Intermission: Week 1
This week being the first of our intermission between Chapters 1 and 2, I figured it would be a fun idea to dive into the histories of the world of “Beyond the Western Deep”. Nothing I’m going to say here will be required knowledge for upcoming BWD material – we just have a lot of history that we’ve been hashing out over the years and this seems a nice opportunity to tease a few fun events from the past.
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So, this week being the first post of its kind, I’ll drop a little bit of knowledge about “the beginning” – specifically, when history started being recorded in the comic world.
The first city to be “founded” was Gair, capital city of the Felis. Their founding scholars marked the occasion with the start of their first era, which they called The Era of Reason – named as such because the scholars believed that with the founding of their city, a focus on knowledge and understanding would elevate their kind above the others of the landscape. Yes, even back then they thought rather highly of themselves.
While each culture had their own method of dating (or lack thereof), the Felis started using a standard “Era:Year” system, so 1E:1 would be the first year of the first era. This system has since been adopted by the other cultures, save for hardcore traditionalists among the other races.
The Ermehn may not have had the more cultured civilization when they founded their original home city, H’arkenlowe, but they did have the virtue of being the second of all the races to establish a capital for their kind a mere nine years after Gair was founded. At this point in history there were no “kingdoms”, just city-states and wide swaths of unclaimed wildlands between them.
Enjoy the artwork, and remember if you have any more of your own to send in, you can send it our way at thewesterndeep (at) gmail (dot) com!
Good stuff here – looking forward to a few more weeks of it!
Kinda sad to see a glimpse of Ermehn cities/castles, and realize they really did have an organized society of their own before the Canid kicked them out and banished them to the Northern wastes. Makes one wonder whether it was sheer expansionist brutality on the part of the Canid, or if the Ermehn may have done something to provoke or contribute to their current plight. Perhaps we shall find out!
Bahahaha, I love how perfectly feline the Felis are. “Yeah, we’re better than you and we know it. Hm hm!”
On a different note, I love all this history even more now that we’re a chapter into the story. I feel like I have context for the context, so it’s even more interesting.
Mmm, history and worldbuilding. Delicious worldbuilding. I find it interesting how the Ermehn “kingdom’s” decline changed even their sense of fashion, since some clothes took longer than others to make, and I wonder when the shift to torso tattoos occurred their society. Tattoos/markings as a whole are incredibly important to them, so undergoing such a massive change as to apply more of the markings to themselves– and also increase the chance of death for those who faced forced removal of the tattoos during tribe exile; getting them stripped from your ankles and wrists is very different from getting them stripped from your entire torso and back– must have resulted from something big.
Or maybe the Ermehn just wanted to be able to recognize each other easier. There’s that.
At any rate, I look forward to more tidbits about the past before the war, or other little pieces of history. I feel like I should be apologizing to the Felis for neglecting to ramble about them, but what can I say? Tribes and fierce military nations; those are both my favorite things. Scholars/military combo… thought-provoking in its own way, but not quite my type of sprinkles.
The idea behind the tattoo switch is more of necessity – they were forced to move to a much colder climate. Aisling still has harsh winters and is generally cooler than warmer, but it’s not alpine tundra. Instead of adding torso-covering garments to their mostly-shirtless clothing style, the Ermehn went with wrappings on the extremities to stave off frostbite. If your torso was cold too, you put on a heavy cloak. I see it as a bit of cultural stubbornness – they change as they must to survive, but they won’t change THAT much. Not if they can help it. Not thanks to the Canid.
The usual wrist/ankle locations were now covered for almost every individual, so Erhmen began marking up their torsos more for visibility. Facial markings also increased in complexity.
Question…
I sort of have been assuming that the cloth in this story comes from some analog of cotton, or silkworms maybe. But since the Erhmen probably couldn’t grow cotton or silkworms, where do they get cloth from? I wouldn’t think trade was an option; do they have some kind of sheep- or yak-like animals? It’s the only thing I can really think of, since they obviously make their clothing from something.
If there is some glaringly obvious answer, I’ll feel pretty silly, but this is something I’ve been wondering about.
Maybe they use Ermehn hair for weaving? Rough back hair for tartans, soft belly hair for underwear and so on?
And as for leather, well, that fallen champion might end up as a matching set of belt and boots…
Plot twist: the Ermehn are fashion cannibals.
Thththththth……
Haha, no, they’re not using hair or anything like that. Fibers would be pulled from plant-based sources, like barkcloth. There is also a limited trade between the Ermehn and other races, notably the Polcan (who sympathize with their plight and are also capable of sailing near-completely around any Canid garrison or checkpoint).
It makes sense; the Polcan are like the less extinct-verged version of the Ermehn, except they happen to wander aimlessly on the water instead of the tundra.
Man, this tends to happen to me a lot: something else takes my attention and I wander off for weeks without giving my comments on this great comic :( Still, I’m back now and ready to give further thoughts on Beyond the Western Deep!
Ah yes, history and worldbuilding! I love when writers are able to do that with their worlds, and I’ve already praised your ability to give such details to your setting. Most others here have already given some great commentary so I’ll limit myself to a few tidbits.
First off, it’s great to see that you are able not only to think of how the cultures and look of the various species appear now, but how they have appeared in the past based on changing circumstances and customs. The way the Ermehn dress is a prime example of that.
Also, one thing that’s puzzled me for quite some time is the issue of the Ermehn females covering their chests. I know from past discussions that Rachel isn’t a great fan of putting breasts on anthro characters, so I wondered just what the in-story reason for these coverings would be. I figured that even if they didn’t have pronounced breasts, the females might still have visible nipples for nursing their young that would be considered inappropriate to expose in their world, so they cover themselves for that reason. The Harkenlowe image however seems to imply that they wouldn’t even have that to worry about (though I may be reading that wrong) so the in-story reason for covering their chests (the out-of-story one is of course to help us identify females) still eludes me. Especially since we’ll see a female at the start of chapter 2 that really pushes the concept.
Finally, I’m very happy to receive such an HD quality image of behind-the-scenes concepts! Some of the other images we’ve been given throughout the comic’s run have either been way too small or cropped where you know other images appear, so it’s great to get such a large and complete one! I really hope to see more of them in the future.