Lesser Gods of Sunless Peak
2021-present

Burnt-out college graduate Ari Takeyama sits down to finally play Soultwister—the hot new dark fantasy indie game that's taken her friend group by storm—and somehow gets transported into the world of the game. Ari soon finds herself working together with Acacius, the game's beleaguered final boss, who believes that Soultwister protagonist Shrike has trapped the whole mountain of Sunless Peak in a time loop that invariably ends in her death. Featuring speedrunning shenanigans, fake game lore, gender fuckery, inadvisable romance, and too much worldbuilding.

~


Three of the main characters. Acacius on the left, Ari—in the body of Cato, the tutorial NPC—in the middle, and Sylva the speedrunner—in the body of Shrike—on the right. (Drawn July 2021)


Better image of Shrike. The one "outdated" part of this pic is that I eventually decided their eyes should be yellow rather than red. (Drawn December 2021)


Recent Shrike sketches. Also featuring Acacius, and Shrike's sibling Swift. (Drawn December 2023)


Cato! (Drawn July 2021)


Acacius portrait. (Drawn January 2022)


Acacius with acacias... (Drawn March 2022)


"inadvisable romance" = "toxic yuri" (Drawn February 2022)

1 / 10
There she is
2 / 10
I think this was the first art I did of her ever. Back then, she was a (cis) guy, hence the lack of boob.
3 / 10
Oh no!
4 / 10
I just think she's neat, you know?
5 / 10
Acacius titles herself "The Crimson Hierophant," so, you know, it had to be done.
6 / 10
Yeah
7 / 10
More yuri, feat. Ari
8 / 10
Cute yuri!
9 / 10
This is a joke for people who have read The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
10 / 10
Acacius confronts Swift. They do not like each other.

I have a whole ton of images of Acacius because she is cool



A bunch of the town NPCs in Soultwister. Unfortunately I've cut about half of them (the middle three, I think) in the current iteration of the concept... (Drawn June 2022)


Concept sketches for Quince, a character who gets consumed by the God of Darkness. The Gmod missing texture coloring is just for fun.. probably.... (Drawn July 2022)

1 / 13
Peony, a major character who I don't actually have many drawings of. She's been relegated to the "sketches" area because her design has completely changed since I drew the last pics of her. She used to have a design inspired by historical onmyouji... which is pretty neat, but no longer fits her character.
2 / 13
Having some fun with the Peony onmyouji thing
3 / 13
Smilax, a town NPC. He's a bird-person inspired by the Steller's jay.
4 / 13
Crocus, another town NPC. Smilax's wife.
5 / 13
Zinnia, another town NPC
6 / 13
Mandragora, one of the game's bosses. She's somewhat Morgan le Fay inspired.
7 / 13
Thistle, the first boss.
8 / 13
Swift as the High Priestess
9 / 13
Shrike as Justice. I had a bunch of tarot card drawing ideas and then never drew most of them...
10 / 13
Shrike again
11 / 13
I forgot I drew Shrike so much
12 / 13
Somehow this is the only art of Shrike where I remembered to draw the trailing ends(?) of their mask.
13 / 13
Shrike, Cato, Acacius

Bunch more sketches...



Ari and Sylva, as they exist in real life. If you mistake Ari for a boy for a split second here, you're not actually wrong: the first iteration of the story had both Ari and Acacius as male, though I ended up genderswapping them because that was more interesting for various reasons. I didn't change their designs at all when I changed their genders, though—so all my old art still works! (Drawn July 2021)


Ari and Sylva doing some online gaming. (Drawn June 2022)


Ari and Sylva hanging out with their friend Isaak, who doesn't appear in Lesser Gods of Sunless Peak but does appear here. (Drawn August 2022)


Sylva looking cool. Looking back on this, I'm not actually sure if Sylva would be all that into Ultrakill, but it has the right vibes for her. (Maybe her gaming tastes change in the future: the story is set in 2018, so Ultrakill wasn't out yet!) (Drawn January 2023)