"Would it be ok to fuck a beaver if it was smart enough to consent?" The Arch-Arch-Arch-Sage enlightened thus its most devoted students.

The keeper did not open the trapdoor until the young man had set down everything he came with, the satchel, the letters, the ledger of small debts, the ring, and finally the name that people upstairs used to find him in a crowd, which took the longest, because a man does not realize how much weight a name carries until he is asked to leave it on a desk in a stone room beneath a city that does not know he is there. When he was done the keeper crouched and worked the iron ring and the stone ground against itself with a sound the young man felt in his back teeth before he heard it with his ears. The cold that came up from below was ancient and deliberate, the cold of something that had been counting. Before the young man could lean over to look the keeper grabbed his arm, certain the way old things move when they are done being patient, and said do not go down there planning to come back the same, said it once, dropped his arm, handed him a light and pointed at the opening. The young man went because his feet went before he decided, down into the dark that smelled of stone and time and something deeper than both, the trapdoor closing above him like a held breath released, and the grinding followed him all the way down.

Welcome to QUEST ART GENERAL, a quest for showcasing the art of your quest and its characters! Players of all skill levels are welcome!

<span class="mu-s">Quest mechanics:</span>
1. Don't be a spamshit. Multiple posts are fine but keep it below Souv level.
2: You are free to draw/post work of others' characters, but no begging.
3. Keep it SFW. This is a blue board. If you feel the need for otherwise, link it in the thread so it doesn't get nuked.
4. No dramafagging/vendettafagging, or blatant shitting on others' art. Again, this is a quest to draw and vibe about art, /qst/ OCs, and their respective lore.
5. If someone does give you fanart of your quest/character, be sure to thank that anon for their hard work as soon as you can, it's just common courtesy :)

<span class="mu-s">Drawing Resources:</span>
https://pastebin.com/Dbyjxmfd

<span class="mu-s">LOOMIS:</span>
> https://alexhays.com/loomis/

<span class="mu-s">Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (user recommended):</span>
> https://www.drawright.com/

<span class="mu-s">Animation resources:</span>
> http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/

<span class="mu-s">Iterative Drawing - The Fastest Way to Improve:</span>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs

<span class="mu-s">How to Draw Interesting Poses:</span>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1nxf5KQ2Js

<span class="mu-s">Anatomy Quick Tips: Hands:</span>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzl3eaxAJpo

<span class="mu-s">Painting like a Sculptor:</span>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC3OxonJcXQ

<span class="mu-s">Basic Drawing for Digital Painters (Shape Control):</span>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyu-bbWkGTU

<span class="mu-s">How to Draw Hair:</span>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHewz3JbKrQ

<span class="mu-s">User-recommended art channels:</span>
https://www.youtube.com/@Sycra
https://www.youtube.com/@sinixdesign

Disclaimer: I have not updated the pastebin/resources in a long, long, loooooooooong time, but, if anyone has anything they'd consider helpful/worthwhile, feel free to suggest it.

Past Thread: >>6358928
Archive: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Missval
General Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/5hFQZtc3
Character Sheet: https://pastebin.com/76f3BmBx
Twitter/X account for important announcements, contact and stuff: https://x.com/MissvalQM (I’m also in the /qst/ discord)
—---------

Your name is Shelly Suzume. You are, were, a Huntress from Haven Academy. A lot of things have happened to you. Apparently, you were the recent victim of what could be considered an 'accident,' where you fell into a contaminated Grimm pool. You died, of course. Quite a few times, actually. Fortunately for you, an enigmatic girl with powers related to life and death was there, helping you out along the way.

After the fifth or sixth death you were finally stable enough to stay alive. However, your body is changed now as a result. You have a pair of malformed, small wings on your back, a tough, slimy Grimm left arm, and some quite unsightly veins that extend towards your left eye. Other than that? You look quite good! Mostly. (Being positive here is quite helpful.)

Saying you're now half-Grimm would be… difficult to justify. You can feel what they feel, in the sense that you can sense negative emotions just like they do, and, in a sense, you're drawn towards them. You feel what they feel. Fortunately, you still have a conscious mind protecting you from going fully feral.

Your Semblance works, somewhat. However, it appears that you can't use it without overloading your targets with a certain… energy that is quite painful and violent. You can't control it yet, but, well, at least you're alive, right?

You've been traveling, uncovering fragments of your past after a month-long bout of amnesia, with Cerise at your side (A now pseudo-undead 'minion' who is always loyal to you, courtesy of the same girl who revived you). You made friends in Atlas, faintly rekindled a friendship from the past, and now you're back at your starting point. The fabled city of Kuchinashi, where a certain cynical, lean, and ragged man attacked you.

—---------

Today is the day. This is going to mark the end of an era of your life as you know it.

<span class="mu-s">PROM</span>

The thought of the word bounces around your mind like a ricocheting bullet.

That's right, it's prom night tonight. You never really had much of a reputation during high school, but then again, you didn't really go out of your way to socialize either.

Going to prom tonight is stressing you out a bit. There's supposed to be a huge after-party at Jacob Langley's house. Jacob comes from a luxuriously wealthy family. You've never been inside his house, but you can attest to the fact that his parents' house is huge. People have asked Jacob what his parents do for a living, though he's always pretty vague about it for some reason.

You still doubt you're invited, though. It's only been recently that a couple of your bullies, Stacy and Kinsley, have been warming up to you and being nicer. The change has come out of nowhere, but it's welcome to you.

The clock is ticking until school starts. You walk into the bathroom and strip down, getting a good look at yourself.

It's certainly you...

>Alexander Kingston, a boy

>Gracie Kingston, a girl

In the glow of dusk, you sit within the stone house, the last of the daylight being a time to finish your working. You smell the freshly rubbed vellum and place the page upon the scriptorium's table, pulling the guide ropes taut. They make horizontal lines across the worked skin, and you push the page over to set the margin before making final tightening once you are sure it is straight. You pick up the quill, rubbing your hand in reflex as it protests taking to the familiar position.

“Oh Gods. Grant me the strength.” You laugh. The Gods are invoked to heal the wounds of warriors, not scribes, but at this moment the pain your hand surely must be at least worth a few battles worth of honor. You already know the words you must transcribe by heart, as you have already made two copies of it today, but you still glance back at the reference again just to ensure there are no mistakes.

<span class="mu-i">From Hroth, came the four princes and just one daughter, born of the last great Hrothian King. This was a strong bloodline. And of these four went out to carve Kingdoms of their own, founding a great city each in their own name, and their names were Inigo, and Alcepass, and Lugh, and Chermeset. But the daughter was the King's favored, as from the day she was born she was beloved by the whole world, and he believed her to be the true future of Hroth. The daughter was to be married to the last Prince of the Halitotians, uniting the two greatest peoples of that age. But upon seeing his hideous face, she refused, and a war broke out between those peoples.</span>

You rub your aching hand. The dusk is longer then you thought, judging from the light outside. You still burn a candle in the murkiness. Soon you will be finished, and may finally have a drink.

<span class="mu-i">The Hrothians prevailed, and buried the last of the Halitotians in their mountain fortresses, and their kind faded into history forevermore. As for the princess, she fled to the south, as far south as she could go, and married a black king of a tiny kingdom. The Okites, whose royalty now had a trace of white man's blood, came to dominate their desert homeland. But it was not from this union which gave the Okites their golden eyes, but instead from the Princess's dowry. As she so favored by the Gods, from the day of her birth to the day of her death, held in her hands the missing piece of the yellow moon.</span>

You live in a church carved into the roots of the western mountains, where jagged peaks rise like the teeth of a dragon. Beyond those mountains lies the Wasteland, a harsh and endless steppe of yellow grass beneath a gray sky. No laws rule that land. Only monsters, savage tribes of orcs, and endless cycles of raids, blood feuds, and slaughter. The god you worship is Glax, the orc god of hatred and cannibalism. At the youngest age, you were chosen as an antipaladin candidate. Nineteen other orcs were chosen alongside you, but you alone survived. The others, you killed and devoured, violating the one true taboo of orc society: the eating of orc flesh. In your world, there is only darkness.

The shamans are gathered in the great hall, a cold chamber of rough stone carved deep into the mountain. You kneel before the Great Shaman, an old orc whose magic is mighty, and whose wisdom is spoken of with reverence.

"Azdakh bears the Hand That Rots. Azdakh has been chosen by Glax."

The Rotting Touch, your antipaladin gift. Once each day, by channeling your pure hatred, you can make living flesh decay, even perish. The power awakened on its own after you slew the last of the remaining candidates.

The shaman presents you with a blade, a massive two-handed sword, broad and heavy, its hilt adorned with a skull. It is the mark of your station as an antipaladin. The other orcs will scorn you, or fear you. Yet when war comes, you will lead them as their general. For antipaladins are despised, chosen not for brute strength, but for cunning and cruelty, while orcs honor raw strength above all else. Antipaladins are feared because they wield dark magic that raises them above ordinary warriors, though few understand the source of its power.

Then comes a suit of black steel armor. From this day onward, wherever you walk, you will wear it. Always armored. Always ready for battle. You don the armor, and the Great Shaman uncorks a vial of blood, pouring it over the black steel.

"This armor is baptized in blood. May it forever be drenched in the blood of our enemies."

The shamans begin their chant. You have little patience for their rituals. If you possessed the strength, you would butcher them where they stand. But their magic still surpasses yours, for now. Rage stirs within you.

"Glax," you growl.

You are Kaguya Ryōko, an up-and-coming ninja born into a deadly bloodline and trained by a living legend. Now it seems that you’ll be able to put those things on display during a multinational promotion exam held by Konohagakure. While promotion to chūnin would be nice, your official objective here is to make it to the public final round of the exams so potential clients will see that your adoptive village, Yugakure, has not grown so weak and ineffectual as rumors would lead them to believe. Even more importantly, it’s an opportunity to finally begin to validate Tsunade-sensei’s decision years ago to become your mentor.

One shinobi from Konohagakure has just opted not to continue to the final stage of the exams. After all his talk and his apparent efforts, you still can’t say that you quite have a sense for what Kabuto-san is actually trying to achieve. Since you’re no doubt missing some key aspect of the context, his choices have felt inconsistent to you.

“Excuse me, Lord Hokage,” you hear Hiroshi-kun’s voice behind you. “I’ve given it some thought… and if withdrawing is possible, I believe I should as well.”

“What the hell, Hiroshi!?” Akiji-kun demands. “You’re just gonna duck out like this when we’re right there?”

“It might’ve been under unusual circumstances,” Hiroshi-kun explains, “but fact is I had to accept outside help to keep Ryōko-kun from spending her chakra on me instead of resting and taking advantage of us finishing early. It wouldn’t be fair to stay in when other candidates didn’t get that opportunity.”

Ah. So that’s what it was.

“You made that decision on your own?” Akiji-kun demands, unconvinced.

“He did it because he knew I might disagree,” you observe. “But why only mention it now?”

Hiroshi-kun has an answer for that as well. “Because we have an odd number of candidates with Kabuto-san gone. I can’t see either of you two losing your first match, but in order for everyone to have a fight one candidate out of an odd number would have to fight twice. And if you assume two of us are going to win our first fights…”

“There’s a higher chance that one of us would have to fight twice,” you summarize. “That was your reasoning.”

“So it’d be unfair,” Hiroshi-kun declares, “including to the two of you, and would risk not getting our stronger two fighters into the public phase. Even if it’s one in five, that’s too high a risk given our mission.”
>1/2

Two thousand years ago, a prince of the Old World called Sversk the Conqueror set sail with an army of his loyal followers into what any would still consider today to be certain death. Yet, where all others in history near and far perished, Sversk’s band triumphed over the implacable Maelstrom, and settled in the New World, forming a new society apart from the old, founding an empire that would last over one thousand years, which only drew its last breath when Sversk’s tale, the story of the ancestors of the Nauk, faded from living memory, to history, to legend.

Now, a new army of ambition, also seeking a new future, returns across the same sea to whence their ancestors came, be they Nauk, Vitelian, Sosalian, or even of a race born solely of the New World. The Aurora Legion, as it is called, do not seek new lands, but to gather money, men, materiel, to gain strength without peer so that they can gain victory for their ultimate cause: to topple the Old Order that controls their world, and free its people that they may bring forth the Future that is Utopia. They are not yet more than five thousand, yet they were once not even one hundred six years past, and though many have been wounded or perished, their sacrifice will not be in vain. Each step taken is one towards the final battle, one that many of them may not see the result of, but they fight nevertheless. Most hope to see that battle. Many see service with the Legion as an honor and a privilege above any other cause that may be fought for as warriors. Some simply have no other place to go.

The conflict they venture to now is a war of a greater power against a smaller, the continental Caelussian Federation against the much smaller but still defiant Kingdom of Petrekora. Some might assume a tale of aiding the underdog- but Petrekora is reactionary, and the Federation far more akin to a state of the future than one run by a king with aristocracy. What is more, the Federation is paying handsomely, and in these times where expansion is limited by lack of coin, the Aurora Legion will not pass up any chance to feast upon silver, for the sake of readying for the Dawn of the New Era…

-----

Doomed princes, cunning vagabonds and greedy mercenaries try to prevail in a decaying world. Amongst all men You are Doomed to Greatness, cursed and blessed in equal measure. You will learn: There is no Truth but that of Eternal struggle.

You were born to a people considered…

>Barbarians
>Decadant
>Civilized

>Please roll 1d20 when you vote.