I don’t think this conflict was necessarily the one you all were dying to see…HR and Taro were more compelling villains. But showing Taro’s crown falling off his head would’ve been too much of a spoiler.

We had other options, for sure. This cover could’ve easily been a Gastonian flag overlooking the war coming to the outskirts of the capital city. Or the Ultimate Engine, which is probably the McGuffiniest McGuffin in this chapter. Or even a proper map of the war, like the one that Jarvis spends much of this chapter studying.

The reason we went with this option, I think, is that it wraps up the personal with the allegorical. It’s Frigg versus Ardaic, and it’s what she represents versus what he represents. And if you need a representative of the nation once called Gastonia, well, that’s the role Ardaic’s prepared his whole life to play.