My first ever Undertale AU
Normally I don't show sketches and I probably won't in the future however because of the style that I made these sketches in, I felt like this is an exception because I probably won't be able to replicate the style digitally, well as of right now at least. So to make up for it, i'll share multiple concept art for the characters and talk about the AU a bit.
So the AU that I wanna share officially is an AU titled Amalgamtale, this is an AU that i've been working on for years now actually, with it being made around August of 2018 from my memory. I'm mainly inspired by other Horror AUs at the time which included Freaktale (Preboot), Horrortale, Underworld, Help_Tale, Axetale and so many more. It makes sense as back then, I was a child and am one of those people who was such a huge fan of Undertale back then and would look at all of the cool AUs and one day wanted to make one, it was a part of my childhood weirdly enough. At first, it literally was a carbon copy of these AUs where I would just make original designs and just take aspects from these AUs and then call it original but like with Le Fun Shark and him wanting to change up Freaktale because of it being too unoriginal and wanting to do something very different with it, I did the same thing with my original idea however unlike Le Fun Shark, I don't want to just scrap my original idea because it's unoriginal as I do want to pay respects to the original idea, just not copy and paste it but moreso show respect and inspiration for those AUs that I love. Unfortunately my old sketches are long gone now so I don't have anything to show in regards to my ideas a long time ago but I can show some recent sketches and explain those in more detail.
To start, Amalgamtale is a story that shows the entire world at a low point. The story starts when Chara fell down the Underground however instead of meeting someone for Asriel to be best friends with and change the course of history, instead he found a rotten corpse and because of that, he has started to spread the infection around the entire Underground and cause it's eventual downfall. Humans too have also experienced the disease from someone from the surface with an unknown origin but unlike monsters, they have advanced enough with their technology for humanity to not be at the brink of extinction but because of how strong the disease is, it has killed a bunch of humans and has severely affected humans to the point of no return which has happened to Chara and to Frisk.
In this AU, Frisk falls down the Underground because of fear (will be explained in the future) and an even more scary fact is that her Determination is not as strong as it usually is in Undertale due to her soul being severely damaged from the disease. This has caused her to have limited amounts of save points and can't even remember them well. But one things for sure, she at least has a heart for those that won't attack her. In terms of concept art, the second one doesn't show a lot but the first one is a bit much for me to use it with all the veins and such so i'll try to mix the two.
Unfortunately unlike many horror AUs, Flowey is not one of the characters that's an ally to Frisk as he has also been corrupted in his own horrifying way. In this AU, Asriel has not turned into Flowey because with the disease growing stronger and with his enhanced power, this made him spread the disease onto one of the golden flowers and that split his own soul into two. Flowey has adapted the dark side of Asriel, only unable to think of every being as those who have sinned and deserve to die, being more malicious and brutal with his actions and ironically, his own sins is very high. He believes in his motto "In this world, it's killed or be killed" way too much to the point where he doesn't even trust his other self and all he wants is control to which he will do everything he can to get such control.
His body can also mutilate into an abomination as he himself is an amalgamation all caused by the current Royal Scientist, Alphys herself. Don't worry, he has taken care of her as a reward for her ruining his body. And trust me, you don't want to see him if he gets a human soul. I easily choose the second art as it looks so much creepier than the first one and as for him mutilating his body, I love the idea but the sketch can use some work especially to match with the other sketch.
Now before we continue, I wanna talk about how the disease works and how it affects monsters. Generally, every monsters can get affected by it without any exception and when you do, you lose your sanity, you get more violent, your body changes entirely into a more grotesque and painful form that you can't escape as your magic changes so much to the point where it's fair to question if they are still monsters. However, there is still hope as there are exceptions where monsters still have their appearances and magic altered but at least it's not as bad as it is for the rest and still retain their mentality as all they need to do is meet the two requirements:
If you physical age is that of a child (12 and below)
If you are a ghost
If these are followed then not only will those people be more safe than the others but also will continue to be safe as long as they don't do anything reckless since part of the consequence of being infected is that you don't age which most likely will keep the mentality of a child stuck with those monsters.
Another thing to mention is that in this AU, the battle system completely changes as we have the addition of party members added because in this AU, you need all of the allies that you can get and thankfully, children are too young to develop something fatal and ghosts are dead so they don't have a physical form to corrupt but still do feel tons of pain. With that said, let's move onto the next characters
Napstablook is thankfully one of those special cases that make him someone who joins Frisk's party as he is already a ghost but a very depressing one. Napstablook was with his cousin Mettaton at the time and they were very close, even more in this AU because of the virus that forced them to stay even closer with each other than before. He even met Alphys one time as she just so happened to be around the area and she helped them with ways of protecting themselves from the disease. However, that encounter was soon to be an unfortunate one as one day, Alphys returned looking more disheveled, in constant agony and also... was melting like an amalgamate that they don't know at the time. They even spotted other monsters' remains attached to her and when she spot Mettaton, immediate she grabbed him and despite the constant struggle, got captured and Napstablook became lonely continuously blaming himself for not saving the only person close to him and because of that, started to negate his own body more and more. Thankfully he eventually met Frisk and the more he went on the journey with her, the more he started to have more hope on himself. I easily pick the second design as the way I drew it looks so much better and scarier without overexxadurating the details. I will say though that I like the dripping on the first sketch so I could use that as well.
Sans is a genuinely horrifying person, he is an example of those that experience the disease to its full potential and everything has changed of him as a result. Sans is completely gone, he is not like his former self as he has taken his own role and takes it too seriously. Now, if you are a very nice person and don't kill anyone then he won't be harmful towards you and can even help you in the Pacifist Route but if you start to kill people, then it's best to run. He doesn't care about the rules anymore, if you do something that goes too far then he will try and kill you when the time is best for him. When he has gotten corrupted, he grew multiple limbs and they seemed to have come from all of the people he has killed over the years and this is related to his own role. As for those who are close to him... well let's just say, his brother isn't the same as he used to be. I easily prefer the second sketch, it looks very creepy and the idea is just a lot more original.
Monster Kid is another ally of Frisk and he is someone that isn't fit for this yet is forcing himself to change that has harmed him. MK is just a kid yet his entire life has been flip in over his head, it started with his hometown just being corrupted and then his own idol, Undyne has gotten lost as well. Because of that, he has completely changed and has learned magic to protect himself from the corrupt world that he is living in. However when he meets Frisk, if you go for a Pacifist Route then he is happy that he doesn't have to let his guard up all of the time and can be himself around friends but the idea of keeping his guard up will remain if you do something else. I actually like both sketches and I like the idea that the first sketch is Pacifist while the second is Genocide.
Asriel is the last character to talk about and he is a very important one as he is the one that started the infection to begin with. After he infected everyone which included his parents who are far too gone now to go back to normal as well as causing the creation of Flowey which has made things worse for everyone, he has isolated himself and hid in a hidden part of the Underground to protect everyone. But he is still a child and while he has a lot of guilt, if convinced then he might be able to help but he won't use his powers to his full potential which is why his arms and legs are bandaged up... well, as long as he isn't pressured to do so at least. I like both sketches which is why I wanna use both although I will say that I gave him two toes for his feet.
And that's every major thing that I wanna show for the AU, obviously there's more to show later on but in general, these are the main things to talk about. Hopefully in the future I can share more and maybe even learn to digitalize these pieces in the future. I'll leave it by showing an image of Mettaton as I do have a design for him but leave it at that and i'll see you guys next time.
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Although, I wonder who the cause of the virus is