This piece was part of the development for the Night of the Cauldron event, but it never become more than this interesting sketch of lurking spirits. I wanted some kind of fantastic fiction to go with it, but nothing ever developed. I really enjoy the ominous feeling here. I may still make a story from it eventually.
"It is said that all succumb to the light of the Oculi Mortui save the wielder of the lantern. A favored artifact of thieves and assassins, those exposed to it's light are drained of vitality and fall into a state of paralytic torpidity. After the lantern's passing, they wake at the next sunrise exhausted and disoriented. Horrible dreams have been recorded by those who have been exposed to it. Sleepers are assailed by visions of terrible lifeless vistas where the wind ceaselessly howls."
Happy Birthday to Zombie Bites!
Here is my first object of power for the Saturday Sketches, the bloodstone medallion. Belasco used the bloodstones to bind Illyana Rasputin to his evil intentions. I've rendered it as it appeared at the end of the Marvel Comics limited series, Magik, with three of the five bloodtsones in place.
I was originally developing this piece to be included in the Night of the Cauldron event from last Halloween, but it never coalesced into anything more than this sketch.
"At the time of his incarceration, Doctor Mars was in the process of surgically reconstructing live human subjects into complex and unnatural forms. Investigation of his laboratory revealed that he had been performing these operations for an as yet undetermined number of years. It is suspected that he was conducting his procedures at multiple clandestine locations and that the full catalog of his victims has yet to be uncovered and identified."
