Kiran and Teeko, surrounded by the Mages' Council members and creepy evil demon antagonists.
Chirault
is a fantasy webcomic by Thane, which started in 2007 and published a page 3 days a week until its conclusion in March 2018.
The main plot concerns two traveling companions: Teeko is a young Kyrion, looking for a mage who can reverse the magic spell that shrank her to a few inches in height. Kiran is a demon hunter (and a demon himself—the first to be employed by the Guild) and a would-be loner who, until meeting Teeko, was solely concerned with his next bounty. They fight demons.
In the second plot line, the Mages' Council is attempting to safely dispose of the results of an experiment: a magical simulacrum of the world. Due to its potential use as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, the mages are terrified of what could happen if it falls into the wrong hands. Naturally, it gets stolen.
Provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Gender: The best way to determine the gender of someone in this comic is to wait for the personal pronouns.
- Alt Text: Used to provide terse commentary, from here onward.
- Apocalypse How: On a local scale, in Teeko's home city. Don't play with magic, kids.
- Badass and Child Duo: Kiran, a demon and a Hunter of His Own Kind, paired with Teeko, a young Cat Girl. In this case, Teeko had been doing fine on her own even though she was orphaned, until a stray magic spell reduced her to a few inches in height, so Kiran has agreed for her to accompany him until they can find a mage to reverse the spell.
- Badass Normal: Demon hunters don't use magic. You are still not advised to mess with them.
- Bag of Holding
- Cast of Snowflakes: Generic Cuteness does not prevent the faces from being fairly diverse.
- Cat Girl: Teeko. The species is referred to as Kyrion. They are a subtype of demons, apparently, but they are accepted by humans as part of their society. Usually.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Teeko's parents were killed after a crazy weirdo demon-hater put a spice in their food that made them mindless and aggressive. Then they were killed by the mages to protect humans. And we don't know anything about Kiran yet.
- Epic Fail: The mages did not intend to level the city. They just accidentally touched a Reality-Changing Miniature. Oops.
- Fantastic Racism: Some demons are sentient, human-like and peacefully dwell in human cities. Not everyone is fine with this, though. And when you have a demon who's a demon hunter himself visiting the villages that have had problems with rogue homicidal demons... he doesn't even get angry, really.
- Generic Cuteness: You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who's not handsome in this comic.
- Gone Horribly Right: The mages were working on the solution of the problem of running out of non-trees-covered living space. They made the Reality-Changing Miniature as a result. Of their whole planet, apparently. And someone accidentally touched it. They were really lucky not to smash themselves.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Bethan is still at odds with her incorporeal state. If she's lucky, it'll get fixed soon... as in, she'll get normal. However, given Rule of Drama and Rule of Cool, she's more likely to stay that way for a little more.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Kiran and Teeko
- Hunter of His Own Kind: Kiran is the only demonic demon hunter. It's easily explained, though: not all demons are sentient, and even those who are sometimes go rogue, at which point their more sane brethren will try to contain them themselves. There's peace between humans and sentient demons, and neither side wants to break it. Kiran so far is the only one to make this into a career, though.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Teeko is accidentally shrunk by an unlicensed mage.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Magic energy is called "a form of chaos", but magic itself is a lot like science. With nuclear-like results, sometimes.
- Magitek: The city of Chirault has a magic-based PA system.
- Morality Pet: Teeko, to Kiran.
- One-Winged Angel: Kiran looks very cute when he doesn't control himself. And god save you if you were the reason of his lost control. And if you were just standing nearby, too. In fact, even if you were a victim that he tried to protect, you are still screwed.
- Our Demons Are Different: "Demon" is a blanket term that includes Kyrion like Teeko, horned humanoids like Kiran, skinny frog monsters, devil-crows, and nigh-invincible giants made of tentacles and mud.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Bethan is explicitly stated several times to not be a ghost. It's just that her flesh was partly dissolved by a magical guardian who then got eaten by a protagonist, and now she's uncorporeal. Everyone who's not a mage knowing her story calls her a ghost. She can not only pass through solid objects, but also makes them incorporeal too while "overlapping" with them. And, apparently, she can make magical objects mundane by touching them, too. Bethan has a bit of a problem with not realising that gravity does not affect her now and floating above the ground instead of falling through it, though. If she concentrates, she can stay in one place, but still hasn't mastered rising up.
- Parental Abandonment: Kiran has no clue who his parents were. Teeko is an orphan—at one point, Kiran crosses paths with the man who killed her parents.
- Plant Person: The tree spirits.
- Pointy Ears: Everybody has them.
- Power Incontinence: Magic energy is a form of chaos in this setting, so no wonder this trope has multiple applications:
- The reason why demons can't use magic. They actually can, it's just that the results can be a bit unpredictable. There seem to be some demons using magic who have somehow solved the problem, though...
- The biggest problem with untrained mages doing magic is that they quite often accidentally put too much power in their spells so they cannot be undone. Couple it with the fact that spells are often mispronounced by them with unpredictable results... and you get Teeko's subplot to get normal-sized again, and a reason for laws to restrict the use of magic to the members of the mages' guild. Usually, when a non-guild mage is found, he is presented with a choice: either to wear a collar that makes him incapable of using magic ever again, or to become a guild member and learn.
- Recently, Kiran seems to have a bit of a problem with this...
- Pun:Hunter: Nice job, by the way. How did you kill [the Strider]?
Kiran: I, uh... wouldn't advise trying to repeat it.
Teeko: He got eaten!
Hunter: Ah. No wonder you look like crap. - Reality-Changing Miniature: The simulacrum. Touching it by accident results in half a city being flattened.
- Weapon of Mass Destruction: The simulacrum, of course.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Teeko knows that using magic while being an untrained mage is dangerous. She also knows that it's doubly so for demons. Yet, in her shrunken state, her fireball spell is the only way she can contribute if one of her friends or she herself is in danger. Usually, it helps.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Kiran is afraid of insects.
