Apologies for the late comic today. Still before midnight, but just barely. After Thanksgiving I’m going to challenge myself: I want to see if I can get 10 comics in a row done before noon on the day they go up. Wish me luck.
–
A bit of worldbuilding background here:
Melas
Melas was once known as The Crescent Isle, a distinctively shaped island halfway between the western lands of Noriun and the Vori Islands, and the eastern lands of Roumion and Orulon. Melas was home to an ancient and secretive civilization, the Hedran. The Hedran were theocratic, led by an order of monks and holy warriors whose rites and beliefs were shrouded in secrecy to outsiders. The leaders of Melas however were very pragmatic, allowing colonies from Paravo and elsewhere to establish residences on the island.
Melas was a frequent stopping place, on voyages across the ocean. In 12 NDE, it was also discovered to be the home to a vast underground reserve of naturally condensed ether. Soon, colonists from the Great Republic made their residence on the island, and for the next 200 years, the Paravians, Hedran, and Roumali lived in a tenuous peace, constantly plotting and maneuvering for dominance of the island.
All that came to and end during the close of the Accordance War, when the mage armies of the Vori Islands obliterated the island, destroying it entirely in a great blast. This attack soon lead to the Treaty of Paravo and the end of the war. The blast also coincided with one of the worst outbursts of the Cataclysm. There is much debate as to whether or not these two events are related. There is also much debate as to the nature of the attack. Some believe it was a great and terrible doomsday weapon developed by the Vori along with traitors and separatists from the Great Republic and Caslion. Others theorize the attack was a massive elementalist ritual of epic scope. The truth remains unknown.
A number of smaller islands rose up during the destruction of Melas and the violence of the Cataclysm, these are collectively referred to as the Melas Shards. Researchers are most interested in studying the handful of floating islands that rose up at the same time, hanging lifelessly above the region. A similar phenomenon happened in parts of Irone during the Cataclysm, and as of yet the phenomenon has not been thoroughly understood; although the predominant theory is a naturally occurring case of Electromagnetic Gravitational Negativity, the same science that allows airships to fly.
Additionally, due to the etheric deposits beneath Melas and other minerals, the water in the center of the Melas Shards has turned a deep shade of crimson. This water is considered highly unhealthy to drink, and it is forbidden to import it in to the Great Republic.
–
The first Clockworks outside playtest has begun. Follow along here. Character creation has been posted, and I have to say I’m pretty excited about how well the players have captured the mix of dystopian elements and heroic archtypes.
–
Thanks to everyone who has been updating the Wiki in the last few days! It’s looking quite nice now.
–
Gamer Story Time!
The villain dispatched in between comics was one of the most one sided fights in a game I’ve ever run. He was an evil mage, with an incredibly powerful artifact weapon and a plan to conduct a dark ritual to become even more powerful. Eventually, our heroes (from panel 3 of the last comic) confronted him, creating a cloud cover and then flying their airship right up to his home and blasting their way inside. The fight went something like this:
Round 1:
PC 1 charges the villain, villain hits him with the Mysterious Black Metal Weapon using First Strike for a ton of damage!
PC 2 uses her whip to disarm the villain.
PC 3 makes two called shots to the villain’s kneecaps, wounding him on both attacks.
PC 4 Blasts the villain with a flame burst, beating the villain to Incapacitated.
Villain spends his action not dying.
Round 2:
PC 1 stabs the villain with a spear, and charges him in to the wall and out the window to the ground below. Villain dies horribly.
I almost feel bad for the guy.
–
I think I’m going to pass on doing a comic on Thursday. Chances are few of the American readers will be around to see it, and this will give me a chance to work ahead a bit. See you next Tuesday for comic #48!
Oh hello typo in the very first sentence. Fixing…
Fixed both typos, now going to expand the blog post a bit with more on Melas and a gamer story from New Dawn.
Aaaand done tweaking things. Unless someone notices something I missed.
It occured to me that despite the obvious differences, watching a curmudgeonly guy smoke and narrate a story is certainly ground I’ve covered before.
48 should be the final part of Gareth’s tale, and then there are a few more twists and surprises in store for comics 49 and 50.
Yeah man…like the shadow off of those two walking down the mountain it totally fake man…you cant have that kind of shadow on a mountain maaaaaannnn. It was planned man, the Vori were on that mountain way earlier that those two maaaaannn….
I love the floating islands. Do they stay in place, or do they slowly move in the wind, despite their mass?
Or, and I was a good boy and posted the bit on Melas to the Wiki for you, with plenty of links to existing and non-existent entries.
So, is black metal condensed metal or something else entirely?
And you’re welcome about the Wiki fix up. I do like a bit world creating, even when it’s not my world. But, since it’s not, I’m trying not to step on any toes and write info that may contradict something you plan to write or wrote and I missed.
Speaking of which, how many colleges and technical/vocational schools are there in Clorencia City? I’m thinking about listing their RBCL (Republic Basherdash Collegiate League) teams. I figure that there would be at least 6, since I mentioned 6 amateur teams in the city. I may redo portions of Basherdash explaining the play of the game. (Or some one else could…)
Have a great Turkey Day everyone!
Oy! I write better than that. I meant to say “Is black metal condensed ether”?
And that second sentence needs work. How about:
“And I was a good boy and posted the bit on Melas to the Wiki for you, with plenty of links to existing and non-existent entries. If that’s OK with you?”
To bad you can’t edit your own comments.
“Soon after, we went all went our seperate ways.” Should be: “Soon after, we all went our separate ways.” Note the correct spelling of “separate” as well as the removal of the first “went.”
Man, today’s comic was typoriffic!
1: Thanks Rob, fixed.
2: Clorencia City is home to 15+ million people. While Clorencia University is the largest and most prestigious university in the city, I’d imagine there are at least a dozen or so other institutes for higher education around. Keep in mind with rail travel, teams from across the Great Republic can compete.
3: The floating islands aren’t perfectly stationary, but they don’t go far. There are maybe a half dozen of them around the Melas Shards, and another dozen or two spread across Orulon.
4: Unfortunately, no one really knows how the early Tsuankhotal Empire made the black metal. The technique has long since been lost, and the few researches who have obtained a sample to try and study it have been slowed by the fact you can’t break the stuff. Add to this the fact that the metal’s existance is believed to be fictional, and any research is probably top secret, and it means that chances are no one living today knows how the heck this stuff was made.
Great comic today — last panel, though, should be “rubble” not “rouble”, unless the artifact in question was found under a pile of Russian currency.
Oh I am being discriminated against because I am not an American and Shawn won’t work for my sake on a holiday. I will hold a grudge forever!!
Few American readers? [i]Few?!?[/i]
Enjoy your turkey everyone! Holy world background Batman! Comic was great, I love the hints at other parts of the world and history, great way to tease us and keep us interested in the world. And then throw on the comment with all the details, wow. Early Christmas present for us all. Great stuff, keep it up, I am certainly planning on purchasing the world guide when it comes out, this has to be one of the more interesting SW worlds I have seen.
Other minerals around Melas….hmmmmm, wonder what those are….???
doot doo doooo
/whistles
PS: sorry for my nonsensical post from last night, I knocked a few back last night and thought it would be a good idea to write something here. My apologies again.
The first Clockworks outside playtest has begun. Follow along here. Character creation has been posted, and I have to say I’m pretty excited about how well the players have captured the mix of dystopian elements and heroic archtypes.
Thanks for the praise! I was really pleased with the group chargen and how quickly and excitedly my players took up the task of creating awesome characters! I am really looking forward to putting them through the paces of the Gentleman Caller!
Tom – *facepalm*
Man, this really was the most typoriffic comic ever. Fixing, will upload again in a few minutes.
“There is much debate as to whether or not these to events are related.”
Shouldn’t that be …”these two events are related.” “two” not “to”.
Typos are the writers curse.
Fixed and fixed. Even caught a “refered” in the blog post that I’d some how missed.
Shawn, don’t worry too much. At least you have the option to fix your typos. Imagine the poor comic strip artist who gets to see his typos printed up and fixed in stone forever!
Besides, you’re doing the high-wire act in creating this strip and creating a RPG based on the strip at the same time. Few folks are brave enough to do one or the other, not both at the same time!
My hat’s off to you sir!
The bit about dropping the axe into a volcano just to make it hard to retrieve is great! Reminded me of a quote from a friend of mine about indestructible artifacts:
“The beautiful thing about indestructible, cursed items is that it is
relatively easy to detect them – just nuke everything and see what remains.”
Great backstory as always! I also like the artifact into a volcano… Have a good turkey day (if that’s your thing).
Part of me wonders: “he had that really whopping great axe of mystery black metal and instead kept the smaller thing of mystery black metal instead”. Gramps isn’t a collector of any old objects of black metal; he’s got his eye on particular things.
Speaking of the axe, the first panel really works for me. The weird highlighting on the axe, coupled with the broken triangular bits in the background… mmmmmmmm. Happy reader.
BTW, I took it upon myself to write up wiki articles on ether and wireless telegraph. Mostly just to put something down so others would get irritated and correct them
No need to thank me!
Added some info on Ether and the Wireless Telegraph to today’s blog post. I’ll update the wiki at some point this weekend unless someone beats me to it.
the gamer story time is hilarious! My poor DM/husband has had the same thing happen, damn those random rolls! Of course, the players have had the same thing used against them.
PC 1, 2, 3, 4 watch out broken window as Villain falls.
Villain regrets not adding half monkey / half pony monsters to his security scheme. Gets over it upon impact.
———————————
After years of DnD (since ‘78) I envy you the ability to display your adventures. *turns green with envy* See? Green. Keep up the great work.
Indestructible metal would be quite valuable in many ways. Not only in weapons and armor, but also in creating energy. See, since indestructible metal doesn’t have molecule breakdown due to stress or failure of tensile strength, you could theoretically rub two indestructible objects together to cause friction and heat. Since there is no molecular breakdown, you have essentially created heat from nothing, or, in effect, energy from nothing. You can use this heat to turn water into steam and run a turbine, converting it into electrical energy, or make a perpetual motion engine.
There’s a lot of cool stuff you can do when you bend or break the fundamental laws of science, its what makes for a cool fantasy world.
I like the shiny, shiny way you draw the black metal objects.
Thanks! And thanks for all the comments along the way. It’s always amusing to see someone new read through the archives and leave some comments as they go. Glad you’ve enjoyed it.
Question: If one can’t make a simple scratch in this “black metal” how exactly does one proceed to form an axe out of said metal?
The only possible solution or way to bypass this problem of an indestructible metal, (that I can think of) would be for the metal to either be naturally found in the shape of the desired object, (in this case, an axe) or have the metal be formed into the desired shape during generation….
Unless the Rule of Cool applies here, in which case the above text may be ignored.
* * *
Really enjoying the comic so far, (despite my nitpicking which may suggest the contrary) and I’m hoping it only gets better from here!
The creation of Indestructible Black Metal is a mystery for the ages, but it can be reasonably inferred that it’s not indestructible until it’s been put in it’s final shape, that the metal is somehow altered to become indestructible after whatever it’s made in to is finished.