Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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I got sick today and so spent quite a bit of time wrapped in my blanket and thinking about Hollow Knight, and so naturally I decided to make an OC!

Meet Shrike - she's an exiled warrior from the Mantis Tribe who was known for impaling her enemy's masks not onto a spear, but onto her own claws. When the Pale King approached the Mantis Lords in an attempt to annex the tribe, the Lords made a deal to retain their sovereignty in exchange for watching over the gates of Deepnest.
Shrike, instead, believed in the Pale King's vision and wanted to follow him instead. She was exiled from the Mantis Tribe, but due to her brutal reputation, she was also shunned by the Pale King's people. With nowhere else to go, she made a home for herself as a gladiator in the Colosseum of Fools.
Her reputation grew, and she was eventually hired by the Pale King as a mercenary to assassinate the Traitor Lord and his followers in the Queen's Gardens. However, they eventually overpowered her due to their combined numbers and increased strength from embracing the Infection, to which she, too, also eventually succumbed; she had lost her natural resistance to it after spending so much time away from her people.
She now aimlessly wanders a route between the Queen's Gardens and the Colosseum of Fools as an infected, mindless husk.

Shrike's design is based loosely off of a combination of a Brazilian Dragon Mantis, an Orchid Mantis, and a Spiny Flower Mantis!

Programs: Paint Tool SAI 2.0, WMM, Streamlabs OBS
Music: "Mantis Lords" and "Sisters of Battle" by Christopher Larkin
Character: Shrike [ Hollow Knight OC owned by myseslf ]

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