SPACE KNIGHTS- WIP overview (Patreon)

As promised, here's a write up about another story/world/set of characters I've been developing and thinking about lately! It's nice to have something else on the backburner to play around with, and helps me stay motivated for Sparks. You would've seen these in my sketchbooks tagged as scifi boys, I honestly can't think of a good name for it so I'm just going to tag it as 'Space Knights' from now on hahaha. 

This might be the comic I work on when Sparks is completed, or it might not! A lot of this will probably change in the future as well since it's still very early in development, but hopefully this will give you some context that will make it funner to see these characters popping up in my sketchbooks. 

THE SETTING

Although I've been calling it 'scifi' its definitely more of a 'light' scifi. The story all takes place on one planet and space travel isn't established. There are some high tech aspects (flying vehicles, electronics, etc) but I also want it to be a very beautiful mostly natural world that feels more fantasy-esque and less capitalist-hellscape (I wonder why.. haha).

The planet has one large moon which orbits very close, and there was travel between the planet and the moon in the distant past. 

THE KNIGHTS

In the distant past, the dark side of their moon was infested by some kind of eldritch alien monster-god. Travel between the moon and planet was forced to stop, and wraiths/beings from this creature often appear on the planet and cause general havoc. (This part is a little underdeveloped, haha) 

A first pass image of a wraith.

An order of Knights were founded to combat this, with the goal of keeping the planet safe and finding a way to eradicate this creature from their moon. 

Only orphans are considered as potential knights- because odds are you probably won't live a long and peaceful life. Knights are celibate, can't own property/titles, marry, etc. But they are treated as heroes, admired, given free travel/hospitality wherever they go, etc. Basically think Jedi, hahaha. (This is the story I started making thinking about my favorite parts of Star Wars after all)

As you can see here, their uniforms are colour coded by their rank. I'm toying with the idea of them having these swords who's blades can appear/disappear but not solid on that yet. Pages are how all Knights start out, and they're paired with a Knight (their master) who trains them. They're also given the mark on their right hand. 

THE RITUAL

When their master feels they're ready, the Pages are brought to the capital of the Knights for a ritual to initiate them as Squires. This only takes place once a year! It's a big event, widely televised, press etc, and people definitely place bets on who they think are going to make it through. 

The masters of the Pages brought to the ritual, along with the elders, do some sort of ritual (still hammering this out) that essentially opens a portal/doorway to the dark side of the moon. The Pages need to enter, find a wraith to kill, and eat part of it- then find their way back through the portal while they can still stand. Ingesting part of a wraith starts a process of possession/mutation- but the mark they have on their right hand contains this to that spot. Still, it's very painful, and Pages die during this process pretty frequently even if they manage to make it back out through the portal. 

If you survive it though, you're now a Squire, with GROSS HAND!!! Hooray! The default state is what's seen on the far left here- and all Squires and Knights wear a wrap around their hand to keep it covered. Squires and Knights both suffer frequent nightmares after this and have to maintain a firm state of self control to make sure it doesn't spread or take control of their arm/body from them. BUT now they can purposefully let it spread in a controlled manner through their arm (middle and rightmost image) giving them Big Strong Gross Arm which is what allows them to more effectively fight wraiths. 

Knights who don't die before they reach retirement age can have their arm amputated to become an Elder- no longer able to fight, but also able to rest and keep training the upcoming generations. On the other hand, if the possession spreads too far or too permanently and you're not able to get it back under control, your fellow Knights will have to kill you before you become a danger to everyone else. As you can imagine, there's not all that many Knights, which further lends to their celebrity/hero status. 

THE STORY 

So now we have the setting and world building down, here's our characters and what the story will be about!

Master Ryler is a well-known and liked Knight. He's got a great track record, and is now training his first Page after years of travelling and working. 

Flickoran nickname Flick, is that Page! He's been travelling and training with Ryler for a few years in wilderness areas and is nervous and excited for his chance to become a Squire. He idolizes Ryler. 

• The information below spoils what would be the first chapter or so of this if I make it into a comic, so if you'd rather not know, don't read further! 

When Ryler and Flick reach the capital for the Ritual, Ryler is pulled aside by the elders to be told about a certain situation unfolding... one of his fellow Knights and very close friends (maybe.. more than friends??) who he hasn't seen in years has been killed. They know about this because Ajax, the Page that his friend was training, travelled alone to the capital after surviving this attack to report the news. 

According to Ajax, his Master was killed by humans working together with Wraiths, which is unheard of and cause for much concern. Ajax is asking to take part in the Ritual, which is also being debated as he no longer has a master that would train him, and its unverifiable whether his master thought he was ready for it or not. 

Ryler, wanting to trust in his friend's judgement at taking on this Page and continue on his will, asks that Ajax be allowed to take part in the Ritual and that if he survives Ryler himself will take him on as his Squire. Realistically its unlikely that both Flick and Ajax would survive the Ritual, so the Elders allow it. 

But of course, surprise! They both pass! Ryler is now the first Master to ever be training two Squires concurrently. Flick is blindsided and intensely jealous over this new guy taking up his Master's attention, especially because Ajax appears to be an unhinged asshole. He doesn't have much time to put up a fight though, because once they've both fully recovered from the Ritual, the three of them are tasked with investigating the death of Ajax's master. 

And that's where the story will really kick off! What is the truth behind the mysterious death of Ajax's master... will Ajax and Flick be able to put aside their mutual dislike of one another... will Ryler be able to handle this tangled pile of bullshit he's been handed... dun dun DUN! 

Haha, all right, so I hope that was fun to read about and makes these characters more interesting to see! I never usually talk about my characters/stories etc in this way except to a few close friends/my partner, but I want this patreon to become a place where I can share all this sort of stuff (like a bit of a blog) so here we go, I might do another thing like this in the future about my characters Hazel & Lux too!