So Dev Ended Up Dying In That Homebrew Campaign I'd Been In, This Is Corvin, His Replacement (:

So Dev ended up dying in that homebrew campaign I'd been in, this is Corvin, his replacement (:

I ended up leaving that campaign, but I did like this portrait I made during one of the sessions, and I'll probably end up drawing Corvin again at some point.

I noticed a new detail in I, Strahd that has me screaming.

So I'm doing a critical writing essay on the way that P. N. Elrod uses the first-person perspective in I, Strahd to enhance the narrative, with Strahd himself as, you know, the unreliable narrator of his own life (which just... mmm! It's so good).

And I'm just going back through the book to look for the page number where he says, "That's what I told myself, anyway."

But, I then found this instead:

You would spill my blood, armsman?

HOLD. THE F**K. ON.

armsman???

So I rifle back through the pages, because that is not what he said. That's not the quote. It's Commander. It's "You would spill my blood, Commander?"

And I find it. And I'm right.

OOGH.

Oh, does it hurt.

Strahd is removing himself from Alek in this moment. He's taking him down already in his mind. Trying to make Alek less important, so that it's less of a blow to himself when he kills him, just a moment later.

Commander is a title, and one of respect. It shows that Alek occupies an important position. And even that, I realize now, was a point of distance, because the two of them often do call each other by their given names. When Strahd was in danger of assassination, Alek yelled "Strahd!" multiple times, which is very personal. When they were out on tour, dealing with the local burgomasters, Alek got perhaps a little too excited and Strahd chided him by just quietly saying his name, "Alek."

When he called Alek "Commander", Strahd was hanging over the edge of a cliff to grab his hand, almost ready to die himself if Alek fell. Alek was in danger of death. In that moment, Strahd chose to focus on the fact that he might lose a leader in his ranks, rather than a close personal friend. It was a little bit of distance, so that he could focus on the task in front of him. To keep his head in that unexpected crisis.

When Strahd calls him "armsman", though... Alek is now faceless. He has been stripped of name. He has been stripped of rank. He has been stripped of all personal attachment. Because that is what Strahd needed to do in order to complete the task ahead of him.

Alek has also just stabbed him in the chest, when Strahd inaccurately recalls that moment, and they are both in shock. Given a choice, Alek would never have done this. "Only a drop or two," he had answered, dangling from the cliff, "if it spares the rest, my lord." (Alek follows his lead in this act of distancing. "Didn't have to, my lord," he murmurs this time.) It can't be Alek, so this is just another soldier. This is just another fight. It's just another war.

So, Strahd thinks of him as "armsman" here, to avoid a truly devastating layer of grief.

Neither of us had a choice. That's what I told myself anyway.

The quote I was looking for is on page 137. One page before all that.

Centipede Spine 2

But, like, realistically.

Also! Please reblog for varied responses!

My commissions are officially open !!!

I’m opening a queue of 5 slots to start out with, as it has been a while since I’ve done these. (Note; I will not be starting sketches until my shop opens up. Which will be in the next week or so.)

Feel free to dm me on any of my socials if you’re interested!!

(Screen reader friendly version available upon request, tumblr won’t let me link it ://)

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