LA DANSE MACABRE!

(Verses from “The Last Steampunk Waltz”, by Ghostfire.)

cicero got mother a shirt

codependence

Mural depicting the Night Mother murdering her children

Art for The Elder Scrolls: Legends

*Artist Unknown* If anyone knows the artist, please comment below

- Bad mommy >:(

i love you and your art it fills me with complete joy everytime i see it on my following feed

It's my pleasure! I'm also happy to hear you liked my drawings☺️✨

The Night Mother and Sithis

I've been playing Oblivion for a pretty long time now, and I still keep finding things that surprise me

(Dark Brotherhood Spoilers under the cut)

This was in J'Ghasta's house, aka our first Black Hand contract sent by Mathieu instead of Lucien. If you happen to pick the very hard lock on this keg, you'll find this inside

All of his Black Hand gear!!

Bethesda really gave us every clue available and still didn't let us warn Lucien, huh 😅

The Cure for Madness ...

quick wip of the lovely obsessive jester,

Cicero

Astrid, when the Night Mother is brought to the Sanctuary: Damn girl, you're looking uncanny and just a little off in a way I can't put my finger on but I just know something isn't quite right.

I see you write for skyrim are you interested in crossovers? If so can I tell you my ideas for TES dragonborn coming ov3r to Baldur's Gate and Gortash being interested in her not only for her power but old strings still attached. Maybe she stood against him and he saw her as an equal. Or what about a daedric prince such as Molag Bal trying to invade BG3 because he failed to cross over from Oblivion to Skyrim. Or what about something like the Dark brotherhood in BG3? What about moral conflicted Tav/DB who joined the DB when she was in Skyrim and Gortash finding out then him trying to encourage the darkness in her especially if she's the listener? So she's already prone to hearing the evil whispers of the Night Mother, commanding her assassinations. Gortash would find her ability to shout and control dragons very useful.

Crossovers are definitely an interesting concept! Would be willing to write for them more.

The idea of Durge and being a listener would be… interesting. You’re already serving the purpose as an assassin pre-tadpole as durge. Durge who becomes the listener when the two worlds collide. The Night Mother taking a shining to their ruthless and sadistic nature. Or perhaps a listener who Bhaal takes a liking to? They end up worshipping Bhaal alongside The Night Mother.

Gortash would definitely take an interest in a dragonborn Tav. Previously, Githyanki are the only ones with an affinity to tame dragons and command them. Someone with the natural born ability to not only command them but imitate them? You are truly a force to be reckoned with. He’d want you by his side, Dark Brotherhood or not, promising you anything to get you there. He’ll find a way to return you home, assure you a seat in luxury… whatever it takes. However if he’s telling the truth at all is up for debate. There may be something in his words besides false lies disguised. The praise he sings with his tongue on your strength and his fascination is true. He’d love to see how you worked as a being from another dimension. How did you get to this realm?

Molag Bal invading with you. You’re unbeknownst to it at first- seemingly caught up in this strange world. He followed suite- perhaps the reason you’re here in the first place. You smell trouble when you sense his presence and you knew this would only complicate things. One of the daedric princes always meant something nasty (even if you sold your soul to one or more). Power came corruption.

I also think Orin and Withers would be quite interested in you. Orin, for reasons similar to Gortash, regarding your power and capabilities. Instead of an alliance she wants to see it first hand. To peel back your layers of skin like an onion and sacrifice a being of another realm to Bhaal. Withers in a more practical sense. How did you get here? He’d love to chat and inspect you. Offering you whatever support he could aid in your journey home (or settling down here if it doesn’t warp or rip reality?)

EDIT: FIRM BELIEVER THAT CICERO AND ASTARION WOULD BE FRIENDS.

more cicero thoughts because i've been thinking about this so much. this post will specifically focus on the dynamic between he and the night mother, and is sorta headcanon-based but i have so many thoughts and need to get them out.

i definitely think there's a lot to be said for how cicero's attachment to the night mother can almost be described as oedipal, but i also don't think it quite extends that far, nor do i think he hates her. i believe his experiences, his emotional attachment, his investment in her is religious devotion. it's worship. it's a deep and unwavering sense of loyalty and duty, to sithis, to the brotherhood, to the night mother.

yes, i do think he loves her. yes, i do think to some degree he despises her. wouldn't you? alone, for eight years, with nothing but a corpse you're expected to take care of every single day, to keep clean and sanctify, falling into routines, the only one to talk to who can never talk back? this also probably leads to an unhealthy degree of emotional projection on cicero's part towards her, but i won't get too into that here.

this desire to be chosen by her, then, must feel like release. it's relief from a silence never-ending, it's a sort of validation, a grasping back of hands he's been extending for eight long years. the silence he describes in his journal is cruel. it's rage, wrath, it's ever-present and makes him feel small. but then, as the years pass, he accepts the silence as all he will get. because even though he's done everything (the only survivor of two sanctuaries, three if you spare him. the only one who has tended her, devoted his entire being to her and worshiping she and sithis, carrying her casket from cyrodiil to skyrim and spending every damned day thinking about the night mother and sithis and his loyalty to them) he is not the listener. he knows. he knows he will never be the listener, the night mother has not chosen him (as he states, he remains "unworthy"), despite sacrificing everything.

still, he is the keeper and he would do anything for the night mother, even if it destroys him, because now she's all he has. he has nothing else attaching him to a former life, and he's devoted his entire life as keeper to her. he's reverent towards her because she's all he has, perhaps she's his god more than sithis in a way, because at least she's tangible. she is something dependent on him, and as such, he's codependent on her. and this devotion is religious and unholy. it's a mixture of hatred (feeling unworthy, feeling as though all his effort has gone unappreciated) and the intense love (she is quite literally a divine being to the dark brotherhood, tantamount to a mother mary - would this make him a Christ or a Magdalene or something else entirely? anyways) and the religious devotion and the earthly rage of not being enough. being passed over by her hand and her voice reaching someone who only just joined, or only recently became aware of the night mother.

frankly, in cicero's shoes, i'd lose my mind a little bit, too.

I know the dark brotherhood is kinda edgy and sometimes silly but boy do I love it. I love the whole idea of this dark group that’s bonded together through the blood of innocence, and insanity. Also fuck everyone for making fun of Cicero he’s one of the truest members of the brotherhood for what he went through (along with Lucien Lachance obviously).

I hope my arthritis doesn’t kick in and im sent to the nursing home before tes 6 comes out, dude I want to see the dark brotherhood revamped so bad. I hope most of the members fucking survive this time though ;^;

Also I think the whole “The Night Mother is Mephala” thing is very interesting. I mean on one hand it’s kinda the same thing as the whole “Akatosh is Auri-El” debate. A god isn’t defined by its physical state but rather made up of different aspects of the same thing (in my opinion), so I wouldn’t be surprised if The Night Mother was apart of Mephala, after all she was a dunmer woman who after “hearing the voice of sithis” decided to lay with him and have his children, then send them to their Dread Father. It all could very well have been the Daedric Prince who is associated with murder, lies, deception, sex and secrets.

But with that being said, we know for a fact that the brotherhood for real goes to serve Sithis in the void after death because doesn’t Lucien Lachance actively say that? (I may be misremembering). So it very well could be that Mephala isn’t at play here, unless we’re taking into account that The Night Mother is only an aspect of her and still works under Sithis? Idk lol

The Night Mother

Art for The Elder Scrolls: Legends

Art by Nuare Studio

She is so me fr