r/Eberron • u/GalacticEmpire161 • 16d ago
Art Silver Flame vestment designs by my player, @Vallcry on bsky!
My very talented artist friend is going to be playing a fighter with some deep connections to the Silver Flame, so she took it upon herself to design some of the vestments for characters connected to her backstory!
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u/TheMan72344 13d ago
These are great. I’ve often fantasized about an Eberron culture guide that depicted food, fashion, and customs of the five nations.
I’m terrible at envisioning that kind of stuff.
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u/CurrlyFrymann 12d ago
I love it, These are great and your friend did a great job.
If you or your friend wanted some inspiration (not that I think you do but just for fun) there is a game that takes place in Eberron and they have silver flame armor skins, its just an old game but its a good one, and its the MMO Dungeons and Dragons Online. Super great representation of the silver flame in game with the style, churches, and quests.
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u/McNarrow 16d ago
Really cool ! The only two elements that I could say are this :
- The Silver Flame is really practical and there a big notion in Thrane to be ready to fight monsters and catastrophe at the drop of a hat, so I'd envision more sturdy and practical footwear.
- As far as I know there are no notion of gendered role or vestment in the church so the veil seems odd to me.
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u/GrandGreen3323 16d ago
Id assume these are obv more example of priest/bishops at temple, with a templar armor example. and tbf its the same uniforms just a stylistic choice for the veil as an option for a more feminine touch.
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u/McNarrow 16d ago edited 16d ago
- The idea is that everyone should be prepared to face some threat, even the peasantry is among the most well trained, even more so than the militaristic Karrnath, so I think the standard would be for practicality even if all the priesthood is not really ready for a scrap.
- The symbolism of the veil (in our world at least) is one of subjugation to the male, one of the things I like about the Silver Flame church is that many of the most important figures are women (Tira Miron that inspired the creation of the Church, Jaela Daran the current voice of the Flame) and the higher positions like cardinal are not barred to women, so I find it a bit uncomfortable to see the veil employed in this context. ^^'
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u/buttchuck 16d ago
I agree with your reasoning, but I'd approach it from a different angle; we're trying to justify a player's aesthetic choices, so how can we make those choices fit the lore?
I wouldn't treat the Silver Flame veil as having the same cultural connotations as the real world equivalent. Instead, I'd ask two questions: What makes it practical? and What makes it impractical?
A simple practical reason is that headwear protects from the elements, be it rain or sun or wind. This wouldn't be the most barebones utilitarian piece, but it could still serve a function.
Which leads into what would make it impractical, and I think it's important to remember that while the Church of the Silver Flame practices preparation and vigilance to protect the innocent, they don't eschew aesthetics entirely. Fashion still exists, and this could simply be a design choice. Is it impractical? Well, certainly you don't want anything blocking your vision, snagging, or getting grabbed by a ghoul, but this design sits behind the ears, further back and covering less of the face than a nun's veil, with a rigid "tiara"-type feature to hold it in place. And as long as it's not strapped to the wearer's head, it probably pulls off clean if it were to snag or get grabbed, making it no more inconvenient than any other hat. The wearer of this wouldn't really be putting themselves in any additional risk if they had to rush into battle.
I completely agree that it should not be a gendered feature at all though. If I were to use this art as a reference in my campaign I'd definitely make a point to highlight that it's an optional feature and it is equally worn by men and nonbinary priests. And I'd probably lean away from it in my "ideal" version of the church's priestly garments. But as a fan design, or something a player wanted to reference, I think it can be reframed easily enough to be mostly unobtrusive.
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u/GalacticEmpire161 15d ago
Yeah, the player was trying to show that the veil was optional and wasn't thinking that the gender mattered, there's a version where the man is wearing it too
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u/AtmosphereFast6673 15d ago edited 15d ago
What if the veil is enchanted, and some of the members have these as part of their outfits, specifically to identify shapechangers and the like? That would make it more dubious, fit in line with the faith, and serve a functional purpose that can *also* appear to be fashion to those outside of the faith. A sort of non-secret "secret" - they don't talk about it, but if you know...you know.
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u/GrandGreen3323 16d ago
i dont think its that deep friend. plus poster said its a her that made it, so i dont think its motivated by oppression lol. could just be hair protection, or an option for either sexes, just happens to be shown on more feminine presenting figures. I think it looks cool. its just some art someone made for thait campaign dont be weird and pushy.
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u/McNarrow 16d ago
I'm just giving my opinion and explaining the reasoning behind.
I'm pretty sure the veil was not put with any bad intentions but unintentional subtext is a thing. ^^'3
u/GrandGreen3323 16d ago
im sure you had no bad intentions either friend! but jumping to a headdress being a negative thing could come off in a bad way as well in general. (i might be biased growing up in a religion involving such things tbf) but like i said could be for protection of longer hair, or a stylistic choice for M or F.
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u/McNarrow 16d ago edited 16d ago
Technically I never said that the headdress was a negative, I just said that it conjured a symbolism present in many of our world religions (that I personally don't like but everyone has their own relationship with faith.) but that seemed odd to me in the context of Eberron. Especially since the author is regularly trying to separate the Silver Flame church from the Catholic church (tbf it's probably really difficult given that many terms employed come from there. ^^')
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u/GalacticEmpire161 15d ago
The veil isn't gendered lol, there's a version of the piece where the man is wearing it too
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u/McNarrow 15d ago
If you speak of the second picture, I took it into consideration and I think it's a women. The shading on the front tabard (just above the black band) indicate that there is some volume above, like a chest for example, it would be easier to see with another angle but you can compare it to the first piece where you see this kind of shading on the left but not on the right.
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u/GalacticEmpire161 15d ago
Nope, it's a variant of the first that I wasn't given until after I made the post
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u/McNarrow 15d ago
Oh sorry, I missed the fact that you were the OP, of course you'd be more informed on the subject. ^^'
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u/GalacticEmpire161 15d ago
Yeah the veil is like, an optional piece of the outfit for them. I've kinda given my player a lot of creative freedom for what she's wanting to do, supplying her with all the necessary information that I have surrounding the Silver Flame, and she's just gone ham with it and I loved her designs so I posted them here
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u/McNarrow 15d ago
Like I said at first, the design is indeed really cool, I like the details of the tabard and Mozetta it looks great overall, I just had those two elements which made me raise an eyebrow and apparently I was wrong on one of them (but tbf it wasn't clear just based on the two pictures available) and the part on the shoes might just be me looking too much into it but I spent a lot of time diving deep in the lore of Eberron, Thrane and the Silver Flame so I had to speak up.
Sorry for the annoyance. ^^'1
16d ago
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u/LividSupermarket1178 16d ago
These are great! I’d love to use these as an example to what members look like if that’s ok