#as tragic as it is one of my favorites is the king of bro arc’hant

[yurileclercseyeliner]

I COME UP WITH WEIRD FIRE EMBLEM BEAST UNIT IDEAS PART 2, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

The selkie post: https://yurileclercseyeliner.tumblr.com/post/653904850062589952/okay-i-need-yall-to-come-with-me-on-this

OKAY I HAVE ANOTHER IDEA. (Again I’m on mobile I’m sorry about the novel and lack of cuts).

K E L P I E S A S B E A S T U N I T S .

“For fuck’s sake,” you sigh, “What the hell is a kelpie?”

Voila, sweet user of tumblr dot com, a KELPIE.

(Image from Wikimedia Commons, fuck tumblr and the image quality drop)

“That’s literally a girl riding a horse what exactly is mythical about this and where is the shapeshifter?”

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT BECAUSE YOU SEE, THE HORSE IS THE SHAPESHIFTER.

This is another Scottish creature that is basically an intelligent, magic horse that lives in the sea and can shapeshift into a human, run across water, and a bunch of other magical stuff. Admittedly, I personally think that kelpies have a much darker origin than the selkies in my last post so bear with me while I add that little bit of context.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR KIDNAPPING, THIS PART ISN’T SUPER NECESSARY FOR THE POINT I WANT TO MAKE ABOUT THE UNITS BUT IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME RAMBLE ABOUT MYTHOLOGY FOR A QUICK PARAGRAPH GO AHEAD

Okay so in practically every story involving a kelpie in Scottish folklore there is at least one kidnapping. The story that I know best begins when 16 chieftans’ sons are kidnapped by the kelpie and taken to his underwater home with only their shield-bearer escaping, who then has to rescue them all during a special feast, while also dealing with the fact that his princess friend is being manipulated by the kelpie as well. In the end all of the sons are rescued, the princess realizes what’s going on and helps the shield bearer with the rescue and later marries him, and the kelpie goes on to kidnap some other girl (I think it was the princess’s cousin?).

TW/LONG MYTHOLOGY TANGENT OVER

Okay so one thing that I want to bring up is that the adaptation of these creatures as beast units does not need to completely reflect their mythological origins, because not all mythological adaptations need to EXACTLY reference their source material. I don’t mean do things that would be a complete spit in the face to the source material, cough that Webtoon called Athena Complex cough, but just that not every mythological detail needs to be included. Include the parts that are important for the player to understand the gist of what the creature is supposed to be in your specific setting and then add your own characterization. So basically what I’m saying is that the kidnapping part doesn’t necessarily need to be a part of these beast units’ characterizations if it doesn’t make sense in the world building.

BUT THAT’S ENOUGH TALK ABOUT THE THEORY BEHIND WORLD BUILDING AROUND ADAPTED MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT CAVALRY UNITS BUT IT’S JUST THE HORSE.

THEY JUST RUN UP AND FUCKING TRAMPLE FOOT SOLDIERS AND KICK AN ARMOR KNIGHT IN THE FACE.

THERE’S A HORSE LOOSE IN THE HOSPITAL???

NO THERE’S A HORSE LOOSE ON THE BATTLEFIELD.

So yeah cavalry unit but it’s just the horse. In terms of them as a society I think they would live in a coastal town next to a rocky coast where a lot of sea foam forms, bc there’s just a bunch of stuff about kelpies being associated with sea foam.

Also since beast units typically need some sort of catalyst thing to transform I guess kelpies would get a standard beast stone. Sorry guys but only the selkies get cool transformation fur coats.

N e ways have a nice day. Also Scottish and Celtic folklore, though kind of disturbing at times, is super fucking rad and it needs to be used in pop culture more often.

#fire emblem #fire emblem heroes #kelpie #kelpies #fire emblem path of radiance #fire emblem radiant dawn #fire emblem awakening #fire emblem fates #fire emblem three houses #cw kidnapping #cw kidnapping in the context of mythology #seriously i highly recommend reading up on celtic legends #i have a big fat book of them and i like to flip through it when i’m bored #like there’s some really interesting stories #as tragic as it is one of my favorites is the king of bro arc’hant #just don’t go into reading math fab mathonwy without mentally preparing yourself for some gross shit #i couldn’t even finish reading it #also i believe that olwen was named after a character from a celtic story from wales #celtic folklore #scottish folklore