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Illumination 29: A Mysterious Race

Illumination 29: A Mysterious Race published on 42 Comments on Illumination 29: A Mysterious Race

I’m sorry this is just the inks! I was SUPER sick on Friday and Saturday and I’m still recovering from a really nasty stomach flu, so I wasn’t able to get this page done on time. I’ll replace this with the finished version as soon as it is done!

Thank you so much for your patience! I appreciate it!

Edit: I’ve uploaded the finished page! Thank you everyone for your patience!

42 Comments

I’m… not sure I trust this guy any-more. When people said he wasn’t actually supplying any information that he hadn’t first extracted, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but now it’s starting to wear a little thin.

Ravi is a the mentor prophet, His job is to get some bits of the story and prod some pieces into play.
The paradox about trusting him will be this, His first focus is the big picture and helping the pawns play their role, Often they will do what they can to protect them but…that big picture.

Still he is still on the board as well…

For some reason I feel if you’re right. I do not know much about Rakshas, but I remember something about how Rakshas are tricksters. Plus, I don’t trust Ravi’s huge eyebrows, they seem to show fake emotion (at least to me).

He’s not a Raksha (vengeful demon), he’s a Yaksha (devine being/guide).
He’s kinda like an angel, or muslim jinn. Most are benevolent, and they tend to be long lived enough that giving away answers is too boring. Especially since he’s doing this by himself and doesn’t appear to currently be a messenger for any deities.

seems more to me that he’s guiding them into putting together information they already have. If he’s a buddhist-based creature that’d fit his MO. he’s not there to infodump them with all the answers, but to help them realize they already had everything they need, they just need to know the right questions to ask, or know that a certain piece of information is especially important.

But watch me be 100& wrong and he’s really one of those demons from before wearing this dude’s skin or whatever. :(

You know what, I really love this explanation. It’s actually pretty elegant and fits right in with Buddhist teaching; a teacher’s job is not to teach, it’s to point the student towards the things they already have within themselves to realize they’re complete. That’s going to be my head-canon from now on, and I’ll be equally shocked when he turns out to be a horrific bad guy. :)

Hmm, might we see Phoenix in this chapter? Or is he bluffing about his species?
(Also hope you get well soon Kory!)

You’re making the assumption that the character Phoenix is a phoenix.
All we know is that the name of the character is Phoenix. We do not know what Mythical Race he is, if any.

Well, he is wearing a medallion. Whether it’s for fashion reasons or not we have yet to find out. Then again, if he doesn’t need that medallion, why does he have it? Wouldn’t someone else need it?

So the medallions were made from that ‘egg’. *information*

Sounds like a solid theory! In fact, it all makes sense! I dunno what the people behind the Patreon veil know, but I’m guessing that the “egg” was instrumental in making the medallions, but they needed someone with an innate sense of magic to unlock the spell infused in the medallions, someone like, say, a member of a long-dormant magically powerful species?

Then again, we poor sinners have to wait every week for this story to unfold, so it’s all speculation at this point

I like this new line of speculation.

We know there are at least two damaged medallions in-universe, three if you count Sam. The magic to create new ones was lost, but it seems like there were at least two production runs or one that lasted many years.

I’m wondering if the war wasn’t because the dragons were jealous, but because the sphinx controlled production of the medallions and was excluding some species. (How many non-humans from outside of the roman empire have shapeshifting instead of medallions?)

Maybe Michelle’s destiny is to create another batch of medallions? Greg may not be able to get a new one, but his kid would probably prefer not to inherit his. Perhaps the harpies and everyone else who doesn’t have medallions could finally get disguises.

We have to wait on Patreon as well, Weirdo.
Getting the pencils and then uncoloured inks early doesn’t shorten the time between them.

I don’t see how all the Medallions in existence could have all come from one ‘egg’.
The phoenix ‘egg’ becoming linked to the Medallion Magic in the Medallions of the Cavern Guardians over the centuries, is what I think might have happened.

As for the thinking that Michelle could ‘unlock the spell infused in the medallions’, no.
The Medallion Magic unlocked Michelle.
Sphinxes were numerous enough for the Great War to happen, and for members of other Mythical Races to be dragged into the conflict. Medallions existed for Millennia before the Great War.

I didn’t mean that the Sphinxes made the medallions just before or during the Great War, I’m saying that maybe Michelle has something in her magic-ness that can help with the construction of medallions. Of course medallions existed for a long time before, all I’m saying is that Michelle may have something to do with them. I’m assuming the art of making the medallions died along with the majority of the Sphinxes. Even if there was only one Sphinx that held the secret to making them, the craft died with him/her.

And besides, that egg thing in Michelle’s dream, we’re just trying to connect the dots to what’s being presented to us. Jim says that the Finns are guarding the husk of a Phoenix’s rebirth, and that it looks like an egg. For us who don’t know as much as Kory, we’re just trying to tie up loose ends

Kory, get well soon. Bless your conscience for getting this week’s strip here on time when you should be wrapped up in bed! Rest well and feel better.

I love seeing your art in just the inks. It’s like you’ve given us a Skin Deep coloring book.

Are you a fan of the Russian artist Bilibin? The cleanness of your lines, and a lot of your outdoor backdrops, remind me of him. Beautifully talented, both of you.

Sooooo… the spiral egg comet thing in Michelle’s vision might be the phoenix egg? The bird might be… the phoenix? It’s drabber than usually depicted, but it does appear to have some bright swirls coming off it.

Who’s to say ‘real’ phoenixes don’t look like that, anyway? Or that they can’t change their appearance to some degree. They’re most likely ridiculously magical creatures, if the myths about them are anything to go by. Who knows what amazing and/or downright weird things they can do.

Jim’s eyes in this page are fun.
In frames 2 and 3 he thinks that Ravi’s question is something minor, and his eyes get the cartoony look. Then in frame 4 he realises that Ravi’s questions are Important. And in frames 5 and 6 his eyes have all their detail.

Thinking about Jim, I’m wondering if he’s the first Finn with the curse, that is not destined to be a Cavern Guardian.

Except that Jim has explicitly mentioned at least one previous curse-bearer, Phineas the Green, daughter of Phineas the Red, back on the second page of this story.

We don’t yet know if Phineas II, the daughter of Phineas, was his first born, or if females are allowed to be the Cavern Guardian.
Right now, all we have to go on are that Paul, first born male of the current Finn siblings is to become the latest Cavern Guardian, and that Phineas was the first Cavern Guardian.

More questions that I thought of, about this page, over on Patreon when it was still at the pencils stage.

Why did the phoenix choose Phineas?

Was this before or after the Great War?

If Phineas was the First Cavern Guardian, was it the phoenix who gave the Finns the ‘curse’, so the ‘egg’ could be guarded?

KORY! Your artwork is amazing, and is the best comic I have read in years! I have a few questions that I think are pretty good. One: What are the favorite sports of the orientations group? Two: Is the Liverpool Alivion a real place?! And finally will there ever be a nemion lion medallion ever be available? Thanks for making this amazing series!!

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