Cyguvid spent her days in luxury being fed bunches of grapes by her slaves.
Then she ate the slaves too.
Fetchingly Fanged
Americus [Review]
Americus
by M. K. Reed and Jonathan Hill
First Second, 2011
Dragons make an appearance in this graphic novel about the dangers of censorship in that the book-in-a-book under fire features a “wytch” protagonist who is half-dragon… leading to cries of bestiality from the Christian far right!
Americus is based on a controversy of some years ago when J. K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter series was reaching epic heights of popularity. It’s all silly in retrospect, but there was a real danger her harmless and entertaining books would be banned from public libraries for their depictions of witchcraft and what was thought of as devil worship. Americus is the story of a similar battle in small-town America, and how a high school freshman named Neil Barton plays a role in it, standing up for the books he loves.
This aspect of the plot was a been there, done that for me as the original news stories have long faded. But what remains is more interesting… how Neil deals with the transition from 8th grade to 9th grade and the newer, more threatening milieu of high school with its bullies, gossip, adult hypocrisy, and social rules he knows nothing about. It’s the little incidents that made me laugh, like a cousin’s boyfriend taking him under his wing and introducing him to punk rock, or insisting to his mom that he wants a collared black shirt as back-to-school wear, and to grow his hair longer. By the end of the story, after he takes his stand at a library board meeting, he’s become a young man not a child, and this is reflected in the depiction by the artist – he’s no longer so soft and doughy, his nose has sharpened, his posture is straighter.
Excerpts from the fictional fantasy series, The Adventures of Apathea Ravenchilde, are woven in throughout the book, complementing it but not overwhelming it. The drawing style for these is darker and less complex than the modern scenes, which often have a delightfully cluttered look to them reflecting the overwhelming confusion Neil feels as he enters high school. Hill’s dragons are threatening and sinewy, with snapping jaws and long necks, while the humans wear swirling robes. It’s a nice way of indicating a fantasy series both like and unlike Harry Potter.
A vision of dragons and ravens is conjured in the Apathea Ravenchilde series, part of Americus.
I did enjoy the artwork a lot, it was similar to, but looser, than the drawings for Dungeon Quest, and I’m a sucker for hand-lettered dialogue. The story struck me as more female-centered, with its emphasis on mothers, teenage gossip, and female friends, and indeed the writer, M. K. Lee, is a woman. But having a boy as a protagonist balances this out.
Censorship in action
What struck me most about the story is the passion books can inspire, whether it’s a lonely middle aged man explaining why he reads a YA fantasy series, or two best friends vying for the only copy of the latest book for the library. Books, especially fantasy books, mean something far more than printed words on paper. They inspire community.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 9/5/18: Individual Dragons I
Smaug the Magnificent, by franeres-d69dege
One thing that can be said of the dragon sketch above, he certainly has personality! See more versions of Smaug here.
Here’s something different in the worldbuilding department, a selection of randomgen* dragons for writing or gaming use, generated from lists of different characteristics like color, size, and type of treasure horde.
A few random dragons
Vinaunt
A large but graceful male dragon with moss-green scales and a pair of cruel, curved horns, Vinaunt likes to hoard bejeweled chalices and emits searing flames. In manner he is irritable yet garrulous, with a self-aggrandizing bent, titling himself “The Despoiler Prince.” About him hangs the abominable smell of brimstone and sulpher.
Ixanth
Ixanth is a long and lean Asian dragon with gold-keeled scales and cheek and chin horns. He hoards luxury goods, horseshoes, and rare herbs, and breathes out hurricane-like gusts of wind. His manner is tranquil and cautious. Ixanth has a great yen for asking riddles, and his long ears twitch with favor when someone answers them successfully.
Magrex Dreams-of-thunder
A stocky male dragon with supple bronze scales, Magrex’s flanks are covered with iridescent gold bars in a pattern like a python’s. He collects all that is precious and valuable and emits ghostly green fire from his mouth. He has an unpredictable manner and is able to shapeshift into human form, in which he once ruled a kingdom in disguise.
Sritrisk Rainbringer
A medium-sized male dragon with gray scales and silver horns, Sritrisk hoards only platinum. He often disguises himself as a human sage with a brusque way of speaking. His breath weapon is a lightning bolt that destroys anything in its path. He has a narrow snout and small, hooded eyes. Sritrisk appears to honor the law, as he is always careful to keep his word while in human form.
Pewoth
Pewoth is a small but deadly female drake with pale green, crenallated scales and branching horns like the antlers of a deer. She collects human mummies. She has a cruel manner and never speaks, preferring to roar, and attacks with green-tinged flames. Pewoth has an odor of flaming musk and is especially malicious, prone to razing entire villages.
U’aut
This ancient female dragon is black banded with light gold stripes. She collects jade and silk clothing and breathes out a blinding, blistering gas. She is normally sleepy and quiet, but evinces an inquisitive temperament when strangers venture into her territory. U’aut uses telepathic speech that sounds like thunder. She has a falcon’s golden eyes.
Ixva Stormvast
Ixva is a small, slim female dragon with gray-green scales and a membranous frill on her neck. She collects jewelry, pelts, and furs, and sprays out acid as a breath weapon. She is very intelligent, but reclusive. Halfings call her “The Gaunt Fury.” She has a throat patch of bright gold scales she is very proud of.
Hiszba
Hiszba is a large, mature, female dragon with bright red, keeled scales and large finned ears. She breathes out a hallucinogenic cloud of gas as a weapon. She also lures men to their doom with her singing chin bristles. Hiszba lairs underground in a vast cave complex she shares with her many offspring. She loves to collect jewelry and expensive writing utensils.
* Randomly generated
Devastatingly Draconian
Portrait of a very wicked lady.
September is Dragon Month
I’ve got a confession to make.
At a certain point in my development, I drew dragon anthros. Dressed in designer gowns, their hairstyles, dress designers, and favorite colors, animals, and perfumes all lovingly detailed. They were posed in the manner of the models on my mom’s Singer sewing patterns, most often carefree and swinging their arms in that childlike style of the early 1970s. I’d post a pic, but I’m too embarrassed. So here’s this.
Dragoness Sleep, by Dragonesslife. Is that a male slave… or snack?
This month I will pay tribute to this cross-pollination of the erotic, the badass, and the mythic. I declare this Dragon Month!
Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/29/18: Kajira
I don’t quite approve of Gor, so here is some humor to make it more palatable.
Kajira is the term used for the eternally youthful, eternally hapless, eternally helpless slave girls found in John Norman’s Gor series. Gor, for those not in the know, is a Conanesque planet superficially similar to Earth and sharing the same orbit, but on the opposite side of the sun so it remains undiscovered. The first novels (there are 33 all together) are about Earth men who somehow blunder their way there and have all sorts of swords n’ steroids barbarian adventures. Or earth women, but their adventures consist of being kidnapped, enslaved, branded, and auctioned off to these manly men like commodity goods.
If you’re thinking this is a pretty hot sexual fantasy, you’re right. John Norman got to it decades before any number of erotic sword-and-planet romances currently being penned by women in Alpha Male lust.
The earlier books made some pretense of plot but the later ones just go on and on about the psychological benefits of this kind of female slavery, the characters’ pontificating acting as thinly veiled editorialization by the author, who takes a special delight in having accomplished or educated women fall into slavery and find contentment with their lot. Not cool.
One of the points Norman harps on a lot is how, once a slave, the girls lose their identity and become virtually interchangeable with each other as they are traded from man to man, losing their original names and each subsequent name given to them by their owners. The names are usually simple two-syllable ones like Tuka, or salacious, but PG-rated, ones like Pretty Ankles. (In spite of the books’ covers, especially Boris Vallejo’s, sexual acts are not described in detail. “I took her in the furs” is about as much as Norman goes into it.) Both of them are here.
Kajira of Gor
| Silla
Jinsa Kalla Jiri Shusa Chuli Tiwa Bryna Atha Tensa Shurla Sharene Tarwen Luitha Tylva Tumi |
Spicy Plum
Fresh Honey Spankable Torrid Tight Pearl Wanton Blushes Spicy Giggles Tender Gasp Torrid Velvet Precious Ivory Pinchable Ticklish Luscious Steamy Butter Pat Kitten Dish |
Say What?
Say, what?
The content is made even more inexplicable by being labeled in Japanese and set against those pop-art patterns.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/22/18: Perfumes
The making of perfume is almost as old as human agriculture. A perfume-making operation dating to around 4000 BCE was unearthed on the island of Cyprus in 2005, which is when humans were still in the Bronze Age. The Indus Valley civilization produced perfumes a few hundred years later, and Babylon in 1200 BCE. It was the Islamic world, however, that perfected the techniques for extracting and preserving scents, as well as cultivating the plants used in scent production. These techniques passed into Europe with their trade.
Large-scale commercial perfume manufacturing began in the early 20th century as knowledge of chemistry increased. The most familiar scents dating from this time are Chanel’s timeless Chanel No. 5. and Coty’s Emeraude. Emeraude was perhaps a turning point. Before it, scents had not-too-appealing names like Jicky, Jocky Club, and English Fern; after it, more romantic and fantastical monikers took the stage, like My Sin, Shalimar, Joy, and Tabu. In the modern age anything goes, from the femme fatale implications of Opium and Poison to the more innocent Love’s Baby Soft, marketed to high school girls.
In case you need a made-up perfume, here’s some random generated ones.
Perfumes
| Amydhis
Scarlet Paradise Moonpassion Midnight Spice Red Tango Sleeping Eden Rising Goddess Idouvre Passion Belle Black Palm Enchantis Mystic Lake Beautiful Willow Kysa Silver Dream Marais Tarramin |
The Huntress
Sacred Wood My Crush Tarama My Secret Acrobat Leilandré Samilla Voodoo Miss Rising Elixer Dreaming Venus She-Devil Spicevember Phantom Golden Cinnabar Gray Dove Pantherine White Fur |
Devil Dance
This prancing devil has real style.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/15/18: A Few Noble Families
Here’s something a little different, a set of randomly generated noble families (with a little tweaking) for use in a roleplaying game or as story background. I find that when these disparate elements are put together, the story or adventure may practically write itself.
What would happen, for example, if Vylen Lemugia returns home and finds his cousin does not want to give up the seat? What if Vylen then entices Parapha Ithrilmarsh, through seduction perhaps, to help him get back into power?
Ready-made noble families
| House Alaartis | The Alaartis are a noble family of good-looking astronomers who serve the current king. Their seat is at Streudberg Fortress which also houses their many telescopes and star-gazing instruments. They have foreign investments, chiefly in the textile trade. It is with these the current head, Lemelaura, concerns herself. Lemelaura is a voluptuous, middle-aged woman with a scandalous past. She is widowed, but has many lovers. Her eldest son Barceaso has been chosen as the heir to succeed her. The crest of this family is a chained and collared lioness on a field of yellow. |
| House Uberwinter |
House Uberwinter controls the largest caravansary in the city and they also own a number of warehouses. The family has a reputation for being open and outgoing. The current Duke, Tamnesham, is a handsome, stocky man in his mid-30s. He is unmarried, but patronizes several courtesans. Their seat is at Skyhessen and their crest a red castle on a black background. |
| House Lemugia |
The well-educated Lemugia family control the city’s armories from their holding at Vitchhessen Fortress. They are also moneylenders and speculators. The current head, Edyseas, is serving as regent for his cousin Vylen Lemugia, who is in his early 20s but being educated overseas. The family’s crest is a severed hand dripping red blood on a maroon background. Their motto is, “Without knowledge, there is no gain.” |
| House Inthrilmarsh |
The greedy, ambitious Ithrilmarsh family make their fortune crafting various poisons. They are also invested in silver mines to the west of the city and currently own two mining outposts. The current Lord, Jozuph, is an elderly, effete man who is rumored to have a wasting disease. His heir is his granddaughter Parapha, his other children having suffered “accidental” poisonings in learning their family’s craft. The Ithrilmarsh rule from Nostorof Tower overlooking the Garden District. Their crest is a pair of scales above a shepherd’s crook. |
| House Yieland |
House Yielant owns the majority of the farmlands around the harbor. They are the most boisterous of the city’s noble families and imposing in appearance, tall and strong with curly black hair. Lord Somunaë keeps them in line with a combination of judiciousness and tact. He enjoys hearing news from foreign travelers and will often host them in his castle. He and his wife, Shenice, have five children. Their seat is at their ancestral town of Garamond and their crest is a gray vulture wearing a crown. |