Tenebri Adelin

Sex: Female
Year of Birth: Unknown, presumably late 1180s A.D.
Power: Shadow Claws

The latest Daughter of Serapis to inherit leadership of House Tenebri, Adelin spent a large part of her life trying to pull her House out of obscurity, while maintaining her personal philosophy of providing spiritual guidance to those in the castes beneath her. One day, she discovered that Serapis granted a potent power to one of her House's slaves, a girl named Veil. Taking Veil under her wing, Adelin quickly devised a plan to raise the slave girl up, while at the same time achieving her own ambitions for House Tenebri to rise to glory.

Due to her position in the Serapean caste system, Adelin rarely engages in combat, but she is far from helpless. Her power allows her to summon sharp claws from any surface obscured by shadows or darkness, meaning she is never too far from a means of defending herself. She often uses her large wings to cast shadows of her own, and then overwhelms her enemies with claws.

A ref sheet for Adelin, the head of House Tenebri in The Veiled Gift. Originally my plan for this was to simply have her as an illustration for a little bit of lore I thought up for her House, but the need to have her in varied states of dress (and the frankly plain posing besides that) made more sense for a ref sheet.

As for the new lore, it has to do with the fact that in early chapters of TVG, a lot of the characters are described having caste tattoos only on their right arms. This is because I somehow didn't notice that Serapeans actually have caste tattoos on both arms in their art. So rather than rewrite that, I decided to add it to House Tenebri's lore! Happy accidents or something...

Despite its meager status, House Tenebri has existed for a lot longer than most Serapeans would believe. Some of those years were even more difficult for the obscure House, and for a number of them, common commodities for other Houses, such as ink for caste tattoos, were in short supply for the Tenebri.

To remedy this, the Daughter of Serapis in charge of the House at the time devised a solution. During those years, new members born into the House would only be tattooed on their right arms. The left arm would be covered with either an article of clothing, or with the House member's prayer talisman wrapped over where their most relevant caste tattoo would otherwise be on that arm. As a show of solidarity with their peers, members of House Tenebri who had tattoos on both arms, as well as those who married in to the House, would cover their left arms in the same way.

The plan was a resounding success, and the resulting style adopted by the Tenebri was carried forward through the years. Even now, the practice is retained, and the more hopeful members of House Tenebri believe that their unique style will someday become known throughout all of Serapeum.

SFW Version