and black sclera which is the opposite color of the owl's eyes, but the idea was scrapped to balance with his lore and design.
Dalang's name is unknown (more precisely has been forgotten). His name contains "wood" or "forest" which foretells the place he currently lives.
His glasses do not serve any purpose for his vision, he only wears it to remind the past.
Besides the symbolic references that fit his appearance, I thought the 'insane in silence' old man was more appealing.
Rag calls him 'old geezer', or 'old man' and 'gramps' in very polite way.
Thank you for reading till the end :)
Here are some artworks of him, most are his old design and concept (will update em later)
theartofmadeline
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
yousharknotpass
