Abarleen the Wizard

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  • Antonio Chiera's avatar Artist
    Antonio Ch...
  • DDG Model
    SeeDream
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  • Created
    3mos ago
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Prompt

Abarleen, his name was spoken in whispers in the dust choked Bazaar. As if speaking his name too loud would draw the wizard from Stygia from the inn outside the city wall, that served as his dwelling, to walk the street among ‘honest’ men. If the man cut purses and rouges that dwelled in noon day shadows in search of some respite from the heat in the bazaar could ever be called honest men. But they were not those who dealt with devils or worse thanks to black arts. While it was clear that Abarleen was a son of that dark kingdom of sinister intrigues, it was not pure Stygian blood that ran through his veins. He clearly mark of not just Stygian nobility about his features, but mixed into them was the dark skiing and broad lips of the lines of hot jungle kingdoms like Kush, and the sharp narrowed eyes of eastern mystery. The wizard Abarleen was of a mongrel breed. It was said that his broad, fleshy face, with its thick lipped mouth smiled just a little too wide to too make a man comfortable. And in that smile, in the girth of his cheeks, there was something of the toad about it. The smile, it was noted, never did carry to those dark slit eyes, when Abarleen wore it. Like the Priests and upper classes of Stygia, Abarleen removed all body hair except for eyebrows and the hair on his heads (a long dark ponytail at the back of a shaved head), and used kohl makeup to rim his eyes. However, he did allow himself one deviation from the fashion of his people. That being a long thin Mandarin-style mustache, a long, thin mustache that grows downward from the upper lip, with the hair extending past the chin in two tapered tendrils, while the cheeks and chin are kept clean-shaven. The ends of those two tapered tendrils are each decorated with two gold beads, the size of dried peas. It was also noted that under his fine silk robes, Abarleen kept his corpulent form well oiled and perfumed. The smell of sweat and dust was not for the likes of him as it was for the common, lesser man. So his dark skin shone like he had been polished. On each of his fat, but strong fingers there was a golden ring with a single round gem or pearl set in them. Speaking of wealth that a wise or powerless man would not so openly display. He wore upon his rounded body a green silk robe with gold trim. A garment fit for a sultan, or at the very least a wealthy merchant. And upon his fat feet simple leather sandals. How he came to the inn outside the walled city none can rightly say. But if you ask 100 merchants and beggars on the street, you will get 100 answers. However, the most common story is that he stole a parchment or tome or object of great power from the ruling priests of Stygia. Something that would turn a simple mixed blood servant into a wealthy and powerful wizard. And he escaped to this distant land to avoid their wrath. Escaped here and brought with him a creeping decadence and evil.

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©️ Original image created by Antonio Chiera All Rights Reserved
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while I enjoy the stories written by Robert E. Howard, I always lamented the fact that the darker a character's skin, the more brutish he was. My desire here was to create a wizard character who was not some primitive 'witch doctor'.

A painting of a bald, dark-skinned, heavily made-up, portly man with a magnificent curly black handlebar mustache, a black ponytail, and golden, spiked earrings standing in a town square wearing a full-length, shiny, emerald-green robe with golden trim around the collar, sleeves

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