about to beat the game with this character so figured it was about time i shared her. estrel, golden order scion and D's apprentice/adoptive daughter. more about her under the cut because. oh boy this girl's got lore.

one day D came by the Bestial Sanctum to collect his incantations paycheck and gurranq just. had a kid. and he was like "...fuck it, i could use some backup anyway" and the rest is history

current working theory is that she came up from the deep siofra well? but this is all a big question mark.

D is the one who gave her the name estrel, to reflect her new surface life as a hunter of death (and because i fucking love elden ring's thing with characters having multiple names). uldin is her original name, but sees very little use nowadays

she's a golden order fundamentalist but she'll also employ bestial (of course) and dragon cult, erdtree and two fingers incantations, and also some misc. sorceries when the need arises. no fire or black flame until after farum azula, and no dragon communion/bloodflame/etc ever.

she wasn't actually that interested in lordship at first, until it became clear that pursuing it was the only way to change the state of the world and permanently free those who live in death. for most of the game her goal is just to weed deathroot

...well, until D dies. then she's out for revenge. she does kill fia; it doesn't feel as good as she'd hoped, but at least she's dead.

she also lands herself in ranni's entourage, but isn't aware at the time of her role in the night of black knives. when she does find out, she leaves ranni's service for a while

the whole game is kind of a crisis of conscience for her, honestly. it takes fia's death, and seeing the death-prince in person, for her to finally determine that she will do whatever it takes to stand before the elden ring and fix what she's come to see as a deep sickness at the heart of the golden order—the rune of death being only mostly sealed, an age where none can truly die.

(those who live in death, tarnished reincarnation—it's all the same. souls are trapped in a twilight, becoming sickened by death without the release and return it should rightly bring. the sun needs to set on the golden prince, so that they may break through the night to a new dawn.)

other misc npc questlines: nepheli (childhood friends at the roundtable), rogier (tries to help him behind D's back, regrets it), sellen (aids her), corhyn and goldmask (eventually gets the mending rune of perfect order)

U.S. Mint Wins Two Big Prizes

Recognition of the quality of Federal Mint designs continues to grow. The 46th annual World Money Fair was just held, from the 3rd to the 5th of February, 2017 at the Estrel Convention Center in Berlin, Germany. Officials from the United States Mint were there to accept two Coin of the Year Awards (COTY) given to designs for recently issued coins.

The first award was in the category Best Circulating Coin, awarded for a quarter in the America the Beautiful Program. The coin design celebrated Kisatchie National Forest, the only National Forest in the state of Louisiana. The forest was designated in 1930 by President Edgar Hoover, chiefly because of campaigning by the botanist and conservationist “Carrie” Dormon, who lived in Arcadia, Lousiana. The forest is chiefly pine, and the reverse side of the coin design features a wild turkey flying over bluestem grass with long-leaf pines, Pinus palustris, in the background.

This prize-winning design was created by Susan Gamble, who was a part of the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) from 2004 until her death in 2015. This program was set up to improve the quality of the designs of the Mint’s coins, and clearly it has been successful. Joseph Menna, who has been a Sculptor-engraver with the Mint since 2005, created the actual die used to mint the coin. This is the second COTY award for a coin in the America the Beautiful Program. The 2013 Mount Rushmore National Memorial coin had already won the same award three years ago. The America the Beautiful series began in 2010, and each year five coins celebrating American National Parks are released. Eventually coins will be released for parks in all 50 states, plus D.C. and the five overseas territories.

The second award was in the category, Most Inspirational Coin, for a silver dollar commemorating the 75th anniversary of the March of Dimes Foundation. The reverse was both designed and sculpted by sculptor-engraver Don Everhart. He has worked at the Mint since 2004. On the obverse are the profiles of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and of Dr. Jonas Salk. FDR was crippled by polio at the age of 39, but it did not stop him going on to be a great president and the leader of America during WWII. Dr. Salk developed a vaccine for the virus, which he released in 1955. The vaccination of children since then has reduced the incidence of this crippling disease by 97%. Both men are indeed inspiration in overcoming literally crippling odds.

Another member of the AIP since 2010, Paul Balan, designed the coin, and the die was made by the Mint sculptor-engraver Michael Gaudioso. The mint had previously also won the Most Popular Coin Award in 2009 for the George Washington one dollar alloyed copper coin. These awards validate the Mint’s decision to create the AIP, and they are another credit to the artistic quality and collectability of the designs created by the Mint for their various issues. More awards are bound to follow these ones, and each one gives the awarded coins additional cachet and value among collectors.

from Buy Gold & Silver Online | Official Golden Eagle Coins Blog http://ift.tt/2mwkmnY via IFTTT

U.S. Mint Wins Two Big Prizes

Recognition of the quality of Federal Mint designs continues to grow. The 46th annual World Money Fair was just held, from the 3rd to the 5th of February, 2017 at the Estrel Convention Center in Berlin, Germany. Officials from the United States Mint were there to accept two Coin of the Year Awards (COTY) given to designs for recently issued coins.

The first award was in the category Best Circulating Coin, awarded for a quarter in the America the Beautiful Program. The coin design celebrated Kisatchie National Forest, the only National Forest in the state of Louisiana. The forest was designated in 1930 by President Edgar Hoover, chiefly because of campaigning by the botanist and conservationist “Carrie” Dormon, who lived in Arcadia, Lousiana. The forest is chiefly pine, and the reverse side of the coin design features a wild turkey flying over bluestem grass with long-leaf pines, Pinus palustris, in the background.

This prize-winning design was created by Susan Gamble, who was a part of the Mint’s Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) from 2004 until her death in 2015. This program was set up to improve the quality of the designs of the Mint’s coins, and clearly it has been successful. Joseph Menna, who has been a Sculptor-engraver with the Mint since 2005, created the actual die used to mint the coin. This is the second COTY award for a coin in the America the Beautiful Program. The 2013 Mount Rushmore National Memorial coin had already won the same award three years ago. The America the Beautiful series began in 2010, and each year five coins celebrating American National Parks are released. Eventually coins will be released for parks in all 50 states, plus D.C. and the five overseas territories.

The second award was in the category, Most Inspirational Coin, for a silver dollar commemorating the 75th anniversary of the March of Dimes Foundation. The reverse was both designed and sculpted by sculptor-engraver Don Everhart. He has worked at the Mint since 2004. On the obverse are the profiles of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and of Dr. Jonas Salk. FDR was crippled by polio at the age of 39, but it did not stop him going on to be a great president and the leader of America during WWII. Dr. Salk developed a vaccine for the virus, which he released in 1955. The vaccination of children since then has reduced the incidence of this crippling disease by 97%. Both men are indeed inspiration in overcoming literally crippling odds.

Another member of the AIP since 2010, Paul Balan, designed the coin, and the die was made by the Mint sculptor-engraver Michael Gaudioso. The mint had previously also won the Most Popular Coin Award in 2009 for the George Washington one dollar alloyed copper coin. These awards validate the Mint’s decision to create the AIP, and they are another credit to the artistic quality and collectability of the designs created by the Mint for their various issues. More awards are bound to follow these ones, and each one gives the awarded coins additional cachet and value among collectors.

from Buy Gold & Silver Online | Official Golden Eagle Coins Blog http://ift.tt/2mwkmnY via IFTTT

mooooore estrels. working out some more of her design

i am once again debating changing estrel's name and title

for the character dynamic ask game, estrel & D with 2, 6, and 16?

YEAHH MY GIRL THANK YOU (character dynamics ask game)

2. if asked to describe B to a stranger, what would A say? are they mostly truthful, or is there anything they omit?

ooh ok. assuming this is at the time of the game or like. roughly before it. i think one notable admission is idk if estrel would refer to D as her father? like, that's absolutely what she thinks of him as, but i think when talking to others she might default back to "mentor" or something similar like that. something not quite as. personal. other than that, if she's talking abt D to someone who doesn't know him, it's probably in the context of hunting, so that's probably what she'd emphasize most, his skill in battle etc.

putting the rest of this under the cut so yall dont get 5 miles of oc talk lmao

honestly this is all fairly similar from D's side as well. i think at the time of the game, when she's an adult, he might not even go "apprentice" but just the entirely bloodless "associate." she's just someone he allies with. you do not need to know the rest of it, random stranger. like, i think by and large these two are both very private people who are happy to abridge a lot in conversation and then go "well you literally didn't ask." sometimes this causes problems (i don't think estrel ever even knew D had a brother until she met him) but it's just where they both settle naturally so.

6. what does A think B thinks of them? or, if asked to describe their relationship, how would they do it? are they right?

i answered this a little bit above oops lol but while i do think that to strangers they sort of obfuscate their relationship, internally they're both very honest abt/aware of it. they're family.

one thing tho that i think estrel might not be aware of, is how much D respects her? like, estrel sort of assumes that she'll always be D's second, his apprentice, but he's genuinely very proud of/impressed by her progress and views her as an equal or near equal in battle. especially during the game itself. i think she finds out about this late in fia's questline (once he's already dead) and it catches her totally off guard.

16. free space: what's your favorite thing about their dynamic, as a fan or as a writer?

OOH OKAY this is a thing that. has not gotten much screentime at all thus far bc i'm still working out sooome of her background, but. a big reason that D agreed to take her on as an apprentice/ward was that the two of them—and he knew this as soon as he got a proper look at her—have very similar, if not the exact same past. in that i think they were both an attempt at an artificial lord of night, made by the nox. the whole reason uldin came to the bestial sanctum was to find and claim the rune of death (but she was very small at the time so gurranq just swatted her halfway across the room with one hand, and then took pity on her for the same reason. and bc he knew it wasn't actually her desire, it was someone else's)

i think they also don't... talk about this much. like, they obscure their names (D with his initial, estrel with abandoning "uldin") partly out of the same sense of privacy, but partly also bc they both to some extent reject their purpose. talking abt it would validate it too much. might draw them back in to what they still know they were made for. so they just... don't. but it's always there. and i LOVE that kind of "known but not voiced" so. yeah.

the problem is beyond just the nondescript "of the golden order" there are like a bajillion titles i could slap on estrel that feel appropriate. the alloyed. empyrean artifice. pursuer of death. beast scion. etc etc. picking just one for a tag is Hard

doing very serious art of my serious tarnished

tbh I’m still not sold on estrel as a name. like it’s got quite a lot of diff. ties and sources and things but it just sounds kind of off from a purely aesthetic standpoint. mostly I just settled on it bc I had changed my mind a bunch already and was tired of thinking abt it. I think uldin is staying for sure tho