#atria malbringer

[charlemagedoesart]

A break in the forest - Malbringer Chronicles

[charlemage]

Some d’vline ladies from my Malbringer Chronicles story in response to @bunny-loverxiv questions. One was “What do female d’vline look like?”. The other question was:

There’s a longer two-part answer that relates to both (under the cut!)

In overall appearance, male and female d’vline look pretty much the same. Notably, like the naked mole rat, all d’vline don’t have hair. Since the col in their bodies makes them naturally cold-resistant, they just never needed hair to keep in heat, evolutionary speaking. Given that, they think hair on humans is just plain gross. I mean, this ugly rat’s nest stuff just comes out of their faces? And on their arms and legs and chests?? Grows, like, everywhere really??? Ew, disgusting. (Some of the d’vline who are less used to how humans look will actually gag and throw up just seeing it up close).

So, culturally speaking, there was probably a lot of pressure for Atria to cut her hair when she arrived. Atria didn’t really care about that kind of pressure, though (she’s there for revenge against her father, not to impress the d’vline court). What really made her cut off her braid is that in a couple of the political arena fights, her opponents grabbed on to it and just slammed her. The second time it happened, she just sliced it off mid-battle and then cropped it shorter after. So she had a practical reason, but it’s also kind of a metaphorical physical change. As she stays in the mountains longer more and more of what makes her human slips away and she starts to become what she hates most about the d’vline factions.

[charlemagedoesart]

Atria, my perennial petunia of an original character.

I mentioned in this post that Atria gets stronger if she stays in the mountains for long periods of time as her body absorbs more of the mineral in this world called col. Another side effect of long-term exposure is that she physically begins to take on more d’vline characteristics as well (permanent purple veins, ashier skin, etc). This is what she would look like after a couple months of constant exposure to col. On the plus side, it means she becomes stronger and more resistant to cold (hence the d’vline styled summer-in-the-snow outfit). On the downside, she can’t recognize herself in a mirror and more strongly resembles the man who destroyed her village, has terrorized her people, and she has made her sworn destiny to destroy (so, you know, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

When it comes to pure strength, Atria never quite catches up to full-blown d’vline, though. So when she gets forced to fight in the political arena (which, for d’vline, is literally a battle arena), she has to win by being quicker and more agile. That means she has to drop her great sword, Malbringer, in favor of a lighter weapons like daggers. Honestly it was a crappy sword anyway. Her father wouldn’t have left it behind if it was actually valuable. Oddly enough, though, Atria feels kind of bad about being forced to not use it anymore (even though it belonged to her father and she hates him). The Malbringer had seen her through many adventures and battles and, even though it was crudely made, she had grown comfortable with it. I’m thinking that for narrative symmetry, when it comes time for her to make her final stand in the d’vline court, she ends up having no choice but to wield Malbringer again.

[charlemagedoesart]

Atria finds herself in a spot of trouble.

After a fair amount of adventuring, Atria finally gets information on which stretch of the mountains her father may be residing in. At this point, she’s taken down more than a couple of d’vline (almost exclusively ones that are ransacking human villages inside the various valleys where the humans are) and is pretty confident that she is ready to face her father. So, she journeys into the mountains to find him.

However, what she wasn’t counting on is that d’vline are much much stronger when they’re actually living in the mountains. Like I mentioned in this post, the col is a naturally abundant mineral in the mountains (look how purple that guy’s veins are!), and col boosts d’vline strength and stamina. Ergo, in her first fight with a mountain d’vline (who is fortunately not her dad), she gets her butt solidly handed to her.

Still deciding on this d’vline guy’s name, but I’m leaning towards “Vito”. He is part of a rival faction to the one that Atria’s dad leads. This puts him at a bit of a crossroads. On one hand, the arrival of an heir to her dad’s faction would actually strengthen her dad’s campaign quite a bit. On the other hand, at this point Vito thinks she’s a complete weakling. Having a weak heir would absolutely destroy her dad’s campaign. So Vito decides to guide her to his faction’s leader, with the plan of eventually using her to their advantage (which, as he neglects to mention to Atria, will probably involve killing her publicly). Conveniently, Atria also hates her dad. Not so conveniently (at least for Vito’s faction), Atria also gets stronger and stronger the longer she stays in the mountains as her body starts to process the col there. Eventually, she starts to show her self as a very formidable opponent, even against the toughest d’vline fighters. The d’vline politics really start getting dirty at this point, as there is a lot people will do to either take her out of the game, or force her to work for their cause.

Another side note about the pseudo-science of this universe: col makes the freezing temperature of liquids a lot lower, so the d’vline are naturally resistant to cold. Atria in this scene is pretty much freezing (which may have contributed to her rather poor performance in this match), but to the d’vline it’s practically golfing weather (hence the shorts sans shirt).

[charlemagedoesart]

For fun, decided to sketch out Atria in a slightly more realistic style.

[charlemage]

Does Atria know her other parent?

Oh man! This is the first ask I’ve ever gotten about an OC! This is so exciting!

Honestly, I’m not sure? I’ve thought a lot about it, but the backstory jumps around a lot. Given that I can’t settle, I’ve tended to go with the working solution that Atria was raised in the village orphanage since she was an infant, and her mother may or may not be alive. That leaves sufficient room for future plot development if it comes up.

However, there are some things that are concrete. Like I mention here, Atria’s dad was not a good person, so whatever the story is with Atria’s mother is probably not a pleasant one. Atria realizes this, which provides more fuel for her self-loathing issues.

(More on Atria Malbringer, OC in progress, here)

[charlemagedoesart]

I’ve been sketching this girl (Atria) a lot lately, so I figured I’d clean some of them up and give her a proper introduction (under the cut).

This is Atria Malbringer, one of my medium-ly fleshed out OCs. Her general story goes like this: In the world she lives in there are several sentient species. The two that are important here are humans and the d’vline. The d’vline are a brutal and strong species that live in the mountains surrounding the large valley where the humans live. They trade and interact, but it’s pretty uneasy because the mountains are pretty resource strapped and it’s not uncommon for certain d’vline factions to raid human villages whenever they feel like it.

Enter Atria, the half-human, half-d’vline that nobody asked for.

What’s her deal? Since I’m a sucker for scientific explanation here it goes: The d’vline naturally have a purple mineral called col in their blood (kind of like how we have iron in ours, though the d’vline also naturally produce col). Col is a mineral that only exists in the mountains and, as it goes, col is what is partially responsible for their enhanced strength and heightened aggression (d’vline who don’t supplement them are typically laconic and weak, though their natural production means they’re still stronger and more aggressive than a human). Atria, as a half d’vline, has all the molecular setup to process col (unlike a human), but doesn’t produce it naturally. So for most of her life she’s effectively human, completely unaware of her d’vline heritage. However, all that changes when she finds her father’s sword, the Malbringer. The Malbringer is a d’vline weapon that is made out of col. When she touches it, some gets absorbed/inhaled and all that molecular setup kicks in to make her stronger, faster, and totally berserk. This is all news to her and she does some unspeakable things the first time she wields it.

Mortified, she is informed that not only is her father alive and d’vline, but he is also a complete monster (even by d’vline standards). She leaves her village, trying to earn redemption and seek revenge on her father. She becomes a bit of a legend as a traveling hero, but very few understand the true source of her strength.

Her official “arc” starts of at this time, when she meets a new friend, and finds new evidence for the possible whereabouts of her father.

Some notes the story would touch on:

-Malbringer is waaay too big for Atria (it’s a d’vline weapon and the d’vline are typically about 7 foot and Atria is normal sized for a human). Humans think this is pretty hardcore. D’vline think this looks ridiculous.

-Since d’vline blood contains col, Atria can get a kick from absorbing/injesting that too.

-Atria has gotten a bit of a fan club through her heroic exploits, including a boy named Matthias who at first thinks her d’vline form is so incredibly cool.

-As he gets to know Atria better, he begins to understand how much the col effects her.

-Atria’s dad is a complete monster (even by d’vline standards), but turns out he’s pretty high in line to be the leader of one of the main d’vline factions. Too bad the others are pushing him out seeing as he doesn’t have an heir…

-Before Atria got involved with all this she wanted to be a roof thatcher.

[charlemage]

-I never wanted to be like you, yet here I am all the same

Another drawing of my character, Atria. She's got some issues she'll have to deal with over her arc.