Thief 2
Another thing Phil and I debated was how specific to get about the Mcguffin during these first two expository pages. I would’ve had Isidro muse “[REDACTED] Egg of [REDACTED], eh?” as soon as he got the assignment. Out of respect for Phil’s approach, and since this story’s probably got some first-time readers, I’ll leave those “Redacteds” up until the time comes.
Redplume was not in Phil’s original notes for the Savage Races, copious though they were: it was more of an extrapolation on the fact that Savage-Race settlements tended to be built on fairly flat terrain and didn’t seem to include much avian housing, so they had to be elsewhere. Phil’s notes for this page:
“The Avians live in a seemingly complex (but perfectly logical in the mind of the avian) network of tree-houses, tree-huts, rope bridges, rope-lines for perching, and so on. A place where people who fly live, but those of them that aren’t as air-worthy can also live in reasonable comfort. It looks rather peaceful, lit warmly by lamps and fires and torches and whatnot. They are tall, way high up in some fantastically tall trees where any man would surely die if they fell from the height… At the base of the trees, there can be a couple of rope-pulley elevators with deadweights that non-flyers can use to enter the village in the background. Before it, a mob of land sharks patrols around, ready to eviscerate whoever looks at them funny. Some of them are even armored, as their job is just THAT fucking important.”
Looks like John captured Phil’s ideas perfectly. Beautiful page.
Looks kind of like a Christmas tree.
It really does.
We never got to see a lot of the Avian culture in the main story, so I enjoyed the opportunity to design some of their architecture and artifacts and stuff. And I got to draw shark armor too!
“Shark armor” as a wearable sounds ever so slightly redundant – sharks’ skin is naturally a sort of armor, or so I’m told.
Then again, ordinary sharks don’t carry spears or other weapons, either. So it fits the pattern.
So are avians literally cold-blooded, or are they “cold-blooded, literally”?
(or don’t thieves care enough to know?)