First post of 2022 be a sketch of Lynel Link!! (tho I actually started this ages ago and only just picked it back up and finished it today...) Happy new year everyone! Hope you all had a good holiday :)
Recently learned that wild horse herds are structured kinda like lion prides, and it got me thinking of lynels. So here we are!
Sooo, once upon a time, lynels were just another sentient race of non-humans. They were a nomadic people that roamed the plains of hyrule. They had their own customs and religion, primarily worshiping the horse god Malanya, and lived closely with nature. Other races might have considered them to be savages or barbarians. But they were not monsters nor did their ever side with the forced of darkness.
Then one day an unknown disease ravaged their people. The infected females all died, slowly and painfully as it burned them from the inside out. The males, however, suffered a worse fate, losing their minds and souls as the blight consumed them. They would grow in size and gain monstrous strength, becoming rabid and violent, indiscriminately attacking all who crossed their path. Just another mindless monster.
The survivors fled and eventually the population recovered, but no cure was ever discovered and they have lived in fear of the deadly blight ever since. Lynel herds no live in seclusion, having little to no contact with other races; who now think of them as only monsters. The disease still plagues them, they've long since suspected it to be magic in nature but have no idea where the source is or how it spreads. The best they can do is quarantine the infected to reduce causalities as much as possible.
No one has ever survived being infected, except for one.
Link is the sole survivor of the dreaded blight, having caught it when he was young but miraculously recovered shortly thereafter. At the same time a strange mark appeared on his left hand. No one in his herd quite knows what to make of this, or whether his survival is a good or bad omen.
Once he comes of age, Link chooses to leave his herd and sets out on a journey under the advice of the herd elders. He travels to Hyrule, the land his people had long since abandoned, in search of their ancestral home. He seeks to find the ancient spring where it is said his people once communicated with their god, Malanya.
Link chooses to believe there is a reason he survived. He believes Hyrule holds the answers to everything. The answers to where the disease comes from and why it only seems to affect lynels. The answers to his own survival and what part he might have to play in all this. He hopes that Malanya can give him the answers he needs, or at least point him in the right direction.
Of course thats where he crosses paths with a certain scholarly princess who is utterly fascinated by what appears to be a new species of lynel...
