#dnd&d

Abhor, Demon of Hatred

Temp is the Demon of Temptation. Since she is married to Abyss, she is Queen of the Demons. This doesn’t really give her any actual power, mostly just bragging rights. Which she uses joyously. Temp’s areas of power include pride, envy, lust, greed, deception, and vanity. I have a harder time justifying a positive spin on this… Temp has a reputation for cursing people a lot. So if you’re not making money, it might be seen as a curse by Temp, so you may need to appease her. If you’re struggling in the dating department, might be a Temp curse. And I dunno. Maybe those things in small amounts can be good or whatever. Temp’s very concerned with the appearances and reputations of the demons as a whole. She often brings those issues to Abyss, who is busy with real problems and couldn’t be bothered. Temp’s very annoyed he doesn’t pay more attention to her. Temp is most often portrayed as a high elf or perhaps even fey. Whatever culture she is portrayed in, she is always portrayed as whatever that culture considers most attractive - she *is* the unrealistic beauty standards. But she is usually portrayed with green eyes. For this drawing, I loved the idea of her having iridescent stained glass wings and lots of gold accents. Temp’s shrines also need to be beautiful and made out of the best materials as she has a reputation for being a very petty god and has cursed people for less.

Li is the Nomed of Light - again, not only physical light, but all forms of metaphorical light: joy, hope, knowledge, enlightenment, revelation. Just as Abyss’s darkness is not all bad, Li’s area is not all good. The sun is bright and friendly but can also burn you and all of your crops. Things you might prefer to be hidden might be revealed. Too much light can make it hard to sleep.

Li is most often depicted as a sun elf. Regardless of depicting race, she’s shown with tanned skin and white-blonde hair. Her eyes are glowing orbs, like two tiny suns. Mortals can’t look directly at them, just as one can’t stare directly into the sun without being blinded. She has sun freckles. They may seem like stars, and that’s because suns *are* stars. While Abyss seems to be the demon of night, he’s more pure darkness - a starless night. Stars and suns are more Li’s area. Originally Li had a circlet that also served as her sacred object. But I loved the idea of a sun crown. It still has the circlet part kinda. I’m thinking it might also be able to shift into a circlet form for more casual appearances.

As stated in the post I made many much time ago, when she’s depicted in statues, they may depict her glowing eyes using gold leaf, colored glass, or eternal flames.

Finally returning to this project, drawing updated designs for The Immortal Demons and Nomeds now that they’re in the D&D world. Abyss is the Demon of Darkness - not only the lack of light, but also all metaphorical forms of darkness: depression, despair, ignorance, the unknown, secrets, hiding. These aren’t exclusively bad things. There is comfort in darkness. Sleeping in the dark is preferable. Ignorance can be bliss. We all have things we’d prefer not be public knowledge.

Abyss is most often depicted as a drow with dark skin. When he’s depicted as other races, he’s depicted with the darkest skin tone of the race and often also with very dark hair. Something that is always consistent is his his pitch black eyes. It is said that looking into Abyss’s eyes is like looking into a black hole. You feel all life, all hope, sucked out of you. He wears a crown made of shadows and sometimes also has a kingly staff of shadows.

Havoc, Demon of Chaos

The one that started it all

I’m not sure how much I’ve talked about the Demons and Nomeds on here, but Havoc was the first and then I built up the rest of the world around her. Later I decided to make the Demons and Nomeds the gods of my D&D world, which has led to some shifts in the original ideas. I decided to go back to the start and revisit Havoc.

I’m not sure I can call this a redesign because she never really had a solid design in the first place? I knew she was pale, had long black hair (at the time I imagined it straight and slick), and had tall horns that curved back. (If you look at the image below where I messed with different horn concepts, her original horns were the middle ones.) She was basically just a girl with horns. Part of my challenge in adapting the Demons and Nomeds to the D&D world is differentiating them from Fieldings. Tieflings are related to demons, so them being similar isn’t the worst, but I’m trying to give my demons a little extra umph. Since Havoc is the only known daughter of the Immortal Death, I decided to draw more inspiration from her father. I like the idea that her skin has a sickly, dead tone to it and is so pale that you can see all of her black veins underneath. Her horns now curve to the side before curving back, which adds some visual interest and also, surprisingly, makes them easier to draw. I wanted her to look really sickly and like she’s basically just skin and bones. I made her black hair more voluminous and choppy. My first priority in her design was to make her look like a chaos gremlin, since she is meant to be the embodiment of chaos. My second priority was to make her look sickly and off putting. I wanted her to be distinctly unattractive, like when you first meet her you’d think more that she’s undead and possibly contagious rather than pretty. But I’m not sure if I succeeded at that since I simply do not understand attraction.