A captain and his crew
'She ruins everything she comes across.'
Been brainstorming prequel events in my story involving Fatal's mama, her real name is Briar, and she lived with Elishiva (the white wolf) under the care of Harlan who was actively abusing and grooming them both. He gives Briar, "Ruin" as a nickname which inevitably spawns the dehumanization naming system for Daevas later down the line. TDLR; the lore is essentially during a period climate change is really bad, Harlan was one of the scientists tryna come with solutions to help humans adapt, which was to create the Daevas (spoiler; other people thought his idea was really nonsensical so this man kidnaps two children to do it illegally.)
Admittedly I can recognize the lore is kinda goofy compared to the kind of story I'm trying to tell? I made a chart in obsidian to kind of like, try and explain how daevas work? Or at least the generational developments kind of thing.
Elishiva was first to be spliced and experimented on and Briar came from a family of shamanic healers (still figuring this out too); he exploits her healing abilities just so Elishiva's body endures the abuse and experimentation. Harlan himself is less of a character-character and moreso legitimately just based off "the worst of humanity." If you need a clear idea.
The lore isn't too much of a focus in this story because it is entirely character driven and focused. But animal shapeshifters in this story were created under scientific means, with bits of fantasy sprinkled in it, and are moreso used for symbolism things and a representation of the abuse cycle etc.
Like Asher, Ruin was also another character originally created by the story's co-owner before they abandoned me and everything we shared; I had really wanted to stay true to her original design; but it's unfortunately more dog-like than coyote as I've come to realize.
(E.g; coyotes usually have lighter mask like markings and darker tail tips for example) So the best I could do was reuse the colors from her og design while making it accurate to a coyote's appearance and markings.
From Two Coyotes, written in 1982 by Carol Carrick and illustrated by Donald Carrick.
Coyote Walks on Two Legs. Collected and Retold by Gerald Hausman. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper. 1993.
Still got a long way to go with my human art but human Elishiva when she was younger - the daeva prototype
scribbles + a style experimentation
A specific design note about Fatal too is their coyote form's design is based off younger coyotes, it's why their ears are big and they look quite baby-faced, even as an adult.
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