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The Armorican Peninsula is a strange and wondrous place, a mist-shrouded land full of magic and mystery, where the mortal realm of Bedouar and the timeless vastness of Faerie coexist side by side, the great veil ripped apart by uncontrollable magic, causing time and space to collapse into disarray. Unearthly fog rolls in, cutting off travelers from where they came and pure magical chaos rolls across the region in great storms. Fortune can be found in the borders of Faerie to the brave and the lucky, death for the foolish.
The treacherous coast of the region, the Ar Mor Bras, is no stranger to these twists of fate, home to the lost city of Ys-Beneath-the-Waves and its accursed princess, Ahes Dahut. Throughout the ages, some individuals find themselves caught in the whirlpool of magic surrounding this mystical site, and are drawn in by the phantom bells of the sunken city and the enchanting, enticing song of those trapped by its curse....
Back in 2019, I launched a special series for Mermay, an art project to develop a small, but important part of the lore of Alvez, the world of Kroashent. The Marie-Morgane of Ys-Beneath-the-Waves are one of several merfolk races of the world. For this project, I decided to "adapt" each of the Dungeons and Dragons Character Classes into a character as they may appear in Alvez, then transform these characters into mermaids with art and short stories! Since then, I've been working hard on developing the world and the characters who live, there, even writing an ongoing novella, Kroashent: Bal des Loups, which you can read the first 3 chapters right now, for free! A lot has changed as I worked and some of the art and stories seemed like they could use an update!
Ailinor the Cleric represented a singular challenge among the original mermaids. While Yannic and Clemence's role could fit easily within Kroashent's world as their own characters, Clemence, as a cleric, had to fit within a larger context for the world: The religious and spiritual. At the time, Alvez was quite in its infancy, as the Marie-Morgane were meant to serve as one of the earliest dedicated worldbuilding challenges. The religions of the world were quite in flux, but Ailinor helped set things up for further development of the Southern Church, also known as "The Faith", the primary religious organization in Alvez.
I really like Ailinor for a few reasons. From a worldbuilding standpoint, she helps add a lot of nuance in the relationship between the faith represented by the Southern Church and the often-problematic agendas pushed by its temporal agents and their zealous interpretations of its tenants. Ailinor herself is caught between this struggle between the faith she has as a cleric and being a member of a group often vilified and hated by self-proclaimed "champions of the Faith." I wanted to make sure that, in her story, she didn't cast away a core part of her belief, but rather used it to strengthen herself. I also really like the interactions between her and Renee, the Fighter. I think they are very cute together, and their love story shows how much Ailinor has grown since joining the daughters of Ys.
As might be apparent, Ailinor's design has changed fairly dramatically compared to Yannic and Clemence. I wanted to shift her towards more recent aesthetics of the Southern Church, while keeping her general look the same. I also wanted to make her less of a physical character, with her mace, bare arms and muscles, into more of an intellectual one, a leader of Inquisition rather than one of its attack dogs.
I recently had the pleasure of working on an upcoming commission/collaboration with https://www.furaffinity.net/user/go.....dthebarbarian/ , a sequence set in Alvez that will eventually be made available. One of the characters, Alissa, represents the contemporary look of an agent of the Church in the 1230s (Linked below). I wanted Ailinor to reflect this new design. But Ailinor's story begins around 1100 SI, 230 years before the events of Kroashent and Alissa's story, so I needed her outfit to look a little older than Alissa's. I researched clerical aesthetics from the time of the Albigensian Crusade of Earth's 13th century, and tried to remove the sharp clean lines of Alissa's look for something from the High Middle Ages.
See Ailinor's original form here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31459249/
See Alissa the Cleric's "contemporary" vestments here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46096994/
The treacherous coast of the region, the Ar Mor Bras, is no stranger to these twists of fate, home to the lost city of Ys-Beneath-the-Waves and its accursed princess, Ahes Dahut. Throughout the ages, some individuals find themselves caught in the whirlpool of magic surrounding this mystical site, and are drawn in by the phantom bells of the sunken city and the enchanting, enticing song of those trapped by its curse....
Back in 2019, I launched a special series for Mermay, an art project to develop a small, but important part of the lore of Alvez, the world of Kroashent. The Marie-Morgane of Ys-Beneath-the-Waves are one of several merfolk races of the world. For this project, I decided to "adapt" each of the Dungeons and Dragons Character Classes into a character as they may appear in Alvez, then transform these characters into mermaids with art and short stories! Since then, I've been working hard on developing the world and the characters who live, there, even writing an ongoing novella, Kroashent: Bal des Loups, which you can read the first 3 chapters right now, for free! A lot has changed as I worked and some of the art and stories seemed like they could use an update!
Ailinor the Cleric represented a singular challenge among the original mermaids. While Yannic and Clemence's role could fit easily within Kroashent's world as their own characters, Clemence, as a cleric, had to fit within a larger context for the world: The religious and spiritual. At the time, Alvez was quite in its infancy, as the Marie-Morgane were meant to serve as one of the earliest dedicated worldbuilding challenges. The religions of the world were quite in flux, but Ailinor helped set things up for further development of the Southern Church, also known as "The Faith", the primary religious organization in Alvez.
I really like Ailinor for a few reasons. From a worldbuilding standpoint, she helps add a lot of nuance in the relationship between the faith represented by the Southern Church and the often-problematic agendas pushed by its temporal agents and their zealous interpretations of its tenants. Ailinor herself is caught between this struggle between the faith she has as a cleric and being a member of a group often vilified and hated by self-proclaimed "champions of the Faith." I wanted to make sure that, in her story, she didn't cast away a core part of her belief, but rather used it to strengthen herself. I also really like the interactions between her and Renee, the Fighter. I think they are very cute together, and their love story shows how much Ailinor has grown since joining the daughters of Ys.
As might be apparent, Ailinor's design has changed fairly dramatically compared to Yannic and Clemence. I wanted to shift her towards more recent aesthetics of the Southern Church, while keeping her general look the same. I also wanted to make her less of a physical character, with her mace, bare arms and muscles, into more of an intellectual one, a leader of Inquisition rather than one of its attack dogs.
I recently had the pleasure of working on an upcoming commission/collaboration with https://www.furaffinity.net/user/go.....dthebarbarian/ , a sequence set in Alvez that will eventually be made available. One of the characters, Alissa, represents the contemporary look of an agent of the Church in the 1230s (Linked below). I wanted Ailinor to reflect this new design. But Ailinor's story begins around 1100 SI, 230 years before the events of Kroashent and Alissa's story, so I needed her outfit to look a little older than Alissa's. I researched clerical aesthetics from the time of the Albigensian Crusade of Earth's 13th century, and tried to remove the sharp clean lines of Alissa's look for something from the High Middle Ages.
See Ailinor's original form here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31459249/
See Alissa the Cleric's "contemporary" vestments here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46096994/
Category Artwork (Digital) / Transformation
Species Aquatic (Other)
Size 1536 x 2048px
File Size 2.33 MB
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