Shadowgast - Blog Posts

In honor of the anniversary of the most unhinged shadowgast era, I present you the Timeloop-babygast-execution Au, where two mad lads run away from home (secret military underground bunker) and try their hands at murdering criminals (Caleb, their own father) and piss off a powerful dunamancer (Essek, their other father) enought to set up a timeloop none of them can escape (until they sit down and talk about their feelings/misunderstandings).

Many thanks to the amazing @flappingduster for joining in this madness, and  lending her babygast

Come and see the most adorable half drow babies cuddling from the amazing @flappingduster !! 

The cuteness is killing me TT u TT

@anne-o-nyme reawakened my babygast feelings and I couldn’t resist the quick sketch of our two shadowgast kiddos🥺

Essek has a 400′s life crisis and goes back on the road with a party of young adventurers. He, of course, brings Caleb with him.

all credits for this amazing idea goes back to the great @flappingduster-scribbles

So many discussions about old man Caleb ! I had to turn it into this WWDITS meme.

@flappingduster-scribbles ‘s shadowgast baby is in here, as well as mine.

This is definitely how CR season 3 will ends. I’m calling it.

---

[zzaap]

“Oh hi Schatz ! You’re back early !”

“The moon is haunted.”

“What ?”

“The moon is haunted, Caleb.”

---

To all the people who asked what was written on Caleb’s book : 

“Kryn courting : so you’ve decided to date a drow, what to expect in a relationship”

Shadowgast baby headcanons

To anyone who might be concerned, his name is Archibald Widogast. Professor Widogast’s only son, that he’s raising on his own, with the occasional help of his adventurer friends and a revolving door of nannies (it’s Essek. Of course it’s Essek). 

Essek was relieved when he saw how human his son looked. He would have loved him no matter what of course, but being too obviously half-drow would have put a target on his back for the rest of his life. Currently, Archi looks half elven, with his white hair and pointy ears.

As a toddler, Archibald had troubles recognising Essek, since the man was oftenly switching disguises. It led to an equally terrifying and comic event when one day he left kindergarten with the wrong pink skinned tiefling. Essek panicked when he realized his little Starlight wasn’t there and called the entire Mighty Nein Team to retrieve his baby. The pink tiefling, after realizing he wasn’t the kid she was supposed to babysit, bought him ice cream and walked him back to the kindergarden, deeply embarrassed. 

Essek was hurt by the fact that at 3 years old his own son was unable to distinguish him from a stranger. Since then he started wearing a distinctive sign with each of his disguises, so that no more mistakes could happen.

Little Archi has very light and sensitive skin, which means long exposure under direct sun will give him bad sunburns and nausea. His eyes are also sensitive : while he has a pretty decent dark vision, high luminosity is uncomfortable for him. His aunty Veth gifted him a pair of special glasses to handle the sun, especially in summer.

Archibald is quite shy, and since he doesn't like to play outside, he has trouble making friends with other children.

He’s a very smart boy, Caleb used to take him to work when he was a baby, and he has sat through most of his courses since then. At ten, some of Caleb’s students used to sneak him sweets in exchange for a little help on their papers.

He’s also very quiet, loves to read, and is often found napping on a library bench, surrounded by books of various subjects.

If at first Essek wanted to only talk in common and zemnian around Archi, fearing that speaking undercommon would mark him as suspicious, he gradually regretted not teaching him more of his mother tongue when he was a baby. Once Archibald got old enough, Essek started introducing undercommon at home. As an adult, Archibald speaks both zemnian and undercommon, but with a thick accent in the later. 

Astrid and Eadwulf know about little Archi, they even met him a couple of times, usually when Caleb took him to his lectures. Once Eawulf gave him a candy, which put every adult in the room on high alert : nothing happened, it was just regular candy.

Archibald knows he has an uncle called Verin living far away, from whom he receives toys from time to time. Usually picture books about astronomy, and cool rocks he lines up on his window frame.

The poor kid would suffer so much during summer vacations at auntie Jester and uncle Fjord’s house in Nicodranas-

but listen: shadowgast children, with a drow and a ginger for parents, that’s going to require levels of SPF magic the world has not seen before

Shadowgast Baby from @foxqueen-katarian ‘s au, go check it out ! 

Caleb accidentally adopting/kidnapping a Tabaxi child because he thought they were a cat and is now too embarrassed to take them back to where he found them.

Look at this !!!! This is amazing !!! Op wrote a great one shot about my silly little post !!

The Terribly Sad and Tragic Affair that Is the Fake Funeral of Shadowhand Essek Thelyss

Apparently, I am not only drawing for the Critical Role fandom, but writing for it, too. After months of nearly no progress I just vomited out 3k words this Tuesday and it only went downhill from there.

This fic is based on this post by @anne-o-nyme, I really hope I managed to capture the energy of it.

Have fun!

Summary: There were eight strangers in the foyer of his dead brother’s towers and Verin Thelyss was slowly losing his patience.

After the sudden “death” of Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, it is his brother Verin’s job to empty out his towers. The Mighty Nein show up to help (and maybe steal a few things).

OR: Verin is grieving, Essek just wants his stuff back, and the Mighty Nein are the Mighty Nein.

Warnings: I didn’t tag this with MCD, because Essek is technically alive and kicking. Since Verin doesn’t know that though, and this fic is written from his POV, this is dealing with grief and includes depictions of depressive thoughts as well as anxiety attacks. For more explicit warnings, please mind the tags on AO3. Take care of yourselves, and let me know if I forgot anything.

Read on AO3

There were eight strangers in the foyer of his dead brother’s towers and Verin Thelyss was slowly losing his patience. “Listen,” he said with what little calm he had left, “I know that by returning one of our beacons you became heroes of the Dynasty and were placed under Es— My bro— his stewardship. But this here—” he gestured vaguely at the interior of Essek’s towers that had always been too cold, too empty, but not like now, never like now— “This is a very difficult situation for me, so if you could please leave, that would be greatly appreciated.”

Afficher davantage

I was thinking about it !! Caleb has very ambiguous feelings about that : on one hand he’s happy to have this unique chance of growing old with his lover, but on the other he feels guilty of making him change his appearance all the time for his sake.

On his deathbed, he asks Essek to take the illusion down, and so he does. Caleb cries as he strokes the perfect youthful face, kisses the plump lips, and tells a heartbroken sobbing Essek he loves him.

May I present to you:

Essek casting Seeming as Caleb grows older so he and Caleb can be old together

Also for your consideration:

Essek taking Frumpkin as his own familiar since he and Frumpkin are going to live a long time without Caleb, and will out-live all of the Mighty Nein

Caleb and Essek discuss children, of all things.

--

"Aren't you worried?" Caleb asks softly, his voice full of concern as he holds Essek's hand in his own. "About outliving them?"

It wasn't a topic either of them had brought up: instead, Beau and Yasha has approached them about it, offering to be surrogates should they desire a child of their own. A very sweet offering, but one that prompted a discussion.

Outliving your child was among the worst things most parents could think of.

And yet.

"It is a concern, yes," Essek confesses, giving Caleb's hand a gentle squeeze. "I will not pretend it is not. But...I am a drow. I will likely live for centuries more, unless my own foolishness catches up to me. And you won't be there, because you are human, and if we were to have a child, they would also be a human, or perhaps a half-elf," he presses the gentlest of kisses against Caleb's temple. "And I would outlive them as well, and it would be hard. I'm not pretending it wouldn't be."

He pauses for a moment, taking the time to brush a stray ginger lock back behind Caleb's ear before he resumes speaking. "But if I am lucky, I will live to see our child marry, and have children of their own. And their children will perhaps have children. And five or six centuries from now, we may have great-great-great grandchildren, and one might have your hair, or your eyes, or your nose," he kisses the nose in question. "And it would remind me of you, long after you are gone. I could think of no greater gift you could leave to me than that."

There are tears welling up in Caleb's eyes, but neither of them acknowledge it. "Ja, okay," Caleb nods, and kissed his husband. "Let's have a baby. Let's leave a legacy."

I don't know if anyone else had this idea before (...probably) but I would LOVE to see a fic about Essek's fake burial.

Listen, picture Verin, heartbroken, very confused about these outsiders who showed up unannounced at his brother's funerals, claiming to be his friends (”Essek do not have friends !”), and insisting on helping him empty out his tower.

First stage : polite confusion

Second stage : passive aggressive doubts from Verin

Third stage : Verin is convinced these people are huge liars and are trying to loot his dead brother’s precious belongings.

Final stage : Verin starts throwing stuff at the Mighty Nein. Chaos ensues. They end up teleporting with Verin in the Clay’s kitchen in front of a very surprised Essek, in his lounging clothes, busy drinking tea and drawing hearts around Caleb’s name in his spell book.

Essek just wanted to get some of his stuff back.

To all the people who had this brilliant idea

follow up from this :

 https://anne-o-nyme.tumblr.com/post/658319203995156480/but-whos-that-charming-fellow-who-flirted-with

But who’s that charming fellow who flirted with Professor Widogast last night ?

part 2 : https://anne-o-nyme.tumblr.com/post/658691088147709952/to-all-the-people-who-had-this-brilliant-idea

bonus : close up 

I’m so sorry for all the angst from last week, here’s some fluffy old wizards in love

YES ! That was amazing op !!! 

Hi fellow shadowgast lover ! I need your take on this : what if ann older, distinguished and grizzled Essek (like, around 500 years old or something) was sent back in time against his will / to stop some nefarious threat, and met a young Caleb ? Obviously he wouldn't want to alter the timeline, but the temptation to protect his beloved from all the pain he will go through ? The drama ? What would be Caleb's reaction to meeting a powerful Kryn wizard ? Critical Role fandom, I need your wisdom.

I was going to have a cohesive response but my brain IMMEDIATELY went on “Essek gets back to the time Caleb was in the Sanatorium, disguises himself and he’s actually the one that breaks him free of the Feeblemind” (I know it’s not confirmed but I’ve always thought that the whole sanatorium business was Caleb being Feebleminded - it’s basically impossible breaking free of a Feeblemind after it takes hold without some sort of external help)and I’m… I’m having feelings about Essek seeing Caleb again after centuries but not being able to do anything about it I’m–Maybe he protected him, from a distance, in the years before Caleb met Nott. Essek is determined and focused enough to know he cannot afford to mess up the timeline, but watching over him isn’t that, right?

Hi Critical Role fandom 👀

Inspired by this post, where a 500+ years old Essek goes back in time when Caleb is kept in the Sanatorium

https://kurosmind.tumblr.com/post/656544093606985728/hi-fellow-shadowgast-lover-i-need-your-take-on

I did not expect to get hurt by my own anonymous ask… @kurosmind​ has a galaxy brain. First time interacting with a fandom, and I’m already spreading angst…I’m so, so sorry, this scene just popped up in my brain and wouldn’t let me be

Hi fellow shadowgast lover ! I need your take on this : what if ann older, distinguished and grizzled Essek (like, around 500 years old or something) was sent back in time against his will / to stop some nefarious threat, and met a young Caleb ? Obviously he wouldn't want to alter the timeline, but the temptation to protect his beloved from all the pain he will go through ? The drama ? What would be Caleb's reaction to meeting a powerful Kryn wizard ? Critical Role fandom, I need your wisdom.

I was going to have a cohesive response but my brain IMMEDIATELY went on "Essek gets back to the time Caleb was in the Sanatorium, disguises himself and he's actually the one that breaks him free of the Feeblemind" (I know it's not confirmed but I've always thought that the whole sanatorium business was Caleb being Feebleminded - it's basically impossible breaking free of a Feeblemind after it takes hold without some sort of external help)and I'm... I'm having feelings about Essek seeing Caleb again after centuries but not being able to do anything about it I'm--Maybe he protected him, from a distance, in the years before Caleb met Nott. Essek is determined and focused enough to know he cannot afford to mess up the timeline, but watching over him isn't that, right?

them