Feedback on a character concept~ (high fantasy)

[Mari]

I'm working with an artist friend on a high fantasy collab (will be a webcomic at some point, right now it's just 30 pages of google docs lmao).

Character description below, some explanations first.
-Drow elves in D&D terms are a hedonistic violent matriarchal society where men are nothing more but second class citizen. They live underground. We've kept this kind of as is, although it's modified a little to suit the placement of the story (a continent that's largely like australia)
-Dryads are heavily modified. Instead of being forest seirens, they're legit plant people, and we've made it so 1 species of tree = 1 dryad, and the species are basis on their outward appearance, and the tree which they are born has to be linked to "the mother tree" genetically ( for example, if a dryad of a certain species dies, another dryad like her will be born from a seed of the same tree/children that the previous dryad was from). Female only.

Varinn:
Half dryad half drow.
Drow dad enslaved dryad mom(the mother of all the world's dryads, honorific "aditha", an indian name meaning the first root), and they all lived in his abode in the underground
The day he was born (by drow dad's magix), her mom gave him a seedpod that fell from her tree. He wears it as a necklace
His mom was always pretty sad, and his dad was either abusive or indifferent. He had a lonely childhood, and had a hard time getting the attention he needed from either of his parents.
Mom died as her tree slowly withered away in the underground, when dad didn’t allow her to leave or teleport the tree away. Resents his dad for this?
Matron mother came after dad, and took Varinn as a slave, when he was maybe 10 or so. Then took him as her toyboy when he was older, and liked showing him off because he pretty. Also always dressed him in very pretty stuff.
Varinn also met his sister Z’iksha, who was jealous of the attention her mom was giving varinn, and even more when they grew older and varinn was privy to more tactical etc. information and her mom’s plans, because mom didn’t mistrust him like she mistrusted her (didn’t give him enough agency to even think of mistrusting him, and kept him pretty close in general)
Varinn was smug and liked teasing Z’iksha, because she was the only one he really had any social power over. She couldn’t hurt him because of her mom’s protection. She came to resent him.
Z’iksha finally took over by assassinating her mom and usurping her as the matron mother and high-priestess. She was just about to make Varinn her first sacrifice to her goddess the spider queen Lolth, when Alar interrupted them. She was one of the few to escape the encounter with her life.
Cynical, bitter. Pretty depressed for having lived apart from green nature his whole life (like everything else wouldn’t be enough to justify that :p)
Meets Alar.
Has a snarky mouth :P. Likes beautiful things. Has trouble openly or fully embracing this & his dryad side in general because of his history.

The insectoid dragon can be ignored for now, other than design-wise, it's a little long to explain. It's based on the long tailed emperor butterfly ( a mix between the caterpillar & butterfly form).
the flowers will be based on "the little kurrajong" brush plant in later designs + his bark patches will be more defined & asymmetrical. This is just the latest we have atm

Varinn's dryad mother's design (first draft)

She's based on the Kurrajong tree (The bottle tree). It hosts long tailed emperor butterflies, which is why those are featured as well.

So, any feedback you may have (about designs or general backstory) would be super helpful~

[joe_galindez]

I'm looking forward to it.

[Zaboem]

I like it. Visually, the character has a unique look about him. He's not too complex draw regularly. The colors are soft (which I am thinking was intentional) and pleasing to.my eye. It fits his description.

My only issue is with that description. This character is certainly pitiable, but would he be fun to read? Bitter, long suffering, disempowered, and probably depressed makes for a problematic protagonist. Is Varrin the protagonist of the story?

[Croik]

Very interesting stuff! I especially like that it sounds like the Dryads aren't the pure, good forest children you might expect from other high fantasy stories. The idea of tree people staging revolts that aren't against nasty humans ruining forests is refreshing.

A little curious how Varinn's dad was able to kidnap and enslave a wife when his society is matriarchal, did the Drow women not care because she was a Dryad, or not know? And have you decided at what point in the story the comic itself will open?

[Mari]

@zaboem

He and Alar (who is a racist & prejudiced & self-righteous human paladin of an order that follows the Goddess Eir balu Váltyr, which translates to "Mercy, Misfortune, the slain god" from old norse. This is the reason he doesn't kill Varinn during the initial confrontation, as his religion forces him to show mercy to anyone who begs for it. There's a convoluted backstory about the goddess, who is more akin to a saint, and about the order.) are both main characters. Varinn's story arch / chardev is actually about empowerement & self-acceptance, funnily enough. So he might be a bit of a drag to read at first, which is why we paired him with (a little) comical character that's all about humble-bragging. I'm hoping it'll make up for Varinn's depressing origin and cynical outlook ^^

@Croik
Thank you! The dryads in our setting fall more into the chaotic neutral spectrum of things. They're very protective of their trees yes, but they also don't really care about who they inflict revenge upon.

Oh right, that I forgot to mention completely (it's in a different section of the dev document oops), but Varinn's father doesn't actually live in the drow society. He fucked off precicely because it's a matriarchal society, and he being proud (as drows are) and magically adept didn't care to be classified as lesser. Which is why the Matron mother (the one assasinated in the future) comes for him in the first place. Anyway dryads can't go far from their trees, so Varinn's father kind of kidnapped the mother & the tree to his lair, so that's basically the story behind that. And she's not his wife, more so an object of sickly infatuation, it's all completely one-sided o/

the comic opens on the scene where Z'iksha is preparing to sacrifice Varinn for Loth, and Alar bursts in (On his order's bidding, under Z'iksha the drows have been very aggressive & slowly migrating away from the underground caverns)

[ChristodeBoyet]

I'm into it. Do you plan on putting up a thread with a link in the forums on release?

[Mari]

thank you! And yeah, probably :)!

[joe_galindez]

"Why did you kick me?"

"To check for bees!"

[Croik]

Ahh, okay! That makes sense. I thought maybe he had forced her into marriage or something.

It sounds like you're going to have a lot of information for your readers to take in right off the bat, so I definitely suggest having a friend or editor looking over the comic once you start, to make sure it's not overloaded. But it sounds like a really interesting setup, can't wait to see it in action!

[MoonSquid]

UGH I adore these so much! 0__0 can’t wait to read it!

[Mari]

@Croik
Oh, we'll try to include the information in a sneaky way and it's not all presented immediately. We both share the dislike for random text boxes of holy backstory, so it'll definitely be interesting to try to work around using them.

@MoonSquid

Thank you!!! I'm glad you like them 'w' I hope you can read it soon~

[Mari]

some update for Varinn's face/bark stuff. Finally he has the right flowers in his hair too.

Some super rough of the other lead, Alar o/

This is the paladin order's armor (he has a lighter one for adventuring). The symbol is from an old norse housefront (sigils on rooftops) for redemption. The whole symbol will be included later in super secret plot ways ;o

[Mari]

This is a NSFW thing. No dicks anywhere, but implied sexual content.

can someone tell me why only when I draw porn it turns out halfway decent like bitch why.

[joe_galindez]

chain t-shirt

eye twitch

[Mari]

You forgot the (lol)

[EdenStar]

I like your designs, there very visually engaging. The porn's also nice even sans actual porn, lol. I'm also a vetran DnD player with a history of playing many an under-dark maiden. Not sure if you want suggestions so no worries if you aren't interested in the next bit.

If the father nabbed the mothers tree and placed it somewhere where it got only weak light from a crack in the stone vault over head and kept her alive but slowly weakening that might be a good visual short hand explanation for why she didn't die faster and couldn't summon enough strength to teleport. Unless your altering the DnD elven development time frame. A human adventure is about fourteen + when they start out, an elf is 115 ish.

For the bursting in part, might be good to have that happen above ground at a new alter to Lolth. If Z'iksha is moving to expand her territory above ground concencrating alters to her goddess would be important. It would also give Alar an obvious means of knowing whats up and reason to piss in her cheerios that wouldn't need a lot of explanation upfront.

[Mari]

The tree stuff is basically what we have planned ^-^ Also we decided to keep elven ages similiar to human (at face value) since trying to explain it to readers who are not familiar with any sort of high fantasy mechanics would result in some very awkward exposition.

that's an interesting idea, about the above ground altar. I'll have to talk about it with my friend o7

[EdenStar]

Cool and yeah, the elven life span thing and developmental phases is kind of weird to wrap your head around even when your familiar with it.

For the other stuff my brains just hard wired at this point to try and simplify information down to as much "show" vs. tell as I can manage. Its neat when I find I'm thinking along the same lines as someone else. Best wishes for your project.