Yesterday’s update was the 600th page of The Legacy of Dominic Deegan, and it signaled the beginning of the end of Snout’s story. His time as the protagonist of this comic is coming to a close, and it will be time to transition to a new format once things wrap up. That new format will be something akin to an anthology series here, showcasing different characters around the changed world.
That new format is going to begin with the dwarves.
I wouldn’t blame you if you forgot that this world has dwarves at all. They showed up once in the Around The World storyline, and their biggest contribution was to showcase that they’re rude, hairy, and love to argue with the halflings who live on the other side of their island. I was going to forget them altogether myself until I started to become a dwarf guy.
It happened in a one-two punch several months ago. I began playing the fun and addictive game Deep Rock Galactic around the same time I began to read The Hobbit to my son. I was exposed to a lot of dwarf-themed material. Being a fan of fantasy for decades I’ve always appreciated dwarves, but they never really called to me in the same way other fantasy peoples did. Tastes change as you get older, I suppose, and all that dwarf exposure started to chip away at my resistance.
And then I started to grow my annual Winter Beard, as I do every autumn, and last year’s beard came in wonderfully. I was super proud of it. So now I had a dwarf-like beard. And to top it all off, I began workshopping ideas for a new setting with a friend of mine, and the underground dwarf city of Kadaz was created.
I had officially become a dwarf guy.
The Dwarves of Kadaz was originally intended to become a new project for me, set in a brand-new world created from scratch with a clean slate of lore. But then, as I explored more ideas for the new setting, I remembered that I already had dwarves in this setting. So I revisited my dwarves, and you can find some of my new ideas over in my Patreon page if you’re interested. I began to realize I didn’t need to start over for this. I could incorporate Kadaz into this comic without a problem, and explore a whole new facet of my world that would both interest me and feel brand new. Hopefully, you folks will find it interesting, too.
Ursula K. LeGuin once wrote that writers will sometimes leave notes for themselves without realizing it. I think that’s what I did with my dwarves. What I thought was a one-off joke over ten years ago was really a little note to myself that said, “There’s something here you have yet to explore. Come back to it when you’re ready.”
In a few months, I think I’ll be ready to introduce you folks to the dwarves of Kadaz.