♞ Sonal's Penumbra

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Ataraxia
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♞ Sonal's Penumbra

Postby Ataraxia » Tue Sep 06, 2016 6:40 am

Image

He’d heard terrifying tales from the most golden of hearts, and soon came to understand that a spectre was looming over the city – blotting out the sun and casting a damp, heavy shadow over Sarshel. Sonal could have escaped while he had the chance, left to Dilpur like so many Sarshelians who’d witnessed the fall of their illusion of invincibility, but his instincts pulled him to stay in the barren rubble amidst distant echoes of bubbling city life where inspiration bled from the stone walls and opportunities were bountiful as more and more commoners abandoned their homes. The hard lessons he’d learned in the city of coin were beginning to brush off the smoke in his eyes so he could peer into the mirror. Being a man wasn’t about respect or strength, it was about awareness – understanding how our actions affected the world outside of our own. Children faced inward, centered on their own selfish desires and needs – and men faced outward, taking action on the needs of others. And when tragedy struck, men learned to turn the hurt to their advantage – find the success in the failure. He’d never admit it to anyone, but gray was the state he preferred. The dynamic cycle where matte black steel could metamorphose into gold, and vice versa – as fickle and uncertain as the flip of a coin.

It was neither his business nor the time to involve himself in the workings of the recovering city, but intent on launching his career and bring artistic ingenuity to the eyes of a nation that had its gaze turned on gods and crumbling walls, his mind lingered on the idea of planting his seeds into the wound and reap the flowers that would grow. He considered this in an abandoned household within Sarshel’s reinforced walls where the second-floor window overlooked the royal palace and its implacable banners that withstood the howling wind. Sonal had infiltrated and turned this modest home into temporary lodgings on the pretense that his coin purse would degrade at an alarming rate were he to contend with confined inn rooms at the Sailor’s Star which were much too few for the amount of foreigners and, or, adventurers that sought a bed to lie on and four walls to assure their safety and peace.

Over time, he’d begun outfitting the first floor as his workshop and creative space, attaching thick black curtains to rebuke sunlight and curious passers-by as well as guarantee his privacy. The creative process required him to manipulate what was exposed to his perception, so as to only take as much from the outside world as was needed – the rest had to spawn from within. To become absorbed into the singular mass that was society meant losing clarity and focus toward the whisper of inspiration and artistic intention. Candles were scattered about the room to provide enough lighting to see and enough darkness to sink into and drift to sleep where he to finally hold onto his fragile need for slumber. Truth be told, the painter much preferred resting during the day. The night and exhaustion that came with sleep deprivation held countless truths and secrets; tales for another time; stories that could only be brought to life on the canvas when one was threading the rope between the material and dream worlds.

Not quite awake, but never asleep.

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Copper Dragon
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Re: ♞ Sonal's Penumbra

Postby Copper Dragon » Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:08 pm

Sarshel - this city which was named after a daemonslaying king, and who has been so crippled by a daemon's, a true daemon's descent upon it - may feel thin and frail, despite sturdy walls and heavy-set buildings. The city guards patrol the streets regularly, but with Sonal's discrete ways they do not come across him trespassing, nor do neighbours take notice of his presence in the abandoned abode. Yet.

If out in the open he did wish to be noticed for his painter's craft, he would be regarded with interest by one or two parties. The Sailor's Star and Kingfisher both welcome guests who appreciate a painting. And yet times are lean and Sonal has not advertised resplendent masterworks yet, and so the traders and wealthier patrons only nod and hum if he claims to be open for work. There are no eager traders or noblemen to sponsor him just now. Rather, it is a scholar that first approaches Sonal.

"Art serves not the soul's pleasures but must capture the facts of reality. Wouldn't you agree, master Sonal?" professor Ivan Istvanur asks Sonal by a table, inviting the artist to a drink of his choice. "I am curious for your opinion! But moreso, I am curious for your works. I would commission you to illustrate for me figures; people of historical importance; and quite frankly... an object of such beauty, no one can compare. You see, I am a geneologist and avid politicologist, and history - history is the only thing that truly lasts. Fantasies are meant to perish. So I would commission you - yes, that was what I was saying - I would commission you to paint me My Lady Wellhaven of Mincester. Of course, we would - you could? no, we could - make an appointment with her. The painting would be for my book, yes."

Will professor Istvanur be the contemplative artist's first client - or will only passion rather than coin dictate the Athkatlan man's brush strokes? This may be an opportunity but it may also be a waste of time. It is up to Sonal to decide what to make of it.
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Ataraxia
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Re: ♞ Sonal's Penumbra

Postby Ataraxia » Mon Sep 19, 2016 6:06 pm

Despite his growing fondness of the new shisha parlor that coincidentally was inaugurated soon after his arrival, the homesickness that the sound of bubbling hookahs and rich aromas in the air alleviated were not enough to charm his exclusivity. The social circles of impilturian connections he wished to make were likely to congregate around the other older venues and thus Sonal felt compelled to accommodate that need and show himself to the people who could contribute to the creation of his reputation. Unfortunately for him, carrying his works across Faerun had been impossible, he would have no choice but to bend a little for now. He hoped he wouldn’t have to betray his integrity for the sake of success. That is why when the professor had approached him with his offer, the painter felt the need to be very clear about the man’s expectations.

“You wish for me to paint a woman.” Sonal was not in the least bit surprised by the predictability of men but he could not reproach it to the professor. It was amusement that transpired in his voice; that of a father letting his child make his own mistakes. “Very well; but as you’ve spoken about the purpose of art in immortalizing the facts of our reality, I must explain something: any portrait created with feeling is a fantasy of the painter, not the reality of the model, and if our perceptions of beauty were to differ – the final result may not be what you wished for. I cannot paint what you see in your mind, but I guarantee that I will do my best to capture what I see with my eyes.” He pushed aside his cup to convey a sense of openness and honesty, resting hands on the tabletop. “I admit I’m intrigued if she is as you say, and I am certain there will be no problem but I judge it best to confirm we are on the same page. If this is still adequate for you; I’ll gladly accept your offer.”

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Copper Dragon
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Location: GMT +1

Re: ♞ Sonal's Penumbra

Postby Copper Dragon » Sat Oct 01, 2016 8:38 am

Professor Ivan Istvanur offers his ink-stained hand, "Master Sonal, those terms are certainly agreeable: All the more because I am certain that you will see matters, and My Lady Wellhaven, my way. As for the appointment: I hope you are not averse to travel and snows, master artist. We will be wise to find Lady Wellhaven in Vlasta in the coming tenday. Oh, I am sure we will. Yes. Hm! Wonderful... I say we make arrangements to leave, and talk of prices along the Laviguer Road."

Thus is Sonal's first commission proposed on the Easting Reach; at the behest of a self-proclaimed historian, meaning to capture the visage of a noblewoman. The trip will be long and with the snows cumbersome, but hopefully productive - or at least interesting.

OOC: Hope to arrange continuation in game. Thanks for your patience in my delayed response! :)
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

User avatar
Copper Dragon
Posts: 537
Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2015 12:11 pm
Location: GMT +1

Re: ♞ Sonal's Penumbra

Postby Copper Dragon » Fri Nov 11, 2016 8:00 am

The artist and professor join a caravan - one of the few ones that leave every month - heading for Vlasta, a hamlet far into the foothills of the mountains.

Was it worthwhile, productive or interesting as one had hoped?

A tenday later, the professor that emerges in Sarshel's The Sailor's Star is a man of contentment: proudly, he proclaims that he has always had an eye for good character and talent, as if all the credit was his. Nevertheless in his pride the other patrons recognise a clear satisfaction with the commissioned artist, Sonal, and talk among men with coin spreads.

Art in Sarshel has been scarce to find and harder to nurture in the past years, and most certainly in the past several months. Wealthier patrons of The Sailor's Star and The Kingfisher now pick up the topic once again: can art be brought back into their lives? Can and will this foreign talent shape their tastes? Who is he, who supposedly impressed even an eloquent noblewoman with the stroke of his brush? Indeed, a few patrons are eager to approach Sonal of Athkatla for more work, small or large, to bask in the new life and ingenuity he might bring. Others watch feigning aloofness, but hungry for creativity.
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Obsidian Sea
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Joined: Mon Nov 16, 2015 3:09 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: ♞ Sonal's Penumbra

Postby Obsidian Sea » Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:42 am

Dearest sister,

On my most recent visit to Professor Istvanur's abode, I was led without delay to make the regard of his latest commission, which was nothing less than the moonlit portraiture of Lady Wellhaven, delivered in the most fine and exacting measurements of an artist known only to me by the first name, Sonal. Why this is, I cannot say, for it seems out of Impilturan character to lack a surname, though many relieve themselves of the privacy of a forename too soon in this hasty age we've come to co-habit. I understand that he is a very foreign man, yet the insistence to earn a surname from such people seems, to me, an urgent insistence to make. What this artist, Sonal, has wrought, was at first so magnificently reflective of my lady's countenance and bearing that in the prison of her frame, I had the small sensation that the moon was rising beyond a magically stained window, and all that I was seeing sat quite tangibly before me, dividing she from I by little more than a transparent pane.

The gentle twist from her shoulders to her chin felt significant, so that the story in two ways was told: that her light brown eyes, rich with peaceful secrecy, might be turning upon the beholder with favour, seemed just as plausible to me as the regretful suggestion that my lady's intention was forthwith to deprive the onlooker of her gaze, turning her head away from the lens of the portrait. Caught somewhere between these states of coy advance and retreat, my lady's stance epitomises the commingling of her humble beginnings with a great dignity with which she outshines any jewel or fancy that makes its way to Mincester Manor on her behalf. A woman of the people, the artist has known when not to flatter my lady with the brush, so that she is flattered all the more by the inherent virtues of her being.

Yet upon crossing the threshold of the very foyer in which I regarded her upon entering Professor Istvanur's abode, I could not say with certainty what a new angle and the intoxication brought upon by a series of Maracrathan reds (the youngest of which suffered the strain of the season in the ripeness of their grape) had done to transpose the modest beauty of my lady's visage. From another angle, the artist heeding the light of the moon that caught her face, my lady's colour seemed so intangibly pale; the skin of her neck, gently twisted, seemed so sunken against the bone; and her cheekbones sharper than I had noted upon first regarding her where she was framed, that my lady almost took on the waxen quality of a malnourished thing. It seemed as though the very famine known to Mincester, and which threatens, I am told, nearby Vlasta, too, was within my lady. And yet, so pinched and skeletal, her beauty seemed to employ morbidity, not be sold out because of it, and I remained entranced by her all the same as when I first clapped eye upon her features entombed upon the canvas. If the artist knows what he was wrought, I cannot say, yet in that moment, discovering her aspect in this new way, I felt a very sudden shiver that went through the all of my being.

I cannot profess a great acquaintance with art, yet this man might be a genius. I hear this is his first commissioned piece since he came to that shell of a city which we call Sarshel. Professor Istvanur seems so favourable to the possession of my lady's visage that I can only ascertain that the ambiguities of her depiction are not at all heeded by him. Mayhaps it is only I, and an aversion to frontierland wines that has rendered her in so sickly a light? Not soon shall I forget the sensation of that piece, nor quickly shall I deplore the innovation that might come with welcoming foreign artistic practices, if the results so oft might give us such a thrill as I experienced that evening, in the home of Professor Istvanur.

Yours, with love and confidence,

Your dearest brother

24th Uktar; The Rotting
Heomar Bloodstone

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