This year's Halloween project features an entirely new character that exists in the Summoner's world. Here's the Stoneskin King, Garion:
Just like all of the other entries, there's an accompanying lore post for Garion as well:
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After six long months, the Stoneskin King returned to the city of Irusekh and its people. While unwavering in his constitution, the leader of the Naetherspawn was haggard and weary. His detachment of twenty warriors returned with only three and all badly injured. After they had been taken to the royal palace at the heart of the city, Garion informed his advisors of what they had witnessed. The demons had begun organizing themselves into an army with a structure and zeal that had never been witnessed before. They appeared to be awaiting the return of Megiddo and had begun bolstering their numbers using arcane rituals and artifacts. The frequency of raids in the lower realm had been on the rise with many living in constant fear. Garion’s forces had encountered a raiding part near the eastern continent. The demons attacked with skills and weaponry beyond anything the Naetherspawn had seen. Even with their sharply forged battle disciplines, Garion’s detachment was overwhelmed and barely escaped the skirmish with their lives.
Shrugging off his own injuries, the Stoneskin King ordered
his advisors to see to his wounded warriors and inform the families of those
lost. He stood before the remaining council members in the palace and ordered
them to prepare for the Rite of Awakening. If the war to decide the fate of the
realm was quickly approaching, Irusekh would need to be prepared. It was time
to awaken the demonic blade, Khelboros-Nil.
Finally, before Garion could retire to his
chambers and rest, one of his advisors stepped forth to recount a recent story
to the Naetherspawn ruler. One of the Skypiercer Knights’ greatest warriors,
Thalgre had recently fallen in combat. Though his story was fragmented, the
advisor recalled the presence of a foreigner in Irusekh that had slain Thalgre.
Garion commanded his advisor to assemble any and all witnesses of the event for
questioning. If this new entity also threatened the people of Irusekh, it would
soon face the wrath of the Stoneskin King himself…<>
For the various stages of the construction for both Garion and Khelboros-Nil, check out the imgur album linked here. The WIP album contains shots of the sword not used in the video.
This particular entry was meant to introduce another character that will become important in the later chapters of the Summoner's story. As you can tell from the background lore and this post, Garion is from the same race as Thalgre, featured a few events ago. I like the idea of building a narrative with different characters that share similarities and differences in their background and motivation. While this project was a bit more straight-forward than previous years, I intend to work on some follow-on pieces in the coming months.
Stay tuned and Happy Halloween!
~Zan