So, the other half of the conversation with our dear paladin Stoutmantle. I’ve had a rough idea for how this dialogue should play out for some time now, with just the details up for altering. It’s one of those cases where I basically have two pages to give exposition, familiarize you with the Beyond the Tree incarnation of Gryan Stoutmantle and still have enough space left for the characters to be themselves. It’s a tight fit sometimes, and there were some peices of the dialogue I kept changing back and forth almost right up until it was done.
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Beyond the Tree, the Misadventures of Hani and Tiny 
Nicely done, once again. I salute you!
Keep up the good work!!!
Another awsome page Nhani! Keep up the great work! :)
Nice! can’t wait to see Areens reaction tot that! he thinks they are normal adventurers,(witch they are) and naturally asks for Van Cleefs head(the one behind the mess)
so te’len and Areen will be the ones who will do the most difficult to comvince to do that.
Nhani, this page has an excelent flow, my compliments :)
awsomesauce
Found?
I want his HEAD!!!!!
ohh, so nice…
Nice work again! Van Cleef pay big for your head! But we pay more for yours. Go get him guys!
Very nice Nhani, as disturbing as i find it these days, my most Epic 5man memories come from Deadmines and Blackfathom Deeps, lol. Very much looking forward to seeing where this goes
Awesome Work!This one was great ^^
The first instance I was ever in was Deadmines – ran it with a friend and a healer we picked up along the way.
We were all noobs.
It went very badly.
Still, I remembered that and went back with that same character after a few more levels under my belt and soloed it. I felt…avenged! :-)
This is what I thought of when I read Stoutmantle’s comment. I felt the same way then!
Great work as always!
The first instance I ran through was actually Blackfathom deeps, back in the European Final Beta of the game. It was like two or three hours past midnight and we were all clueless – but aside from one minor hiccup, it all went swimmingly and we had a total blast. Tired and rambling, we went on to the Insane Druids quest after, as I recall.
Deadmines I have less affection to and more horror stories about, heh.
Yo awesome comic really enjoyable reading!
Just post cause im very happy with the including of gryan, he is one of my favourite characters, and allways though of him like “clint eastwood” level of badarseness.
Dont let Rei trash him too much, mmmkay? =3
LFG HEROIC DEADMINES!
……………I can’t wait. XD
I’m all on Te’len! Sure, Rei’s comments about this and that can sometimes be intriguing, but from time to time I think she should consider fact before fiction. Not all can be as much of a one-man army as Hani is. But I don’t think it occurs that well to her, considering she’s never seen many others single-handely taking down thugs and cultists as she’s seen Hani do.
I find it interesting Areen rather prefer diplomacy before violence when needed – as expected of a paladin – but as long as Hani’s with them diplomacy is not much of an option – it will be VanCleef’s head served on a silver plate for our good Captain Stoutmantle ;)
One last thing – my bet would be that our “miners” are among the peasants serving as slave miners for the Defias in Deadmines as can be seen in the game, unless Gryan’s suspicions are true and they are either dead or missing.
pffft, they skipped that seriously long questline! i want a skip-questlinetogetendquest option aswell :z
Anywho, DEADMINES!… I for one, cant wait to see them fight the shredder… that one ought to be the hardest :P
Shredder? Pff, it’s just a slow hunk-o-junk used to cut down trees and not for effective hand-to-hand combat as you know it from the game – Hani will have jumped up and cut down that Sneed guy before he knows what hit him.
The real challange will be faced when they get to VanCleef’s boat. Whether they propose to use the cannon to make a noisy and messy entry, risking to get the whole ship’s crew flooded over them, or just try to get through the door with a bit more subtlety … well, that remains to be seen.
When the Evil Shredder attacks~!
If I may, what font do you use in the comic? I also just noticed that you use capital letters, bolded when you want emphasis – that’s something I might consider as standard Comic Sans with standard lettering just looks…standard.
Like Arkanabar says, it’s indeed a font called Fawn Script; I’ve been wanting one that’s a little less vertically imposing since it’d let me cut down the size of dialogue boxes somewhat, but I haven’t found one I really like so far, so I’ve stuck with it.
For shouts or sound effects, I tend to use a font called Badaboom BB, usually with a black outline and white or gradient fill.
As for the all capitals – it’s a habit I decided to take from regular comics which generally go about the same way. I’m not sure where that actually originates from, though I suspect it has a purpose somewhere.
Tokkar, Nhani uses a font called “Fawn Script” and resents it for being so tall. One of these days I’m going to have to go through my big honkin’ folder of TTF files and see if I see anything I think might be more appropriate to suggest.
Well Dafont seems to have had a few new entries on comic book fonts since last I checked around, so I might some there a try and post the results over on Thoughts for Food and see what people think. Font is ultimately very tied to look and feel, so whatever replacement I might find has to not upset that too much.
I’d love to be able to reduce the size of my speech bubbles without loss of detail, but that might just be a tad of a pipe dream.
You are probably best off making your own. Check out Fontforge (LINK).
FOSSware FTW!!
Its late, i’m a little drunk and like all the comics and comments so far! so let’s get to it! Mortal Combat style!!
Caught glimpses of the comic before, but on;y tonight have a took the time to read it all from #1 – I have to say, you’ve currently inspired me to get back into roleplaying. Was even having the idea of making my own comic from the perspectives of the Horde side of life, but sadly nothing at my disposal is currently powerful enough to withstand such work. As an added sense of irony, I can’t even get WoW Model Builder to run on the computer I play WoW on!
Might consider screenshotting the whole thing, but meh…would be poorly done if I did that. I have been talking to a friend though who’s doing this sort of stuff as part of her courses, so perhaps if things work out I could get it done with some help.
To the comic though, and I have to say you’re a brilliant script writer – Not many things can keep me up until 3AM in the morning, but this has done so, even knowing I could come back to it tomorrow! And in a surprising twist of fate, I actually find Areen cute, which is odd since I’ve fallen on the impression that 99% of gnomes are stubborn, high-headed nuisances for their very short stature – and that tends to be from personal experience of Alliance players, mostly, but anyways…
Can’t wait to see how things shape up…and as for your future Horde character you hinted at a few chapters back (#87) I think I know what it is already. But then you have been known, so far, to throw out plenty of surprises, so I doubt I’m right…but not too much – it seems the most logical choice for me considering your current cast. Would definitely add a new dynamic I’d really love to see though…seeing two sides that aren’t against each other, if only for a period of time.
Wonder what Thrall would make of seeing these people looking outside the gates of Orgrimmar…
Introducing the Horde is still quite awhile away I’m afraid – I decided early on to save that for Arc Two, part because it’d give me a whole narrative arc focused on just that (and the Horde is a pretty large topic, even when just seeing parts of it), part because my own experience with Horde players and characters haven’t really been the best either.
I want it to be an interesting character narrative rather than a vengeful snark, so I felt I could use the extra time to make sure my idea was the former, not the latter ;)
Who knows, maybe Blizzard’ll even have time to release a much upgraded Thrall model before I get to introducing him in the comic!
I’m glad you like it, and while it might erode some of the thoughts of me being an elaborate planner.. most of the dialogue is just done on feel really – knowing the characters and working with what makes sense for them to say.
For your own ideas.. I’d say give them a try – I had a first try with Beyond the Tree (only called “Misadventures of Hani and Tiny” at that time) months before this run started and while the basic idea was good.. the execution was less so. I only made three or four pages of that and then stopped. It wasn’t wasted time though since when I started again, I built on that experience to make the characters more distinct, (hopefully) more interesting and have some kind of journey or narrative to tie it all together. It’s grown into an extensive character journey by now, and has a scope (and a reader base!) that I simply couldn’t have imagined when I first started off!
Yeah, I had seen that it was a while away yet. Still, I’m enjoying the ride in the meantime, and it’s good to see that you’re like me when it comes to playing your characters: Simply know what they are like and follow on from that.
As for your experience of Horde characters, I can sympathise. I’m primarily now a Horde player simply because of the experiences I’ve had as an Alliance player. If you want to have another look at the Horde, feel free to send me a mail – I left the addy in my reply, though not sure if you can see it (I know others can’t) – and perhaps we can talk about helping out there. Who knows, perhaps it’ll help you develop something ready for Arc Two!
And yes…I’m sure if you looked up Gordrake on the Armory you’re bound to find me easily – I think I’m the only one on there. XD Oh well.
And you’re saying that they might update Thrall before you get to introducing him into the comic? So he will be making a presence there then? ;P
Anyways, remember the one golden rule: Have fun with it! I’m sure everyone else is enjoying the journey as much as you and I are.
Oh yeah… and *only – to correct the typo from my previous post.
I can’t put an entire story arc around the Horde without including Thrall in some way, so he’s definitely in there. Considering Thrall was one of the main reasons that the Horde was one of my favorite factions to play as back in WarCraft III (along with Night elves, naturally); I tend to consider it something of a pity how World of WarCraft has so utterly eroded my opinion of the Horde since then. I still rather like Thrall mind you, though I wish he’d be a tad more outspoken about that vision of his.
As for trying it, I don’t know – made a few false tries in the past, but it never really stuck. I’ll probably have to do some research into quests there eventually, but we’ll see how I do that or to what extents. I sincerely doubt I can absorb over four years of Barrens running jokes in a small period of poking about!
And yes, I do try. There’s the matter of trying to treat most sides and aspects with enough respect. I have an idea I’m hoping people will find interesting enough, though perhaps a tad dated when I finally get to it! I fully suspect the game will reach Cataclysm before Beyond the Tree reaches Arc Two!
Well if you do have a desire to see how things are on the Horde side of life, feel free to let me know. Better to e-mail me if you can see the address since my times online are sporadic (and I can be one of any 10 characters at one time, including Gordrake himself) or, better still, in this message I left behind a trail of my Windows Live address (which I know you have from reading your background blog) so you can add me to that if you need a more immediate response.
And as for the divide between Alliance and Horde, I try to avoid it myself. You see…in my previous roleplaying experiences, my main roleplaying character is a human mage who sees a balance in all things – some sort of higher understanding of why good (and indeed evil) exists in the world, is more accepting of so-called ‘evil’ races actually not being that evil at all, but perhaps are simply on the other side over differences of virtue/opinion/etc. – and constantly seeks to fortify that equality between the two sides. In classic D&D he could possibly be Chaotic Good, but haven’t decided yet…but that’s besides the point. The point, really, is that though the majority are, as you have experienced, complete and utter fudgebuckets, not all are like that. Hopefully, if given the chance, I can perhaps help you get that understanding of the Horde you said a while back in your background blog.
And yes…I do say a lot when I post something, but what’s the point in saying something if you only say it in one line? One-liners are good for comedy – you’ve made some absolute CLASSICS over the duration of this comic – but not so good when you want to say something with meaning. Which, judging from your blog posts…you don’t really need me to tell you that, since you already know. But yeah…say it anyway.
And in closing…remember one thing: The Crossroads is ALWAYS under attack. Not very IC for me to say “Eh, that’s nothing new.” but that’s generally how it tends to go.
It’s going to be a long adventure…
They totally need to go and pick up some brewskie’s for the road.
Gordrake Thunderhoof if you might like to you can always use the open source almost like 3D-max version Blender its not as good but it will do more then well for what one pay for it.
and dont forget the adds for it or it might be an bit trubeling to get it to work and dont forget Gimp if you dont have photo shop.
i put an link here.
http://www.blender.org ((open source free))
http://www.python.org ((for Blender to work as it writen in Python not C++))((open source i think, Free))
http://www.gimp.org ((not sure if its open source, but its free))
and dont forget the add-ons i think they got links on the sight for the one that works.
Thanks for the advice, but apparently that model viewer thing was very basic – if it can’t even run that when it can run WoW, I’m not really sure anything else will work. In short…though it can play WoW, my computer’s a piece of fudge. I’ll get around to upgrading it one day and then perhaps I can start working on something like this in the future, but…we’ll see. Need to sort a lot of things out first.
They could always try the back entrance near the sea to get faster to van clef, but ofcourse that wouldnt help them find the missing miners.
_________________
but i think Hani is getting pretty silent lately, i remember how her she used to make silly jokes, and Rei going “BAD HANI!!”, now its rare to even see Hani say mm.hmm..
when will she start speaking again?
Nein update?
Working on it. Don’t blow a gasket.
heh, seems like im your prime nagger :/ i feel dirty
Then take a bath? XD
I’m sure he’ll have it up when it’s ready. And if it’s today it comes up, I can’t wait. ^^ Also got a friend reading up on this, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to find a new page to read up on.
Nhani is good about telling us when there wont be an update, lol, i dont think you need to ask.
I think Nhani is a woman, especially after reading her “Thoughs for food”
You can never tell with some people, I’ve come to find. I don’t know myself, I just had a stab in the dark.
And if you are indeed a female…I apologize. =S
Don’t go LFM in Westfall. Chances are they’ll get bored and leave mid-way or face-pull half the mine >_<
On that note it’s actually a good idea quest in WoW aren’t interactive by more than the person on them for the most part, imagine the X millions of heads/bonedust he’d have in there by now.