I recently remembered that the entries for the Occult Art Festival,
which were supposed to be put on display in Ashtan, never were--indeed,
they still haven't been shown to the public. For fear that these works
will be lost forever, I'll post my entry, and I strongly urge everyone
else who had a winning entry to do the same. Art is meant to be shared,
so share it!

The Logos Visits the Loving Hearts Orphanage, by Linnia Sa'Rithven:

The thick, dark oils used to create this somber work allow very little
contrast, but the most prominent figure is clearly Lord Sarapis, who
towers in His simple, brown robes in the middle of the foreground. His
face is hidden, but His stiff, angular, forward-leaning posture give a
strong impression of distaste and suspicion. Standing in front of Him,
to the right, is Servelan de Vermiis. While clearly the mortal
Occultist, the figure bears some odd resemblance to one of the Divine,
with glowing eyes and a barely visible aura of random colors. Her face
shows a smirk of feigned innocence, and she leans back against a thin,
sickly-looking girl who she has pinned against the stone wall. Behind
her back, Servelan holds a beautifully ornate dagger dripping with
purple blood, while she presses her opposite forearm into the orphan's
throat. The orphan's face is contorted in a stifled cry for help, coated
in sweat, tears, and the blood dripping from her nose.

The background of the painting shows various characters running about in
a chaotic pandemonium. A scowling man carries an unnaturally limp orphan
in through the front enterance. A naive-looking Shadowsnake, barely 18
years old, reaches into a jar of lollipops while his mentor looks on
with a mixture of pride and menace. Two shady figures shout at a harried
artist, waving their arms in grand gestures. The artist, glancing over
her shoulder, wide-eyed with fear, stands in front of a
partially-completed canvas depicting a book burning of some kind.
Sunlight filters in through an immaculately clean open window, but the
light falls on the ground in an odd, striped pattern, as though blocked
by unseen bars. In the top left corner, so far from the two main figures
that it would be missed if the picture wasn't examined closely, is a man
viciously ripping a tattered shirt off of a person who is hidden almost
entirely by a dividing wall, save for a heartbreakingly tiny hand.

Penned by my hand on the 1st of Aeguary, in the year 350 AF.