Prologue: Page 8
Hi again, everyone!
We’re just about to begin introducing the seven races that inhabit the land. This week, the focus is on the aftermath of the wars that ravaged the Four Kingdoms, and how the races dealt with one another in peacetime. In a nutshell, they couldn’t, and thus we wind up with multiple unique kingdoms instead of one united kingdom.
This page really pushes the theme of “you are reading the scrolls” more than the previous ones in that the layout is meant to portray a trio of unique scrolls layered on top of one another. The original thumbnail even posited this look right off the bat in the notes:
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Originally of course these were just three separate 1/3 panels, but making them look more like the edges of a scroll really gives them a dimension that you just couldn’t achieve in the fiction normally.
Also, you’ll notice more Felis script on the page! For those keeping track, here is a little hint for some of the lettering:
Between these letters and the ones from the Prologue/Coming Soon page, plus any others you can discern, that should be a pretty hefty chunk of the Felis alphabet by this point! Stay tuned next week as we begin to examine the seven races of the land, and learn more about their place and purpose in the world of the Western Deep!
So, do the words in Felis lettering on the scrolls match the English words exactly or do they say something different?
It’s not an exact match, no. On one hand that would be kinda boring for everyone, and on the other it would usually take up too much space. The Felis script is usually a paraphrasing or rewording of the English text. On this page, the top panel’s script is a complete rewording, while the bottom panel’s is merely shortened for space.
The idea was that nobody will miss anything important if they see the Felis script as gibberish, but it does actually spell out things for people who like to play around with transliteration. On rare occasions, the scholars may even betray their own biases in their script (while the English remains neutral). But they do their best. ;)
Having the page be three scrolls lying on top of one another is indeed a neat idea. My favorite is the middle one, where we see the races still arguing with one another – gets the mood across perfectly and actually looks kinda cute! Of course, the argumentation between the Polcan and Lutren makes it seem like the two species are kinda sour at one another, when the situation is a lot more serious than that…
Also, it seems you have indeed worked quite hard at giving the Felis script its own meaning. Someone mentioned that you could provide some key to it for readers to figure out what their notes actually mean, and I think that would be a really neat idea!
The signs of battle faded
But the hate remained
The seven races found peace in distance from each other
What visuals most inspired your “scroll sequence”? I love how it looks, and personally it reminds me of something out of a medieval monastery.