Optical-Assault

Images that make you feel like you’ve been punched in the brain.

[wearepaladin]

I've seen you talk about "sword logic" in the past. What does that mean?

It’s the name of the philosophy and religion of a being called The Darkness and its largest sect of followers, a race called the Hive in the world of Destiny. The Darkness, whatever it is, ultimately believes that it’s perfectly logical to kill everything else in the universe until only one form of life, you, or The Darkness since it really only expects that it shall be all that’s left after killing everyone, exist. Because by doing so you will have proven that only you have the right to exist because no one could kill you.

This is how the Darkness imposes its perception of life on the whole of the universe. If something manages to kill it, then it proved it was the true foe and according the Sword Logic, will go on to kill everything else until the last life form remains, which along with being the only true form of life worthy of existence, will be perfected by its eons of mass murder.

Of course, the Sword Logic proves faulty in numerous ways, but ultimately was proven utterly wrong when the Guardians of Destiny slew Oryx, The Taken King, the purest representative of the Darkness and its teachings yet encountered in the Destiny Universe, a god king responsible for millennia of genocide, all for the sake of the Sword Logic.

Oryx: Defeated by Piotr Jabłoński

And yet, the guardians walked away after the great evil was slain. According to the believers of the Sword Logic, this is an impossibility. Someone should take up the mantle of the Taken King, the ones who slew him inevitably ascend and continue the cycle of ritual genocide and murder.

But they walked away. They would have other foes to fight, other threats to put down, but they did not play the game the Darkness expected, and thus is the Sword Logic revealed as a lie.

[wearepaladin]

Any tips for writing a 'paladin' mindset character in a modern Lovecraftian-ish horror setting? You can't ever truly win, you can only delay the inevitable and hopefully make it out alive with your sanity intact.

You can’t ever truly win, you can only delay the inevitable and hopefully make it out alive with your sanity intact. 

Get rid of that entire mindset to start with. Even if it’s true, a good paladin’s not one to wallow in existential despair while people need their help. Even if you’ve seen every madness inducing sight of the Old Ones, no matter their power, they don’t have the right to make you give up, to crush you out of either cruelty or apathy. Fight them, because even in a world where you can’t win, you cannot let them defeat you either.

 Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Fight and fight, and fight. Defy the old ones and their twisted sight. Keep going until you fall or their power is broken, and right makes might.

Stepan Kovalevich

Lap Pun Cheung

Jan Schäffler

Iumazark

[wearepaladin]

An Addendum: The Main Reason why I love the Doom Slayer/Doomguy so much is because he embodies the paladin defiance of the elder darkness so well that he may well be the figurehead for it. Where everyone else is consumed by the corrupting influence of despair and madness that eldritch and demonic foes thrive, and how they proceed to to crush us either with apathy or malice, the Slayer is resolute.

And whether armed with as mundane as shotgun or a demonslayer sword etched with his mark.

And whether you’re the lord of all demons, Lucifer, or some other eldritch foe who thinks of humanity as nothing more than food or ants crushed without thought, Paladins like The Slayer are a reminder that you don’t have the right to walk over us. 

Take up the mantle of Doom, and direct it upon the bringers of evil and the false gods. Because these are our people, our worlds to save, not theirs to crush.

[wearepaladin]

I just scrolled through your "facing the eldritch foe" tag, and I'm really gravitating towards the idea of a paladin trained to fight back eldritch evil and aberrations as a focus -- I know you answered a question for advice, but I'm curious: what do you like to see, with characters or stories framed in that way? Your ideas are always interesting and thought-provoking.

I would like to see themes that either directly challenge or subvert Lovecraftian notions of existential horror. Paladins and heroes who defy the notion they’re specks on the cosmic horizon, that even if the Old Ones are the oldest and most powerful things out there, either cruel, apathetic, or alien in their disposition towards us, we don’t have to submit to them or the idea that humans and our tiny blue biosphere mean nothing. If we’re but a candle light in the infinite dark, then we’re all the more precious for our rarity.

Lovecraft was also xenophobic in his writings, and a way to challenge his legacy is to subvert that as well. If we can fight the Old and Deep Ones in battle, then we can also find common ground with them, remove the alien lack of understanding and open ourselves to communication. Destroy the idea that was seeded in the Shadow over Innsmouth that having ancestry with a mixed culture and bloodline will make you less human. Like, include the horror factor somewhere if you want, but the more i think about it, the more I think the whole humans having deep one children might have been some coded desegregation stuff in the horror story.

Bloodborne is a good example of something that subverts both those themes well while still being a powerful Eldritch horror story. The Great Ones are cosmic, alien, powerful whose influence is felt through out the whole of the story. But they can be fought against and defeated. They can find common ground with humanity, the lore stating they are sympathetic to us in spirit, and have the very human desire to have children, and are even willing to adopt. They even bleed the same red blood as us.

A paladin who trains to deal with them is one who knows that for all their power, they’re false gods, and either through war or peace, the goal is to remind them and ourselves of that, and meet on the same level.

[cornflakesdoesart]

Goblin prince and a page who gets kidnapped by goblins while posing as a princess, they don’t get along at first but while going through wacky adventures they become friends :”)

whoo boyy, the linearts for these are about one and a half year old, a more determined person would have probably just redrew them , but I’m just happy I had at least half finished drawings of my ocs so I just…colored them …^^”

[leiasbluelightsaber]

[autumnnotgrace]

Have you ever wondered where clowns come from?

[reynauld]

The Watcher...

Reynauld was the High Paladin (elected) of the Third Order of the Light, aptly named the order of Tephos, a controversial figure whose texts fell into his hands. Being the recipient and guardian of the texts, Reynauld had access to knowledge that other members of the Order did not. 

Tephos’s writings on the true nature of the Light were what made her such a controversial figure, as it contradicted the Second Order’s beliefs, and gave concrete face to the nature of the Light itself, which many from the First Order did not wish to do. Reynauld, with his innate capacity to understand Light and use it, took Tephos’s writings as a basis to form the Third Order. The Third Order was a more humanistic approach to Light Worship that capitalized on connection and cultivation of the internal Light, as well as the defeat and maintenance of the “Darkness”. The Third Order of the Light’s “Devotion” text that Reynauld carries on him constantly, is a versebook and a history of the Light itself, as told by Tephos. 

The Light is a staunch enemy of the Darkness, and it is the origin of choice. The Origin of the Light as told by Tephos, is that it once was a part of a malignant darkness, and otherness, and parted from this unfathomable dark, to become unfathomable light. The separation of these two entities was the beginning of light and life. Since the separation, the Light’s devotion has always been to the life that followed in its sublime wake. 

The Light directly opposes the unholy, the necromantic, and the eldritch that would harm the light it has claimed. Enemies of the Light are depicted in Tephos’s writings. Tephos claimed she received visions of the unspeakable creatures in the dark beyond time, and recorded their depictions as best as she could within the Devotion. 

The Light, to deal with the matter of these monstrosities, would impassion its followers with visions and auditory commands, drawing its servants to eliminate them for the greater good.

The enemies of the Light that are named within the Devotion: 

The Sleeper in the Sea, The Crawling Chaos, The King in Yellow, The Gate and Key, The Black Goat, The Deepest Dark, The Burning One, The Father of Serpents, The Wind Walker, The Great Ghoul, The Defiler, The  Sleeper of N'ka,The Shambler From the Stars, and The Destroying Eye.

The Light has also been called the Watcher at the Threshold. It exists beyond the empirical spaces, beyond time, and exudes an incredible amount of influence in its followers. The Watcher’s title has been topic of debate, as it is uncertain if it is Death’s Door that it is watching, or all crossroads that the Light’s faithful travel.

[onlycosmere]

Mistborn/ Warbreaker/ Stormlight

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[wearepaladin]

Rescue/Tellurion by Matt Rhodes

[starrywisdomsect]

Magical formule from H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.”

[grimae]

The Lion.

[granny-griffin]

remember that time The Gray Havens contextuallized the gospel for Nalthis?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GixK4V9XYKE&list=RDGixK4V9XYKE&start_radio=1&t=0

[granny-griffin]

remember that time The Gray Havens contextuallized the gospel for Nalthis?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GixK4V9XYKE&list=RDGixK4V9XYKE&start_radio=1&t=0

[amiplayingright]

A New 1-Page RPG

Probablybadrpgideas and I have made a one-page rpg!

It is based in Celtic mythology!

You can find it here!

[malglories]

for all you writers out there:

donjon has tons of generators. for calendars. for demographics of a country and city. for names (both fantastical and historical) of people, nations, magics, etc.

this site lets you generate/design a city, allowing you to choose size, if you want a river or coast, walls around it, a temple, a main keep, etc.

this twitter, uncharted atlas, tweets generated maps of fantasy regions every hour.

and vulgar allows you to create a language, based on linguistic and grammatical structures!!! go international phonetic alphabet!!!

[listing-to-port]

Nine perfumes on the death of cities

1. On the occasion of the vaporization of Glasgow by the Titanian New Urumqi Front in 3560, following a 24-hour warning: wet stone, ozone, whisky, bins and burning peat.

2. On the slow mummification of the last inhabitant of Rome on the sunlit and cypress-covered ruins of the Palatine Hill in 10251, and the crumbling of her ancient library into warm dust: sun-warmed tree resins, old books, wild thyme and wolf shit.

3. On the unexpected reclaimation of Lagos by the sea in 2520, following a meteor strike aimed so precisely at the intersection of the prime meridian and the equator that for many years it was taken as evidence that humanity was living in a buggy simulation: Petrol, sweat, mud and the overwhelming sea.

4. On the final desertion of Isfahan in 6640 at the start of autumn, in response to the fourth wave of the Maltese Plague: over-ripe pomegranates, black pepper, and the lurking hint of something dead.

5. On the death of the last human in Hyderabad in 55801, and the sealing of the city into a tomb by the Followers before their great journey: A thousand marigolds blooming in the dust, ewers of clear water, and something like metal and pears.

6. On the destruction of Nova Cuzco by the eruption of Maat Mons in Venusian year 20881: burning wood, tomato vines, green mango, butter and sulphur.

7. On the occasion of the last unlocking of London’s new gates, some time after the arrival of the ice, but before the long dark: grease, ambergris, leather and sharp cold air with the promise of snow.

8. On the last stand at Archangelsk, 19555: Seaweed, dirt, sewage, king crabs, vodka and fear.

9. On the night that the remaining survivors realised that there was no longer any way out of Los Angeles, 3994: fine wine, cherry syrup, spilt blood, weed, tar and gunpowder.

[hypervigil]

Sun Worshipper

Also available on Instagram, as well as new work I haven’t scanned yet!