The Wax Annointed (rough sketch)

I've lost about just over a week of work due to a bout of insomnia driven creative block.  I just couldn't seem to pull myself to draw anything and found every idea to not be worth pursuing.

Luckily I've got at least one night of sleep under my belt finally, and while I need a solid week of sleep at least to catch up on the rest I've lost, even just one night of blissful rest meant I could start doing sketchwork again.

Rambling to follow..

The images here are some rough concepts pulled from the last D&D campaign I ran.  Its actually been a theme through some of the art I've done since its about as close to a cohesive storyline that I've come up with in a while.

As a story, it might be okay, as a game..  well.

The general premise surrounded a blighted area that stretched for miles across an area of the Aegencald (sorta like Norway/Iceland, but larger).  The area known as 'the Sorrow' to the local people there.

The blight took place around 500 years ago, in the Age of the Cresting Sun, just as the infernal forces of Mephistopheles were being pushed back to their last strongholds in the Aegencald.  In an act of immense betrayal and final desperation, a node of arcana, the 'blood of the world' was infected with infernal shadow and detonated by a once trusted Archmage.

The result spread across the lands like a silent, grey radiation, driving people mad, draining them, turning them into vessels.  Into husks of infernal undeath doomed to wander with shards of their souls still trapped within them.

Fast forward just over 680 years, to the Age of the Ascended Stone, and the Sorrow was safe to travel again, tentative parties of explorers, cartographers, and foolhardy adventuring types started to poke into the realms.  Opportunistic governments on the fringes began scrambling to reclaim territory and riches ones left behind, to expand their empires.

But the Sorrow still called to those loyal to the master.  To the arcane adept, like a thrumming heartbeat, it called to the cults of Mephistopheles to return to the Auld Andormira, an arcane school in Blackpine, turned headquarters of the Betrayer, a contract signed, and regret driven deep into a heart as the aftermath of the Sorrow took hold over the lands.

The Wax was a gift from Mephistopheles those years ago.  The arch-devil allowing those who were fevered and rampant for knowledge and power to see between threads of arcane and pluck untapped power there.  The brilliant mages who mastered this became incredibly powerful, if in debt to the arch-devil.  Those who weren't 'worthy' of such powerful became drown in more and more wax, desperate to advance, and soon became husks of wax and flame that wandered silently.

Luciphaestus, the Duke and general of Mephistopheles' armies in the Aegencald, found use for the Wax Annointed.  Imbuing them with power of the flames of hell.  And allowing them to become archivists in what he believed would be a swift, crushing victory in the Aegencald.

The Templars of the Nine Wax Seals were one of the few infernal forces outside of the direct control of Luciphaestus, they were the knights of the Hells that ensured the towns and cities taken by Mephistopheles' forces were properly subservient.  They also oversaw the soldiers that protected the Arcantower in Blackpine, unknown husks utterly devoted to the infernal cause.

There was, of course, more to the story.  Though I'm not much of a writer.  But the arc was essentially the gathering of cultists brought to the area, the awakening of the shard of Luciphaestus that was trapped by a broken contract inside of the betrayer Arcmage, and just for fun, lots of vessels (undead) and a Lorrnath that started to deeply question his hatred of his own kind after uncovering information about many heroic acts of his people centuries ago.

Gawd, that was just a mass of text.  If you made it this far, free cookies and a hat for you!

Will be doing more sketchwork soon.  Weather is getting better, we're hurtling towards August, and there are pantsless things to draw.

Will also be sending out the next note for the Patron sketch tomorrow.

-T.J.