Gorm the Witchfinder

OC RP blog for Gorm the Witchfinder. A study in faith, fervor, and fixing things. Written by Chez. Follows back from through-fire-and-flame.

[gormlessthing]

a roleplay blog for Gorm the Witchfinder, a repentant former witch hunter and ongoing grump prayed for by Chez (37, he/him.) an exploration in being faithful without being harmful, and in saving people, not souls. banner by @henosiis using art from trench crusade by mike franchina.

biography here.

follows back from @through-fire-and-flame. rules listed in that pinned post apply fully here as well.

this blog's primary verse is marked with the #gormless. tag, which ecompasses stories either taking place in Gorm's home setting, or when Gorm steps into fantasy verses with other characters. other tags will be added to this pinned post as they are decided upon.

Gorm is considered pan- and demisexual, and is monogamous by default.

[squeakadeeks]

i hope i never get described as gormless. i couldn't ever fathom being without my gorm

[gormlessthing]

"Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way."

--Terry Pratchett, "Jingo"

[gormlessthing]

the light shines and shimmers for the pious, the pure the gleam and the glimmer the soft and the sure--

--a witchfinder prayer for healing

[lumenfall]

Maria’s smile lingered. Warmed, perhaps, by the rare alignment of his understanding. He was not wrong – permission had always been a fiction she wore only when it suited her. At his latter remark, her brow arched just so, a flicker of something almost playful glinting beneath the pale calm of her expression.

“Then I should hope you choose your audience with care,” she replied, the softness of her accented tone belied by the faint, teasing lilt beneath it. Her gaze held his, steady and bright as moonlight. “You need not fear, I keep my confidences well, and you may find I am inclined to indulge you.”

[gormlessthing]

"Oh, aye?" the witchfinder grins. There's a challenge in his gaze, something that seems prompted by the teasing gleam in hers. He doesn't see that gleam often enough - something unguarded and happy, and he finds that even more valuable than the heat they're purposely stoking between them. She doesn't smile often, but that just makes each occasion more precious still, he muses.

"Well - since no gods are listening, sweet sword, what I hope you'll indulge is an evening in. My quarters, your presence, and a long and very careful consideration of one another's finer qualities."

[gormlessthing]

"...the gods might forbid a woman from being morbid, whimsical, and unsettling, but I rightly don't," Gorm muses.

[lumenfall]

Morbid, whimsical, unsettling – she had been all three, at one time or another. Her gaze slid sidelong to him, colourless and appraising, the quiet curl of her amusement deepening into something almost indulgent.

“How generous of you,” she murmured, voice soft with a dry, lilting humour. “And what, I wonder, would you permit of me next?”

[gormlessthing]

"My dear and darling colleague, I fret for the man who assumes he could permit you to do anything - implying, thus, that there were permissions you might be denied," the older man chuckles, a grin cracking across his face. "Now, as for what I might ask you to do, well - that may be something not fit for gods' ears 't all, really."

[gormlessthing]

"...the gods might forbid a woman from being morbid, whimsical, and unsettling, but I rightly don't," Gorm muses.

[nixscriptum]

[gormlessthing]

[from x]

Heat asserts itself into coherence, and so war becomes peace, such as it is: his shoulders settle as that fury continues bleeding away into - had he not long cauterized his own faith through questions and concerns and a deeply felt self-loathing - what would have been nascent horror. It can't settle into that shape, it finds, and so it carries right onto into the sort of brittle calm that sets his shivering jaw to still. It takes him a full moment of careful, steady breathing to resemble a person again. It takes him a moment more to speak, as though he had to process and refine the raw material into a thought.

"You risked your life for us, and they thought to pay their penance in blood," he mutters, the sound serrated, as though poured past blades in his throat, the dry and jagged sediment of enraged shouting loosed during the fight. "They didn't listen."

The two men - he wouldn't let himself think of their names, not now, not as the profane and bloodied things they'd become - were spitfires - had been since they'd come under Gorm's aged wing, proverbially speaking. They'd been full of faith and fervor that the elder man had long allowed to congeal into more practical prayer and application. Now all that fervor gleamed bright and wet in the muted Lordran sun, and he feels the bile rise for a moment before he gets ahold of himself.

Something in him remains grateful he still has the capacity to be disgusted with himself.

"They'll wake up hollow somewhere," he mutters. "Last fire was a way back - down in the basin. All they had to do was stop."

He turns the one good blue eye on the other.

"I am sorry it came to this," he manages. "I ask you let me walk with you a bit further, to the next fire in the shrine. I do not relish what my mind will do to me when I am next...alone."

[rabbitinthemoon-blog]

“By night, beloved, tie your heart to mine and let them both in dreams defeat the darkness.”

— Pablo Neruda

[gormlessthing]

Every day when I speak to the moon Pale as a ghost in the afternoon Tragedy has a hold of my mind But I can see the light between the lines And I said, "You've got to listen, I'm a songbird with a brand-new track You underestimate" I'll give you something to believe in Burn up a basement full of demons Realize you're a slave to your mind, break free Now give me something to believe in

--"Something To Believe In," Young the Giant

[feral-ballad]

Aria Aber, from Hard Damage; “Stone”

[gormlessthing]

I'll greet the morning open-eyed, Oh, God willing and the creek don't rise! I'll count my blessings, all apprised, Oh, God willing and the creek don't rise! But oh, the water's getting deep And this hill seems mighty steep Bless my hands but damn my eyes, Oh, God willing and the creek don't rise! I prayed for a death defied, Oh, God willing and the creek don't rise! He promised me a silent sky, Oh, God willing and the creek don't rise! But oh, the water's coming fast And I don't think this boat will last, Bless my hands but damn my eyes, Oh, God willing and the creek don't rise! Drown me so my soul's baptized, Oh, God willing, but the creek will rise! Count your blessings, count my lies! Oh, God willing, but the creek will rise! And oh, the water's sweeping in, Don't think you'll see me again, Bless my hands but damn my eyes, Oh, God willing, but the creek will rise!

[roleplayiing-memes]

Send ✞ to find my muse praying at an altar, in an empty church.

Send ✟ to switch the roles!

[horrificmemes]

Send me 🔪 to put a knife to my muse’s throat and see how they react.

[vernades]

Ideal tol and smol dynamic: Smol perches on tol’s shoulder as a vantage point—

[gormlessthing]

Gorm out here adopting everyone. Just: right, well, your dad sucks. I'm your dad now.