#mcd shadow lord

[5prink135]

Been messing with the idea of Laurance being blind in his humanoid form and only being able to see in his Shadow Knight form, and after seeing a post offering the same idea... I've given in.

Go forth, my Shadow Lord! Punish that traitor for his rejection of your gift! Show him why it is better to give in than attempt to resist.

[euphorune]

a few hours, fighting through burnout, and a few creepypasta podcast episodes later, we have shad the destroyer

aphtober day 21: legacy

shad wasn’t my first choice. of course i considered irene, a dual shot of hyria and lucinda, zianna or even garte ro’meave, before i realized how good shad would be for this prompt. the way i thought about it upon my deliberation, shad the destroyer did leave a legacy through inevitability.

irene left an impact, yes, but there were no footsteps to follow with it. politically, things were different after her, but it was an assumption they’d be followed, not a hope that her work would be continued.

shad however, with my interpretation of his story, was the harbinger of the world as we see it in diaries and even mystreet, for better or for worse. nothing, and i mean nothing, as we know it, would have been if not for the war of the magi. i like to believe that humanity once knew what irene did, whether through shad and the shadow knight’s talking, or through the simple context of that war, but enki the keeper had become a strong enough warlock in his witchcraft to make every single person forget. this, mixed with his own infinite knowledge, cursed enki and all of his reincarnations to become the demon warlock.

nothing would be as it is now if that father had been granted the luxury of loving his daughter. that was stolen from him by irene in her quest to save humanity from its end, and in his conviction, he built his own children to protest irene the matron with the ashes she left in her path of death and destruction. he built his own family in the chaos and hurt she inflicted in her pursuit of peace. combine that with his immortality, gifted by the naive or conniving irene, and that simple fact built on my interpretation of the divine warriors makes shad the destroyer a beautiful cosmic horror within the universe. his legacy is built on inevitability, as there will always be those enraged by their end, and there will always be some cruel enough, for better or for worse, to continue his pursuit at what was once justice.

[5prink135]

I'm going back and forth on whether I want Shad and the Shadow Lord to be the same person in my Rewrite.

On one hand, them being the same expands on the Shadow Lord's character and backstory, and on top of that, it does kind of make sense that a Divine Warrior and the former lover of a seeming goddess would be so powerful.

On the other hand, how the two characters are portrayed doesn't align in my head. The Shadow Lord acts on evil and malice, seemingly causing pain and despair just because he can. He has his Knights murder people, and then resurrects them to brainlessly serve under him. He's motivated by a lust for power, as telling by the fact that he specifically targets the lords of Ru'aun. Shad acts upon feeling betrayed by everyone. The world betrayed him by never even giving him a chance in the first place. Irene betrayed him by murdering their daughter, turning her into the relic he would use, not telling him, and to some extent covering up the truth. Esmund, Kul'zak, and Enki specifically betrayed him by choosing to start the War of the Magi with him on Irene's behalf. All of the Divine Warriors betrayed him by taking up their blades against him. He's motivated by vengeance, and I really don't really see the actions the Shadow Lord takes being ones that he would, at least, on a logical level. Why inflict such suffering on those who didn't personally hurt him? Why give underlings the chance to take the vengeance that's rightfully his? Why keep people around when they're what failed him so in the first place? Why specifically target lords in the modern day when that seems so disconnected from his motives?

What's more is the continuity errors with the Shadow Lord and Shad, mainly between seasons 1 and 3. S1, we're told the Shadow Lord used to be a king. The Shadow Knights used to be his followers before he became corrupted, and they with him. After his corruption, he sought to conquer all and maintain a monarchy, and because of this, the War of the Magi happened. S3, we're shown and told that Shad was far from popular, struggling with simple villagers on his own, and definitely not being in any status-based position of power. There's also the fact that their powers really don't match up, at least, thematically, with all of Shad's powers being connected to destruction (plaguing croplands, realm breaking), while the Shadow Lord's powers seem to be more based around corruption (Shadow Knights).

Now, could all of this be answered by retcons or "Shad wanted to make others feel his pain?" Sure. You could even say that this was purposeful, to show Shad's decline and how no one aside from those actually involved truly knew the story of it all. But I can't help but think of how any of it would truly make much sense from a logical standpoint.

I've already talked about why Shad's methods so drastically changing don't make much sense, but how would the truth of the Shadow Lord and the War of the Magi get so muddled? Why would a separate character with a completely fictionalized backstory be made to cover up for a person the world really didn't seem to revere that much in the first place? There's a chance rumors and legends just got really out of hand, but still.

I don't know, but if I decide to still have Shad be the Shadow Lord, there'd have to be bigger changes in some way, shape, or form. It might be interesting to have Mallory's curse over the land having shaped the legends of the War of the Magi, as well as drawing parallels between Shad and Irene.

[5prink135]

Okay, so basing this off of this awesome comment I got a while ago on a post talking about my issue with figuring out how I want the Shadow Lord to be in comparison to Shad, since, in canon, they really don't thematically go together well.

Shad was the son of the man simply known as The King back in his times, and he ruled his kingdom with an iron fist. He conquered any lands he saw as a threat, and any one who became to much of an issue would be invited to have a personal meeting with him, only to come back completely loyal to their liege. The King had executed all of his biological family long ago, and so Shad became necessary if he wanted his bloodline to be carried on, as well as if he ever wanted his ideals to be carried on. And so, Shad was raised sheltered, kept within the castle walls, where The King made sure he was as isolated as possible.

Shad, however, was never the type to truly listen to authority. He always sought some form of his own freedom. Very commonly, he'd try to sneek out, though would often be thwarted by the people within the castle walls. One day, though, he managed to leave the castle, and it was that day that would change everything for him.

Outside the castle walls, everyone despised his father, while within, there was always complaint of how Shad was never as good as his father. When Shad came back to his father, reporting of such treachery from the people outside the castle walls, The King proposed the idea of the boy using his naturally destructive powers to teach those traitors a lesson, and Shad agreed, finally getting the freedom he so desired while doing what he thought was right. It wasn't until he met her that he truly learned the truth.

One day, in a small village where they'd been very actively protesting The King's rule, Shad attacked, harming some of the people and making many pieces of cropland infertile, however, he was stopped mid-attack by a figure he'd heard of: The Matron. She fended him off, her sword skills matching his, and their magicks directly countering one another. They were both stunned. During their clash, they traded remarks, with Irene finally being the one to make him realize that maybe... just maybe... his father was the one in the wrong. Of course, it wasn't just that encounter that changed his mind or anything, but it did open his eyes to another perspective...

From then on, he halted his attacks on the common people who defied The King, and actively sought out Irene, looking to see what she did. On his own, he started to notice that things in the castle that didn't make sense, such as how everyone there, without fail, acted the exact same, as well as slowly picking up on the tactics of manipulation his father used on him. Eventually, he confronted his father on this, and they got into a fight so horrible that it solidified Shad's decision to abandon his father and join Irene in her quest for rebellion. The final confrontation against The King was in the Nether, and it was there he died.

Shad's war against Irene wouldn't start until much later, and it would instead end in the Irene Dimension, where once he was killed, she'd preserve his body there, giving him an ornamented glass coffin, taking it's place as her most precious thing.

Since The King, now taking the title of the Shadow Lord, has been revived, he's only ever sought out one vessel to call his own: his son. While he could bond to whatever vessel he wants, he can only do it once, and he's too prideful and petty to pass up the opportunity of making the treacherous son he could never truly control in comparison to everyone else pay. Besides, he's gotten in his head before. He can do it again.