Weekly Update - 213 - 4/8/2024 (Patreon)

Comic this week? Yes! I think so. As you can see it isn't very far along yet. But I think I can still get it done by the end of Wednesday.

Drawing: Max art (I promise!), Stickers, Page 193

Playing: Nothing but drawing until Thursday, when the new Rimworld DLC comes out and you better believe I'm playing that!

Fortunately I... think it might not disrupt a comic post for next week. No, I won't let it. If it comes down to needing to skip a page, I won't let a video game be my excuse!

Ramble:

Lessee... More lore? More lore.

So as the legends of history near the present, the accounts start to get a little more accurate. More similar tales corroborate one another, more people had family that knew family that knew family that still remembered living through the times. There may even be elders living today that were born during the latter years of this time period.

A Depression of Opportunity

In the generations that followed the devastation wrought by the overzealous Hunters, Kuserra needed a lot of rebuilding. Populations throughout the city had been decimated, settlements were razed, industry and trade destroyed. Things were in a desperate need for stability, and so certain enterprising individuals, those we know today as Landlords, stepped in to try and provide some. Landlords of this time were usually your run-of-the-mill gang leaders, the heads of large families, the wealthiest or most well-supplied traders, cult leaders, or other opportunists. Really anyone with the power, wealth or charisma to attract a few dozen followers and the gall to try and lay claim to a territory they thought they could protect could try and position themselves as a Landlord.

Bit by bit they started to divide up the remains of the city, but these territories and their borders changed constantly, especially in the beginning. Landlords were almost always at war with each other, though the form that took varied wildly depending on the individual. Some built armies of assassins, eliminating their rivals in the dead of night, others outfitted their armies in the shiniest rusted scrap armor they could find, preferring to march into their opponent’s territory and take it with an impressive display of force.

Despite this churn, conflicts rarely escalated to open, rampant violence. People still remembered the violence of the previous years, and they were sick of it, and even the Landlords themselves were.sick of it, and many of them focused mainly on defending their territory and rebuilding, rather than conquering or destroying. There was no value, after all, in lording over an empty territory. Conflicts, when they did turn bloody, were limited to small, localized skirmishes, with one side usually conceding and retreating to preserve their own lives rather than risk dying. Often Landlords would appoint champions to defeat other Landlords' champions in single combat, rather than risk all-out confrontation.

This seems to have continued for many generations, with things slowly trending towards stability as the wealthy and more established Landlords grew wealthier and even more established, and the smaller and unknown Landlords struggled to climb over ever more difficult obstacles to try and claim their sliver of territory.