Golden Shrike is a Xenofiction webcomic drawn and written by the artist doeprince
. The Comic tells the story of two deer twins, Nero the stag and Runi the doe, as they leave their herd and explore the wider world around them. They meet new friends their first night out, and at a local gathering of deer, Nero is spoken to by the Great Karuna, who tells him that three of his children, Eve, Loss, and War, have gone missing from the stars and are somewhere on Earth. Their absence will cause the apocalypse, and so Karuna tasks Nero, his golden shrike, to hunt them down, sending him and his friends on a quest.
At the same time, however, another group of deer, led by a stag named Antaras, appear to have their own plans for Karuna's missing children.
The comic updates every Thursday and currently has eight chapters, with seven completed so far. It can be found either on the artist's Deviantart page, or on Comic Fury.
Tropes for Golden Shrike include the following:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Some characters have accessories like necklaces or rings around their antlers. Considering the deer have no hands to manipulate things with, who knows how it happens.
- Animal Companion: Each deer is given a "half" at a certain age, a bird that will keep them company as a constant companion for their entire life. They are supposedly blessings to allow Karuna to hear His creations' voices, but also appear to have various biological influences on the deer themselves; two of Antaras's herd killed theirs to demonstrate Eve's power, but in doing so rendered themselves unable to bear fawns.
- Animal Religion: Deer believe in the Great Karuna as their creator-god, though some of the older deer like Helevise are upset that deer are starting to stop doing so.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: While there are a number of more realistic fur colors in the comic, deer can be a wide variety of colors, whether Runi and Nero's golden coats, Kasko's dark brown, Antaras's grey-white, or even one fawn at the gathering who was green.
- Apocalypse How: Seems to be gearing up towards a Class 2 or 3, according to Iralee. With Eve, Loss, and War all unable to fulfill their roles, deerkind will suffer in multiple ways. Any fawns that are born, without Eve to give them life, will be stillborn. Without Loss to take their souls, old deer will continue to linger. And with War out and about, deer will begin to endlessly fight and kill each other. Boneslav mentions that all of the stonekrovn pups in his Mouth were stillborn that birthing season, so it's already starting.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Kasko may not like violence, but his backstory shows that when sufficiently angered he can be quite dangerous.
- Brown Note: The speech of gods appears to be like this, if they want to be. Karuna speaks to Nero normally, but when Nero asks if he can't call louder for his children to come home, Karuna decides to roar about how loudly he could call for them and devastate the lands...but won't. The mere act of him speaking this way for a short time causes Nero to get tossed around in the air and left a quivering, shaken mess. Eve also appears to speak like this, as the one time she's spoken, her speech bubble has been black and red with white print.
- Bond Creatures: The halves, again. Their relationships with their deer, as shown with the halves of Nero, Runi, and Kasko, can vary. They even die at the same time their deer do.
- Artistic License – Biology: While the deer for the most part work like normal deer (sans their ability to talk and think complex thoughts), doeprince has said that they only gain one pair of antlers their entire life, which grow overtime. Real deer, however, lose their antlers each autumn and regrow them larger in the spring.
- Cultural Rebel: Nero is forced out of his and Runi's herd for doing this, turning back to rescue a friend and fight a wolf rather than leaving him to die like deer normally do. Kasko also did this to his herd, defying its leader.
- Cult Defector: Usma appears to be shaping up to be this, having doubts in Antaras's plan. Considering what the seer told Nero, Runi, and Kasko, it appears she's destined to be this. Iralee also appears to be this; she's a godcaller like Helevise, her mother, but isn't as rabid about it.
- Defector from Decadence: Kasko left his heard after they abandoned deer who became deathly ill and left them to die alone, rather than comforting them as he did.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: While we don't know anything about Loss, Iralee tells her mother Helevise that "Death by Loss is gentler than War".
- I Did What I Had to Do: In the present-tense, but Antaras gives this explanation to Helevise when she calls him out on luring Karuna's children down to the earth.
- Infanticide: The stonekrovns have had this happen with their young many times, as deer come up into their mountains in order to try and kill them.
- Fantastic Racism: Various deer have stereotypes of one another, but the stonekrovns are seen as monsters and beasts; during their whelping season, particularly brave and foolish deer often come up into their territory to kill their pups.
- Guilt by Association: Nero, Runi, and Kasko are treated as this by a pack of stonekrovns due to being on their mountain at the same time as a group of other deer who came up to try and murder their young. They're nearly killed for it, but their halves tell them otherwise. The stonekrovns, for their part, were only being careful due to the aforementioned infanticide, and are apologetic for the injuries the group sustained.
- The Maker: The Great Karuna created the world, the deer, and their bird halves.
- Mission from God: The entire plot of the comic is Karuna giving Nero and his friends a mission to find his children and return them to him to prevent catastrophe on the deer.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: There's one kind of deer called stonekrovns, who appear to be a mixture of both deer and wolves; alongside antlers and hooves, they also have sharp teeth, eat meat, and operate in packs. When they are happy or expressing love they will even wag their tails.
- Physical God: While they're on Earth, Eve, Loss, and War are this. Eve is shown to be able to revive dead halves, though whether she can do the same to deer remains to be seen. War is also running around somewhere.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kasko gave one of these to his old herd after they lost a huge portion of their numbers to disease. The herd's leader had previously said that the sick would be glad to die in order to join Karuna in the stars, but Kasko, seeing how the sickly deer called for their friends and family and were scared to go, called all of them out on their abandonment before attacking the sire himself. It was effective enough that many of his old herd become violent on seeing him.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Nero and Runi. Nero is aggressive, loud, hotheaded, and rebellious. Runi is quieter, kinder, and more introspective.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Helevise the godcaller is quite acerbic and doesn't have any respect for anyone but Karuna, though she's at least able to be civil when it comes to deer that don't get on her nerves, like Usma. She has a particular lack of respect for Antaras.
- Sinister Minister: Antaras is a godcaller, but apparently has his own plans for Eve and Loss, having impregnated Eve for some reason that has yet to be determined.
- Supernatural Sealing: Loss is apparently sealed inside a ring that Eve wears.
