Very old and barely cleaned up art of the majority of the main cast of my unfinished fantasy novel, because I realized that these are all trapped over on my old compromised blog and I'd like to have them over here.
Tsh'ander Clan West | Verrim kil Hadir vi Amalathae | Myn
Relia Eidanri | Asforahl | Marashac
Riv | Tyalaskr | The Meli
Deidric Carnelian-19 | Cieni *high whistle/click sound* | Kortha VI
This is roughly the order of introduction, if I'm remembering correctly, although it gets a little muddied after Tyalaskr.
Random nonsense about these freaks under the cut.
Verrim was born missing one arm and about 30% of either lung in a deal his mother made with their patron god to make sure he inherited a specific magic that only presents in Amalathae women, without which he would have been taken from her at birth and raised up elsewhere.
Myn and Riv are members of a species born from the energetic aftershocks of the creation of the planet. They have a static population—when one dies, another is born to take their place and carry the energy that creates their equivalent of a soul. This is referred to as a "changeover," not reincarnation.
Asforahl and Marashac are the last survivors of the first generation born after the First made the planet and a manufactured species to populate it.
Tyalaskr is the result of a complex breeding experiment involving the murder of one of Riv and Myn's people, the changeover of which led to the birth of Riv. Tyal and Riv are best friends and share a birthday.
The Meli was accidentally created in a magical splicing accident that resulted in a couple people and at least one large feline getting fused together into a single living thing. It has two hearts, several extra ribs, too many vertebrae, and telescoping legs.
Deidric comes from a culture where hair color defines a person's role in society. She is, unfortunately, a genetic aberration who was born to parents with white hair (commoners, ~90% of the population) while she has black hair (nonperson labor, ~9.9% of the population); her teacher is a white-haired man who was born to black-haired parents ~50 year prior. Their culture is in shambles.
What would constitute the closest thing Cieni has to a surname is a series of sounds that literally can't be produced by most spoken or any written language, so that's what you get.
Kortha is Tyalaskr’s younger sister, the only full blooded royal afiri left. (She’s technically his great-great-grandniece, but every Kortha is “birth sister” until they become Highmother like the Kortha before them, so the term used here is sister.)
Her wings are more delicate looking, but mostly just longer and slightly slimmer; the afiri can be pretty carefully specialized prior to birth or the laying of an egg (or after if the egg is soft shelled, which some are), so Kortha has wings designed to allow her to travel long distances with the least possible energy expenditure. She’s like an egret or an albatross.
Kortha has a lot of mixed feelings about her brother. She envies what she perceives as the freedom he has, while simultaneously feeling like he irrevocably lost his way when he abandoned the afiri during the war for the Deadlands. She wants him to come home and also wants to literally rip his heart out of his chest. It’s a strange relationship.
I’m REALLY happy to finally have her out here, she’s a super important character and I love her deeply.
(All random inking errors here are courtesy of Parker, who really got into the Let’s Bark Out of the Blue!™ thing tonight. He’s a little grounded.)
