Parting Gifts
Sephni gives the Valryn a going away present and the fellowship parts ways for now.
Speaking of which, I’m coming up on the decision of how to proceed next.
I really like doing this comic, and I’d like to continue, but I’d like to loosen up a bit and try some new things, and I wanted to get y’all’s opinions on the matter.
I think there needs to be a bit of a time skip no matter what, once I’ve wrapped everything up about this storyline, and the question arises as to whether or not it’s time to introduce a new protagonist for the comic. I love Bree, but now that she has fully integrated her shadow or whatever you want to call it, she’s a little overpowered.
I think I’d like to explore the world through the eyes of someone who isn’t the avatar of a former graysider. Someone who risks more by daring much, so to speak.
I’d like for Bree and the other powerful characters to step back into their new leadership roles and delegate a bit more responsibility to the native-born people of the Delve world where I think there could be some good stories to be discovered.
Anyway, let me know what you think and what you’d most like to keep or change about the comic.
Thanks!
Andy
Bree needs to stay because of three reasons: Moonblade, Lassa and Kell.
If they do not return, you WILL have torches and pitchforks.
There’s also the matter of the many loose ends that remain – Sark’s people, Betrys’ dragon troubles…
Oh, and sorry for the Warmie-Markho shippers
Probably one of the reasons for the time skip, one of the bonus art pieces is canon, is to give those three time to grow from the kids they were reverted to into once again adults. The work of Morgana who I know has her share of people who hate her. Personally thinks its overblown, but time will tell how the past heros figure into things.
What Warmie-Markho shippers?
(sorry, realized I had more things to say – actual writting advice)
Also, overpowered characters are their own challenge, but you CAN have a story with overpowered characters that is actually interesting, just when the focus is not their unchallenged combat skills but their personality and traits.
One word:
Superman.
I wish I could like your comment! Honestly, Bree still has a bit of edge to her that could be tempered by the people she surrounds herself with. And we need to have some recognition of the damage done to Sephni’s mind from all of the torment she suffered. Is she truly a monster now, or was she reacting with little to no thought/ dissociated in response to trauma? It can give real character conflict while looking at ways of healing, or not, from trauma so it doesn’t define who we are. Mike can even factor into that story as a greater character in that story?
I agree there are still loose ends and especially sub-plots o follow with Bree. She is such a great character and personality. You hinted a Teal reappearance. Erana is right about the sword-girls and I still think Bree (together with Paige) have issues with Morgana, who was (in my opinion) arrogant and disrespectful. I did predict ‘writing out’ Brian and Imugi, but again, i could see some potential adventures there as a sort of parallel sub-plot even if only occasionally in Incentive Art. The Valryn girls, yes, they can move on, fun as they were. Likewise Sephni now – she’s Queen! She deserves to enjoy what was so cruelly taken from her back long ago. The problem with the Betrys thread is that it repeats a theme we have already followed, dragons, possible connections to where Kel and the Mindripper came from. Personally I think dragons have been played out, especially with Bree letting Warmheart go explore the world – may she be happy! Sark? At least one Delve devotee thinks we should leave him where he is, Chief of Chiefs, and the last panel hints at Bree and Markho getting it together – what will Paige think about that? Whatever way the story goes, and who with (it might take time to build up a new character to equal our collective affections for Bree) I hope we can still drop in to visit stuff happening in the Wood Elf Kingdom (Queendom? Regency?).
Otherwise, in retrospect the arc has ended too sudden, despite taking months of actual time. We have followed Bree for 16-plus years, with only a few other characters not since accounted for. New characters need to be interesting, not just different, but also still fit into the previous Delve world. Maybe Julie the Naked Delver!! Ha, ha! Her and Bree could be fun together, with Markho? A throw-away thought! Personally, there should still be endless opportunities for Bree to get her kit off, and into a bit of bondage, by her own admission, she is Queen in name only. Paige is Regent, with Finch to keep her happy!
There’s always something to be said for a story arc running its course. The world has been built and fleshed out. Let the old guard rest, or govern… not really resting so to speak, but theyve shaped the world so much that they are more a part of teh world building than charaters able to grow. They’ve become archetypes. there’s such fertile ground (heh) for new characters to grow.
I just want to know what happened to Teal and the cats.
YES. Teal is so precious. She was the first candidate I thought of for main character of the next volume, and her + Sir Beddigan have my favorite dynamic in the comic.
Oops, meant Phawkes, not Beddigan.
I think the comic is absolutely lovely. The stories are wonderful and the drawings are fantastic.
I think there’d be a lot of mileage in the existing “high level” characters having a more background role, as, well, other people in Bree’s world also have stories to tell (or to be told) and I think it might be refreshing for you as well.
Life after all is a tapestry of lots of peoples stories and the interesting points are where the stories meet and tangle and stuff.
Anyway, thank you so much for taking us this far. And please make the decision that works best for you. Cos I want to see more of this cos!
Have a wonderful new year
Love
Hils.
Well, good story must end at the right time. A lot of good series became boring and tedious because author just cant say “Goodbye” to main characters. Bree have won, congratulations! Now we should let her enjoy what she deserves and move on…
Through all that years (OMG, how fast time flying) you always has something new and unpredictable in the pockets. We beliewe in you, Mr Hunter!
Bree’s primary story in the Delve-verse has wrapped. It has been fantastic! I’m imagining lots of potential content for Brian trying to get the Delve under control and (probably) making some amusing magical mistakes (or cleaning up after DM’s perviness) that affect other adventurers that try to delve themselves. I would imagine the universe we’ve experienced for so many years can continue.
However, I think of Douglas Adams. He wrote a brilliant trilogy, then a fantastic fourth instalment to that trilogy, but eventually he seemed to feel trapped by his creation, calling it (I believe) a ‘millstone around my neck’ before ending it decisively. At a point, I’d want to make sure Andy that you continue to enjoy this universe you created. If you want that clean break to do something completely different, I think we’d all understand and enjoy it.
The main characters resolved their main problems. Whether they one or lost, the resolutionends a good story.
Now it’s time for new stories. They could involved that main characters, but they need to have new problems – which is difficult – or if you want to continue in this universe, there has to be someone with a new problem.
Tolkien took a shot at a sequel to the Lord Of The Rings, but soon realized that wouldn’t work. There’s nothing wrong with doing the same – you might not want your series to become a zombie.
But there’s a lot of side characters that have stories to tell. Give them a stage!
I am curious how some tales may go after this arc. Still have my share of questions about stories yet unexplored. Some of them already brought up by others like Moonblade, Lassa and Kel.
But I am also curious to see where Miko’s story goes, and maybe a peek at Betrys’s people and culture. Seen snippets of these in art pieces would like to see more in the coming stories.
And even if Bree’s time in the main spotlight maybe over would be curious who will be next to be followed into the depths of the Delve and its many denizens.
I compare your current situation with old D&D campaigns: The original (surviving) characters have leveled up and need to transition into appropriate roles (and appropriate problems). To continue with adventures in similar veins (but different details), you need to bring in new, lower level characters.
Basically, either the story types change or the characters change. Nothing has to completely go away, but there’s an ongoing transition.
You have high level noble problem: – they have things to do, people they have responsibilities to and the big story arcs are running into epilogue territory
Time to consider what you want as a creative to do and how to go about that
I’d like to see an adventure led by one of the lesser-known characters, maybe Teal. She’s been one of my favorite characters. I wouldn’t mind seeing her take a leadership role of some sort in a new comic.
A new character would be a wise choice. Keep Bree and the team in the comic, it’s why most of us enjoy it so much. But have them in supporting roles, not directly active for precisely the reasons you stated.
If you want to explore the world through a native character that doesn’t have quite the scale of force that the Twice Shadowed seem to have, maybe follow Warmheart’s journeys through the world as she tries to get reacquainted? Fun plot device that can even down-scale her… (dragon pun -_- ), could be something traps her in the more humanoid form and one of the only places where she could possibly find a curse reversal or cure is… The Delve! Just a thought.
Safe travels peeps and hopefully the new year is good to you! o7
Yes, that would be fun: see what mischief Warmie can get up to learning about the changes since she was trapped all those centuries ago
When you started Delve, I was single and had just finished college. I’m now a teacher, a husband, and a dad. Your comic has meant alot to me over the years and is one of the few that I have followed for this long. I support whatever you decide to do. That being said, I would love to follow Warmheart for a little bit, or at least her example, and see more of your awesome world.
How is Bree overpowered?
Instead of a new character, switch to the reborn trio. Just do a rush to get them to legal adults, then we can have their adventure be a cross continental road trip to meet the old adventuring party, one person at a time. Let them catch up on their current life, then take off to find the next person based on the info the last one gave them. It would be a fine way to tie up loose ends while keeping the story going.
So, my vote would be for a new protagonist, but one with deep ties to the previous cast. Perhaps Paige’s daughter? Paige may only be Regent, but I don’t see Bree settling down to raise an heir to the throne. So, the new character would have grown up around many of the old cast and heard stories about the absent ones. That leave room for cameos and check-ins, while shifting to a Delve-native character for a fresh perspective.
That’s my two cents. Love the comic!
I do enjoy OP characters, and Bree’s cynicism, but Teal? the slime was always my favorite. Also, not into the snuff fetish.
I’d love to see more Teal + cat guy, and an eventual arrival of dragon gal. And maybe a jungle Delve rather than an abyss Delve. You can pay homage to Kashyyyk (Chewbacca) or Midworld (Flinx).
You could also go in the direction of my favorite Narnia book, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and take side characters to see what else went to shit while the main shenanigans were happening. Maybe that’s what Teal n Kitty are needed for, their special resilience and skill.
You did introduce us to the next generation a while back, so you could do a time-skip to them, possibly with Breen and Co being viewed as almost legendary myths (or just Elders telling stories of their youth)
I don’t think Brian is over Bree yet, and Imugi seems like the type to cause drama. Bree now remembers she doesn’t have a real sister, even though Sephni remembers growing up with her and probably needs a lot of emotional support that Bree might not be good at giving. The last panel reminds us, Bree likes living dangerously. And so on. Plenty of ways to write tension between these characters.
As for her being overpowered, one way to work around that is to follow a new adventurer and turn Bree into a patron. Another is, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. If she’s so overpowered, what would someone able to take that power away be able to do to her?
All stories must, at some point, come to an end whether happy or not. I think Bree, Brian, and the rest deserve their sabbatical. They’ve certainly all earned it. They don’t need to be killed off, but let them have their extended break while new characters and stories are explored. Now, as to being overpowered, Bree is but one player whose soul entered permanently into the game. Undoubtedly there will be others whose powers, abilities, and skills surpass hers, who may not be good folk. You can also write a plausible way for Bree’s powers to be reduced. Brian, as the new Dracomage, may learn that his new abilities involve dictating power levels and decide to level the playing field. There are always possibilities.
Personally, I think it’s time to let Bree and her friends take a well-earned break. Yes, there will be some loose ends to tie up, such as Sephni and Miko and their issues (though I think explaining that eating the poor lizard man was what he wanted and asked should at least be done, even if Miko rejects that the request needed to be honored), but their adventures have played out and reached their conclusion. A storyteller CAN have his original protagonists go live their happier lives while new characters take center stage.
And all lived happily thereafter is how all stories end, right? So I’d be OK if this is the end… even if there is a sequel, where (for example) Bree’s daughter begins all over again (but of course not quite the same) with all this massive story as backstory that comes about now and then, like Bilbo’s backstory is central to the Lord of the Rings but in a very subdued way and he, old and corrupted, can’t take part in the new even more epic adventure.
Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle eventually tired of writing Sherlock Holmes and tried to kill him off. However, keep the babes with the nice boobs that occasionally get naked. And bring back the Delver’s Laws from the early days of the comic.
I’d love to see more of the daily lives of the delvizens. Especially from in and around Prancy’s side. His side specials we’re alwayd delughtful to me. So if we had something like a side story or light novels would be fun. Even if it’s just like teb page 4 koma stuff. The world itself is certainly interesting. But the nature of the Delve and how it interacts eith and influences the gray side has predominantly been the point of interest too me. While I won’t say that it’s an erroneous direction to take ignoring gray siders. Part of what actually hooked me on the comic was the relationship between DM and Brian. I’d honestly love to see more interactions like that. Frankly Bree and Jen we’re fun, but their sparse interactions and subsequent immediate merger we’re kind of bland to me? From a story telling perspective it makes sense and someone had to fill the role so it’s understandable. But their relationship never felt as tangiable or as real as DmxBrian to me. They felt like legitimate soul mates or soul bonded? Whatever the appropriate term would be. It’s probably a stretched given your predisposition for exploring lower stakes characters from what you suggested in your post above. But if feasible it’d be intetesting to explore a delvizen/grey sider who recently had near death accidents and now have to navigate a relatiomship dynamic of infringing on each other’s psyche’s. I think that dynamic would be really interesting to explore and the nature of their realities colliding even if just on a visual personal perspective would allow for different explorations of styles amongst other things. Plus being technically seperated by a dimension allows them to remain seperate entities avoiding power creep from the bonding dynamic. That plus the twisted nature of the Delve leaves a lot of wiggle room for setting exploration. If you used someone from the feline dynasty where Prancy is from would probably be an ideal place to start to. Since after the emperor died it’d be politically destablized. Giving a good jumping off point. But I digress, any more and I’d just be writing a fan fic synopsis. Best of luck with whatever you choose, it’s been a hell of a ride. Cheers for more.
You kinda faced this dilemma once before: at the end of Bree’s journey (when Jen died and entered Delve via exploding out of Drax) and you transitioned to the Aboveworld (what ever the surface was called) and introduced us to Miko and Chasta
Personally have belief you will figure out a new direction (maybe… Delve in Space? 🙂 )
Space? Too big a genre jump. I don’t think Andy does science fiction. You have to be sci-fi space junkie to really do space travel stories, and even then some. I started reading sci-fi age 8, that’s a long, long time ago, and loved the ‘classical’ period until the ‘New Wave’. I enjoyed, but with diminishing enthusiasm, the “Star Trek” series, “Star Wars” (really a re-hash of the Smith, Asimov era stories), but space fiction stories demand at least some tech knowledge, and – let’s face it – real possible space travel looks increasingly unlikely. I briefly tried writing space fiction back in the 1970s, but quickly realised you have to be 100% into it, to actually stick with it, and make it work. No, Andy has his imaginary world already. Go with what you’ve got, and what works. Elves and Orcs (or Hobbits) in space doesn’t.
Drowtales went to space, Dark elves in spaceships
Really, the only real difference between a ‘fantasy’ setting like Delve and a space setting is the location (most readers wouldn’t know warp speed from a warp stone, or how either worked)
You miss the point. It’s not the ‘readers’, it’s the writer. It isn’t a matter of just switching to ‘space opera’ mode. You have to feel comfortable in your created world, especially so if you are writing something longer than, say, a six-page mini-comic. I’ve loved science fiction all my life, but my preference is still earth-bound sci-fi. Delve is fantasy, pure and simple. Suddenly announcing it is set on Sirius V or in the Andromeda galaxy would be a no-no. Delightful as Bree might look in a 1950s pulp magazine girly space-outfit, it could only be a one-off. The Delve world has enough potential without going ‘Star Trekkie’.
Who said anything about the readers?
And you can still have space travel in a ‘pure’ fantasy setting: Spelljammer anyone?
Go where you want the story to go. If you begin writing something you don’t want to it will simply be a chore. I for one want to keep having the stories you want to tell.
Wait what happened to Imugi? How’d she change back to looking human again?
HAPPY NEW YEAR ANDY !
I think Chasta had a lot of story telling potential. And she looked hot too. But Teal IS and all time favourite.
Cheers to more years!
Well, you could continue using inspiration/ideas/rules from D&D Immortals sets (original, Wrath of The Immortals) which even if you used AD&D, an be mixed up somehow alternatively to Deities & Demigods or Legends & Lore.
I’ve enjoyed all of the stories, take your time and something will come up.
Happy New Year!
Wouldn’t mind seeing a time skip. This story has been told. Perhaps we could have a new main protagonist? Maybe the devourer is eternal? Can’t wait to see what comes next.
Happy new year! I’m going to miss Bree and the sword girls, but I agree that sometimes it’s better to wrap things up on your own terms than to let them drag on until they die.
Perhaps test some new characters in a short story (“TTRPG one-shot”) to see if you and the readers connect with them? That’ll give you some creative licence without making a multi-year commitment.
And I’d personally like to see cameos/support from fan-favorite characters, but only if you can make it work in the story.
Thanks, and good luck!
Like with every party, there is the danger of overextending on the story, while this can turn more into a different type of history, it would be interesting to see the repercussions of all for other characters or parts of the world. We could see how the shadow elves are dealing with all of this, for example.
You can always give updates on Bree and the other between arcs.
* SUGGESTION *
Andy,
Given your past outstanding work, a new protagonist will be an exceptionally gargantuan act to follow.
Instead, perhaps your new protagonist could evolve from the recently transformed Imugi?
I don’t think I have ever seen Imugi in a sustained leading role, but she seems to have been recently resurrected from her revenant state.
I like her new appearance just as she is, but perhaps her transformation is not finished?
If not, perhaps her features could be slightly enhanced, as she becomes your new protagonist?
Best wishes,
Hypatia
(ps) Please leave the boobs alone!
I have been following your comic for many years. And I have found it to be most. intriguing t0 read.I have found that many of your quotes and side remarks to be very insightful and pertinent to today’s society.
Thank you for your imaginative work and I cannot wait to see what your next offering is going to be.