#uranoscopus

The mirror carried by the current Uranoscopus is the same as the one seen here, but was transformed by the crafty ringleader for her own purposes, giving it a different appearance and function. Originally, Urania's Mirror was more akin to a star map of the Astral Plane, a reference to a series of star maps from the 1800s of the same name. Mythologically speaking, Urania herself is the Muse of astronomy, though the term "muse" is used a bit more literally for this character.

Today’s design I finished up based on a defunct constellation of a stargazer fish, Uranoscopus! She’s the ringleader of the Sky Mirror Circus, and with an already magical world like Asteria, she has to be a pretty impressive magician in order to wow her audience. As a result, she’s drawn to the most dangerous and death-defying tricks that she and her crew can muster! Her signature trick is called Urania’s Mirror (a reference to a series of sky maps of the same name), where the ring around her waist turns into a mirror that can trap anyone who touches the glass. The mirror is then dropped from on high, and the captive “volunteer” must escape the mirror before it shatters. If you’re wondering at this point where I’m going to put all of these designs, the short answer is I’m figuring it out as I go! As I continue to develop the world these characters inhabit, I’ve been establishing a sort of hierarchy in terms of which characters appear in the main story versus side stories, as well as incidental appearances versus recurring ones. It’s much easier to do that once I have a tangible direction to take for the character though, so it’s going to seem pretty random if it isn’t already! For now I’m just having fun making cool characters, so I hope you enjoy. :)

Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 320, fol. 82r)

thank you!