'Barbaric rage and unrelenting savagery make for a powerful ally.'

There are many terrifying creatures that stalk in dark places, and none are quite as daunting as the Shambler; a mass of tentacles and eyes beyond our comprehension, summoned from the outer spheres by occultic ritual. It's screams scratch at the mind, enough to drive a sane person mad, while its mass conceals claws and barbs that can rend a man to pieces with a single swipe. Strange orifice spray a blighted venom, capable of melting flesh and steel alike, and all while pieces of the thing slough away, peeling from its bulk to become independent tentacle-like spawn. Indeed, to the unprepared party, a Shambler could spell certain doom.
Fortunately for you, your new Hellion, Nell, was unfazed by the appearance of the star-born horror. While the rest of your party had faltered in the face of such a nightmare, butchered and dissolved by the monstrosity, Nell had assaulted the beast with reckless, even insane courage.
"If it bleeds," she had called with unnerving glee and vicious bloodlust. "We can kill it!" And kill it she did. While you had battled to slay the Shambler spawns, Nell had hacked and slashed and ripped and torn away at the hulking beast, until at last, it let out its final howl. The world came back into sharp focus as your heart slowed, the battle won. You hastily recovered the smouldering torch from the ground, fallen when your allies had been slain, and reignited it to a healthy flame. Your gaze fell on the only other survivor of your group, now standing triumphantly over the mutilated, bloody corpse of the Shambler, stabbing it once more for good measure as she taunted the fallen horror.

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Finally! Finally I've produced a Darkest Dungeon inspired picture. It's been a long time coming, but at last, I get to pay homage to one of my favourite games. With the recent release of Darkest Dungeon 2, I felt compelled to draw something. After playing a sinful amount of DD2 (according to my Steam account, I'm clocking 201 hours so far...), and an absolutely heroic feat from my Hellion to murder the Shambler that was threatening to wipe my squad, this picture came into being. And of course, there was no way I wasn't going to make my Nell play the part of the tall, buff warrior woman who saved the day ^_^ Ah, nepotism...
I originally planned to write a much longer, more in-depth narrative to go along with this picture (and its sister versions), but I quickly realised I was several paragraphs into a novel so I decided to cut to the chase. Maybe if people were interested, I could write a longer narrative, but I'll settle for the abridged version for now.
The picture itself posed a few challenges, not least of all copying the Hellion's design. In the end I had to leave out a few details - like the bones strapped to her left forearm - because I just couldn't get them to look right. Another challenge was the perspective, and trying to make sure I didn't make anything look lopsided or out of proportion with the pose. There were definitely a few instances were I found I'd made a hand to big or a leg too small or her hair too large for her head - so yeah, definitely a tricky one, but I am so proud of the finished piece. And so proud I got to finally give the nod to a game that I've poured so much blood, sweat and tears into over the years. So many tears... "I've been levelling you up for the last 12 hours and you can't survive ONE death's door check?! You motherfu-"
Anyway, I hope you like the picture as much as I do!

Nell Clearfield belongs to me.
Darkest Dungeon 1 and 2 belong to Red Hook.