First of, I really need to aknowledge the outrageously long time it took. It took so long the forum thinks I'm necroing the thread. 120 days, jesus christ. I don't really have a proper excuse for that, I need to balance my personal and working lives with my gaming/drawing time, but really, that may just be the time it takes... Sorry about the slowness, I still actively work on it that's for sure.
Tangeantly related, a mention of why this project is important and special to me, and however work and time it will take, it will be completed before I even consider starting anything else.
First, I think adventure mode is totally underrated. Altho it makes little sense to me to play it as a normal game and go around killing stuff, it gives me the opportunity to explore and interract directly with the universe I generated. It feels like piloting a rover on mars to me, except mars is booming with life and has an extensive history. I'm exploring distant worlds, interracting with its inhabitants and trying to figure out its logic in a way I can translate and convey. It's a fantastic experience to me.
Second, I need to improve really badly. I've been stagnating in art for too long, and now it's time for me to do some proper xp grinding...and the thing with art is you only develop the skills you practice, so a long, in depth training at making comics is something I need personally. I expect it will show in my later projects, certainly DF related, probably Mong Kima related.
I still have one chapter I want to do. I'll try to make it quick but don't promise anything. When it's done, I want to go back to fort mode and continue writing the story of the world of Minbazkar, probably at a faster rate.
So yeah. Losing is fun but I really want to succeed at the goal I gave to myself. I'm almost there.
Since we left Thomocemir, nothing much has changed. The copper fortress still stands, manned by its knights, between the Empire of Osme and the Kingdom of Kima, and this is where we're taking our story.
Before joining the fort of Thomocemir, Imic has been a soldier in Tetzobsha, between the year 130 and 133, where he was part of the First Reserve Regiment, under the supervision of sir Edi Escumi. That same Edi would be at the origin of a campaign of repression of banditism around this period - that is when he met a very young Islas for the first time, under very unfavourable circumstances.
Days past, then weeks. Soon, winter arrived. The microclimate in the enchanted swamp made so temperature never really go down ; water do not freeze and it almost never snows. Winter in Thomocemir would be very soft, if not for the almost constant rain.
I'll add a little map here a bit later ; Bugikawe is a lakeside city, located one walking day to the north of Thomocemir. It is technically not part of the kingdom of Kima, however, Sula, the blue-haired kid, was married to a foreign girl of noble blood, and decided to move at her place. However, Sula himself was a poor soul and had to rely on charity to travel from place to place.
Twilight monsters are night creatures, usually living far north. Despite having no skin whatsoever, they seem to prefer cold climates. Onol - that was the name of this particular one - moved south with the winter in order to hunt.
Onol was older than recorded history. He once was a dwarf from Bomrek-Laltur, northern dwarven kingdom uncharacteristically accepting of goblins, where he was working as a humble fisherman. One day, in year 2 of our calendar, he was captured by a twilight monster, and transformed into the monster he is now. For more than 140 years, Onol would hunt and scavenge the nothern frozen wastes in search of preys to feed his new monstruous, and always expending family. It is unknown if the monster kept memories of his former life -but what we know is that, in winter 142, he was finally liberated from his curse.
Ato was a foreign lady of Amegil ethnicity. Altho they look like pearlites at first glance, their eyes have deeper colors - the kingdom of Amegil is renowned, among other things, for their use of giant wrens as mounts for warfare. They kingdom is located at the northeast of Mong Kima, and extends to the frozen wastelands.
Xaki, the other lady, was unmistakably a denizen of Dencothgil, another northern kingdom. While not much is know about them, they only travel deep south to sell their talents as fighters, fighting especially elves wherever they have the chance. Over the time, this tradition gave them a solid reputation of elf hunters - as most Dencothi met in those part of the world fit that description. More research on Dencothgil and its denizen is warranted.
And as soon as the snowstorm would stop, the group would be on the road again, travelling westward to the borderfort of Tetzobsha