#aodian

[gumbydemographics]

retconned Drew’s design to include the wheelchair/cane I almost gave him in his very early stages before I’d figured out his background. I also wanted to design a couple outfits for him, including what he’d wear to a typical day in his clinic.

[gumbydemographics]

Fay (they/them) (who belongs to aonbharrs​ ) and my character D’eon, trash-talking a noble they both hate on their way to a meeting. Fay is drowic nobility and an accomplished sorcerer but is secretly a smuggler who helps people like D’eon hide or escape from the Lolthites or servitude/slavery.

I surprised myself by adding a background to this 😅😅 I initially had a hard time with the clothing but in the end had a lot of fun adding all the details, and the sheer accents to make the robes look more flowy. 

These images are very large, so please click or open them in a new tab to view! Would any one be interested in a commission in this style?  

More rambling about the Underdark/these characters under the cut 

l know in the lore, the Underdark is regarded as a sort of lawless land made up of multiple levels where the matriarchy kills or attacks as many people as they can in some sort of effort to spread Lolth’s reign, however i find it makes for poor story telling and I have a lot of drow characters I like to be able to give diverse backgrounds to and fitting them into the current Underdark setting was difficult. Instead I like to imagine it as more of a Tevinter-esque land (from Dragon Age) wherein magic is regarded as prized and is a honed skill that often turns many people to desperate struggles for power. In the Underdark, “dark” magic (like necromancy/blood magic) is regarded as natural and carries no real stigma, neither does slavery or servitude for non-magic using drow or those considered non-noble or lesser. 

The upper levels of the Underdark would be relatively safer and more “civilized” and perhaps even grudgingly trade with surfacers (there’s actually a town in the lore where part of the area collapsed into the Underdark, I assume this would be one of the few places where it would be very easy to access the upper levels of the Underdark, and where drow would be able to escape to from the lower, less safe layers). The lower layers below that would be where the hard-core Lolthite clerics live and work, and where most of the slavery/servitude and dark/forbidden magics took place and where the places with poorer conditions of freedom in general were located. 

I imagine there’s more than a few people who disagree with the sentiment that the Lolthite’s spread and want to escape or perhaps try and change things, but considering the Underdark’s cavern system and dangerous creatures make it too difficult to traverse alone a lot of people have a hard time escaping without help, which is where someone like Fay would come in.

Fay works as a noble attempting to use the power they have in their district to undermine some of the stricter rules the council of nobles has in place in order to try and make it easier for them to help shuffle people out of the slavery system and into safer districts, or even to the surface all together.  

D’eon barely survives a failed escape from the Underdark and is found and captured by the Lolthites and put back into slavery as punishment. Eventually Fay finds out about his escape from another noble and bends the rules enough to convince the Lolthites to let them take D’eon, under some sort of guise of needing an additional servant, but in reality helping him recuperate and keeping him hidden for a few years, where he works as her “bodyguard” and attendant (not really, but that’s what they tell people), before helping him successfully escape to the surface. 

[gumbydemographics]

Haven’t posted anything serious lately so here is a piece I finished yesterday of my drow oc’s Aodian and Draoi.  

(Very) long story short, they are separated while escaping the Underdark and dont see each other again for ~100 years. Their reunion is very sweet and they are still in love all those years later... (Mostly I wanted to try out some dramatic lighting lol)

 edit: reference from here (link is nsf/w)

[gumbydemographics]

an assortment of sketches from the past month or so 

[gumbydemographics]

drow possess the epitome of taste in gothic fashion