#limen au

[gnomeonamelon]

How about a crack at post TOA Apollo?

Apollo has 2 sacred birds: the raven and the swan. Since Lester was crow inspired, I decided to use a mute swan as the inspiration

[gnomeonamelon]

It's kind of incredible that they've never interacted.

I'm only halfway through The Tyrants Tomb so there's still time but I doubt they will have a half brother bonding moment.

For the sake of reference, Lester is 17 here (and so is Dionysos' mortal form here).

Both of their punishments are the same here, where Zeus strips them of their power and memories, turns them into mortal children, and drops them off somewhere. Their abilities and awareness shift over time and they can only regain their divine forms after completing a great task worthy of Zeus' notice.

Lester was cast out after the Giant War in 2012 due to his interfering with the quest. He existed for 8 years and regained his memories in 2020 (due to mysterious divine intervention).

On with the designs:

Lester:

I figured his design would be based off of a crow for the sake of being a joke amongst the Olympians (those in favor of his banishment at least) since they are seen as the less beautiful and elegant cousin of the raven, a sacred bird to Apollo and a reminder of his misdeeds.

There's not much to say here since it's just a normal kid in normal clothes. I'd imagine he'd gain more accessories and color as his story went on to represent his growth.

Dionysos (I need a name for this kid):

His design is inspired by an African Leopard for fairly obvious reasons. While his design is 17 here, it is probably a blend of many periods of his mortal life. He is dressed for either a rave or Pride, his color scheme inspired by the color of wine and ivy leaves.

[gnomeonamelon]

I kid you not hours after I posted that Lester should interact with Mr D, I started reading Tower of Nero and low and behold.

Doodles of the brothers are necessary to my recovery from both the Trials of Apollo finale and covid.

I have some ideas on what I'm going to do with Limen Au's Trials of Apollo (it's a long one I apollo-gize in advance):

First things first, I'm going to stick with the 2020 setting. Everything from the plague spirits in the first book to everything having to do with the burning maze was too perfect.

Secondly, I'm going to let The Seven retire. It's a new generation with new heroes (for the most part).

Third (and slightly ironically): Rachel deserves quest rights. She's going to be the third member of the party. She has the motive, can relate to Meg, smack some sense (verbally) into Lester, and we could learn more about her.

I would probably have her not receive any prominent glimpses of the future except for when Python feeds her a chunk of the Tower of Nero prophecy towards the end of every book.

Ash or one of her students (Probably Estelle) will also be in the second and third books. Maybe they/ one of her students dies instead of Jason? (not Estelle)

I'm giving up on numbers.

This hurts to write, but I'm going to have Chiron die in the Battle of Manhattan against Kronos/Luke. It's a trope for mentors but he doesn't do much after this point that others couldn't. Mr D would be welcomed back to Olympus after the battle. This would force the demigods to lead themselves for the first time contributing to the tension in HoO (although that should be its own post). Will, Nico, and Rachel, now in their mid to late 20s would be running CHB by the time of ToA.

The Germani and Gauls working with Nero will be replaced with unclaimed Norse and Celtic demigods. The fact that they exist as monsters in this universe when they were actual people in history doesn't feel right to me. It's also perfectly in character that Nero would do this and there are a lot of unclaimed Norse demigods in this universe. (ex: Luguselwa as a daughter of Andraste, a Celtic war and victory goddess)

The 12 children of Nero will be children of the Olympians (or similar gods for those that don't have children and the big three) and trained to replace specific ones.

Changing the hair color of The Sibil: why are all three prophets red haired women. Apollo apparently has a type >:(

I'm going to be shuffling around the relationship web of Jason, Piper, Leo, Reyna, and Calypso. I'm going to keep this brief and come back to it when I get around to designing them but for now:

- Jason x Reyna - Piper x Shel - Aromantic Asexual Leo (why are all aroace people part of the Hunters >:( ) - Calypso was released after PJO. I love her but I would like her as a caring minor god or an eighth Pleiade too.

[gnomeonamelon]

Mortal Dionysos is the bartender friend :)

[gnomeonamelon]

Benefit of a time skip: I get to do fun new things with the characters!!

While Estelle would be 10-12 at the time of the Trials of Apollo, I imagine this design to be a good bit older, around 16.

Backstory, design notes, and all the good stuff below:

Backstory:

In the years after preventing the apocalypse^3, Ash finds young people with the potential to learn magic and walk the line that she does between pantheons. She takes them under her wing, teaching them what she can and helping them find teachers for their individual skillsets.

Ash noticed Estelle and her potential very early on. On the day they met (Estelle was about four), the child pointed out her back tattoo to Percy and his family even through Ash was using particularly strong coating of Mist to hide it from Sally's clear sight. Estelle has the strongest clear sight of any mortal, demigod, or magician she's ever met, she's never been fooled.

Of course, Sally and Paul don't want their daughter going on any quests. Ash promises them that, if she decides she wants to learn magic, it will be treated as an extracurricular activity, and she will be firmly out of the action.

This lasts until she finds a god on her doorstep. She can pretend she's sleeping over at a friend's house for a little jaunt to Indiana... right?

Design:

While Percy and Estelle look a lot alike, I think it's strange that she (and Paul) are described to look a lot like Poseidon. I decided to change her salt and pepper hair to a dark brown and her sea green eyes to either a more standard green as a reference to canon!Percy's eyes or brown as well.

Abilities:

She summons her extra arms through the ᛗ/ Mannaz rune (meaning augmentation and support). What her arms feel like and their physical strength depends on what material/ deck of runes she uses to make or summon them. She has both stone and metal runes, although she favors her metal deck.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise, but Percy was the one to teach her to swordfight. When it comes to dual wielding, incorporating magic into sword fighting, as well as some other more general magician things, Annabeth's cousin Julian taught her (although they didn't know he would be the same Julian when Ash pitched the idea).

She has a sword collection- everything from celestial bronze to bone steel, khopesh to gladius. She even has a half celestial bronze, have mortal steel one that makes Percy really uncomfortable.

As its uncommon among magicians, Amos Kane (the Chief Lector) helped refine Estelle's storm magic. Percy was certainly surprised when Estelle showed him the first time <3.

Role in the story:

Instead of Percy, Estelle is the one that opens the door and attempts to defend the group from plague spirits (Sally's driving them to camp). Through the power of masking, they do fare better against the monsters than canon!Percy on that front and Estelle's able to use the power of storm wind to help break them up but it was covid instead of the common cold.

Estelle and Sally head home to quarantine for a while just in case while the dynamic duo head to camp. She doesn't come back until the end of The Hidden Oracle to once again replace Percy.

She also ends up sneaking along to Indiana behind Apollo and Rachel, only revealing herself when it's too late to send her home by herself (like the gremlin she is). She does very well for and has a blast doing it until the Hunters of Artemis (including Ash and Thalia) appear. This whole adventure definitely gets her grounded.

[gnomeonamelon]

Very Slight blood/ bruise warning

Hello!

First things first, I have an actual name for the au where this character and my redesigns exist now!! Yay!

I'm calling it Limen and will be going back to previous posts and changing tags :D

As for this character, I wanted to redesign her in the style of this au as well as create a hopefully comprehensive reference sheet for her. She's one of the only characters with multiple different designs (only Frank, Alex, and some actual gods would have more than 3) so her design ends up being pretty complicated as a result.

Ash was created because I wanted a character that would more naturally interact with other pantheons. She has insatiable curiosity and enjoyed learning about various mythologies before she found out that the Roman gods were real. Luckily, her dad's godly parent, Trivia (Roman Hecate) is willing to give her the means to find her answers (in the form of magic).

Explanation for her eyes: her eye color changes to match whatever she last drank (it makes water really uncanny), and alcohol heals/ nourishes her (and she has some immunity to other poisons) due to her parentage.

Alternate Background:

[gnomeonamelon]

Honestly, I can't believe (time skip) Shelby was the first Kane Chronicles character I tackled.

For reference, Shelby is 6 during the events of Throne of Fire and Serpents Shadow and 13-15 during the events of Trials of Apollo.

Backstory, design notes, and all that jazz below:

Backstory:

Shelby would be Ash's first apprentice. She was found still awake and wandering around semi-destroyed Manhattan early on during the final battle against Kronos. The Hunter that found her assumed the four-year-old was a Grekoroman demigod and took her to the Hunters' camp set up on a couple of rooftops so that someone could always keep an eye on her.

Shelby became particularly close with Naomi, the Hunters' resident medic as she stayed out of the battle for the most part. They sent each other little gifts using a magic box Naomi gave her. A cool rock here, a snow globe there, it's all very cute. Naomi was actually the one to tell the real Ash about Shelby.

Suffice it to say, Ash was quite surprised when she met the now six year old at Brooklyn House.

Design:

Shelby looks like how Sadie is described on purpose. She really looks up to her and, if Shelby weren't already there, I'd say Sadie was a terrible influence on her.

Abilities:

Unsurprisingly, she is the most adept at Egyptian magic of all of Ash's apprentices. She is very good at divine word, especially when she writes it like Sadie and Carter do their first day training in Per Ankh.

Shelby is generally well rounded, as she has had the most time and one on one attention with Ash, being the first.

She's the second best with physical weapons (behind Estelle of course) and created a deck of disposable playing card-like runes out of paper that burn up upon use using the same premise as divine word. Not super practical but they can be used quickly and are good in an emergency.

Shelby is definitely the most creative when she fights out of the apprentices. She will through a trash can lid at you and turn it into a rhino.

[gnomeonamelon]

Meanwhile, she was in a sarcophagus in the middle of the desert.

... It was a rough couple of months.