TheWoodSprite

Fates of Free Will

More Fates but all in one part this time.

Now they were quite hard when it comes to writing their role. When you have the belief that "our fates are already written" while the "free will exists and it's ours" may directly contradict it, making both of them exist at the same time is hard.

So for my writing I made only the places someone is born in to be already written, while all the choices a person makes are all entirely belonging to that person.

Those Fates here have the hardest job. In other words watching humanity make the same mistakes while they can't do anything more than watching it all.

So Eternal Sugar cookie

💕May all the happiness they want...

comes from me

💕Thus if they are elated,

who care that they aren't truly free

Her believing that by cutting others' access to the real world, she is simply granting people happiness. In the harm she is doing, she sees good.

How ironic for a bringer of happiness, who has felt others' grief for such a long time, to be unable to acknowledge nor bear the one of her own.

(She reminds me so much of spirits in mythology that trap people in some perfect version of the world, but the trick is that they can never return to the real one).

Some of my very first pylons. Now I can sketch them much faster, but I remember how long this one took me.

Just a tiny parody of a Shel Silverstein poem, well suited for the nature of both the bad kind of magicians and the spritits they summon.

How not to have to serve magicians

"If you have to give your knowledge to magicians (Such an awful boring chore)

If you have to find a treasure for a magician ('Stead of speeding to the shore)

If you have to use your strength to serve magicians,

but you decide to play stupid or deceive one of them and more,

Maybe they won't summon you to serve them anymore."

What a better way to introduce part of the world I'm writing than this? Oc introduction yay!

Fates of Exorcism

Part 1 out of 2 for those guys. The Fates in my own lore have their origins in mythology, but aren't entirely based on it. For them I decided to mix the belief people had about those spirits, with the Balkan belief about magicians.

I want to add that a magician can be interpreted in a different way depending on the people you talk to. We have the good kind of magicians and witches who help the community. But then we have the bad kind (if you are from the Balkans and have seen them, you will know what I'm talking about). So the lore here isn't about the kind Pagans who uplift others. Another thing is how some magicians use the word "enslave" when talking about working with spirits. Even if one doesn't believe in the existence of sprites, it's still so creepy to listen to the way those people talk. It sounds evil in a way.

And I guarantee you that there is a giant difference between talking to a normal witch and talking to a magician like the ones I'm describing.

Another thing is how utterly terrified some people are when it comes to what is considered a bad spirit aka a demon. The amount of horror stories people would tell you about jinns, samodivi and all. I wanted to use it as well.

Ooh, Isn't that one of my newer drawings but with a slightly edited description from 2022?

Slavic people as many others gave soul to everything. There were spirits guarding lakes and rivers, some protected houses, the Leshies on the other hand were the guardians of forests Lles/лec translates to forest, though not in all Slavic languages.

Leshies are more of neutral spirits rather than evil or entirely good ones, they are often accompanied by wolves and bears, have hard as a tree bark skin and hair made out of moss and vines. Their cheecks have a blue-ish tint, due to those spirits' blue blood.

They can take the form of every plant and beast, even change their size, from as tall as a tree, to short as a blade of grass. Even if they can shapeshift into a human, you can spot their disguise, simply because leshies don't cast shadow and their piercing green eyes always remain.

Since people feared the unknown, they also feared forests. It was believed that those spirits tend to lure people deeper into the woods, causing them to get hopelessly lost into the unknown. But for others, a leshy may take the role of a helper.

Leshies also have a sense of humor, they love to laugh and play tricks on unsuspecting humans. Did you know that the best way to get a Leshy to leave you alone is by making him laugh? Just put your clothes on backwards/inside out and wear your shoes on the opposite feet. But can one blame them? Spirits have always been fans of playing with humans.

Btw Leshies may be particularly popular, considering the game characters named after them. So if you are a fan of Cult of The Lamb or Inscryption, now you know. Leshies are often described as chaotic too, so cotl going with making Leshy a God of Chaos makes more sense that we are giving it credit for. As for inscryption, there is this belief that Leshies love playing cards. So, makes sense, makes sense. The fact that Massive Monster managed to do justice to Slavic mythology, where other medias couldn't. Good on them!

A thing I have heard was that birch trees resemble eyes, because Leshies use them as such. But I haven't found a written source that confirms this as a recorded belief. Anyway it's still interesting. Especially considering humanity's fear when it comes to being observed by something unknown.

I did mention people being lost in the forests. But since we humans have a natural tilt, meaning that we can't walk in a completely straight line without making a full circle eventually, does that mean that all of the claims of "Leshy caused me to get lost" originate from humans simply tilting in a circle? How many times has someone gotten lost just to discover that they are just a few meters next to a path?

I'm starting on here by posting some old art. For everyone who has seen this before on my Insta, hello a second time. And for everyone who is seeing me for the first time, I welcome you with a drawing from 2023.

One of the things that still fascinate me is how often humanity feared water. While many other spirits from Slavic mythology were seen as mostly neutral, the image of the Vodyanoy was almost always evil. Humanity shivered by the thought of drowning and this guy become the embodiment of that fear.

We can see some traces of human terror even in the names of rivers. In Bulgaria we have a "Луда река", translating to "insane river". But nothing can beat it's first name "Shaytan" this time translating to "Devil".