50,000 years before the story begins...
Beings of pure magic and energy danced together, not knowing that the parts of them that mingled would blend into something new, something separate... something dangerous.
This was the birth of Sarovak.
The beings in this artwork are Raina's grandparents, the God of War and the Deity of Emotion.
I was recently given the opportunity to submit a 500-word short story to to Loom of Tales, so I decided to write about the semideities' origins from the perspective of the God of War. His search for purpose and belonging, his joy at discovering the power to create life... and his horror and his lingering glimmers of hope when everything went wrong.
Loom requested that the writers include images with their story, and rather than grab a generic picture of a war deity, I decided I wanted the artwork to match the characters' canonical appearances.
And so, in the couple of days I had before the deadline, I whipped up this portrait of the God of War dancing with the Deity of Emotion: an act that would lead to the birth of Sarovak, the origin and banishment of the semideity species as a whole, and the creation of the Mortal Realm.
You can see the concept art for Sarovak's daughter, Raina, as well as a lot of additional info about the world and characters, in this Patreon post.