Chapter 2: Page 57
In a world without modern conveniences like phones, radio, or, say, the entire Internet, the simple act of sending a status update is a lot trickier in Quinlan’s world than it is in ours. If somebody doesn’t want word getting out that they’ve more or less imprisoned you, it doesn’t take much to do so. Especially when the only ways to get a message out are via bird or in person.
And so we find Quinlan and Dakkan in a bit of a tight spot in the late hours of this cold and rainy northern night, with nothing to do but wait for morning to come. I actually have quite vivid memories of this scene playing out in the original pre-2010 draft of the script, albeit with a much different set-up and context. It’s quite strange going back to the old lines of dialog in that Google Doc equivalent of a dusty old tome. Quinlan and Dakkan have come a long way in the last four years, that’s for sure!
This week, some fun guest art from longtime reader and frequent contributor Saraa Luna!
It’s been a little while since we’ve seen what Janik’s up to as she ventures with her own little troupe towards the Vulpin lands! We can bet that Quin and Co. proooooobably wish they were traveling with her instead of stuck in the tall tower of a freezing stone garrison in the middle of a rain storm!
Thank you so much for the wonderful art, Saraa! It’s always nice to see Janik still hasn’t slipped the minds of readers. Her story is most definitely essential to the greater plot — it’s just hard to break away right now when so much is happening up north in the span of a single day!
This project is amazing. I’ve sunk over a year in a novel I’ve been writing and I’ve made little progress. Great work.
Hahahahahahaha, just wait until you’ve wasted four years and still gotten nowhere.
. . . painful personal experience . . .
*cries in corner*
If we’re going to talk about fun (and by that I mean painful) writer experiences, there’s nothing quite like making a project your baby for 3 years and sinking 200k words into it before you realize it’s awful and salvaging it would take perhaps twice as long.
But as long as you continue working and making progress bit by bit with the determination to finish something, you’ll do it. Just keep at it. I recently finished the rough draft of a novel that had nothing to do with my original ill-fated attempt, and though I still have a while to go before I wholly finish it, that’s one benchmark out of the way. The finish line is the hardest to struggle for when you have no clue where it is.
That’s the right spirit! I’ve run a forum adventure for a year now, and even though most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing people seem to like it. I think that as long as you stay honest with yourself about the level of your skill and keep on trying to improve, the time spent on your work is never wasted!
Amen to that! Be humble but never sell yourself short, and as long as you continue learning in the middle of your floundering and “haha I know nothing about this” you’ll get somewhere. I mean, it’ll feel like you’re falling up a staircase at times, but it’s progress. (And the enjoyment you get out of it is worth it).
Thanks, Monotonous! It’s important to keep in mind that BWD started its life long before we started publishing it on the web and in books! The kernel started waaaay back in 2004-05, and slowly built up over the next 4-5 years until I wrote an outline for a prose novel, which then became a script for the first part of a comic book pitch. We spent about a year trying to pitch it before we settled on the webcomic approach, and there was a good year of prep work in getting everything set up, getting the story and script finalized, getting the art style and character designs nailed down, etc etc.
In a nutshell, try not to get discouraged! These things always take time and perseverance. Just stick with doing what you enjoy doing, and things have a habit of falling into place.
Thanks for the encouraging words
Ha, I /could/ have gotten something done in the… six-odd years I’ve been sitting on my idea but frankly I’m having too much fun playing with everyone elses’s characters, AKA writing fanfiction.
I’ll give him credit for going straight to the king about it, though. That takes some confidence.
I really like the color palette of this page, it looks very soft and natural. :)
A cry for help aint gonna do much when you’ve got both a warmongering army and desperate savage throat cutters right at your doorstep. Oh those poor, poor souls… Btw, do I see a glimpse of Kenosh’s tuft of hair at the bottom right of the first panel? Somehow that made me chuckle a bit.
Saraa, I love how you gave Janik such a snarky expression. Awesome coloring work as well!
Ha, now that you mention it, I see a certain grumpy Lutren’s ear. That made me grin. Someone turned in earlier before his two charges. And thank you!
Seconded about the fan art. I very much like the ears. Good job.
Here we see Janic relaxing in her natural element: immersed up to her uxters in insulation foam.
Do I want to know what “uxters” are?
It’s completly innocuous. Just Ulster slang for your underarms.
Actually, that picture of Janik is one of my favorite pieces of fan art ever, and I’m very happy you drew it. Thanks, Sara.
Aww, thanks.
Yes, let those with art skills like you cancel out the art skills of people like me.
My art is actually very good, if you judge by the inducement of internal hemorrhaging in the viewer ;).
“The angle and thickness of my eyebrows shows how evil I truly am.”
Nice to see the Canid mail system is as casual and pleasant as Canid hospitality, heh. But agreeing with James; I love the soft natural colors here. Quinlan and co’s predicament is going to be difficult to escape, but as we all know, there are going to be a lot more visitors arriving at Deltrada tonight–unexpected ones. And the Ermehn are certainly going to make the first day of the stay far more interesting.
Looks like the Canid language doesn’t differentiate between ‘guest room’ and ‘cell’. Well, at least they don’t have to share a bed after all. You can tell that Dakkan is totally one of those people who would hog the whole blanket.
If they had one, that is.
So, I’d like to discuss something that’s been bothering me for a while.
In page 43 of chapter 1, Dakkan states that the trip to Deltrada and back should only take a week or two. Yet, looking at the map, the distance from Terria to Deltrada is pretty significant, something like a fifth or a sixth the width of all of Dunia.
My question is, how large is Dunia? I used to think that it was about the size of Australia, but Australia is about 2500 miles/4000 kilometers wide, and the idea that three people can walk 500 miles/800 kilometers in a week (the upper limit of Dakkan’s estimate) seems a bit . . . implausible.
Before anyone says anything, I’ve played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons and have a pretty decent idea as to how long it should take to walk across a continent on foot, and about creating fantasy maps.
This would also be useful information if the war I half-suspect is coming comes to pass, for determining the movement rate of armies.
Well…there is always the possibility that Dakkan did not estimate the distance correctly because it is his first time going to Deltrada. Errr…maybe he has been there before and I totally forgot something.
Or, his estimate could be correct and Dunia is indeed rather small (compared to Australia). However, there is that whole area to the south that nobody has explored yet!
FM: The distance scales I’m looking at for Dunia are more in line with European countries than something the size of Australia. Specially, something like the United Kingdom in terms of north/south distances (think of the Terria to Deltrada trip as akin to walking from Wales to Scotland).
Dunia also has a significantly longer east/west distance than the UK, which in this world accounts for mountain passes and the desert that sits at the heart of the landmass.
That makes sense.
It also means that there is plenty of land left to explore, far away from here.
Sounds like those Felis scholars have their work cut out for them learning everything about the world.
They don’t let you enter the southern regions with animals.
*casually bookmarks comment thread*
One other thing: Is the extent of the uncharted lands only that visible in the map, or is there a large area of land to the south that does not appear on the map? Is the southern edge of the map a shoreline, or is it just where the Felis cartographers threw up their hands and gave up?
FM: The Uncharted Lands are not properly… well, charted :) So yeah, the Felis (well, moreso the Vulpin, since they live closest) tried to map it, but every expedition has failed for various reasons. So many have tried and failed, it’s become a bit of an accepted thing for the Vilpin and all races but the Felis that those lands will remain uncharted. It is usually represented by a fading line, as in the website map, suggesting a cloud or shadow that obscures the landscape.
The Felis, though, well — they’re a bit tenacious about these things!
For a guy without a mother Quinlan certainly can fold a mean shirt. Look at those razor sharp creases.
I never know what to do with the arms.
Taming a shirt requires some mean skills.
“Tamian a shirt requires some mean skills.”
Fixed that for ya.
I’m inordinately annoyed with myself for missing that opportunity. >:c
Taming a shrew, you meant?
Please do not harass the badger.
What’s with all these conversations deranging into absolute nonesense? This role-play thing is really crazy.
You meant otter nonsense?
50% of the skill is Quinlan’s own nature, the rest is from Caldus.
I’m suggesting that Quinlan’s parents were killed/died/ran off before they had much of a chance to teach him anything, I don’t know how they would handle cases like the Longbottoms in the world of Dunia.
While I am pretty much satisfied with the much-needed, long-awaited answers we got this week RE: Dunia’s size, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in finding out how/if the mentally disordered are given treatment, not to mention their interaction with the rest of society.
I am personally glad that, after a week of waiting, we finally found out what exactly it was that Dakkan found so funny in the previous page!
Is it just me, or is anyone else getting this foreboding feeling of tension rising with each page? Like the literal calm before the storm.
Or in laimens term; things are about to go more pear-shaped in about three pages?
Incredible story telling, I can’t wait!!
Tension? Heck yeah.
Next three pages? Eh… nope. They’ll probably keep taunting us for a couple more months before it finally hits the fan. If I disappear before then, you can safely assume that my brain’s exploded.
But I most definitely concur- the story is very well done, leading up and leading up, keeping the readers interested.
So, the Canid are highly militaristic, stole another peoples’ land, want to wipe them out and have black, red and gold as their official colors.
Hmmmmmm…
Heil Clovis!
Their official colors are actually just black and gold. Important military figures wear red to stand out, mostly because it’s a striking color and has an inherent threatening feel to it. I see your point, but it wasn’t intentional. To illustrate:
A little over a year ago, for fun, I set human analogues to each of the Dunian races. The intention was to use that to draw human versions of the characters when I had the time and opportunity (and ensure that they represented a reasonable spectrum of real-life humanity before I dove in). Of course, I’ve only managed Quin, Dak, and Kenosh so far.
The Canid ended up being cast as hardy, bearded Viking/Russian folk: usually dark hair/beards and a range of complexions that mostly fall under “white.” Amusingly, given your observation, the Ermehn were the ones I chose to have the fairer Scandinavian/Nordic/”Aryan” look to them.
Since he knows it’ll never get to the final destination, I wonder what effect he wants to have when the message is inevitably discovered inside the fortress.