A New God is Born

Recent Endeavors

There is not much to report in the field of visual art. One more portrait has made its way from demo sketch to completion, and that is one of warlord Brenugan Kuto, seen here:

That's warpaint. And blood. Stands to reason, as his name translates to 'bloody raven of the skies' from Golboren to English. The sketch for Boda's portrait is done, although when I open the file back up, I may find that it's lacking and redraw it. I had gotten pretty unmotivated, but after being socially active in the real world for a few days and making some real world progress, I'm already feeling my creative juices flowing.

The Earth God
I realized while formulating the iconic creation mythology behind the organized pantheon of the world of Drumlore that, after signing over one of my Gods and his affiliated races to my cousin's fantasy realm, I'm missing a God for the element of Earth.  This wasn't problematic until I decided to unfold the mythological creation of the planet step by step by element, and decided that the first element would be earth. John and I bounced some theories around, and here is what we've come up with:

Where the Hiidren formerly dwelled (puntastic), they tapped into an ancient sealed away chamber containing a demoness, if you will. She was Lokshadimae, Shaegon's former wife, cursed to be a wretched, malformed demon. She had became a matron-saint demi-god for the Barda, who fought the Hiidren. Demons formed in her wake and emanated from her presence, as her bleeding residual power gave them what they needed to manifest.

That old idea now becomes this:

There is a chamber (admittedly closer to the surface world now) within the Folstrom mountains, where Hiidrom formerly existed. This chamber, when fiddled with, angers strange demonic entities, or gives you a really bad case of goosebumps. This is where the Earth God resides. The Earth God differs from the other members of the pantheon in that He does not want worship. In fact, He detests the grand illusion portrayed by the other Gods and chooses to sleep away His eons in peace and comfort.

The fact that one exists that knows the truth of their illusion that does not wish to take part in it threatens the rest of the pantheon. The Gods each build their power over time and periodically attempt to break into the Earth God's Sanctum, each with different motives. Some wish to kill the slumbering god to dispose of the one voice that could put an end to their web of lies. Some wish to kill the slumbering god to steal the hypothetical fountain of power that he guards within His sanctum. Some wish to directly consume the slumbering god and take what power from his body that they can. Sometimes the minions of the gods fight at the doorway, vying to get to the sleeping one first. Sometimes, the minions of the gods even work together.

No outcome ends well for the Earth God. The Earth God, however, was wise. He knew when he slumbered that the pantheon would eventually find Him. He has safeguarded His sanctum with an impenetrable force that even the world's most powerful Magi cannot comprehend. Lurking around the Earth God's defenses lie an unseen army of Watchers from the realm of spirits: the domain of Balki.

In His stubborn disregard for the dishonesty of the rest of the pantheon, the Earth God earned the admiration of Balki, who presides over all things spiritual. He, too, held disdain towards the pantheon and its ways, but sought to undo their web of lies from within. Out of respect for the sleeping one, he sends his best minions to watch over the Earth God and keep the other gods from interfering with His resting.

The Earth God will have no followers. I have a feeling that he may have been a noctuid once. Anyhow,  I expect a short story if nothing else called The Earth God's Sanctum or The Earth Keeper's Sanctum. In this story, an intrepid group of god-fearing heroes penetrate the barriers of the sleeping god, although not by skill or fluke. They soon discover that the Earth God intended to show them the truth of the matter. Who knows how the heroes will take it when they realize that they, in fact, are the horrible villains being played by a higher power, and that no matter what choice they make in their new situation, they're angering a God. They might wet themselves. We'll have to see.

I need to name eleven deities and sub-deities now. The pressure is on.

Also, Sas-Akra is promoted to being a god of knowledge. The Annals of History hq has been moved to Sas-Akrana somewhere. He'll be one of the only gods to openly promote the study of magic. He'll be much less strict than Jhordone about it.

About to crash, pooped author is pooped.

Matthew D. Hammond

Portraitfest

Although I had taken a path of furious writing, I can hardly get anyone to go near my only finished work, so I've dropped that like a hot rock for now. I won't stop writing, but for the time being, I've settled for writing articles, and seeing as how most of the articles I've been writing have been character related, I figured that I would draw portraits to accompany them. Following the trend of the old portrait project I started awhile back, here are the new additions to the portrait family:



For those of you who are unfamiliar with the old portrait project that was started a good while back, here is the original portrait series:


Some of them I will probably redraw. Others are good enough to stick around. As usual, stay tuned for more updates. I'm following the alphabetical list of characters as far as the portraits and articles go. The short stories I am going to keep private for awhile, until I can figure out how to get them to people who'd be interested in reading them.

Long Hiatus, Current Efforts

I haven't posted here in about half a year, and it has been even longer since I posted anything to my DeviantArt account. I haven't did any serious art until recently in the time passing, but as always, I was crunching creative data in my head. I'm always working on something Drumlore related, even if it isn't a serious project. Its still my passion, as it will always be.

So, as of late, the Golboren language and culture (previously Golbåric/Golbåreh) has endured a small revision. The å character (which made a sound similar to 'oh') has been removed in favor of a standard o. Their accent will cause their o's to sound more like å, but that isn't important to the reader. Not important enough to approach in the stories anyway. When guides to learning Golboren emerge, I'll address it there.

I would also like to express my immense gratitude to all those who voted to settle the "Golboran vs. Golboren" debate!!

Racial migration and settlement prior to civilization developing has been slightly revised and is still being worked on. Here is a picture of the revised roots that was hastily drawn in microsoft paint when the idea first hit me. No, I'm not going to spend my day trying to explain the colors and intersection and origin points. I'll do that when I make a better, clearer image, I promise.

A short story draft has just recently been completed and will soon make its premier on Deviantart. (I'm awaiting feedback from my 'editors', e.g. the family I'm asking 'please read my story!') When printed, the first copy was around eight and a half pages long in decently small text, so I'm elated that I managed to stick to a project long enough to finish it and that it ended up not summarized and halfhearted. Anyway, the draft is titled The Troll Affair and will be about a young Orvodas Lu'khavi, who at the age of seven wandered away from his Uncle's ranch to find himself lost in the woods just before nightfall, and how he survives and encounter with the most fearsome beast in the wood: a troll. Here is the strange cover it will have on Deviantart:

Stay tuned in, as there is already another short story in the works (whose cover I still need to devise) that will be the first installment of quite a few, and it is already nearing completion. It follows Dugalan Koldroskaro, an elite scout and infiltrator for the Golboren, during his stay working an At'mavan plantation as a slave, and how he comes to befriend the most unlikely of people. To spice things up, here's a spoiler: The last installment will be his escape.

Also, I'll try to keep any lore developments that are of interest or enough substance documented on the drumlog, especially if they involve pictures. We all like pictures.

G'day!
~Matt H.