The Bloody-Handed Name of Bronze includes a little section about makeup and hair because the game asks you for descriptions of stuff all the time and I want to seed the conversation with imagery from outside the European aesthetic (and the European second-artistry that is modern Fantasy)
This image will be very small on the page. But since I set out to draw someone beautiful, I kinda…couldn’t stop. A little bit, I fell in love.
As I draw, the drawing process feeds back stories to me, which then get looped into the drawing, which then tells me more stories…
This is Shudar, Sun-Child, Scion of the Sky of the Mountain City Uyat.Their hair is based on both masculine and feminine Babylonian styles, with bands of gold wrapping the braids and twists, and gold beads capping them. Their makeup is likewise inspired by Babylonian fashion, as far as we are able to perceive it. Shudar wears armor of leather and linen, banded with bone of the mammoth Lushub who fell in combat aiding Shudar, as well as a bronze disk guarding their heart. Behind their head woven into their hair is the sun-ring worn by those of her line.
The city’s sky, in the body of her mother, bore them to dominate the neighboring cities of Yush and Afur, to marry the Great Names of those cities to the Sky of the Mountain City Uyat — or subdue them if they refused.
The City of Yush agreed after their mightiest prince, Musab Tulul, wagered his personal guard, the Crashing Tide, against Shudar’s wager that Musab Tulul’s line would be the ruling family of the three cities. Preceding their ritual combat, Shudar’s seer, Kabara, advised Shudar to blindfold themself and enter combat facing the warm sun, then to strike when night fell.
When the two met in the amphitheater of the City of Yush, its proud son Musab Tulul sensed the trick, seeing his opponent facing him wearing a blindfold. But before he could strike, darkness fell like a blanket over the world as the Strong Right Eye closed. Feeling the sun recede, Shudar pulled off the blindfold, their eyes adapted to darkness, and leapt at the sun-blinded Musab Tulul, wrestling him to the ground. When the Strong Right Eye of the Sky again opened, the crowd was astonished to see Musab Tulul’s body locked at the joints by the far-smaller Shudar.
This portrait follows the festivities by several days and Shudar stands with their own army, as well as Musab Tulul and The Crashing Tide behind them, as they face the Lamassu-guarded gate of the City of Afur.
