DT: Aqrab'Akkar Grenadier

Junglefowl over on the Drowtales forums is submitting a clan idea for the Forum RP Clan contest. The contest is soon ending, and it is geared toward fleshing out Val'Raveran, the RP Town, to show how things have changed over the 15year time skip that the main comic has undergone. His idea is for a Black Sun tribe that has settled down as a clan in Val'Raveran and (if he wins) would now be one of the movers and shakers of the place.

His writeup of them using chitin and leather armors from the animals they've tamed, as well as their clan symbol including a scorpion, got me inspired to doodle. I have some crappy stuff in my Scraps for my attempts to do something. Finally, after his response to those and thinking a bit more, I came up with this based on his Grenadiers, troops for the clan that use biological agents to injure or slow enemies (spores, stink bombs, etc).

I started thinking of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind after Junglefowl mentioned breathing tubes. While the members of the clan would have armor based on their own personal likes and the creature they pulled the materials from, this one has large spider and perhaps scorpion chitin in her gear, thus the look (though the extra eyes on the mask are removed and replaced with gems for whatever casting needs the wearer has, the "eyes" where hers are consist of thin, see-through chitin). Those bits coming from behind her head are where mandible-legs were on the spider/scorpion, attached to make her seem more stranger. The claws that would be there are removed and replaced with gems, so she doesn't hurt herself on her own armor!

Her breathing apparatus has two bladders close to the front to help in cases of hyperventilation (you breath real hard and you fill and deplete the sacs, which helps calm you down). The tubes (probably made of intestines of raised lizards) lead into a backpack that is a filter. I figured if these guys are tossing spores and poisons about they'd want to not chance being caught in a cloud of it without cleaner air. Since Junglefowl mentions the clan has a good number of apothecaries that use items in the environment to concoct poisons and cures, I figure they'd have discovered a moss or algae that would filter out things like spores and other damaging agents, or would at least make the air smell better in the case of stink bombs. That is what the case would be for.

Grenadiers mostly use slings to toss their muck about, I should have given her something else to help protect I suppose (spear, or something like a cleaver). I figure she might have some bolas too to slow down opponents and their mounts. These are also flat colors, I suspect her chitin armor would have colored sheens to them when seen in different lighting (here, since this is light grey-green, I'd suspect a neat green or green-yellow depending on things).

EDIT: Nearly forgot, I used this video (Youtube, guy using a sling to toss a rock) as reference for the pose!

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The Aqrab'Akkar concept belongs to Junglefowl26 on the DT forums.