FINAL SUBMISSION
Supporting material:
With Steel/Ground, a special attacker setup, Doom Desire, and Levitate on the table, the route I chose for this design was an ancient artifact from a desert kingdom that's made of metals from antiquity such as bronze, gold, and copper, with sandstorm elements mixed in. Prior to Levitate being decided I had decided on a sha or Set animal from Egyptian myth, but I couldn't get it to work with being floaty. So I changed the concept a little while keeping the best design elements and instead went with an effigy of one of the most famous demons of ancient Mesopotamian religion,
Pazuzu.
According to Wikipedia, Pazuzu
"represented the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms and drought." Furthermore, he
"is the demon of the southwest wind known for bringing famine during dry seasons, and locusts during rainy seasons. Pazuzu was invoked in apotropaic amulets, which combat the powers of his rival, the malicious goddess Lamashtu, who was believed to cause harm to mother and child during childbirth. Although Pazuzu is, himself, considered to be an evil spirit, he drives and frightens away other evil spirits, therefore protecting humans against plagues and misfortunes." All of this means that despite his destructive tendencies, perfect for Doom Desire, he is not treated as a force of evil ALL the time, so Steel/Ground still fits just as well as, say, Dark/Steel or Dark/Flying.
For the design itself, I looked up references of Pazuzu statues so as to make sure all the necessary elements were included:
"He has the body of a man, the head of a lion or dog, talons of an eagle, two pairs of wings, and a scorpion's tail." I put eyespots on the tail barb to suggest at a snake-like head as well, hinting at the fact that some of the statues have a snake growing where
SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY usually does - I imagine that the tail barb is where some of his beam-based attacks come from
a la a
Kill Sat, though he could also just spew them from his mouth instead. Pazuzu is usually depicted with one arm up and one down, but since I had to merge the arms and upper wings for simplicity, I decided instead on making one wing pair face up and the other down to reference this fact.
Considering that statues are usually heavy and stationary, and in light of the above information, this design is well-suited to a slow but sturdy special attacker. That said, being basically armor suspended by winds carrying lots of sand grains, he could easily be lightweight as well, but not necessarily quick due to having to carry the armor itself.
A big thanks to everyone on the Discord chat for helping me out with this design! And of course, may the best design win as always!