Whew. Okay, this is my entire MOB submission this time. It took me about forty-four layers (not counting the merged layers) and upwards of twelve hours (not counting last minute fiddly-ing). I was, needless to say, about ready to drop dead when I was done. But I'm happy with it.
This concept was born from an interesting correlation I noticed between the main protagonist and antagonist--they seemed to fit the paradigms of cardinal masculine and cardinal feminine perfectly. Hearts and Spades. Cups and Swords. Yin-yang, etc.
Obviously, there are their genders. Duh.
But beyond that, themain protagonist, Lucretia, is a yuki-onna, or snow spirit. Snow is a division of the element of water, the element of the cardinal feminine. She is in turns vulnerable, caring, and destructive, fitting the maiden-mother-crone paradigm, and emotional and sensual, which are both very marked of the cardinal feminine. And she's also got a thing about alchohol, which fits into the entire cups/emotion idea very well.
The main antagonist, Gerriod, on the other hand, is a swordsman and a grandson of Loki, which would make him the great-grandson of a weather intellegence--an air elemental. Air is connected with the cardianal masculine. He is also an illusionist--another Air trait--and seems to be (from what I can tell from the available information) very much goal-oriented and unhindered by emotion. Again, a trait that falls under the cardinal masculine, or Swords, or Spades.
Ack. Run-on sentences...
Both characters copyright to Thrythlind.
BG is an uber-edited version of a photo taken by my father when he was visiting his family in China. You don't know how annoying it was trying to edit out my cousin in the foreground (I mean, yes, I love my cousin, but he just doesn't fit into the entire feel of the picture, you know)...
And yay, cultural anomalies.