Marinos - Tumblr Posts
Whole giant bunch of Marinos art
Marinos sketch dump.
Results from the #paleostream
Spinosaurus in a Ponyo setting (a wish by Tim Morris on Facebook), Liaoconodon, Tappenosaurus and Vectidraco (eating Eoscaphites from a rock pool formed by a Titanites).
Marinos art! My friends' characters for the campaign I ran- Brahm'sh Who Digs For Burried Secrets (archeologist sunsoul monk dreamspinner dream knight monster therapist and butt kicker extordinare), Katabasis (Drwned homogriff spore druid who eventually ascended into an angel of truth called an Oathkeeper Archon), and Celani (awakened pangolin necromancer). Bonus Lumavi the neon angel in both cursed and uncursed forms. She was stuck as a sentient driftglobe for a while.
"Bloodsong's Will"
Possibly the best thing I've ever drawn. Comission for the man who is now my boyfriend of his character Danto in all his forms from the Marinos campaign I ran. Wild magic and strange draconic blood caused some...interesting changes over time.
Also the sketches for the project and some bonus doodles.
Marinos sketch and meme dump from Marinos 1, a campaign I ran.
Sketch of my boyfriend's character Danto I made him when we started dating as a little present.
Friend's character Brahm'sh. He still has this meme as his Discord profile picture years later.
Danto and Katabasis (another friend's character) try to figure out what to do with all the platypuses the dragon's wild magic tsunami summoned. Unbeknownst to them this was actually the origin story of platypuses, at least in this world. They only found out years after travelling back to their own time.
Katabasis was briefly infected with wild magic, and accidentally created a whole new spell, Chaos Cubes. Much to her annoyance she retained this spell as an innate magic upon ascension to an Oathkeeper Archon.
Brahm'sh, Celani (another friend's character), and Katabasis lounge on Danto's fluffy tail.
Danto, an already massive chaos dragon, casts a 9th level Enlarge on himself to scare the wits out of a very nasty silver dragon who got his half sister killed.
Sketch of the party when Seiros and Fezzic were still around and before Katabasis joined.
Human Danto and Valeirink's egg.
First sketch of dragon Danto.
Ditto of 5.
Brahm'sh, trying to find an invisible Danto, tries out his Gem of True Seeing and instantly regrets it due to the elder god of time in the room.
Dragonborn Danto and baby Valeirink.
Sketch of Katabasis as an Oathkeeper Archon.
First dragonborn Danto sketch.
Danto hanging out with Irileth when she was in her temporary body after she was removed from his...head.
Katabasis accidentally causes a new monster myth among a society of Curls (tiny seahorse creatures) unfamiliar with humanoids.
A baby homogriff's sketches of Danto.
Ditto.
Grimace shake meme involving Danto, Brahm'sh, and the elder god of domination Jormungandr. Very very very non canon.
Bunch of Marinos 1 emotes. Caracters belong to my players unless stated as NPC's.
Danto and Irileth
Katabasis
Brahm'sh
Danto again
Seiros
Celani
The Demonic Handmaiden of Syteria Trapped in a Capybara Plushy By the Weaver (NPC)
Valeirink (Danto's adopted daughter)
Ixthriin (NPC; Danto's dad)
Brunerzi (I messed up his left hand...)
Valeirink again
Large Marinos art dump. Characters belong to my players unless noted otherwise.
Brahm'sh guides a child out of a nightmare in the realms of dream.
Gaze comission of my now boyfriend's character Danto
Commission for him of two NPC's he liked from the campaign, Ziggy the wild magic sorcerer awakened flightless dire coot and Papyrus the mail carrier.
Ref sheet
Ref sheet
Ref sheet
Ref sheet
Irileth in her new body
Irileth in her temporary body
An NPC named Professor Snitchet
Commemorative campaign art. The fox in an orb and the baby dragon are NPC's. Though the baby dragon sorta belongs to my boyfriend as a character now which is fun.
The Timekeeper and Miirik; Jormungandr; The Hungry Aesir; Squishy; Granny and Squishy; Granny, the Weaver; The Bellfounder; Anodo; Wolf Lord; Manatee Lord
TW sad backstories and a few nasty people, but also some nice ones!
Ancient beings! The Timekeeper, alias (or even humansona if you will...) Benjamin, and his dependant and companion Miirik the cursed backward aging bronze dragon, who he has to intensely age every day with his time patterns to keep her from regressing into nothingness. The Timekeeper is an Aesir, an elder god of concept and supreme power over a domain. Nevertheless, for a time he did not understand what he was, having lost all memory of his origins and knowing only his innate inhumaness and power. Over the course of this time his cold heartedness softened- somewhat. He was only recently freed from the enchantment that bound him to serve the Labyrinth. He was thrown from the War of the Heavens into near-Nexus orbit in Limbo, and when Operation Angler tried to study him from afar to see if they could use him, he used the opening into their world to force them to permit him entry by his own terms via an infinite time loop until they mostly lost their minds and relented. He then separated the Nexus from the rest of reality, not appreciating a world that existed to muddy the boundaries between existence. This was catastrophic, cutting off all other realms from dreaming and desynchronizing time across all of existence, as dreams were all that held the worlds of Limbo together. Weakened by the exertion, the Timekeeper was bound by the enslaved Weaver, and lost his memory serving the Labyrinth empire against the incursion of the Muffle. He only recently was helped to rediscover his past, and he doesn't like the man or god he used to be. He was freed very recently, and plans to undo the barrier diving the Nexus from the rest of reality, but is paranoid about what might happen to him when he is once again weakened. The Timekeeper looks at worlds much like naturalists look at nature; they are to be preserved and not interfered with; their occupants are like beasts in his eyes, and their individual suffering matters not. Or at least, that's how he used to think. He's conflicted now. Blame Miirik. he never meant to get attached to her.
(Trigger warning for very bad nasty creature in this paragraph). Jormungandr, Aesir of consumption and domination, rumored to have once been "only" the god of consumption in its former identity of Bleirick-plus-some-unprounceable-syllables. Blerick probably did not actually consume an Aesir of domination, as the elder gods are indestructable. It is hard to say, however, as they can be bound or morphed in moments of relative weakness or instability. Who knows, maybe the nameless conquest god dominated the consumption god, or more likely, some detestable combination of all of the above. In any case, it fell from the War of the Heavens, toyed with the water layer of the Material Plane for untold years, was opposed by the Bellfounder and the Beastlords, and split under duress into Jormungandr and the Lady of Frost and Flowers, godess of usurpation. Jormungandr takes the form of a lupine serpent covered in eyes with a head split into four jaws, each a separate cyclopean wolf face. In this form it is so large that its jaws stretch miles wide even when closed, yet its eyesight is so powerful it can see everything around it in minute detail- the better to domineer over its subjects in its dark and icy abode. Those who do not obey are imprisoned in its eyes for eternity, for nothing dies in its domain without its permission. The Bellfounder keeps it in check through Cold War-esque tactics and psychological manipulation.
Squishy (technically Dr. Squishy with a degree in economics because he felt like it) is the wordless (by choice rather than muteness) companion of Granny, the Weaver, Aesir of connections and fate. He is a giant patchwork quilted panther who can unspool thread appendages to manipulate objects, but seldom does, being a mischevious creature who prefers to startle others with the seldom used tricks up his sleeves. Granny created him to be her companion in the Nexus, but lets him do as he pleases. He pleases to be her companion. The last two are sketches of two of Marinos' Beast Lords, ancient animal spirits who guard the natural order.
Granny (aka the Weaver) is Aesir of connection and fate, on uneasy but peaceful terms with the Timekeeper and best buds with the Bellfounder. She is kind, mildly maniacle, wise, silly, and sorrowful, having lost a lot and spent a lot of time magically imprisoned before having recently been freed after the events of Marinos 1. She was unwillingly responsible for the binding on the Timekeeper, having been in a bind herself, enslaved to Operation Angler by her own power turned against her by her own design according to a twisted bargain of desperation to gain entry into Marinos from the eternal nothingness of Limbo in which she was trapped, destabilized, after falling from the War of the Heavens. She was only recently freed. Granny considers all sapient beings equals.
Arxanica was a conjuration focused arch wizard and blue dragoness responsible, along with magalomaniac sadist archwizard enchanter Wilerian Norchester from Earth, the Minotaur King Norbello of the Labyrinth (an abjuration superspecialist), and the naturally formless shapechanger transmutater now known as Twisting, among others, for Operation Angler. Angler was a secret government program aiming to study and control the fabric of reality separating worlds, fetching lost creatures, bits, and artifacts from Limbo and studying, freeing, or enslaving them as they saw fit for the dubious benefit of the Empire. Among these salavaged creatures were Kaleidoscope the Prismatic Dragon, the last heir of the legacy of the world known as the Great Geode heart of dragonkind destroyed by the Aesir the Emerger. She is the queen of the Vashan skies and lives to this day as Marinos' oldest, largest (by length), and most powerful great wyrm. Angler also introduced flumphs to Marinos (Wilerian's apprentice was one), and magically bound both Granny and the Timekeeper in moments of weakness, but not without suffering the Timekeeper's vengeance first. Arxanica escaped his time loop with a Bloodsong Wish, sacrificing dragonhood. Blindly she refused to accept this immuteable and irreversible loss and definite as the Aesir themselves, and sought paths to become what she had once been that ultimately destroyed her.
The Bellfounder is a benificent schemer, Aesir of communication, sound, waves, and vibrations, and patron of dragons, though this is by choice and association and not by innate power, other than that she resonates with their Bloodsong. She is the creator of song dragons. Until Granny and the Timekeeper were released, she was all that stood between the world and the desolations of Bleirick, the Emerger, and Elthwynae the Maddening Flame. The Emerger destroyed the Great Geode, where she'd fallen to from the War of the Heavens (along with it, apparently), but she managed to bring many refugee dragons and herself into Marinos, directing the force of nature that was the Aesir the Emerger somewhere it could cause wanton unexpected destruction without annihilating populations of millions. After warring against it with the help of the recalcitrant but ultimately desperate Beast Lords, she sealed Elthwynae in a moon of Gemwater, which unfortunately was the celestial body later magical researchers tied their lycanthropic experiements to, creating the were plague by accident. Bleirick she has never defeated, but through Cold War style threats and intense eon spanning master psychological manipulation, she has weakened it somewhat and keeps it in check. She is on good terms with a few dragons and many Beast Lords, but otherwise is fairly secretive, always scheming and in the know about almost everything imagineable, no matter how secret. The Bellfounder does not consider non-Aesir to be equals, but does find them interesting and worth protecting and helping on the down low.
Anodo is the head of Bastion Monistery, and the Reflection of the dictator of the place that's basically draconic North Korea with enforcers riding true dragons. Anodo can do nothing of his normal Reflection jobs as the dictator warded every mirror in the country. So, he helps people in the monastery, embracing the fact that he can't reincarnate until his sinisterly unaging counterpart perishes. He once survived an assasination attempt because his heart is on the wrong side of his body.
Two Beast Lords!
Overcomplicated Sharpie Doodles.
So here are all of Marinos' shimmer dragons- they're a wee bit cursed to us land creatures.
Shimmer dragons are an entirely separate family of dragonkind from DnD's typical chromatic, metallic, and gem dragons. They are very loosely inspired by Chinese and Japanese dragons, some of which (the Japanese dragons iirc) metamorphize from fish as part of their life cycle. That and being heckin noodles is where the similarity ends, though.
Shimmer dragons are aquatic, able to remain above the water comfortably for only a few hours, though they can magically fly. They are hermaphrodites, able to both sire offspring and lay eggs. Shimmer dragons of any species can mate to produce eggs for both parents- they seldom form long term mating bonds of any sort and rear their own eggs alone. The young are always of the seal-jellyfish form until pupation from wyrmling to young dragon, which is jarringly rapid and reveals their species. They can be the species of either parent; it is completely random and impossible to divine in advance. Shimmer dragons seldom care if their young takes after them physically.
Their personalities vary pretty wildly, but they all tend to be very ecclectic and to have very strange and esoteric hoards.
Like other true dragons, they can shapeshift and produce offspring with other creatures, but given they mostly see All That as a way to produce young and lack much romantic instinct, and find typical bisex beings to be repugnantly alien (often a mutual feeling), this doesn't exactly happen often.
As is the case for all true dragons in Marinos, shimmer dragons carry the Bloodsong, the immuteable essence of dragonkind that grants them power and majesty that ever increases with age for as long as they live. In desperation they can sing the Bloodsong for a Wish that is even stronger than the typical uses of the spell, sacrificing dragonhood in the process and becoming a new dragonborn. Their descendants after that are shimmer dragonborn.
Shimmer dragons all have dual damage resistances, sometimes in ecclectic combinations, and matching breath weapons.
Pearlescent- poison and piercing
Aventurescent- fire and thunder
Opalescent- radiant and lightning
Schiller- necrotic and acid
Chatoyant- psychic and bludgeoning
Irridescent-slashing and cold
They also have innate spells, which they can imbue their breath weapons with to turn them into areas of effect, sometimes to bizarre effect!
Marinos creatures!
Rewinder, a minor Monitor (lawful neutral Outsider) of the Echo Impression and Memory Axis.
School of magic elementals. Illusion and enchantment respectively iirc.
Driplings! They are eusocial desert frog people whose drones are sapient and whose polygenetic breeders are dumb giant blob frogs. The flowers on their head are gifts of The Lily and keep them moist. Their word for sand is the same as their word for death. They're supposed to be hybernating frogs between Deluges in Vasha but that sucks when you have a negative Draw and spend all of hybernation dreaming, so they established permanent settlements without hybernation with help of The Lily. They're also supposed to be extinct And Yet. Party did Time Travel TM. And caused shenanagins that I somehow did not expect but should have.
Marinos sketch dump.
These are some harbingers! They're archetypal Outsiders for each of the Outer Planes, the aligned realms of dream. These particular ones are a Harbinger of Justice and a Harbinger of Fate, the harbingers for the Mirror/Shining Axis and Echo/Memory respectively.
Here's a shekinny. It's a squid isopod cat.
Here's an old squirp doodle. Squirps are dual type monstrosity beasts. They are small lizards with suction cups for feet, adored by children, lamented of by adults. They are everywhere. They are invasive some places. They are beloved. Current version doesn't have the crest and has a fifth suction cup on the tail.
Selkie doodle.
My player asked for homogriff anatomy references.
Did you ever want to know what a domestic dog bred by bird people for cuteness to their standards would look like? No? Too bad.
Homogriffs were originally for another world building thing, which was scrapped and devoured by Marinos. This original version was more griffin like, with paws and ears and a long tail, hence the name. Now that they're just people shaped birds with no mammal in them, the name is a bit weird, but it stuck.
