[Mysterious Notebook] Book Of The Beyond [NSFW]

[Bartooliinii]

[In this notebook I intend to depict all the 11 Gods in 'beast form'. Not like humans at all. I intend to make them so beyond our reality that it adds to the mysterious air that surrounds them. I hope they become so far from what we know, that it is hard to identify with them, and thus set them apart so far that they truly become the mysterious divine creatures that I know so well from mythology. This is the notebook owned by a character I'm working on. Once I made his profile, the book will be in game, until then nobody will be able to find what's in here IC]

Our Divines are beyond the realm of mortal thinking. If they were not, then they would not be divine. If they were not, anyone among us could become a God. Understand that there is no difference between a God or Goddess. When I say God, it is a word without gender and at the same time with both genders simultaneously. Gods are beyond the realm of mortal thinking, so they have no gender, they have no appearance that would make sense to us, the speak not in our language, rather they do not speak at all. When a God conveys a message to us, it is through means unknown to us, yet we still understand and the message will enter our conscience and we will accept it for what it is. When you see a depiction of a God, your mind fills in that which it can't possibly comprehend. It will see wings when there are no wings. It'll see arms like an insect, just because the closest thing that your mind could possibly fathom is just that. Yet, never does a God truly reveal itself in any kind of the mortal forms we know. Rather, our minds make it seem so. This book contains the pictures of all eleven Gods and their true form, though when I gaze upon their depiction, I may see different things than you. Open your mind and let the Gods in.



It is ever so fitting to start with the God Visage. The God of Whispers, Knowledge, Secrets, Schemes, Masquerades, Shadows, Mirrors and Moonlight. The God whispers of its knowledge of your secrets and your schemes, it sees through your masquerades and casts light in your shadows, mirroring moonlight. Visage is known as The Watcher. The entity that sees all. In this depiction, Visage has an eye, yet it is not an eye as any in our Alteran world. This one eye sees all. It sees not only that which can be seen, for it doesn't see as any eye we know, it sees and hears and tastes and smells and feels. It includes all our senses and is beyond our senses at the same time. The pages of its wings are torn, yet the pieces are kept with incredible precision, to dish out only that information which should be granted, and keep away that which should not. Yet, at the same time, all the information is there, somewhere, in the unending multiverse of the tangible, the intangible, and that which is beyond.

[1/11]
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[Bartooliinii]

Which divine entity is better to describe the elusive and spiritual nature of our Gods than Theodra? Although given name which immediately brings to mind a feminine character, this God is like all others; genderless. As our holy scriptures say "When Shalherana first created the beasts, the wild creatures, and the forests- She brought together wayward figments to create a spirit of the wild." Such is the nature of a God to create that which mortals simply cannot comprehend, that which is beyond us, a spirit of both flora and fauna. While we mortals have systematized our world and can divide things into the groups of Flora or the group of Fauna, Theodra is beyond either, yet only both. It is impossible for us to grasp how one thing can be both flora and fauna at the same time, for they are so distinct, and that is exactly where the power of Theodra's mysticism lies.

[2/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Perhaps the God with the most followers, Jax is the God of Luck first and foremost. Popular among sailors, who might swear that it was solely Jax who ensured a safe passage through monster infested waters. It is no surprise that Jax itself must be larger and more ferocious than all sea creatures, if it is to make a Kraken keep its distance from the sailors Jax protects. God of gambling, Jax holds your fortunes in its grasp. Go after that which you desire most, throw everything into the balance, for Jax favors the bold, and you may find yourself graced by its holy presence. Its tendrils; long lines of golden coins, to be awarded to those adventurers that brave the stormy seas.

[3/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Let us now talk about Valiant, so we can understand how far beyond our comprehension our Gods are. Gods can never be divided into the mortal realms of Good and Evil. Valiant, the God of War, often portrayed as a heroic knight, as a good God. A God of war can never truly be a good God. War is death, inflicting pain, creating fatherless children and widows miles away from the battlefield. It is the act that leaves bloodstains on history. Valiant is not a good or evil God, it is beyond those principles. Valiant protects, bound by a kind of honor that we cannot ever comprehend. No man can tame the beast of justice.

[4/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Korog, if anything, is the most misunderstood God among the pantheon. Korog is unlike all the others, as the God who is the most like the Primal Forces that birthed the Gods themselves. As complex and at the same time rudimentary as the Primal Forces are, Korog too shows simplicity is a virtue in the most complex of craft. Being the God of balance and of craft, for all that is created, something must be destroyed. As mentioned, the Gods are beyond Good or Evil, and as craft goes hand in hand with destruction, so too does Korog have close ties with Jishrim, the God of destruction. To keep the balance, Korog must always prioritize: What to destroy in order to create what? This is one of the seemingly looping questions that occupy the minds of those of the great beyond.

[5/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Those that leave the living enter somewhere else, there must always be a balance, and the Grey Lady takes care of that. Probably this God was made feminine in folklore to ease the pain of passing, as a woman can sooth anyone's heart. Yet, the Grey Lady has no emotions, it has no mercy, it has only judgement and the power to access all seven realms of the afterlife. The dead will come before this God and whichever realm their eye falls upon first will be the first for which their soul will be put in the balance. No God is more in tuned with the Great Beyond than the Grey Lady.

[6/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Ignis, God of the sun, is an example how there can be ambiguity among the worshippers as to its gender. While the God remains genderless, some forms of the male or female body may contain symbolism. Like Korog's muscular arms pull out mountains from the very earth, it are the breasts of Ignis that symbolize the glory and warmth of a woman's embrace, the warmth of the sun. While the sun may beat upon those who traverse through forbidden deserts, it may give comfort to those that walk the path of Ignis' tenets.

[7/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

The God Skraag is shrouded in darkness. Like Korog, It sought a balance, but the balance of Skraag is twisted and deformed, much after Its own image. Skraag is always on the look-out for souls to tempt from limbo into an everlasting immortal life, walking Altera as animated corpse, rather than entering any of the other -in Skraag's view- finite realms of the Grey Lady. Skraag shepherds souls into a new and unending beginning, surrounded by rot and decay.

[8/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Some say that the God Jishrim does not exist. That the chaos which ensues in Jishrim's wake is not as much the doing of a divine, as rather the absence of divine action. The theory goes that the things which are ascribed as caused by Jishrim are in fact those things that the Gods have overlooked. It is a taste to all that lives of what their world would be like if there were no Gods: Chaos, Despair, Plagues. For if they were truly the work of a God, then what is there to gain in such thing? That would truly be madness, for every God has a purpose that in some way may be interpreted as for the betterment of a group. The opposition of this theory points out that Jishrim is also the God of Trickery, and therefor this very theory could be of His divine machination.

[9/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Oldest of the Gods, Shalheranna, is the creator. It shows that a beast can have eight legs and still have grace, hinting to the possibility that Jishrim took on its terrible form for a reason. It is said that when Shalheranna shakes its antlers, spring arrives. Where Theodra is the wild and untamed of nature, Shalheranna is the cultivated and sensible: Horses, Roses, Fruits.
[10/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

And thus we finish with Sallana, who as the God of femininity is the only God to assume a gender. Her symbol is that of a cornucopia spilling fruit and wine, not just because of the overflowing riches of pleasure it represents, but too because of its literal sense. Sallana is the ink in a lover's pen, draining and spreading throughout the world by the passions of correspondence between lovers. She is the One to provide the grapes for the wine. But she also comes with a warning in the shape of the thorns on a rosebush: Pretty hurts.

[11/11]​

 

[Bartooliinii]

Open for comments now

 

[Bartooliinii]

First 2 Gods are in the book. Will leave it at that for today Put your recommendation for the next God in my art thread: https://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/bartolini-drawings.41961/page-5#post-766091

 

[Bartooliinii]

Re-updated with the Gods. I cry for that rollback :'(

 

[Bartooliinii]

The Grey Lady / God Beyond Names has taken up residence!

 

[Bartooliinii]

Ignis joins the team!

 

[Bartooliinii]

Update! Cranium showed me an error, the Grey lady is not the same as the Goddess beyond names. My bad! Corrected!

 

[CloakedReaper]

Dude you keep blowing me away with these.

 

[blargtheawesome]

this is really cool lovecraftian art

 

[Electric]

Very nice : )