here’s most of the art I’ve done for my evil HoK OC: Celeoniss. I realized I forgot to give a character intro for him on tumblr so see below! I didn’t expect my villain to be so popular, so thank you all for the interest! I’m still figuring out how I want to draw him so forgive the wild variation here haha.
Celeoniss is both a protagonist and antagonist in my story. This is a really brief touch into his lore and I’ll try to keep it as short as possible.
He parallels/contrasts Alyanmir (my LDB) and, in a different way, Marielle (LDB’s daughter).
(I’ll put celeoniss’s early life at the end since it’s not something anyone but he knows during most of his story)
Celeoniss left Alinor for Cyrodiil as he craved more freedom and wanted to escape the rage he felt at home.
The Oblivion crisis convinced him of how helpless and useless humans and the empire were. He returned home to Alinor to* ultimately help the thalmor overthrow the monarchy so he could start shaping the world more in his vision.
He finds the more power and knowledge he accumulates, the more life bores him.
He begins craving more games, entertainment unpredictability and chaos
He prefers to use a gentle but manipulative hand to guide the world and objects of his attention to his vision, but will use violence and fear when it’s a better option than his mind games.
He is capable of fondness and affection for others. He usually has one object of attention at a time in one shape or another. Be it his children, an apprentice, or a “partner.” He jokingly considers it a weakness, but, particularly as he transitions towards boredom from the pursuit of power, he becomes more and more obsessed with playing with whomever is currently in his sights.
Notable partners: the mother of his children, Martin, Erthor (very briefly), Mouse
The mother of his children knew you did not want to be the center of his attention and never married or even lived with him beyond what was necessary for child rearing.
He has four children. He convinced his eldest (and most obedient son) to mantle Sheogorath for him, but finds every passing year he has less and less control over him as his son completely disappears.
I draw the Mouse era frequently because it represents a turning point in his life. He just helped Calcarya (his apprentice and my Dragonborn’s mother) take over his position leading the thalmor party so he could take a less active advising role and focus on his magic experiments. With less responsibilities, his more lawful evil origins really started eroding here. He really latches onto this international fugitive spell thief assassin that broke into his house as his new game (and fun secret to try and keep from his peers). In the original universe I wrote, she was how Marielle and Daphne were related to Celeoniss, but in the main universe Marielle is not related to him by blood.
Celeoniss has sold his soul for power to three Daedric princes. To escape paying his debt, he decides to just not die. He was not a fan of traditional lichdom and discovered away to live on his progeny using them as wisdom and intelligence batteries to sustain himself as is. He hoped his son mantling sheo would help him weasel out of his contracts, but did not realize his son would basically completely disappear into sheo almost immediately.
During the second Great War, he steals Marielle’s ear which allows him to access to possessing not only his own bloodline, but hers as well. He has a primary plan on how to use the Montaxs to his favor against the princes, but also has plenty of back up plans as well.
Early life celeo that the other characters don’t know about:
His father was a court mage for the royal family. He was able to take celeoniss with him to work nearly every day since celeo was basically also his apprentice. He has no idea it would cause celeo to start questioning who deserved to have authority over others.
Celeo’s mother was a ceremonial priestess in Alinor. He only saw her during her time off work and cared less for her. But she did accidentally teach him that religion’s primary purpose is to control and manipulate others :/
Celeoniss’s father died in the oblivion crisis in Alinor as he was far too old to actually be in active combat but wanted to do as much as he could to protect the young mer around him that still had their whole lives ahead of them.
When Celeoniss found out about this, he flew into a rage and was convinced the royal family ordered his elderly father into the gate to die. He had fleeting fantasies of regicide his whole life, but thought he was finally moving on.
I’ll avoid yapping too much but basically Celeoniss kills everyone in the monarchy while lying to himself saying it’s for social justice but he’s really just pissed his dad died.
he’s pan and vers and genuinely awful even though he’s very friendly about it.