As I'm in the process of editing back issues at the moment, I've decided to start my blog commentaries with the most recently edited issue; Descendants #35 “Demonology”.
Near the end of Year 3, I came to the horrified conclusion that I had miscalculated the number of issues left and now had 2 more issues to fill before the Annual. These situations where padding is needed is often a godsend when I don't feel constrained by my plants to move the plot and it lets me touch on concepts and characters that aren't immediately integral to the current story and character arcs.
Thus, I used the first of the 'extra' issues to address the magical world and on the often overlooked character of Laurel. More under the cut.
“Demonology” was originally going to be “A Study In Demonology”, a full title reference to the Hole song Celebrity Skin. While clunky, it referred to the Darlene/Rehenimaru relationship which I wanted to follow further, but lost as I got caught up in the characters of Aenix and Ecksion, who I used to tease some Faerie ecology.
Aenix is a daoine, which is a Celtic word for elf. The daoine of the Descendants universe are a cross between the very old 'fair folk' mythology when elves were scary, dangerous creatures of the night and the high elves popularized by Tolkien.
While they are graceful yet vicious creatures who appearance are just this side of the uncanny valley (With the big, black, reflective eyes and sharp teeth), they lack much in the way of magic powers or talents. Instead, they rely on skills and tool use above and beyond most other lesser faeries. In this capacity, they act as trackers, servants and bounty hunters for more powerful fey like demons.
Meanwhile, Ecksion is a flowbeast, a mollusk-like creature with limited shape changing ability. They don't use tools and are opportunity hunters. They breed by budding and their offspring as little more than non-sentient animals. Flowbeasts that dine on creatures with high magical capacity gain intelligence, becoming more powerful and intelligent with each such meal. It takes decades for a flowbeast to grow to humanoid intelligence and become capable of language.
Some intelligent faeries cultivate flowbeasts by feeding captives to them, neatly avoiding the Faerie rule preventing faerie races from killing one another. This practice is understandably unsettling to long lived fey.
The story also touched on the fate of Augustus Roe, who I left doomed to be the chosen one of the Book of Passions at the end of 4. His involvement was due largely to me knowing that Morganna and the Magical World would be absent for a while in Year 4, so I wanted to remind everyone he existed one last time.
Finally, there was one more major reason for this story: People wanted to see Laurel fight.
Ever since she talked about going out on her own to do some heroics back in “A Magitech Crisis”, people have been asking me when Laurel would get her time to shine. I only hope this was a debut worth the wait.
One more note on this issue: just like the issues before and probably after it; it was a huge mess when I went back to edit it. This time though, I didn't feel as bad about it though as I got to make a rewrite I've wanted to make here for quite a while. It's a line I hope becomes some sort of horribly tedious memetic mutation should The Descendants take off:
“This isn't conjuring. This is science!”
Until next time, I shall continue creating.
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