Shogun has no need for personal space!
Harkovast
is a traditionally drawn fantasy webcomic which has been hosted on The Duck since the 16th October, 2008.The races of Harkovast are embroiled in a bloody and bitter battle against The Nameless, a force made of literally faceless goons intent on destroying the rest of the world. While the races struggle to overcome deeply entrenched hatred of one another, a lone group set off in search of the Shogun, who may be the only hope they have.Other tropes associated with Harkovast-
- Action Girl: Chen-Chen can hold her own in a fight. Very well.
- Alien Blood: Nameless have green, filthy-looking slime for blood.
- All There in the Manual: A VERY hefty amount of backstory for the world, characters and cultures is posted by the author on the webcomic's forums, and is yet to be mentioned in the story proper.
- Badass Boast: Shogun:"Fight me or flee; it makes no difference now. All of you are going to die."
- Clingy Costume: The Nameless have their armor fused to their bodies.
- Compelling Voice: The Speaker can make people drown themselves by asking them nicely.
- The Chessmaster: Quinn-Tain, and probably all other Wizards — with practically no resources of their own except for knowledge, they resort to employing other races to fight the West, and aren't afraid to make sacrifices or morally questionable alliances.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Sir Muir, the mildly senile Darsai Knight, can kick ass like the best of them when he remembers to.
- Faceless Goons: The Nameless have no personality, will, or even basic instincts.
- Fantastic Racism: Every race is even a different species and generally mistrust the other races. Sometimes they can have children between them, and the "half-caste" offspring are left with the dilemma of following one side or the other's culture, where they might not be accepted in either.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: All of the races seen so far, though it's subverted at times — it's usually very easy to tell which of the real world cultures a given nation mimics visually, but their actual beliefs and customs may be warped or mixed with a different culture.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Averted, however, only Golta can use them.
- Feet of Clay: A weird case with Shogun, who as far as anyone knows did commit all the heroic deeds he's renown for, but when enlisted by the heroes to help with a relatively unimportant rebellion, he turns out to be all but useless. This didn't go unnoticed by other characters.
- Flaming Sword: The Darsai summon energy weapons created by the power of their faith. According to the info page, the color is different depending on which god they worship in the Thanic pantheon. The inquisitors who worship Thane's wife Hellava get red ones, and the heretics who worship her mother Ashal get grey ones. The Knights of Thane get bluish-purple ones.
- Foreign Queasine: When Shogun offers Sir Muir Tsung-Dao food. And vice versa, when Chen-Chen explains Darsai food to the Tsung-Dao.
- Furries Are Easier to Draw: Implied by the author that thats why the various races are anthropomorphic animals.
- Hair-Raising Hare: The rabbit-like Tolpish are evil to such a degree that they drove the Golta into isolationism, and have a Vestigial Empire that spanned much of the world. The ones alive now? Nobody wants to buy slaves off them because their slaves are always half dead-they have way too much fun breaking them.
- Improbable Weapon User: Apparently, Sir Muir was forced to battle a serpent using a toasting fork, although as it was one of his rambles it may be in part to him being a Cloudcuckoolander.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Shogun's "hidden fang" sword is a katana.
- Little Known Facts: Sir Muir with his very strange stories.
- Nightmare Face: Black River has half his face rotted off; and arcane sigils carved into the bones. He also has Red Eyes, Take Warning-or he would, but one's missing.
- The tsung-dao mercenary from Judging character has blue tentacles pop out of his face and wave one of his eyes around on a stalk.
- Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Most races can crossbreed; what exactly the offspring will be like is governed by a magical system that seems to run on Rule of Drama.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Actually explained as caused by the same magic that enables wildly different races to crossbreed. It's notable, that races which can't crossbreed with others do not have those.
- Older Than They Look: Scatterpod, due to the nature of Ano-Chee magic used to resurrect her, turned up physically younger than her adult son-and turned her marriage into a May–December Romance. Her husband's a doddering old fool and she doesn't look a day over 20.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Black River. In control of himself, but clearly rotten. Also said to be cursed in some way; everyone forgets him as soon as they loose sight of him (unless they're special in some way, such as Scatterpod or the Wizard).
- Psycho for Hire: As Ki explains in his own words;"I'm not here to make friends. I show up to kill people...and look good while I do it."
- Rebellious Spirit: Junlocks are so free-spirited and strong willed that they can resist the brutal methods Tolpish use to break their slaves. Ferrix was able to resist long enough that his master considers it better to just leave him to die of thirst than put up with him-at least until he unloads him on the Wizard.
