𓆏𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓆏

I became quickly attached to many of the ghost sheep, though didn’t trust Sariel’s ass immediately from the comments the others had made and things he said. I’ll be writing more about him and the others later too along with more illustrations. The tablets with their last days all written by Aniel were heartbreaking but so so good, I WISH we had them for the other four (Temi, Yorabba, Erlim, and Zawa).

So excited for Woolhaven! I got it and started it tonight, I’m so glad to see the sheep getting more of a cultural background, and I may wrap that into my own headcanon. Or my headcanon around that I suppose lol.

This is an illustration I started months ago but never finished, here’s the sketch and linework. It exists in the realm of my theories on the sheep culture and bells! This flock is traveling their way through darkwood. Many families, young and old make up each flock.

The coloration plans give away some of those family groups :)

In the twilight’s dark, do you recognize the boy you’ve raised?

The lamb we know indeed never had a chance to grow out of their lamb bell, but unfortunately they could not keep it. They had buried their lamb bell for safe keeping and for the sake of their own safety after their flock had been all slaughtered.

When the Lamb sacrificed and meets Narinder for the first time, Nari gifts his vessel with a new, golden bell. Though, he does not understand the full cultural context, so some meaning is misunderstood. He, as any other, is aware of bells significance to the Sheep-folk, knowing that they wear them and cherish them. He is still an outsider and views them more as decorative trinkets rather than tradition, hence the use of gold rather than bell metal. The sound the bell makes, while nice, pales far in comparison to that of a true Sheep bell. Gold is simply too soft a metal to create the same resonant sound that the more rigid bell metal is capable of producing.

Still, the lamb appreciates the effort nonetheless, even if a part of them is angered and saddened by a mockery of their lost people’s art.

They treasure it regardless. Wearing it as if it was a true Shepard’s bell.

The Lamb would have very complicated feels about the golden bell, maybe feeling like a false Shepard. Especially in the beginning of building their cult.

Over the centuries, they would grow into their own and feel more self-assured in their role as a leader and a Shepard. Likely, they wouldn’t feel truly secure until the usurping of Narider.

Lambs!

Lambs are highly treasured, as most young are. A new born lambs are wrapped in family cloths, ornate and decorative pieces made from the wool of immediate ancestors. Some family cloths have great variety in color leading to carefully made patterns generation to generation. Others have subtle changes that exhibit and require exquisite attention to detail in order to see the carefully woven additions. Small bells donated from ancestors horns are secured on the cloths.

When two family ends join, the cloths are combined through a series of frogging (undoing the weave or knit of the fabric) and felting (joining the wool together) and the bells adorned to the singular piece.

In the instance of too many bells being generationally collected, a ceremony is held to melt down the bell metals of passed, and a new single bell is made. The excess kept and carried for the future making of beading, jewelry, and, of course, more bells.

As lambs grow large enough to toddle, a large lamb bell is fixed to their tails. Comical in size at first but they grow into it. Clothing for the lambs are made from the parents’ wool to claim the child as theirs physically and olfactorily, so they smell like their Babas :).

Lambs will keep their lamb bells until adulthood, something established by a sheep having reached maturity to grow enough wool to make their own full-coverage cloak.

I want to explore the idea of Sheep culture prior to the Old Faith’s culling of the sheep.

I can’t stop thinking about bells, especially because of the Weeping Shrine, so thoughts below!

Sheep-folk were a predominantly peaceful and unremarkable artisan nomadic people. What made them stand out, was their invention of bell metal, a bronze with a higher quantity of tin that increases the rigidity. This gives the bronze a particularly resonance and melodious sound when made into instruments, particularly, bells.

No one remembers who or how bell metal was originally created, but in the ages following bells became both sacred symbol and important tool to the Sheep folk. Due to their nomadic nature, the sounds of their bells would help flocks stay together and find each other. Each flock made their bells with differing styles and thicknesses, so the tone would be the same in one flock, and different in another. When flocks crossed paths and decided to merged together their craft in bell-making and bronze work would be transformed through generations to harmonize once again.

Family lines would pass down bells generation to generation, some sheep having bells hundreds of years old woven in cloths alongside new, shiny metal.

The type, number, and size of bells could show anything from the age, skillset, and status of a sheep.

The largest bells would always be found on young lambs and flock Shepards. The young so that worrisome lambs wandering in curiosity could be found easily by parents. Shepards, the leader of a flock, so that the members under their care could easily follow as they lead through tranquil and treacherous paths alike.

Come the time of the genocide of the sheep, Old Faith cultists would keep the bells of fallen sheep as a token of their metal, shown off to the gods and their peers alike. Bells hang in great clusters from the sides of high-ranking cultists. Those sheep who once owned and treasured the bells long gone. The mix and density of different toned bells makes a clattering mess of sound, crude, soulless imitations of what once was.

A Princess Celestia redesign because I had mlp brain rot for two ish weeks.

I’ve also got significant notes of ideas for au elements outside of this stuff lol

The Hermit’s House.

A sculpture I made a couple years ago that I wrote a companion short story to :)

Story under the cut

Lamb doodling + some of the followers from my game :)

Here’s close ups