This week, the plan comes together! In addition to finally getting to see some hints of Bevan in action, this page also represents some of the more fun elements in doing a webcomic — at least for me!

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For starters, you may notice that in the original version of the page, the walls of Deltrada Garrison are made of wood. For a time, before the fortress was actually situated in the mountain pass itself, they were! But after reader observations last week and some additional discussion on our end, we decided that the stone walls do fit the garrison’s background more accurately and updated it to stone.

This segues into one of the nice things about releasing pages in a webcomic format — it’s a living format that is flexible enough to allow us to post edits and changes after the fact. With a week between pages, it can be difficult to translate my script or notes precisely to the visual medium, or sometimes my ideas can be tweaked to make a stronger concept or idea, but we don’t realize it until after the fact. While we never plan to change plot points in this fashion, we do treat the webcomic as a living entity that lets us tweak and improve based on reader feedback.

Another element in the above page you might notice is Hardin’s use of the word “c’oth.” This is a derogatory Ermehn word that originally appeared in an early draft of Chapter 1 but hasn’t yet made its official appearance in the story. It’s not in the script for the page, but Rachel will occasionally play around with alternate language or wordage to pace scenes in a better way. The phrase “storm-dark” is another example of this that did make it into the script but wasn’t in there originally.

This week, we’re gifted with some appropriately festive fanart from SaraaLuna of Enerus the Canid sporting a most amazing Christmas sweater.

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I can’t think of a better way to lead into the holidays than with a grumpy, glowering Canid! I’m already formulating the animated Christmas special in my head :) Thanks for the continued love, SaraaLuna — we love your stuff!