#oc.verloren

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Cornered

That's the path you've chosen, is it not? No... it's the path being forced on me. Is it really a choice when the only alternative is to lose everything?

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Merry Christmas

Figured I could put Verloren and Sellatrix Petz-forms in cute little outfits and they turned out cuter than I expected hehe

Look at them! I love them! And they love each other aww

More pics under the cut:

This sweater looks surprisingly good on Verloren, most sweaters cover his mane but this one specifically doesn't somehow! AND it's his colors! :D (because of the custom palette I made for him but anyway)

It's a bit sad that hats sit a bit too low on Sella's head so they always clip into her hair... I should make her some custom hoods like the ones I usually draw her with

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The Moon's Soothing Gaze

"It feels like it's been forever since I was thrown here. My body grows weaker, the pain grows harder to bear. At times, I realize how pointless it is to keep trying to survive... But the moon's soothing gaze always seems to refill my strength. Under its healing glow, I feel the urge to keep fighting, to survive against all odds, to spite the wardens who bet on my demise. There may be a point where no matter how hard I try to keep going, my body will cease to function. But until I get there, I will fight, and I will endure." ---

My first drawing of 2026.

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A Discussion of Soulmagic

Verloren presented his research notes to his latest visitor as he described the process of pulling magic directly from a creature's soul instead of just the physical body, a concept that none had attempted before him. He had been explaining the exact same thing to several different people lately and more often than not he was met with disdain and skepticism. He was so tired of all these mages who seemingly couldn't embrace new ideas telling him that this was too complicated and irregular to be worth it. But he did not mind what they thought about his work and continued to discuss it with others when he had the chance, trying to find more folks who could have interesting ideas for his consideration. Verloren had heard about Hyden's impressive magic skills, and how he was particularly interested in darker magics. Would he be able to see the true potential of soulmagic?

Hyden belongs to @chocodile! Just borrowing him for a sec haha

Long stupid excessive ramblings below :'D

I was working on this for a long time. Kinda had it planned for a few years actually, before I even redesigned Verloren and got obsessed with him! They're both evil mages who caused chaotic historical events and then eventually faced The Consequences and lost their powers, so I felt like there was a lot of room for crossovers hehe. I started actually working on this in December and totally thought I'd finish in January but... oh well I guess that didn't happen xD

Unfortunately, all this time spent working on this pic has allowed me to come up with a fuckton of headcanon about it, and I could not rest without spilling all of it in an obnoxiously long wall of text.

So, if I were to steal Hyden and adapt him into my setting, I think he would be a Grand Augur of Necromagic from a kingdom neighbor to Houndsdagger. Augur is a word I stole because it looks cool, but in my setting it basically means a mage that works for the kingdom and does magic research. A Grand Augur is a higher rank than an augur, typically has earned the title through their experience, but also usually they're nobles or important people. They get a seat at the royal council of magic and stuff. So yeah I think that would fit him kinda. And necromagic because it allows for some of the most powerful crafts... and because it's typically the most potentially evil of the magics lol

This probably would take place when Verloren's work with soulmagic was starting to attract private clients looking for dark powerful magics, so Hyden might have heard the rumors about a mage in Houndsdagger who could make magic from souls (of animals but also of people obviously). At first, he might have thought it was nonsense like witchcraft (non-standard magic that a lot of people consider superstition) but maybe he might have grown a bit interested once he learned that this was apparently some extremely powerful form of magic. So on the next opportunity he had to visit Houndsdagger, Hyden decided to check it out and meet this Augur Verloren.

I think this interaction could go well, but it could also go really bad.

Verloren is known for being difficult to work with and straight up hostile at times. He's very quick to judge and will not work with you if he decides that he dislikes you for any reason, so the way that Hyden approaches him would matter a lot. Some things about Verloren that I think would influence Hyden's opinions of him:

- Verloren is just an augur, and augurs typically serve under Grand Augurs, so Hyden is technically above him, although he doesn't exactly have any authority over him since he's from a different kingdom. - Verloren is also not noble or anything like that, AND he's from Vykrest. The Vykrest are a bit more animal-like in some of their ways (like growling, biting, running on all fours at times), which makes people from outside think they're somewhat uncivilized or primitive. Doesn't help their image that they're typically wary of outsiders, with some of their cities restricted to their kind alone. - Verloren also usually appears kinda arrogant, like in a "I don't have time for you" sorta way, which pisses off a lot of people who think that he should bow down to them.

But I think if Hyden is interested in what he has to offer, he would be wise enough to treat him well no matter what he actually thinks of him. And unless the other person is being actually rude to him, Verloren enjoys talking about his work and showing what he's capable of even if he doesn't like them. (It's the part of working with/for someone he hates that he won't do.)

Verloren's work is very complex and his notes and diagrams might seem to make no sense, so Hyden might be skeptical at first, but he'd probably change his mind after some demonstrations of soulmagic's power. I think he would be especially interested when Verloren gets to the part about the Triangle Workyn of Ravenbone, a craft that could permanently increase one's magic ability.

So at this point, if the conversation was going well, they might try to make a deal. Verloren offered his soulmagic services for a cost, but he was very picky about what that cost would be. He was not interested in wealth and instead he would ask his potential client what they could offer that would be really worth his time. Hyden probably would have some interesting magic knowledge to share... or maybe he would offer Ambroys' blood. I have some thoughts about what this would mean in my setting but I guess I can spare you of those ramblings and leave for some other time since it's not directly related to this pic anyway.

Aside from that payment, there would be the materials required for the craft, and for the Triangle Workyn of Ravenbone that included three victims, with their souls bound to their skulls (the process that allows you to use a soul in magic), who should be made to kill each other in order. Verloren would provide the soul-bind spells but Hyden would have to find victims and handle the killings on his own (which I think he'd be pretty capable of doing.) So once Hyden had all the required materials, they'd meet again to do the Triangle Workyn of Ravenbone on him. If everything went right, congratulations! Hyden can now output a lot more magic at once, making all of his spells stronger. Also, his bones are black now (that's what the Ravenbone in the name is about), and possibly a bit stronger too.

Overall, I think they would get along ok, but not exactly amazingly. More of a "I guess I can deal with this guy" sort of thing despite obviously having some shared interests. They'd probably have pretty good conversations about magic, but that alone.

But what if their conversation actually didn't go so nice? If Verloren refused to work with Hyden, how would he react? How would he feel about this random lowly wild-dog of a person having some unbelievably powerful magic rivaling his own and not being able to get it for himself? During Verloren's time as an augur, he gathered several enemies who'd plot his demise and attempt to have him killed and steal his work, and I think maybe Hyden might have been one of those. Eventually, some of his most influential enemies end up convincing the king of Houndsdagger to have Verloren exiled, and maybe Hyden could have been involved. It turned out to be a terrible idea however.

Ahhhh there would be more, but I think it might already be enough and maybe I should shut up...

Sorry I guess I fanfic'd too hard about our evil mages coexisting :'D

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Verloren wanted to get back to his work as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, but he could hardly focus. Two audiences and he was still banished... but he had done some things, taken out some bad actors. Over and over, he went through his plans and what he intended to say to change their minds at last. He was confident that after tomorrow's audience, he'd finally be able to fully get back to things, without the worry that he was about to lose all of his work. One last audience, and he would have peace...

...But oh well, you know how that went... :)

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I'm working on a bigger thing right now and it would be sooooo cool if I could finish it before the end of the year, but with only like 20 days left that's just soooo not likely to happen c': So this is like a little teaser of it, just so I can feel like I have done something at all heh

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I've been having some technical difficulties the whole month, ranging from dumb things like me just being full of crap about adapting to my new display to stressful things like almost losing many files so... I haven't been drawing much

Have a generic Verloren face sketch, one of many that look extremely similar, and that supposedly should become a full finished pic someday but might as well just be stuck in wip hell forever... like most of them lol

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I was supposed to make clothes and toyz for him but I've been lazy about so I'll post him anyway. This is the petzy version I made of Verloren, just because I can :D I've had him since December and he's now one of my favorite petz to play with. It's so fun that I can take my evil blorbo and put him in the cute little pet game ahahah! He feels surprisingly in-character sometimes tbh Some of the pics above were slightly edited (for example, that outfit is entirely drawn on photoshop and not actual ingame clothing) because I was lazy about some of his markings and they clip a lot, so I patched up some things. I might fix some things about that because some of it would be really easy fixes but like I said, I've been lazy.

The following pics are completely unedited:

He's so fuckin cute

Also yeah I have a bloody knife toy in my game so of course I had to give it to him.

More pics of him on my Petz website! [link]

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"Heart of stone And blackened bone A killer out To hunt alone"

One of Verloren's works which enhanced his magic abilities caused his bones to turn black. A dark amalgam made from soulmagic was absorbed by his body and integrated into his bone tissue, improving the way magic could flow through his body and also how much of it he could use at once.

I drew the skeleton based almost entirely on a dog's skeleton. Verloren and his whole "extremely wolf-like" deal has been making me realize that my animal people don't need to be very human-like if I don't want to, and I've been having fun with that. Having a dog-like skeleton might make the thing of running on all fours make more sense (or it might not but that doesn't matter because to me it just looks cool anyway)

This was one of the prints I sold at BFF! I normally don't sell stuff about my OCs because it feels a little weird (they're kinda very personal to me) but I thought maybe if I made something abstract enough, I'd be more comfortable about and it could look cool even without context. And apparently it did, because these sold out so fast... I wish I had printed more hah