Lolth's Trophy. The Eager Consort. Keptolo
I finally did it... I've designed Keptolo, with the help of @mogruith. I somehow grew attached to the one drow god who doesn't really seem to exist anywhere T_T But this is him the man of the hour.
Some A lot design notes below the cut
So first thing I wanted to do was include Mog in on this process, as the idea behind it was I do want to draw their Coranzan with my Altonin, as both of our boys were once worshippers of Keptolo. (We're ignoring that Keptolo doesn't seem to exist in the Forgotten Realms. This is Keptolo propaganda.) When designing what Keptolo looked like I pretty much had free range, as there's very little description of him, and my main reference is from Here.
So the only thing I had to keep in mind was that he enchantingly beautiful, has violet eyes, and is male. The rest was up to me. So with that in mind, I decided I wanted to heavily reference and work backwards from our already designed boys. So his skin tone and his fringe are in reference to Coran. While Altonin influenced his jewelry (both design and color), his eye makeup, his hair length, as well as the color of the small mushrooms on his brooch and necklace. (blue is Altonin's skin tone, green is his eye color.)
That's about where it stops for references to our boys. The rest was trying to figure out what he would wear. It was mentioned in the description I was referencing that he was extremely fashionable, and preferred the color red. He also liked to wear hunting cloaks. Well. I threw the cloak out in favor of a robe. Specifically, I did this because he is Lolth's consort, he wants nothing more than to love and support his giant spider wife. And with that thought in mind, I thought he would then try and emulate what her girls are doing, specifically her priestesses. Their fashion and tastes would influence his because they are influenced by Lolth.
I ultimately decided to give him two looks, an informal and formal one. These obviously would change as fashion trends would. but I knew when I was looking for reference images I needed something high end, bare minimum it needed to be designer, but I was also willing to go couture. In the end I settled on referencing both Jean Paul Gaultier's 1995 European MTV music awards show look for his robe and boots.
And I also drew inspiration from one of Chappell Roan's most recent tour looks. As he *is* a bard as well as a thief and fighter.
For his more formal look I referenced Dior's Fall 2020 menswear collection. Specifically this coat
The next thing I needed to include was his mushroom motifs. Lolth has spiders, Keptolo has the very phallic mushroom. We know what he's here for. What a king lmao. So with that, I decided I wanted to give him a small crown. Originally I was gonna do something bigger similar to Thranduil's but with mushrooms, but I couldn't get the design of it right. I even tried using like shelf mushrooms to give a sort of Christian halo effect, but that also didn't work. So I tried a mushroom crown similar to flower crowns, but that came out too cottagecore. So in the end I gave him a wreath of lichen.
His necklace is... exactly why you think its like that. lmao (and to explain the joke: it's dicks.) and I wanted his brooch to be a combination of Lolth and his symbols. I gave him a spider with some mushrooms. But my personal favorite one is this
This I would imagine is embroidered on to the robe. Based on the Inky cap mushroom. I wanted it to be dripping and the drips to morph into Lolth's web. But I also wanted it to yet again be a reference to Keptolo's only real use: pleasing Lolth. [Insert dick joke here]
The rest like his boots and gloves, I just like those aesthetically. That's for me. Honestly I loved designing Keptolo a lot. Do I think canonically he'd look this queer? Absolutely not. He's like the God equivalent of a Republican White Woman. He's traditional and conservative, but in the way *drow* are. and I think that's neat. It was a challenge to sit there and go "Okay I know what's conservative for *us*, but what would be conservative for *a drow*?" And even if I don't think I entirely hit that (There probably should be more medieval fantasy elements to him) I do think something like this would work for him.
This is for me mostly, and I had a fun time and that's all that matters!
