shatterstag:

Here’s a little dump collection of the first bits and bobs of Bellamy art I did while I was still figuring out his character design and backstory…

When my friends invited me to a Curse of Strahd game, I was like, ‘this is my chance to make the most gothic character ever possible.’ I browsed through the available subclasses and races at the time and saw grave cleric (when it was still an Unearthed Arcana class) and immediately pointed furiously at it over and over saying THAT ONE.

The flavour of the grave cleric subclass is written as: you despise the undead and think they are abominations destined to be hunted down and destroyed for subverting the natural order of life and death. But I thought it was really interesting that most of the grave cleric’s abilities involve subverting the natural order of life and death by bringing your friends back from the edge of death.

I was really into the hypocrisy of the class so I browsed through the available races and saw

Revenant

And was like

‘I’m going to make my grave cleric undead because that’s cool as fuck and hilarious when the grave cleric flavour is that they hate undead. And also I’m going to go to whatever lengths I need to to disguise my true race from the other players until the most dramatic moment to reveal that my character has been a dead ghost haunting a plague suit for the entire campaign.
He’s never going to take his mask off, because behind it he has no body, he’s just a terrifying incorporeal shadow person underneath, and I’m going to slowly hint at it over the course of the campaign.’

So here’s some very old Bellamy doodles! Featuring Riki the aarakocra rogue giving his secretly dead lich-esque party member an offensive meme shirt, and Dvalin the tiefling warlock getting to score Bellamy’s drink because he! cannot consume food and water! and you ain’t gettin that mask off baby. And also Bellamy being Barovia’s Okayest Cleric who lets you start dying before deciding to heal you.

Bellamy’s a ghost because he sacrificed himself in an occult god summoning ritual, by cutting out his own heart
to an evil god

in exchange for the life of his dying daughter! It Did Not Work Out Well For Bellamy.