Hello there kiddos!

Yep, you read that right. Cosplay plans and Ruindirs late brother..... this chapter is gonna be a wild ride, ngl..

Anyways, let's jump right into it!

This boy, finally has friends that would go to comic con, and this year the rona didn't cancel everything :)

And since I just.... could not go there without a cosplay, I took a good look at myself and my artistic abilities, as well as the cosplay guidelines (especially in regards of covid).

The ideas was pretty simple. Since pretty boytober reminded me of this OC of mine:

I couldn't not cosplay as him. Mainly because I already have the rough hairstyle myself, and his face-covering mask thingy, would be perfect to "hide" the mask I had to wear because of covid anyways.

So I sat down and thought about his character, to design him an outfit that I could replicate as easy as possible. I never cosplayed before, so I didn't wanna go with anything overly ambitious ^-^""

Tinion here, is an assassin, with magical abilities. He's very charismatic, friendly and funny, yet would spike your drink with deadly poison or steal all your valuables without batting an eye.

He is more of a strategist, whilst his twin sister Tanari, is more of a head-on, reckless brawler, and has an affinity for alchemy... especially poisonous potions. The ability to hide nearly anything in a small liquid within a bottle, fascinates him, and his ruthless nature end up with several..... interesting results, when it comes to testing out new things.

So bearing all that in mind, I went with a rather relaxed theme. Something he could be wearing in his everyday life, but with some armoured pieces and similarly fight-centered details.

I decided for a simple tank-top with some cargo trousers, as I already had those available and those would fit into the vibe he's got. I then needed his mask-thingy, the signature red scarf and some bandages around his hands, whilst the rest would consist of his monocle, shoulder and upper-arm armour, earring, and bag.

After I made this rough sketch thingy, I basically went ahead and started to piece together the cosplay, creating paper mock-ups, before cutting the elements out of an old yoga/exercise mat my mother had lying around and adding details with some craft-foam, broken headphone and charger cables, and tiny decorative bottles i found in Action ^-^

when creating the whole cosplay in real life, i tried my best to just go ahead and wing it all. the sketch was just a guide of what i would like to have in the end, but since this was my first try at stuff like this, i decided to let my intuition guide me through the process >w<
the end result definitely didn't look like the sketch in the end. the main form and structure is still there, but many details ended up being changed.

The armour-stuff ended up being more detailed in some parts and a lot less detailed in other parts, as well as the whole thing being metal now, instead of the metal-leather mix I had in mind. In addition to that some colours needed to change, because of the materials I had available at the time....

man.....

really pissed now, that i didn't take any progress pictures and didn't get to make an actual photoshoot, as we had planned, so i could show you the cosplay.... maybe i'll get around to showing the thing off some other time though, and then i'll just add in those pictures later on ^-^"

anyways! so here are some pictures, where you can see the cosplay in action... sadly those are all cropped out of group-images, so most of the stuff is blurred out, and you can't see most of the details in the armour, but something is better than nothing, right QwQ

This one was made riiiight at the end, just before we got out bags and jackets again, to leave the con. The cosplay kinda ended up disintegrating over the course of the day, so at some point I just ran around with only the shoulder plate on ^-^""
also bought myself a dnd cap, whilst i was there >w<

up there you can hopefully see a bit more of the whole outfit. all my black tank-tops ended up being too form fitting, for my dysphoric arse, so i ended up using this grey one with a print on it.

i also was stupid, and forgot to take the bag that belonged to the cosplay with me to boarding school, the week we went to the con, so i ended up needing to take my bright yellow school-bag instead..... didn't match the vibe as much as this other bag here, but having a bag was more important to me, than not having one, so sacrifices had to be made QwQ

Yeah... that would've really added to the vibe...

ANYWAYS!

You can kinda see the whole thing a bit better here, even though it's pretty blurry..... yeah...

and since the upper-arm-armour isn't visible in any of the pictures, here's a picture I took of it, whilst the paint was drying.... it wasn't finished just yet at that point, but it gives you a pretty accurate idea of how it looked ^-^"

So yeah..... that's all I got in regards of the cosplay! hope you guys didn't mind the chaotic presentation of the end result, or the random change from 2d digital art to a damn costume of my character >w<"

either way, as my first cosplay ever and my guinea-pig for techniques, i regard this as a huge success. i will def be making more cosplays in the future, and probably more expansive ones as well!

Now!

let's move on from my ugly face that i luckily managed to mostly hide behind pretty accessories, to a much nicer face to look at: Istaphonen.

most of you should be familiar with bronadan and two of his three sons, ruindir and glamarphen. i always was too scared to give taph a portrait drawing.... simply, because of what happened with phen xD

so... for those that aren't aware of what has happened in the general story:

ruindir and bronadan were out in the surrounding mountains of the palace, with bron and inferno teaching ruindir and ember how to fly. they had some really sweet father-son moments there, until the earth suddenly shook, a loud bang echoed through the skies, and a huge plume of smoke erupted from the area, which the palace was located at.
the two rushed back to their home, only to find the east-wing destroyed and in ashes. they landed and whilst ruindir ran into the remains of what ended up being an attempt at the assassination of the king (brons father and thus rus grandfather), bron gathered with the unharmed officials to discuss the situation.

in this tragic moment, the current king and queen passed away, as well as bronadans wife lachiell, and ruindirs little brother istaphonen. many more lost their lives, and even more were injured, including ruindirs elder brother glamarphen.

phen got brought to the palace infirmary, whilst the other wounded people were brought to the hospital in the nearby city, the dead were unearthed, gathered and counted, and the lost were listed and searched for.
after having lost his mother, grandparents and brother, ruindir spent most of his time with phen, reading him stories when he was awake, or just watching over him, whilst he was asleep.

phens condition was pretty stable at first, and the doctors were convinced that he would survive, until there were sudden heart complications. phen was brought to the hospital for an operation and more intensive care, where he would later on die, from the effects of a botched operation.

now, that was the main story.... until i drew phen. after i drew him, me and several others (glares at mith), loved him too much, to just let him die... so i changed plans.

the operation wasn't botched. everything was fine and phen had a slow, yet steady recovery. BUTT since the king was now dead, and his father was deemed unworthy of the title, he was the heir to the throne... meaning he would be the next ruler of the fireforges.
and after studying and learning the ways of a royalty, he was terrified. he has seen, how power, corruption, greed and blackmail had destroyed many people that he was close to... and whilst he did believe he could somehow manage the position, he was scared of loosing hid identity, before even reaching an adult age.

and so... as a scared, young teenager, he decided to bribe the hospital into faking his death. ruindir and bronadan would get the message, that he had passed away, thus avoiding becoming the next king, and continued to live a new life in the city, before studying history and linguistics and becoming an archaeologist in the deserts.

NOW.

I was scared, that as soon as taph got a face, the same thing would happen... and since phen was "dead" but actually wasn't it just felt extremely wrong to go ahead and make the little one come back to life again as well.

Soo.... i gave him a face..... had some adorable headcanons... meaning actual new canon concepts, since this whole thing is my creation... and ended up with the following thing.

Essentially, when people in Mesoria die, all the magic seperates from their souls and returns to the planet. The rest of this ghostly shell of identity, then get's sucked through to another plane of existence.

Essentially, when you die, you loose conscience... everything fades to black... until you begin to feel a falling sensation. your body turns into a bright, glowing blue illuminating literally nothing in the endless darkness, that sucks you further down. the glow gradually flakes off of you, and the sensation of having an existential part of your being, being torn away from you fills your head. the glowing flakes float upwards, into the nothingness where you fell from.

after there is no glow left on you, and you feel weak and tired, a new glow appears from below. it is a distant, white light, that you are falling towards. at some point you fall through the white and find yourself lying on a soft blanket of grass. around you, everything is green, a soft, warm breeze sweeps over the meadows, whilst tiny, glowing dragons pollinate the elegant flowers, peaking through the grass.
every ounce of exhaustion is gone and you literally feel reborn. and then an innate instinct calls. you need to stand up. you turn around to expect a soft hill in front of you, at the peak of which you find a man, dressed in golden fabrics, emitting a slightly golden glow. you don't know him, and yet you somehow do. he is waiting for you. after walking up the hill, your eyes gaze upon a lake, that then merges into a large mass of water. the water glows partially and is perfectly clear, letting you gaze down into the galaxy of stars, planets, and swirls below.

the man leads you to a small, wooden boat, matching his golden glow, and together you board it. he then proceeds to navigate the boat out of the lake and over the ocean and after a whole while, you arrive at a harbor of a familiar place.

You see... the plain of the dead is essentially a mirror image of Mesoria. Everything that once existed there, can be found here as well. And with every new arrival, new memories and new objects, places and details get added. The whole thing is literally end- and timeless... the ability of teleportation is also nothing new... it would otherwise get rather difficult to navigate through a place that has no limits ^-^""

And that's where taph then lands, after he passed away. his mother and grandparents are already waiting at the harbour for him, and together they sort of build a life in this paradise, meeting their ancient ancestors, ghosts as old as time itself, and taph grows up to lean into his curious nature and become a writer, and occasional adventurer, exploring the never ending lands of different times and places, whilst also studying the night sky above and at the bottom of water sources, and drawing the incredible landscapes he encounters.
another good thing in the plain of the dead is, that you still age at the rate you would in mesoria, until you hit a certain age... similar to how mesorians age until they get 2.000.000 years old and then remain the same until they die at some point, but the age here being 500.000 years.

sooo.... you probably are asking yourself... "why develop a character after they die, when all the stories he would be relevant in, are written from the POV of people that are alive?" pretty simple!

on the one hand: oh boy this is fun

on the other hand:  .... it happened again...... and i'm calling it Glamarphen's Law.

so essentially, in the plain of the dead, we have a certain area you cannot teleport to. you can only teleport nearby and then walk the rest of the way, until you arrive at something, that appears to be a crater of some sort, with a golden glowing pool in the middle.

everyone, who entered this realm at the beginning, tells you, that this area is prohibited. it's highly dangerous apparently... now, our little taph here, was just walking around on one of his adventures (he usually only uses teleportation for small distances, since walking/climbing/swimming/etc. is just more fun and gives him a feeling of accomplishment) stumbles across this place.

not knowing that this was the "DO NOT GO THERE. THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO DIE IN THIS REALM, AND IT'S THAT PLACE"-place, he just went ahead and checked the odd, glowing water out. it was the only water source, where the floor below didn't open up to the galaxy and stars. instead... it seemed to have no floor at all.

and so he took a few steps back, before cannonballing into the water and diving downwards.... well... that experience ended different to what he expected. he got sucked into the black darkness of the bottom and landed, lying on cold stone, surrounded by.... more darkness. confused as he was, he sat upright to see the catacombs of the royal palace, and the lid of his own tomb going straight through his torso. he seemed to be completely unaffected by the existence of objects, as he could morph right through them. he stood up, realising how he felt... weird. the coffin he was standing on, was pulling him back down, as if he were carrying weights.

after a while of simply standing there, he collapsed from exhaustion, the pull from the coffin becoming gradually stronger over time, and he fell into the black again. the next thing he sees, is the warm sands next to an oasis out in the deserts. he was soaking wet, yet completely unharmed. the water in the pool in front of him glowed in a bright gold as well.

now..... essentially these pools of golden water are holes to the void. when entering one of those holes, your present existence gets thrown into the void... and since the void rejects every form of content, it spits you into another plane of existence. these gateways only go in one direction though, following the hierarchy of the realms:

now.... only one hole to the void exists in each realm, but those aren't the only ways to morph from one plane into another.

elemental heirs, as being of pure magic, have access to some sort of "reality filter" which is the realm of gods... a layer of existence flowing around all the other realms, with the gods being able to access all planes, simply by descending into one of them. the realm of dreams is the place that a persons soul goes to, when asleep in the realm of the living, whilst the realm of the dead is where the soul, stripped of magic, fall down to.

now... taph being too curious for his own good, thought that the experience was fun, and.... dived head-first into the golden pool in front of him, causing him to re-appear on a see-through ground, covered in a thin layer of clouds, a huge white and golden sparkling tower/palace right in front of him. and to the floor of the intricate building, there was yet another golden pool, surrounded by carefully crafted decorations, making it seem more like an artificial pond, than a natural occurence.

he quickly scribbled down a sketch of the building and pool into his miraculously still dry sketchbook, before diving right into the pool again, only to find himself in the crater he first arrived at.

and thus... he discovered realm-travelling... a concept nobody in the realm of the dead had discovered before, since everybody who morphed into the realm of the living was then pulled into the realm of dreams, and stayed there, assuming it was the realm of the dead.

.... you probably know where this is going...... now... nobody from the realm of the dead, can stay for a longer period of time in the realm of the living, as they are non-magical beings and the magic concentration in the atmosphere simply crushes the already weak and ghostly body back into another void-hole.

the realm of dreams on the other hand.... yeah........................

so basically i couldn't bring him back to life, but instead he meets up with ru and phen every night in the realm of dreams.... yeah.... i had fun figuring all that out....

anyways, you came here for art, and not for me trying to explain how Glamarphen's Law caused me to finally worldbuild all the dimensions i had in mind, so here's that portrait of taph ^-^"

so yeah!

uh.... already a hella long chapter, so I won't say too much anymore >w<

i just hope you enjoyed my rambles about the cosplay and my boy istaphonen, and if not, at least liked the drawings and pictures that came along with those.

>>cuddles, pats, wraps in blanket and gives some warm tea<<

remember, that you are loved, valid and important. take care of yourselves kiddos, until we hopefully read each other in another chapter ^-^