Howdy folks. It’s time to look at the final member of The Nine, as we’ve managed to work on all the other characters with the assistance of Dennis Van Kessel and our new artist, Wern Szuen Lee. Out of all the characters we’ve looked at, the one that we haven’t seen is Holklund Crescentshire.
All of our other characters of The Nine, with the exception of one, has had an in with the group for one reason or another by the time they do their first big “together” quest. Besides Christopher, who primarily lives far away from Atalatha in the Seramore region of Raleigh, Holklund is the only one who hasn’t really meshed with the group in the same way as the original timeline, and that’s for a very big reason: Luca never ends up in Fostervilla in this timeline. In his youth, Fostervilla played a formidable role in how the other timeline Luca (Michael/Kaos) turned out, but it also shaped Holklund as well, as his survival depended on the other hero being there. Now, in this timeline, something else is responsible for Holklund’s perseverence.
Death has always been a major through-line of Holklund’s personality. He loses his father in the event that also nearly takes his life, and it is in the Tomb of Fleeting Souls that he ends up receiving the mighty artifact, Sepulcher’s Claw, a sword that causes terrible necrotic damage despite its wooden form. But in this new timeline, Holklund is brought there upon death’s doorstep as well, and it enhances his powers in some ways.
Wern was able to take our already pretty dark character and add a more macabre feel to him. As the youngest member of The Nine, it’s interesting to see our thief look like a wraith, but Wern makes it work so dang well. His attire gives him a sort of mummy-wrapped look that just looks great, and then of course his cloak, with some magical properties as well, gives him a ghostly look.
With an extra splash of color, you can see that Holklund has no fear of getting into a tussle here and there. The blood on his face is evidence of that. Ever the opportunistic thief (and potentially assassin), we also see some other tricks of Holklund’s trade. He’s got access to plenty of hardware, and he isn’t afraid of spilling a few coins here and there to distract the people who would otherwise spot him coming.
In this final look below, we see even more polish than we had leading here. The black and gold works so incredibly well for Holklund, and it makes him instantly interesting. This costume is certainly one of the better ones we have had, and it will be interesting to describe it for the first time when we dive into his story a little deeper.
A big thank you to Wern for bringing this final member of The Nine to life. Now that we have all of these characters put together, there will certainly be a time that we plan out seeing them all within the same artwork. That’ll be a little bit down the line, but I’m very excited to work with Wern on that!
Michael DeAngelo
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