End of a chapter! Beginning of the End of chapter Announcements! Lets see what we got here

1) First as always, taking a breather from the comics for about a week, nothing crazy, I need to take some time to communicate with  tracks98 as the next chapter will feature a culture of his making all the way back from 2019/2020 or so! Well over 5 years ago! I appreciate his patience in finally getting around to them in The Long Hike, but I want to make sure I represent them well.

2) This next chapter is the last chapter of this act as well! So after the next chapter I am thinking of doing some side stories. I was originally going to do just a story related to Sarah BUT I may also do a side story related to the Yurnic Kobolds. Let me know what you think about that if you're interested or not interested in that sort of thing.

Al for my life

My substitute Spanish teacher work is likely to end soon, not sure when! but the main teacher is looking to come back soonish. Of course this was inevitable, such is substitute work. Hoping I can get some connections to get a better job off the ground from my substitute work! Though there is a real possibility i will once again be out there searching for a job. So there may be an uptick in comic drawing, may not be, not sure!

I have also been dealing with some health issues with a heavy, persistent cough. While I can chug cough syrup and cough drops day to day to deal with it at work, at home when I am not taking those things it has been pretty noticeable and even rather painful. I've had it for about 5 weeks, if it continues on a few weeks more then I am headed to a doctor. I have a feeling it's some flavor of bronchitis though I am no doctor, so I'll see what they think.

Even with the income from my job though, my income is looking a bit dicier than 10 months ago, something about having no job for maaaany months has a way of slowly eating away at your emergency savings. If it gets bad i may open up commissions again! I was thinking of having a Get Drek'd commission set but also a "Get Yurn'd" option for folks who wanna just be a little kobold. All that isn't to say you should support me of course! Money is tight everywhere, take care of yourself financially above all, I am just some guy on the internet. But if I open those commissions and you like what you see, let me know!

Also who knows! A job may be just around the corner! Though reading about the economy seems to suggest that the economy is rough across the US and much of the world. I'm no expert but boy, things seem rough all around. Be safe out their folks

Lastly in about a month I will cease to be in my 20s, I will be 30! I will assure you my hairline has accepted it's fate. I think the weirdest feeling is that these days I encounter more people younger than me than my age or older these days. Even some of the artists I heavily look up to have turned out to be younger than me by at least 1-3 years which, still the ballpark, but damn. Kinda nuts to have my 20s end as while they didn't end with any particular career success, a lot of things happened!

I went abroad to México, learned Spanish to a high level (advanced high on ACTFL and C2 on CEFR) and became a certified interpreter and translator, began The Long Hike which has been a major part of my life thus far. I haven't really succeeded in much but I guess I've at least done a lot in my 20s! Not sure what that means for my 30s, I am pretty afraid as I know as I get older my prospects of starting something become harder and less likely. BUT just like Imua I can't change the past so I'll just try to move forward into the future as best I can.

Be well one and all, it's a nutty world out there.

Hey so its what the title says! Titles are good at that, telling you what's in the journal?

So I've been fighting burnout for many months and, working on the Yurnic kobolds kinda became a sign that I should rework the canon of The Realm of the Quiet age, the DragonScape, Õndem, whatever you wish to call it.

Now changing canons used to be a thing I would do all the time when things got too convoluted, the earliest drawings of this account are quite literally the "reset" canon which was the change between a prior canon and that canon, which eventually got reset into the "New Pulse" canon, which then slowly mutated into the current canon I tell my stories in

"The Long Hike Canon" as its the version of the setting built by and around The Long Hike.

We've been in this version of the setting quite literally longer than any other, for 4 years now!, that is over half of the years I've worked on this whole project period! So its been the longest running canon!.. And its also hard to really reset without retcons to the comic. Reality is the comic kinda cements me into this canon that I used to find fun! but for about a year now i've felt pinned down by.

So I am setting up some larger canonical changes!

Some of these haven't happened yet and so are probably fine for sneaking into the comic later, some of which are going to be retcons that are going to be noticeable to varying levels! I may release some of the doodles I've been drawing off of work and between comics to cover these more in depth. But for now I wanna just cover the basic ideas by text for the folks who enjoy reading these sorts of things.


First the name change!

The Realm of the Quiet Age.

Maybe controversial, but I like it. I think it really speaks to what I like about the setting of the dragonscape. Its a place in which there is no single historical narrative, like the dark ages after the bronze age collapse or the collapse of Shang dynasty China, or the collapse of western Rome. This is a place where noone is writing their histories and so they get lost in the dark. But rather than a dark age this isn't a bleak thing in this place, nor good, just the reality of it. In a big universe of small stories, the universe may sound quiet though it is bustling with the lives of untold numbers of folks!

I think it captures the themes I want, and also I think "DragonScape" just... gives the wrong idea. Like a fantastical world of Wings of Firesque dragons and wyverns which the setting hasn't been for 6 or 7 years.

Its a realm where no one history rules, its an anarchic place where nations rise and fall into a sea of tribes, bands and chiefdoms.

Next up are some changes to drekir!

Drekir really are the heart of the setting to me, its what I built this world to explore! both people becoming drekir and them dealing with it as well as the cultures they and their descendants could go onto construct! But I find the restrictions that used to be interesting to just be... annoying, at this point. So I want to make some changes to the species broadly speaking.

Now some of these I have posted, like here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61312846/

but I am going to go through all of them one at a time


Firstly I want to make drekir generally a bit smaller Not too much smaller! It is important to remember that people in my experience often think that drekir are smaller than they really are. Imua is about the size and weight of a full human, even though she's 4ft tall, she is still 12ft long. Arctic drekir are usually big enough to be comparable to the size of caribou.

Drekir are actually pretty big! But I want to shrink them down a bit.

The current plan is to make the average drek size (such as Imua) around 34-40 inches in height, the average small breed (Jat) around 28-32 inches in height, and larger breeds (Getterbet for example) around 42-48 inches in height. Puts them more on the smaller side, though they still are far from tiny. That would put Imua closer to the size and weight of a smaller Great Dane than what she currently is.

Now this height change will have some knock on effects to their interactions with metal, how much food they need to eat, etc. but not too much. Most the basic established lore should still apply here!

The breed rework I've already posted about So click the link above for more detail, but the long and short is to streamline the breeds out, simply establishing a temperate, tropical, arctic and alpine breed that have far more variation in the specific regions a population lives. I find the current stricter breed system both convoluted and restrictive. So the goal is to both simplify it so folks can understand it and make it more flexible so folks can have more fun designing their own unique populations and so I can do the same!

And also some social behavior changes not to den psychology, I think that shits great. But rather, I more want to push drekir to have a light parental drive to teach and raise their kids.

Still nothing compared to humans, I still want them to have a "we'll lay more" sort of outlook, but I don't want them to be downright neglectful of their offspring either. I am not sure where that balance is yet, but the idea is to have them have some emotional degree of attachment to raising their kids as a collective rather than any one of them.
That way they may dedicate at least some time to feeding, sheltering, and teaching their offspring than they currently do. Or at the very least it can become more culturally variable.

So that way kids have a bit more education when they grow up and when they set out on their own.


And there are some light NSFW changes Mostly in the drastic toning down of sex pheromones from the lore, I think I've written them and drawn them a bit too overboard in the NSFW comics, so I am gonna see about lightening the sheer amount of that. I won't get into detail here as thats probably going to need some new NSFW doodles. But thats how it goes.



[b]Next up are changes to drektech[/b]

Which is of course extremely culturally variable.


Now I want to keep the focus on a feeling of a "chalcolithic expanse", a blending of metal and stone, but I also admittingly feel a bit creatively pinned in by copper. I do still love copper! Best metal, but I want more creative flexibility in what metals look like and I want to make the complex rules around different magical bronzes, copper, iron, etc. more easily understandable to folks looking into the setting!

You will find a lot of these changes are about streamlining, fancy that

So I want to introduce a new, broad family of metals that, much like the manachert and spellglass that have appeared in the comics, is made by using real physical metal to lock the magical stãl (teal steel) into a physical state.

Essentially the manachert of metals, a Stabilized Stãl. The current name is a blend of haida words, Yatal, as the generic settingwide name.

Its a metal that is generally made via a process similar to the Sundering I've already talked about at length in other posts, and once properly made its a metal that can be cold hammered slowly, hot hammered quickly, or melted and casted into a mold to create a more complex shape. Likewise since its the stãl that is making the metal work, I am thinking of just making it so that any metal+mana can make some variation of Yatal metal. Aluminum, copper, iron. etc/

Now the metal isn't perfect, its still going to be a soft metal, with different qualities having a hardness somewhere between copper and wrought iron by comparison. But depending on how its made it can do a lot of things.

It can be a basic metal for tools, jewelry, cookware, etc. But it can also be used and elementized to make magical heating or cooling elements, to make acidic cutting tools for shaping hard materials, or even electrified weapons for shocking, or even serve with wind elementization to store mechanical energy. All in ways that are less restrictive and more magically focused than the current metallurgy of the Quiet Age, though it is still not necessary if not wanted.

The general blend between mana and metal is also 50/50, which is great for stretching out a supply of metal ore incredibly well! But the process for making Yatal metal is however that you cannot make it en masse and, like manachert, mana is a fickle resource even if technically abundant. So the average community may be limited in how much metal they can practically make, thus resulting in many turning to alternative materials to fill the gap.

Lastly, how you can get TF'd/Isekai'd into The Realm of the Quiet Age!

Portals!

One of my biggest sticking points with my own setting, as a guy who likes to see folks get scaled down a notch, is that The Pulse is a one time event. The Pulse is what makes the 1st generation of drekir from the peoples of the Americas... So they get tf'd into drekir and save some colonials who also get drekified
(see Imua)
that's it!

So I am thinking of adding an idea to Õndemic reality in which it opens portals in other parallel timelines and realities through which anyone can enter and get turned into a drek as well as trapped in Õndemic reality.

The general gist of the explanation is that, by its nature, Õndemic reality is unstable and aggressive, it swallows things and writhes in the cosmic weave. So often the sheer aggression of this reality causes it to push into other realities and timelines, thus creating portals through which things in those timelines and realities can traverse!
Of course those who do enter are going to be rapidly crushed by the Õndemic pressure of the Raddir and promptly turned into drekir, or draconically mutated. The force of the raddir is something that may have drowned gods under the weight of billions of gnashing maws, its not something most things can fight back against.
But it gives an avenue for more transformations either in the writings of folks who are writing stories in the setting or, you know, me! I like that!

That's all for now

I have work tomorrow so for now I must go to bed, I may elaborate more on this or save it for potential drawings. But I really want to push forward a lot of these changes to make the setting easier to understand, easier to write for, and just more creatively flexible. It's a case of change the setting or change the project with me at this point.

Lot of things happened in just a few days so I want to start with the most important oneI Got a job!.. and a Story!

Yesterday morning I got a call at 8AM and it turned out to be a Charter School near where I live asking if I could work as a Spanish Substitute Teacher for a couple high school level classes. Now I am not sure if I left a resume there or how they found me but I said yes! The Classes reportedly went very very well! So well that They have offered me a Job working as a Long Term Substitute teacher of Spanish there!

So... I got a Job! FINALLY! AFTER 15 MONTHS OF SEARCHING AND 6 MONTHS OF BEING JOBLESS! HUZZAH!


I am heading out tomorrow to take a fingerprint check, submit proper Identification and sign the contract. I know already that it is a legitimate charter school, A friend who used to work there vouched for it!

As for my wrist

It's feeling a lot better, thank you folks for the patience I plan on resuming comic drawing as best I can starting next Week!Though that said, I now also have a job as a substitute spanish instructor and tutor which I am very excited about! Its the field I really have wanted to work and this is a golden opportunity to get my foot in the door! But at the same time that may come at the cost of less time spent drawing as I am working. The current plan is to shoot for a comic a week, that is something I feel confident in my ability to do, I've done a comic a week working full time in the past. I will communicate with you folks how that goes.I will always draw the comic, it's what I love!

Thanks for reading! Expect a return to comics next week! I promise! Be well! Also expect a Long Tail tonight and/or tomorrow!

It's what it says! I've perhaps been spending too much time drawing Yurnic Kobolds for my own good and for that, while I was working on The Long Tail comic for Sunday I lost feeling in my hand and the pain in my wrist has gotten too much. I am pushing too far, I need to slow down.

So here's what the plan is.

I am uploading page 20 of TLH tomorrow! With no upload Sunday, I need to give my wrist time to rest. If my wrist feels better I'll try and knock out The Long tail comic and a TLH comic next week, if not, then it will only be TLT.

I desperately need to rest my wrists, I've been pushing them way too hard for months and consequences are hammering in hard. I hope you folks understand

be well.

So I wanna talk about the name of the setting, the DragonScape and why I've wanted to change it for some time
As, frankly, yeah I've grown pretty tired of the name and I've been tired of the name for a long time. I don't think it accurately paints the setting like it used to as the setting has I feel changed and grown past the name.

Is the DS a land full of dragons without a mammal in sight?.. Yeah! It is indeed a scape of dragons

The Dragons Scape, The DragonScape if you will

But I think the name implies something to me that the setting really isn't anymore. Not just aesthetically but I feel thematically. DragonScape makes the setting sound like a whimsical land of wyverns over lovely vaguely nordic coded forests and mountains to me when the setting is clearly not that.

Its a place of entropy, starting over and moving forward, it is a place defined by an anarchic refusal to shoot for larger world threatening narratives for the sake of the tales of communities and small groups of folks
(Or Imua in The Long Hike)


Its filled with dragons but those dragons often don't fit the classical idea of a dragon. I think a drek is a dragon, as is an orm but I have a feeling that if I showed them to people a classical dragon wouldn't be the descriptor But at this point I don't really feel like the DragonScape fits as a name like it used to. Back when the setting was more about "Post apocalyptic kobolds fighting eldritch cults"

But where did the name of the DragonScape come from?

I mean aside from the setting being a "scape" of "dragons". The name was taken from an old internet horror story at the time that I liked way back in 2018

"Tales from the DogScape". Which was a horror series focused on a post apocalyptic world in which the world was consumed by a wilderness of dog flesh... its very disturbing, very macabe, grotesque and horrific in a very meaty, fleshy way. But I thought the name was well placed and figured I would do something similar

And the name just kinda stuck

And let see... 7 years later at this point here I am kinda wanting to change the name

So what are some rough draft names I wanna roll with?

These aren't final nor the only names, but they are names I wanna try out and that I juggle in my brain

The Land After Time I think is a fine name, as this is a place where there is no unified history across the setting, and even then the one unified history between the three planar of Logáu, Agõrl and Suyu is mostly a framing device to explain lore rather than something that is truly lived by until the last 10,000 of that arbitrary timeline

after which it truly remains a land after time. A land after the end of any one history.

Polygondwanaland Which is a name the setting already has! It is used by SEAColonials to describe the DragonScape. See the first page of Audited to see an example of that. Obviously its a reference to a huge album to me, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizards Polygondwanaland which is something that I've mapped the Long Hike to in a lot of ways.

In the lore of KGLW from at least my mad scribblings of the Gizzverse, Polygondwanaland is the land before timeland, a strange surreal landscape full of dinosaurs, giants, and gods in which crumbling dictators and blinded green eyed wanderers seek the fourth color or crumble under it.

Though I also don't know if I should arbitrarily bolt the setting to this album, Its just that I like them. But it does feel rude to just bolt a whole setting to the name. But still I like it. Polygondwanaland, partially intentionally, describes the DragonScape at least in the vaguest of ways.

Its a land of many gondwanalands, places beyond time full of small communities of dinosauric dragons, eldritch gods and a mix of serene landscapes and surreal visions


Shattered Õndem Is perhaps the one I think the least about but one I've still thought about, its straightforward to those who know the lore and the name of the old draconic reality of Õndem. Its straightforward. As Õndem canonically is an inhospitable, collapsed reality, the DragonScape itself has most õndemic land, and as its õndemic rules that reign over the DragonScape, the DS really is just a shattered Õndem that happened to wrap up parts of our own reality.


Where There Be Dragons Is perhaps in my opinion the Cheesiest name, keeping on the theme of dragons and referring to this place beyond human reality as simply that place "where there be dragons"

A bit cheesier, perhaps cheekier, but

The Quiet Realm More in relation to the idea of the "Quiet Ages" of the timeline of the DragonScape (itself again kinda arbitrary for framing lore)

As the idea again is that there is no loud narrative that springs from the setting as a whole. Amongst planar sure! But even then its a setting of billions of quiet lives. People living small lives in small worlds.

In a sense the setting is about a quiet age, one in which people don't record everything or sometimes anything, one in which the life of a person comes and goes mattering to the people who matter to them.
This isn't a setting of epic heroes, its a quiet setting of people who live good lives that don't get known outside of their region or, in the most extreme, their plana.

Those are at least some ideas


But I do want to start thinking of renaming the setting, maybe this never goes anywhere as frankly again, The DragonScape really has stuck. But I do feel that name doesn't describe it like it used to.

If you have any thoughts let me know, be well!

So the last page of chapter 10 is coming out tomorrow and I figured I would make the announcement today! Just some news, info, whatnot

As always, resting my wrists for a short time

I am going to take a break for the remainder of this week and next week. With my work on the comics starting again a week from Monday. In the meantime I am working on a few side doodles, an NSFW inbetween mini comic for TLH, and some Patreon related lore drawings and explanations.

You folks won't see a page until a until the 27th or so (pretty sure if I did my math right). But I will still be posting!

Some NSFW warnings about TLHs next chapter and sort of in general

Or i guess something to get excited about depending on who reads this.

The next chapter of The Long Hike, "A Winters Rest from The Long Hike", is taking place in a culture that has existed in the lore for about 6 years now. The Bades/Fisherdrakes have always been a very hedonistic bunch. They have a lot of culturally positive views on things like Partying, booze, drugs, sex and wild parties. So I have a feeling it would be a bit of a betrayal of an older culture like these folks to not include at least some degree of NSFW scenes in the next chapter.

So expect The Long Tail segments and vignettes to be a bit denser for at least this chapter. Though after this chapter it should be a bit less horny for a time. Its just the case that the Hiker has wound up amongst a group of folks who enjoy themselves some sensually good times.

But also more in general, There is some extra NSFW stuff that I plan on posting. Lots of folks want their characters gettin bipped and a lot of them are folks who have been fans of the setting and comic for a long time! It's also a bit of a silly side thing. So there may be a few extra mini comics of that.

If the NSFW is a bit of a problem for you I understand! For the Long Hike you can ignore it as, as always, it has no importance to the plot that you couldn't otherwise gleam from the SFW portions of TLH. As for the little side nsfw minibits. Feel free to ignore them.


In other life news

I am still jobless! Things aren't going well on that front but for now I still have a good amount of money I am still financially stable, the support from my Patreon has been a huge help in me keeping my head above water and many thanks for that! I am considering volunteering to work abroad in the hopes of taking that experience back home to start a professional career here in the States. Or if I get a good opportunity abroad, I may just seek to live abroad long term.

There is also the possibility of me moving to a new state, I love Idaho and there is a deep pain in the thought of leaving my state. But it seems like Idaho doesn't want me and I am taking it as a sign that I need to figure out a path to moving on from the State to find opportunities in other states (or countries).

Anywho, stay safe folks, I know life is pretty chaotic for the time being, at least here in the US but likely much of the world on top of the US. Stay safe and be well!

Its good for you, eat your veggies, get your iron.

But I wanna ramble about it in the DragonScape as, while the lore is generally settled. I tend to fistfight myself in the shower about the topic every now and again and those fistfights get pretty bloody... well not really but regardless!

For at least since the canon shifted sometime around chapter 2 of The Long Hike, when the setting shifted to more of a Chalcolithic state with regards to the material culture of the dragons, moving away from the scraps of the canon that started The Long Hike. There have been folks who fairly argued with me on the question of "Why drekir don't smelt iron"

And the answer is mostly that, while iron is logistically easy, especially considering all the rusted, powdered steel around American ruins, its a pain in the ass to smelt. It requires a lot of technical knowhow to make the furnaces, bellows, etc. to get the temperatures to smelt iron. It requires carbon for the process of separating oxygen from iron. Though granted, charcoal is an easy solution to that.

So my argument is that coldworking copper just comes more naturally, needs less work overall and melted chunks of copper in the Americas during the Awakening are abundant, something that can be found slightly buried under the surface near any ruined pile of concrete at least in some amount. The wider transition to bronze of course stems from the development of metal casting in order to better preserve decreasing amounts of copper scrap, and due to its metaphysically accepting qualities.

But over time, what about iron?

Basic, wrought iron is not really that much better than bronze. Its the reason why the transition through to the Iron Age of Europe and North Africa, and the Levant was filled with a mix of bronze, iron and even limited lithic tool assemblages that are found a lot in similar contexts. To make iron great, you need to add carbon and make it something more in the vein of steel, which is an alloy of iron and carbon. Low carbon irons like wrought iron, which is likely what dragons would make, is a pretty soft metal overall

But.
It is very logistically sound.

Bronze is logistically very complicated, Copper isn't too hard to find, though isn't as abundant as iron. But alloy metals like tin are very difficult to find in abundance and so to support it, complex trade routes are almost necessary unless a community happens to live on or near a great supply of such metals. There are logistically easier bronzes one can make like Arsenical bronze, but regardless it is a logistically painful metal.

Bronze can also be made with copper and a mana based metal, stãl. Something I've written about a fair bit on the lore site. Which does ease a lot of the logistical strain of bronze. Though Mana comes and goes, you can likely always find it within 50 miles of where you are at any given time. but its specific location will come and go as mana pools phase in and out of reality chaotically.

So even though the competition is fiercer, one could argue that Iron is still logistically easier. There is certainly an at least decent source of iron somewhere in a broader region. From ores to iron eating bacteria. It is a very easy metal to find and, if you know how to smelt it and work it, provided the time and manpower and effort you could form it... Again provided you know how to do so.

So is there an argument for Iron?

...Yeah! There is an appeal towards iron. While drekir and ormer do establish complex trade ties, they are still loose, not entirely solid and not entirely reliable. They are far flung but are dependent on dozens if not hundreds of small independent communities passing forward trade. So being able to source a metal entirely locally has great benefits for communities that want a metal, but don't want to rely on traders from regions that have copper or alloy metals who may or may not show up every few months.

Likewise, once iron is smelted, much like coldhammering copper, not a whole lot of tools are needed to work it. Stone anvils have long been popular for working small iron work pieces amongst nomadic people and people with low infrastructure. Smithing forges in many videos I've seen are little more than pits of burning charcoal with rudimentary bellows. Likewise as seen in West Africa and South Africa, Iron smelting relies almost entirely on temporary structures, built on site and destroyed once the iron smelting is done. So it is something perfectly viable to make for communities with little infrastructure...

Again, if they know how, its difficult but very doable.

There are also writing reasons

As the lore I write reflects writing reasons! And frankly, We do iron, its not like iron is some alien thing, it dominates every aspect of our life and has for almost 3000 years. Bit it an iron farming hoe in Yayoi Japan or a steel beam for a skyscraper in New York. Frankly I think we've seen about as much as we reasonably can from a technologically extended timeline of Iron.

So I think pushing bronze and copper is a bit more interesting, at least personally.


But the lore for now isn't changing

Copper is still gonna reign over Iron at least currently, I just wanted to ramble about a thing i argue with myself a lot, be well

So I have a few pages to catch up on, BUT also lots of folks are uploading right now (understandably so) just seeing that everyone is catching up

I have 2 comics from last week, and two comics from this week. So pages 14 and 15 will be uploaded tomorrow and Friday, with pages 16 and 17 being uploaded Saturday and Sunday! So there is inevitably a bit of a desync.

Obviously pages 14 and 15 are already online on Bluesky, E621, my personal comic site, etc. and you folks will see page 16 a day late due to it being uploaded on Saturday and not Friday. But by Sunday and page 17 things should be back on track! But in the mean time today I may upload some doodles? Though again there are a lot of uploads going on right now so I may just hold off till next week.

In the meantime, be well!

That's all, I have a page ready, it'll go up ASAP just once FA is fixed

Today went into work, me and dozens of other folks got dropped off in a lunchroom and it was told to us that we were being laid off. I left shortly thereafter and now I am here one job less.

For the record, I have been saving up a fair chunk of change for exactly this sort of occurrence, I will be financially stable for about 6 months so I am not worried on that front. I am worried about how dead the Job market is where I live though. I never stopped applying to jobs upon being hired at Amazon and since August i haven't heard so much as a response. With custom resumes, cover letters, hiring counselers, etc. Nothin.

So I think I need to change something more drastically in my life!.. but I am also pretty upset about just getting laid off, so I think I am gonna take a few days or so to plan things out.


But in the meantime expect more comics!

I have more freetime obviously, so starting this coming week I am gonna shoot for 2 comics a week, if anything doing so would take up less hours than my job so I will definitely still have time to apply, search, research and plan out my next moves. I think I will shoot for uploads on Friday and Sunday so keep an eye out!

Job market may suck, may now be jobless, but hopeless is not a thing at this time! Gonna push forward as best I can. Be well!

What the title says, its gonna be a particularly dense week and I am gonna be away from my PC between Tuesday and Thursday! So no real time to draw the comic!

Good thing I had a few weeks of 2 comics a week, still ahead of schedule even with one week off!

That's all, be well, I'll see about uploading some pencil doodles during my busyness as its gonna be real busy

Finally caught up! Just decided to upload the last 3 doodles more or less at once to get it out of the way.

Going forward any NSFW posts of mine will be put in the Scraps and in the specific NSFW folder! There shouldn't be anything at least for a few weeks. Thanks for the patience!

Working on Sunday, but not tomorrow so gonna upload an extra comic tomorrow! Just a heads up, that's all!

Yeah! Got two comics, one im wrapping up today for a Sunday upload! That's all. Just an extra comic this week

Hey hi howdy, This is a bit of a throw to the past as I made a journal 9 months ago about whether or not to consolidate my two Furaffinity accounts.

For those who don't know, I have two FA accounts that I currently use being  thepatchedragon which I use for NSFW dragonscape and NSFW Long Hike stories known as "The Long Tail" stories. After going back and forth on it for a LONG while, I think I'll go ahead and consolidate them.

But I wanna know how you folks want that to happen?

I wanna lay out what I think I should do, with an invitation from you folks to request how you all want it to go down (or not at all, that's still on the table)

First, scraps may be used for the NSFW content

Just to keep it out of the main gallery so folks can avoid it on that front if preferred which is understandable. But also as a way of making access to the NSFW for folks who want that easier. So scraps will become reserved specifically for the NSFW, whereas the SFw will stay in the main gallery.

I will likely port at least a large portion of the NSFW drawings and Long Tail comics here

Granted that may be a rather annoying bunch of spam, so i will space it out to avoid everyones subscriptions filling up with dozens of nsfw drawings. It would likely just be one submission a day, a comic page a day. I also probably wouldn't be porting every single drawing from over there, as some of those drawings go back 5 years! which is a long while.

there aren't nearly as many drawings there as here, but there are still a fair few

As to why i am thinking of doing this

It's mostly thanks to the new Blacklist feature that fur affinity has, as well as the adult content filter for folks. That way folks who don't wanna see the NSFW at this point probably don't need it all to be on a separate account. I can certainly do even more to help it all be nice and separate with folders and whatnot! It's also frankly tedious to constantly swap between two separate accounts, It takes me a lot of time to remember to check in on the NSFW account, which causes me to miss a lot of comments and other submissions and whatnot that I tend to keep track of.

But I want to do this in a way that doesn't make too many folks uncomfortable

So as always, please feel free to voice your thoughts! If there is anything I can do to help make the shift a bit smoother or less awkward, or if there is a better alternative feel free to let me know! I don't want to alienate folks at all! I just want to try and make the logistics and password juggling a bit easier.

Be Well!

Hey folks time for an announcement!

as that side story is now done! I wanted to do it to start experimenting not just with the thalmvaric timeline, but also with a few other things. Drawing more dense indoor spaces being one of them. Granted I am not sure I was completely successful with the story, it definitely could have been far better, I know it wasn't the most popular story either. But regardless! I think overall I see the story as having been "ok", not good, not bad. I've also wanted to experiment with my linework, making it thinner and cleaner for multiple motives, though I think for now its good enough to work for The Long Hike. Speaking of,

Back to The Long Hike

There will be another 3 chapters, about a years work. Funnily enough like almost every other 3 chapter act, its gonna start close to the anniversary of The Long Hike which is nice! I think after this act I am gonna look to take a break from The Long Hike, It's been a long 4 years at this point, and honestly I am weary and looking to experiment.

Not to say this is the end of the Long Hike, I doubt it. There are at least 18 more chapters even after the next 3 chapters are up. But it may be a good time to take a break from the story. The burnout is very strong

Of course also I may have more energy in a years time to continue the story anywho! We will find out around this time next year assuming things go to plan.

But this won't be an ending act of The Long Hike, though rather just a good happy point to take a hand off of the Long Hikers.... Maybe... Perhaps ill have to see what my situation is in a year.


And as always, I am taking a week to take a breather

Mostly just to draw something else that isn't a comic, thinking of putting more work into some images for the prospective alt canon. I have some ideas, I wanna practice some more distinct landscapes that are less earthlike, though still earthish if that makes sense

Otherwise gonna try and set up some patreon stuff like this coming months lore doodle poll, and otherwise just rest my smoking carpal tunnel ridden wrists
So yeah in the meantime

I do want to thank all you folks for reading the comics, It genuinely gives me a darn good reason to get up in the morning in spite of the roughness in my personal life and in the world around us. I hope everyone is able to muscle through the year in whatever way they can. Thanks for your support in all the ways it may come and now that 2025 has gotten going, lets see where it goes
But I guess if nothing else, I'll still try my best to be here drawing a purple dragon raptor walking across what was the US

Be well

Usually I don't post these concepts but I have, for about a year been stuck on a concept that started with the Hasketton (if I recall right) wyverns that I've wanted to shift into more of an Alternate dragonscape canon that I wanna ramble about here.

Frankly I like the DS, drekir, etc. and I think the concept has a lot more potential like that, at least to me. But anywho

Lets talk about a concept I dont have time to draw right now, the "portal canon"

TLDR before I get into the details and deeper lore changes that may fly over some heads, a bit reductive on the concept but:

The short of the concept is that, instead of a singular apocalyptic Pulse that destroyed parts of two realities, creating the DragonScape, this portal canon would involve the wild formation of "portals" that lead into the DragonScape from our reality. Each portal may come and go, with each leading into a different plana for the time it is open.

So people can choose to enter the DragonScape. However once someone enters they cannot leave. Inanimate objects that they are wearing or holding can pass both ways through the portal they entered from, but once that portal closes so goes their contact. They are stuck once they enter and there may never be a portal that leads to that plana again.

With a focus on the political, economic, and social ramifications of the human world dealing with people simply leaving in a way in which they can't be pursued, and the way people establish lives in the dragonscape given the opportunity to take a small amount of personal belongings and equipment. All while also dealing with a group of powerful Sovardi (instead of balãr), a Sivilão system in their golden age, and some éldimor both from their world, as well as õndemic reality and other worlds in our reality.

Onto some details of this "Portal Canon"!

1)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

One of the major breakaways is a change in motivation of the Sovardi and/or More sovardi, IE the immortal ascended sogaluns who escaped the scourge of the Sivilão. With their motivation shifting towards a more active resettlement and repopulation of the planar, both from éldimor who escape the sivilão, and from other intereality sources (like humanity). In this canon the Sovardi may serve more the role of Balãr due to the lack of an apocalyptic "pulse"

2)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Sivilão golden age may still be happening at the time of this settings equivalent of the Pulse, though the sivilão are far less stable than they may have been previously. With thousands of years of descendant sivilão abandoning the fold, often given safe harbor and a way out of Agõrl thanks to the help of the Sovardi But this is a sivilão that is overall still somewhat unified and closer to their prime, especially when compared to the sivilão dark age of the main canon setting that is seen in The Long Hike. Though their focus may not quite be as single minded as it once was. They are still dealing with more social unrest than prior and while they can crush such things easily, they also need to focus more on maintaining Agõrl than the heretics beyond.


3)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When the steiron is broken, or an equivalent event causes õndemic reality and ours to collide, it doesn't result in The Pulse that would destroy the Americas, but rather the two realities would peck into eachother, puncturing eachother with short lived portals. Portals may only last a few weeks on either side before disappearing and, during their existence, will lead to the same location on the same plana.

so a group of people could leave together and wind up in the same area to gether. though once that portal closes access to that plana will likely be on hold for some random amount of time until another portal that leads their opens. When traveling through such a portal, õndemification is immediate. A human is most likely to become a drek, but has a far smaller chance of becoming an orm, and a vanishingly small chance of becoming a mavõt.

4)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

tentatively, what a person carries immediately on their person is maintained when entering õndemic reality. Moreover inanimate objects can be thrown through the portals.
Immediate carried objects include clothes, things in pockets, things worn on the back, and things carried on hand. But does not include things driven, ridden, pulled, or pushed. Meaning people can take things into the DragonScape.
though as always their ability to maintain that technology is as always, unlikely in the long term once that portal closes and they become isolated and its doubtful any one of those fancy electronics someone could have brought would be something they could repair.

5)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The More numerous Sovardi may take a more active role in integrating these newcomers, helping them learn what they are and what their new world is. Essentially tutorialing the newcomers and giving them the knowhow on their respective plana to survive. Though from there may very well go hands off, preferring to let the éldimor diáspora develop freely. This may also involve interactions with the non sivilão éldimor of this alt canon who newcomers may learn from and work with

Though, I would imagine the Sovardi, weary of empires, colonialism, or imperialistic ambitions may happilly level the playing field against a blatantly expansionist group.

Say if a militia organizes an entry into the DS with loads of modern firearms, explosives, etc. with the idea of conquering a large area and becoming regional warlords. I would doubt the Sovardi would let that fly. They may simply destroy their weapons and force them to compete on an even playing field with the other newcomers and locals, or, if they feel such a group is large and organized enough to present a sizeable threat to regional stability, may actively kill them and dismantle their ability to do harm. It's less a "you must be peaceful and never conquer" but more a "You must do it on the terms of the world, you may not bulldoze reed huts with tanks.

on that note it would probably be quite common for weapons like guns to be destroyed by the sovardi actively specifically to avoid such a case. Though perhaps may still allow tools that could be weapons (axes, shovels, knives, etc.) as of course a steel axe, at least as a weapon, probably won't make that much of a difference as opposed to a bronze axe at splitting heads.

6)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Regardless, I would imagine some degree of political crisis caused by people simply choosing to escape the Social Decay of their timeline of humanity.

First the portals may be avoided, a few adventurous, desperate, or accident prone individuals may be the first to enter, or those with nothing else to really lose. The governments would likely just try to cover them up once becoming aware. Then the portals become more unavoidable and hard to cover up, the goverments of the world may try to contain them, explain their dangerous, try and figure out whats on the other side. They may learn, probably thanks to recordings being passed through the portal (as inanimate objects can leave, thus a phone, data card or other medium of recording can return).

So I figure many governments would launch missions into the DragonScape, presumably being disarmed by the sovardi and eventually left to make things work.

Though eventually the portals become obviously uncontainable, as they disappear with new ones appearing in different areas on a timescale that is too fast. Likewise the knowledge of what lays on the other side becomes more public and people who, for whatever motivation, want to travel to this new area. Be it escaping totalitarian or failing states, be it with ambitions of colonialism and conquest, be it with scientific purposes, religious motivations, Or just be it a disenfranchised person or group of people who just believe the grass is greener on the other side.

People may eventually understand how portals open to specific areas, but only for a relatively short amount of time (around a month or two) and may use social media to coordinate and plan to get around local government efforts to stop and contain people trying to get into the portals
So perhaps that creates a short to medium term crisis in many countries.

Speaking for the US, as its my home and the place I feel I have some more perspective on,

The US may see a pretty severe impact if even just a million people just disappear in those portals; If its more than a million, lets say 2 million people or more, it could be severe. Could be the working poor, the disenfranchised, people with more radical political leanings (left or right), Organized crime groups may also seek these portals out, believing them to be something they can take advantage of.

Of course regardless of their motivations, they're probably gonna find a very different life


But that sudden loss of potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of people, presumably the less invested, usually on the younger side (15-40 years of age) of the demographic chart may cause serious economic problems. The Job market may have a serious lack of workers in certain areas, various asset markets may deflate with things like housing, causing crisis for large property holders and institutions. So at least speaking of my country, I imagine there would be a lot of interest in not letting people leave. As when they leave they make it impossible to collect value from them.

Their debt, taxes, their money flowing into the economy to buy goods and services, and sometimes even some of their belongings and assets.

all that would just be gone

And those efforts, as well as rumors (true and false) of what lays on the other side may spur a lot of social unrest as people look for the right to jump realities, and a dramatic slip in social stability, unity, and economic stability. Which may apply to the whole world, causing a breakdown in the current order of things
Frankly, if you as a government rely on paying a bunch of people low wages to do shit jobs to run your economy, and if they are disenfranchised enough to just bail to a reality you cannot drag them back from, your system suddenly now has to change somehow, be it for better or for worse.

And that issue would become more severe as different governments crack down on efforts to do so. Probably leading to even more people becoming disenfranchised and wanting to leave. Or if a state collapses, a large segment may just take their chances being a refugee in the DragonScape rather than sticking around.

So long term the world order as we see it today would likely crumble. I don't think everyone would journey into the Dragonscape. But I imagine the human population would likely Go down by a statistically significant number. of 8.5 billion people I bet at least 1% of that over 100 years would disappear into the portals. perhaps even more!

which I mean, thats 85 million people on the low end I feel, enough to cause a serious dent in various countries depending on how those 85 million were distributed. What if its 10%? (850 million), could be quite drastic.

7)________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Eventually as years start stacking and the newcomers become more local, developing their own communities. I figure while there would be a few differences from the main canon

I think the first thing is there would be more prepulse technology in these communities. It would gradually phase out but unlike the main canon, stuff can and is maintained. Solar panels, Plastic tarps and sheets, Modern hand tools, steel saws, axes, knives, shovels, etc. Would likely mix with more indigenous material culture. As those new populations likely wouldn't be able to recreate any of the things they take into the DragonScape, nor would they really want to I bet once they get a handle on manatechnology and its capabilities.

Though there may be later arrivals on other points of the Plana, resulting in different generations of technology coming in.
I think the more interesting long term impact would be both Indigenous éldimor and newcomers working together, combining their heads to combine their technological perspectives over time to kinda 'speedrun' the technologies of more advanced manatechnologies.

Someone may take some short wave radios, knowing how they work, and may work with indigenous éldimor folks with a more concrete understanding of resonance and manatech to produce crude pulse radios, certainly not comparable to canon thalmvaric radios but something that appears far earlier in the timeline.

Same goes with electricity, electric grids would probably look a lot different. Less rubber coated wiring, and more solid copper rods moving over short distances.
Things like small windmills that can charge up rudimentary mana batteries that can be carried by seminomadic peoples to keep charging small electronics
Long term While manatechnology would likely win out, just thanks to human world tech resupplies being unreliable at best and nonexistant at worst, I would figure the technological understanding and ideas of those newcoming humans, along with the deeper understanding of manatechnology by the local éldimor would result in a pseudo thalmvar. Not nearly as complex technologically, nor with as many ruins, No artifices (or at least complex ones) nor powerful alchemistry.

But it may be similar, villages and nomads with small radios. Efficient alchemical lights, technologies like boiling and freezing bronze allowing for simple water heating and cooling, very limited electric grids driven by solar panels. Either brought in or crude photovoltaic panels made of crystalline silicon made from silica. Far less effective though. You may still see people running around with old, decades old electronics that are cared for like relics. Probably less as tools of communication (wifi? Whats that?) but more as recording devices.

And of course on the scale of a century, unless there are consistent portals to a plana that bring small reintroductions of human tech to a region, it would be phased out completely. Instead with the perspectives and ideas of those devices and tech being adapted into the far more localized infrastructure, and small scale appilcations of the DragonScape

Turning into small short wave radios used by Tribal networks to coordinate counsel meetups or announce local emergencies.

Small solar cells that look more like large crystals electrifying mana batteries to power small light arrays, radios, or audio recording and playing devices
So effectively it may look like a lot of things, but perhaps mostly a blend between the results of the Awakening and the Thalmvaric age

Small tribal networks of people, mostly making tools of lithics, bone/chitin, ceramics, copper, bronze and natural materials. But those who at the same time may dedicate a lot of time, expertise and creativity in engineering rudimentary electric systems or at least utilize and maintain human systems.

Such technologies would likely not be as common or widespread as in the thalmvaric age of the main canon, but would exist

And things I want to experiment that I have yet to decide on


1) I want to fiddle with a "no breed" system, one in which there is no concrete set of "breeds" for dragons. The environment they hatch into may have notable impacts on them, but there may not be extreme distinctions between breeds. Those regional differences may be a mix of resonant influence on things like general height and size, scale and fur color. As well as genetic aspects passed down from the parents.

Essentially the current system but with a far milder impact of resonance on an eggs development.

2) How active the sivilão may be here, These are more the Golden Age Sivilão and so would be a lot more powerful and coordinated. But they would also be somewhat less socially stable. How regularly would they make expeditions to other planar to take people? What would that look like and if they do concentrate on a plana, how could the people there resist them?

3) Balãr? Technically there was no pulse to yank the raddir from their fold in reality so on paper there wouldn't be balãr. Besides if there were in this scenario then they may present very serious threats to established entities in this canon like the Sivilão

The Prejarngalmõk is the most powerful being to occur naturally in the living fold and is comparable to a bal. But if you have a handful of balãr who see agõrl as an eyesore, the sivilão machine will break.

The Prejarngalmõk is unimagineably powerful. But the balãr are literally fallen raddir so on the very fuzzily defined powerscale of the main canon... that wouldn't end well for it if the balãr felt like it was a threat
though otherwise the Sovardi would have to be more numerous and the Sovardi are neither as powerful nor as impersonal as the Balãr. Sovardi, once being mortal beings who are the last survivors of their own civilization being exterminated down to the last mortal dragon, have some motivations usually.

In the kindest of cases (Dekúdeku, the Warlord of Tal, etc.) Its more of a neutral "any free society is a good one" kinda anarchic view informed by their reaction to the nightmare of the sivilão.

But if there are more sovardi, there would logically be more varied perspectives. Some may become more active. some may see an opportunity to become immortal kings over those they view as "inferior mutants" and adopt fascistic viewpoints, with the power to easily enforce them.

there may be others that are caring to a fault. Those who try to construct a Utopia only to wind up constructing a social artifice. A civil garden of people forced to pantomime some demigods vision of the perfect state that is simply not the vision of those forced to live it.

Out of a failed state or corrupt human nation, into a different sort of nightmare. The personal pet project of some egotistical sovard
Maybe the more true 'let people people" sovardi are able to take on these misguided or fascistic sovardi. But on the scale of the DragonScape that may take hundreds of earthen years for anyone to action respond to a horrific pet project of a demigod driven mad from watching the end of its own world
So really the Sovardi may in some cases become as nightmarish as balãr like Shõlresa, Veidrasil, Godomer, or Fruskod... just not as powerful. Though not so much less powerful as to be realistically overthrown by the mortal oppressed

so yeah

Just an alternate canon I've been thinking of. Take it as you will!

https://thelonghikecomic.com/lore-and-comic-qa/

^Voila^

Hopefully that will be a fine start! I got a good number of questions from Furaffinity and my Discord so thanks folks for asking! I hope the answers to your questions are satisfactory!

I am testing out the format so i am gonna try and figure out how much data it's all taking up on the site (data sadly costs cash that will always be a bit difficult to amass) but of course yeah! I will do everything I can to make it work as it's fun answering the questions.

If anyone has any other questions feel free to let me know!

Hey folks, what it says up there!

I have been thinking on making a simple Q&A system for the website I run for the webcomic and lore, as of course a problem with the site is that It updates slowly, I am only one person working on the site after all. But also that, due to hosting data costs I can't really afford to go into deep detail on every facet of the whole setting! Frankly I would run out of data, especially since it may be the case that folks understandably wouldnt want to read so much. So to try and hit two birds with one stone I wanted to just see if anyone was interested in asking some questions

So if you have any questions about the Dragonscape feel free to ask!

Could be about the setting, or the comics, or just about more tertiary things. Really I am not sure if anyone will ask, but feel free to ask on anything! The plan is to take the questions and try and answer them on the site with some text and, if possible, some pictures. Probably a mix of drawings that I have on hand and doodles that I draw up as needed. I have also opened up a channel for the Discord server for more specific questions for the site so if anyone is on the discord you can use that too.

Or not! If its not a terribly productive thing it is fine by me, just wanted to experiment a bit with the site, anywho, be well!

Oh and if you want a question answered on the lore, comic, or whatever feel free to ask

At least when it comes to lore, and believe me when I say I tend to just think about little niche things about the general lore of the dragonscape (most of that has been set in stone for some time), or about the comic or some cultural group within the setting outside of my comic work.

Or I think about mudbricks, I like those things.

But of course also I try and work my way around lore issues I have with my own setting and one of those that has consumed my mind for the past month is an aspect of the drek and orm diet and it is something that's been around since about the beginning of the current canon and well before it. And that simple statement is that:

Drekir nor Ormer can process cereal grains

Now, I have never been a big cook guy, I didn't understand how damn nuanced cooking can be and, thanks to a lot of information from a family member who is very into food history, as well as thanks to my own efforts to cook and understand food better I learned a lot of things that were probably taught to me in middle school that had long since fallen under a pile of multiple decades of time. Namely of course how you cook different grains and why different cereals cook differently and the question hit me like a brick. That being:

"Why exactly can drekir nor ormer process cereal grains? what about their biology makes that impossible aside from an arbitrary 'said so'".

Now granted, That answer is likely plenty easy, drekir nor ormer likely can't eat cereal grains because they simply cannot process gluten. Which is true of a lot of animals that can't eat cereal grains due to their digestive systems not being really well evolved to digest it. That inability to digest it can lead to major digestive issues due to obstructing various parts of the digestive system. Pretty bad! But that would be what I would assume is the reason drekir nor ormer can digest cereal grains, they can't process gluten at all.

But that does beg the question. A pretty loud question.

So what about gluten free options?

As frankly there are a lot of gluten free cereals out there! I mean the most famous of course being Maize, Corn. But grains and pseudograins like Millet, Buckwheat, Quinoa, Amaranth, Oats and even rice, along with many more. If the case is that drekir and ormer cannot eat cereal grains due to gluten, then whats to say they couldn't theoretically eat things like Maize, Oats, Millet and Amaranth without issue? What about natively õndemic pseudograins?

I mean obviously with respect to our own pseudograins some of those species are simply extinct in the Americas, plants like Corn and Oats need humans to spread their seeds. Seeing as the product you want would be their seeds and, seeing that you don't want those seeds shedding early, they have been genetically tweaked to just not shed their seeds. But as a result should humans disappear for several years, or more seriously 100+ years those crops (and many others) will simply die out.
That said though, it could be the case that human colonials reintroduce plants like corn and oats into the Americas. Or that simply a similar plant, either õndemic or originally of our reality, is cultivated and domesticated over thousands of years to fill a similar niche.

Another issue however is the fact that drekir are mesocarnivores, Ormer granted are omnivores so I am gonna skip them. But drekir truly need to eat meat with some regularity. about 50-70% of a dreks daily calories had best come from meat. While that doesn't exclude them from eating gluten free pseudograins assuming the above becomes canon, it does make it hard to justify settling and cultivating large fields of oats or rice when, really, meat is the common staple crop.
Though Ormer have to be dedicated agriculturalists, they just need too many calories for a genetically viable population to do much else. So I imagine they would love growing pseudograins as an easy carbohydrate source. Drekir could get a hold of any variety of regionally cultivated flour from them, but perhaps the more horticultural drekir out there may supplement wild or herded meat sources, wild fruits and plants, etc. with a quick growing, short season pseudograin. It may even mix well with subsistence strategies like Insect farming, in which insect flour can be mixed in with a starchy flour to be baked into shelf stable flatbreads. So something more to compliment their staple meat sources with a high source of carbohydrates.

So not something drekir could live off of, but definitely something that I am sure they would happily have in their life alongside a consistent source of meat.

Though lastly is more of a writers reason, and it's mostly an effort to avoid an easy path to subsistence through agriculture and that is the question I can't answer for myself (hence why I am typing this whole thing out). I just think it would be lame for a setting of mesocarnivores to all become sedentary farmers. Horticulturalism is about as far as I would imagine a drek community would go in cultivating plants, and for larger sedentary populations Insect farming may turn into the go to engine of urbanized chiefdoms, protocities and city states.
With of course more contextually important things taken as needed, like how there were dense populations in the Pacific Northwest that had gotten by for most of the regions history on hunting and gathering. Just talking with broad strokes here to keep things short.

Now on one hand, I think just making the writing decision to allow drekir and ormer access to gluten free starches and pseudograins may not really change a ton of things, especially in the time of the Awakening comics like The Long Hike. Takes time for things like this to really pick up. And even then I doubt it would change long term cultural developments since regardless at the end of the day, drekir need meat and even something similar to Maize would just be a secondary, supplementary food source rather than a source of subsistence.
But something about just handwaiving gluten free pseudograins, however strange, feels like a slight to the identity of the drekir. but I dunno, it's something I am stuck on.

If you have read this far thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts let me know of course as frankly, I am stuck on this whole thing as what started as a simple explanation of why dragons can't eat bread has turned into a bit of a mudpit. In the mean time though be well! It's gettin cold out, so nab a jacket or something

What it says in the title. Been working on the House of Salt and Oil and to be honest, I ain't feelin it.

Now granted I've pushed myself to draw through burnout and have always turned out better for it, passion really doesn't have much staying power in my experience and discipline to follow through on the ideas that passion starts to me is a good skill to have. So I can and likely will keep on drawing The House of Salt and Oil, though considering there are about 10 more weeks of drawing the comic, I can't help but find myself just wanting to return to The Long Hike.

Now The current plan is to not abandon the comic, I haven't abandoned a project in progress in 6 years and I don't really take doing that lightly, I try my best to follow through on a project to completion. But I also cannot lie, it's been a bit of a slog for the past month of drawing the comic when I really just wanna jump back to The Long Hike. It's also not that the comic isn't getting eyes, seems like folks are reading and enjoying it! Which I deeply appreciate! It's just I don't feel my heart is in the current side story and I worry that may be reflecting in the quality of the art, writing, etc.

Anywho Not sure if there is some call to action here, just wanted to get that off my chest is all. Thinking about a decision, may poll the Discord server, one way to find out what will happen after all. Be well and take care!

Well today I am officially 29 years of age! Yay!

Gonna head out to eat at a restaurant with my triplet siblings, gonna be nice! We're all 29 so best celebrate it together

So, woke up to a relatively dark situation, not just the election but in my personal life. Something I will not get in detail to the outright public here. Things are ok! But things definitely went dark.

And Donald Trump won the election. The Maga party won the house and the senate. They have a trifecta to do whatever they will in my country. My country, seemingly full of fascists, monarchists, and most of all useful idiots just voted in the man who said he was gonna destroy the social net, plunge us into a depression, and wreck our liberties.

I am saddened to the say the least. But tomorrow is still here anyways. I have slowly built up money over the past few months, about 3000 dollars, and I think it's time I put that to use. I am gonna get myself a CELTA certification and I am gonna leave the country. It's been a long debate between that or moving to Michigan, I think this settles that.

So how is this gonna impact the comics?

I don't know, the CELTA is a full time commitment, 40 hours a week, and I would likely be doing that in conjunction with my job once it starts so I can build up the cash needed to leave as soon as I can. That said for now things will continue on the usual schedule as for now I still need to put that 3000 down, take the course, receive the certification and everything. But once that whole thing starts up, my free time is going to be lower than ever before. It's gonna be like working two jobs, so at least for a month or two the comic may have to stop.

But frankly, I think it's time to leave the US, many of my family members are focusing on the same thing and/or are trying to convince those that aren't. Things are likely to get real dark here real fast.

I will keep you folks updated. But in short, I think it's time to leave. Perhaps it's been time to leave but I think this is the wake up call to not take things slow. I have never really been financially stable at all in my life, 3000 dollars is the most I've ever really spent in one place, even more than my car. But things have to move fast or that may be it.


Be well, Be safe, and move decisively

Hey! Hi! Hello! howdyfolks!

So there was some confusion about the first page of this comic which is totally fair as it takes place in the thalmvar which, while a part of the setting I've built up over the past 2 years I've only scarcely talked about on the discord and barely here! There are a few drawings in the Gallery that talk about the Thalmvar, Celestial Ships , Artifices, etc. But time for some context me thinks!

History of the Timeline in about a few paragraphs

This is going to generalize a lot as the entire timeline is rather complicated, and probably best not all spilled here to explain what the Thalmvar is!

Of course the timeline never really stops with Imua and the Long Hike, if anything Imuas story takes place in the transition between the early awakening (when the 1st generation is around to build and live in the first iterations of draconic society). But even the period Imua lives in, known as the Awakening period will far outlast her, ending around 150 years Post Awakening (PA)

Really the timeline keeps going, to keep things short we're going to simply sum up the first 10,000 years. Which is a long set of ages in which bronze metallurgy becomes a generally dominant technology, though not universal. Where several empires and states rise and inevitably collapse, and where slowly different iterations on manatechnology develop. Eventually at the end of those 10,000 years the last of the Sivilão would finally fall under the first, truly stable and long lasting nation states, powered by industrialized manatechnologies and urbanized, intensive insect farming peoples.

This would usher in what is known as the draconic golden age, a 4000 year long period of generally stable existence, and something in which much of the technologies that would define the rest of the timeline would proliferate. This period was simply, a golden age! Between the various rural tribes and communities and urbanized states and nations it was generally a peaceful time, not entirely mind you! but peaceful enough. The proliferation of manatechnology also would go on to achieve some rather fantastical things that for now I will save for more specific rambles or lore entries. This is also where some of the rotted remnants of the thalmvar would see their birth, like the Priests of Syrinx.

However these golden age societies would slowly rot or collapse

Gradually, case by case over millennia, the industrialization of the american plana specifically would take it's toll, putting increased environmental and economic strain on various states. Some would collapse outright into non state societies, and others would descend into more totalitarian, extremist militant states. Closer to the end of these thousands of years of gradual rot many of these more totalitarian states would swallow up most others, forming a series of large, draconic blocks in the Americas mainly. These draconic blocks, as well as the societies before them long understood that humanity was on the outside of their realm as, frankly, interactions with humanity would continue between the Awakening and Thalmvaric age.
Moreover a bigotry against humans by dragons is something that is as old as GoDomer in the Awakening period and, with these increasingly massive, nationalistic blocks, ideologies of draconic supremacy would proliferate and fester.

This, at some point lost to time close to 20,000PA would explode into the universally apocalyptic event known as the Human Thalmvaric war. The Steiron (the thing broken that started this whole mess eons ago by this point) Would be broken entirely, crumbling and smashing what was left of our own reality and õndemic reality in a cataclysmic collision.

A united front of fascistic societies across the Americas themselves would poor across the destroyed, crashing boundaries with vast armadas to wipe out humanity, colonize the new planar constructed of the remaining continents of Earth and the Moon, and suck the resources of those continents dry. Though of course humanity themselves had 20,000 years to recover and prepare themselves, leading ot the establishment of Nullzones that could resist õndemic reality. Which turned what was meant to be a speed invasion into a centuries long war of protracted sieges.

Dragons from Logáu and another plana, Agõrl, would rally to fight against this American axis and would invade the Americas. Of course the scale of this war is hard to put into words, it was a war that literally shattered realities and glassed entire planar. It lasted for centuries with armies going from professional militaries at the zenith of their technological capabilities to little more than post apocalyptic raiders.

While eventually humanity was made extinct at the end of 589 years of non stop warfare and the death of trillions, the american societies that once started the war would themselves collapse entirely, leading to the death of billions more under the immense ecological collapse and distortion of the Americas. Many of these remnants, as well as survivors from Logáu, Agõrl, and the drekified remnants of humanity, would all flee into the endless skies of the Celeste that replaced our own Space, to settle in new places.

After that point the timeline becomes impossible to truly track, as a day let alone a year is going to vary plana to plana and expanse to expanse, made worse by the storms of reality disruptions that could mess with time itself outright. so when I mention "years" it would be 365 days in any of the Planar of the Earthen Expanse.

Those being Suyu (Americas) , Logáu, Agõrl, The Moon Belt, Erob (Europe, North Africa, West Eurasia, Caucuses), Alkebulán (Africa, Arabic Peninsula, Central Asia, Middle East) and Zoqon (Asia, SE Asia, the Pacific Islands). Which are all connected by the same sea known as the Great Earthen Celestial way

But of course at this point there are *millions* of planar that, over thousands of years become inhabited by both Draconic Éldimor (Drekir, Ormer, Mavõtur) as well as other species, (Pradadi, Rusqub etc.) over a universes distance. Each one of those planar are going to themselves have histories and measurements of time that are completely separate from what any single measurement of time can capture.

This is the age of the endless onward, an apocalypse that never truly ends, and an age after the end of any one time. It's the Thalmvar! Kinda the endpont of the timeline of the Dragonscape as after this point there is no way to really measure time in any way that is helpful to any particular part of the lore.

And that is the period in which This side story takes place

The Martian Expanse of Planar are a whole different set of landmasses floating in the endless skies from the Earthen planar, with very different conditions. They only formed during the Human Thalmvaric war as a consequence of the Steiron being destroyed and were only settled after the slaying of the Syrinxian Overlord by the Sovard known as the Last Warlord of Tal.

That fight would break the dominant and incredibly advanced syrinxian priests, by that point more bronze than flesh, more oil than water. Their ships would scatter across the Celeste and many of their ships would themselves wreck upon the various planar of mars in a particularly high concentration. The survivors of these ships would start anew, namely the enslaved flesh thralls the syrinxians would use to do bulk labor unbefitting beings of the age of metal. As such the Martian planar can actually pull a lot of history from their Syrinxian past just as those old immortal automatons can serve as stark, crazed reminders corroding away deep in their titanic ruins.

So the drekir in this story, almost 8000 earthen planarial years after the war (as if that matters by that point) are some of those descendants.

There are a lot of other things to cover, but I did want to answer some questions in a more detailed way that were brought up in the comment of page 1


Why are these communities so "low tech" in spite of it being so far in the timeline?

I think there are a few answers

The first is simply that being in the future doesn't guarantee a high tech society. Just like how the future for the late Bronze Age was a 500 year period that saw a widespread loss of writing. Even moreover, progress itself is subjective. The DragonScape itself is a place where societies change in ways that usually arent in the direction of big nation states and empires. It's a place where empires and nations rise and buckle under their own weight and collapse. Much like how I feel our own history as people is.

The second is that manatechnology can be very powerful in an industrialized economy and scale. But really one of its greatest advantages is that you don't need complex logistical chains and interlocking economies of scale and industry to achieve. Manatechnology allows people to obtain a pretty high standard of living without nearly as much work as conventional technologies.

A fridge is as simple as a temperature proof room floored with stabilized ice slate, a hot shower is a simple reservoir and tap with a piece of perpetually hot "boiling bronze". Fast transportation is as simple as using a reality press to break an antigrav obelisk into existance and building a vehicle around it. Even robotics is as simple as building a mechanical body and getting a spirit to inhabit it for a time.
You can gain more while industrialized but for many dragons, especially in the unstable reality of the thalmvar, they don't need to in order to get by comfortably.

That isn't to say there aren't nations, city states or even interplanarial empires. It's just they are rare, I tend to say a lot to folks that I think of the DragonScape as an inherently anarchic universe in nature and that is reinforced by things like how the éldimor operate as species amongst other aspects. It is not a setting of complex international or planarial politics and wars, it's a setting of small rural communities and tribal politics. Even in the thalmvar while the technology has changed, that still remains!

Is this canonical to The Long Hike?

Well it's in the same universe and same timeline! Just separated from Imuas story by almost 28,000 years (on the earthen planar) So really quite far outside of the context in which Imua would live her life! But who knows? The afterlife is canonically a randomized reincarnation so it could be possible that a version of Imua could reincarnate as a Thalmvaric drek or orm!

But really while TLH and this story are on the same timeline, they're so far apart from eachother that the rules will look a bit different. Same basics! But very distant!


Let me know if you got questions

Reality is, like with the Awakening period the lore can be quite expansive and its hard to know where to start with answering a question unless someone asks one! so if you got a question, feel free to ask! Happy to expand in more detail about things as specified

Be well!

And so have a few short announcements as this whole 3 chapter act of the Long Hike has finished! A pretty clean sweep of bandits with the crew headed East to the Great Lake. Which is exciting as the Great Lake, while not the oldest lore in the DragonScape as a setting (from 2018/2019 is regardless close to the oldest lore thath as been sitting around for 5 years gathering dust. Gotta get in contact with some folks to work out some potential updates to the lore that they had contributed all that time ago while updating some of my own lore. It's gonna be a neat part of the setting!

First things first, gonna take a week to breathe for a moment

Work on some patreon stuff, prep the old 2018 Great Lake lore, just breathe and rest my carpal tunnel addled wrists. You know poor me I am an ancient man older than what the young can even comprehend! I am almost 29! so very, very, very ancient and withered am I!

woe is me

but regardless, takin a week to breathe and then I'll get back into the comic, but that comic is likely gonna be a side story

A glance into the future!

20,000 years into the future as a matter of fact, Gonna tell a Thalmvaric side story as I think its about time to put that perhaps less heavily talked about part of the setting online into a story. Truth is i've been slowly pecking away at the setting in my personal time, a fair bit has been communicated on discord with a lot of thalmvaric lore kept to myself. So perhaps this may come as a left hook as far as settings of the DragonScape but I am still excited to show it off!

That's everything!

Thanks for reading! It means the world to me, really it does! It gives me a lot of drive to work on the comic and makes my heart warm up a fair bit, especially in the world we find ourselves in today. Thank you! A billion

Be well, be safe!