Webcomic / Slack Wyrm

Slack Wyrm is a Webcomic started in 2016 by Australian children's author, Joshua Wright.

The series stars the Lazy Dragon Ferragus Slackwyrm, an apathetic red dragon who has no treasure because he can't be bothered collecting it. Throughout the series he deals with self-approval issues, living up to preconceptions of being a mighty Wyrm, paying his loyal minions, roasting a few annoying peasants, and, most importantly, getting a good nap.

He's not alone as the comic has a large supporting cast. Including his definitely not lazy sister, a murderous crow, a horny old wizard, an elder god wannabe, a half-crazed Duchess, a skateboarding chicken, all manner of monsters, and (of course) a corpse.

While it started out as more of the simple joke a day comic, like Peanuts or Garfield, it slowly evolved into having complex interconnecting adventures that spanned multiple comics and introduced many new supporting characters. Although primary a web series there have been four books published, each a compilation of the series into vague story arcs.

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Slack Wyrm provides examples of:

• Adorable Evil Minions: Ferragus has a staff of monsters to maintain his fortress, however very few of them are actually in any way threatening.
• After the End: According to the official site, the comic takes place in a "dystopian fantasy future, many thousands of years from now on an earth not unlike our own." Modern tech and the like can still be found throughout the land (Ferragus has a smartphone he refers to as a "magic mirror", and Lizardman has his own fighter jet), but has largely been usurped by magic. What exactly caused the regression and raise of magic has remained unexplained.
• Animal Lover: Ferragus seems to really like animals and, provided they fill out the correct forms, will burn any human alive that looks the wrong way at a deer.
• Art Evolution: The earlier comics, while still having a cartoon-y edge, still look way more traditional fantasy-esque as compared to the latter comics. It's most evident with Ferragus himself. Compared how he's drawn in the earlier comics to his appearance in the later comics.
• Ax-Crazy: Gretch. Doris also shows signs of being not entirely there.
• Back from the Dead: Zizok is first introduced as part of an adventuring party who got incinerated by Ferragus. However, he turns up again later, having "pulled a Gandalf."
• Basilisk and Cockatrice: A short backstory of a cockatrice is detailed, showing how it was born from a normal chicken egg. After being taunted, shunned, and attacked by people for being ugly a kind dragon turns up and gives it courage...to turn around and burn those people to a crisp.
• Berserk Button: Ruining/Destroying things Ferragus actually cares about is one of the very few sure fired ways to make him angry enough to actually fight someone. He once melted a supposedly unmeltable ice giant for tearing his snow coat, and punched a hole through a demon's chest for nearly killing Lizardman.
• Black Comedy: Frequently dips in and out of it depending on the strip. The comic may not go into full on South Park levels of it, but it does not shy away from crass topics and humor, either.
• Black Knight: Lord EdgeGod who was once the edgiest badass alive. After being killed by Ferragus he was resurrected in an unholy ritual. He is determined to recapture his lost edginess, and prove himself a master of chaos once again.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Lampshaded in Ferragus' profile on the site; He is not good. He is not evil. He just is. Screwy morality just seems to be an inherent trait to dragons. For example, Gretch was responsible for killing her and Ferragus' dad, and not only looks back on it like a fond family bonding experience, but if Ferragus' dream of his father is anything to go by, he was actively expecting and encouraging Ferragus to do just that, as that is apparently just normal of dragon offspring.
• Breath Weapon: Dragons, naturally, spew fire from their mouths. And other orifices if the need arises.
• Cain and Abel: Ferragus and Gretch may be siblings, but that certainly doesn't mean they get along. Ferragus outright states the only reason he hasn't killed his sister is because their family (not like he could be bothered to in the first place anyways), and Gretch has made multiple attempts on Ferragus' life, albeit not always directly.
• Character Development: It's small, but it's there. Ferragus is still a self absorbed lazy jerk as he started the comic, but he at least seems to be developing some fondness for those living in his keep. When Lizardman was almost killed due to being flattened by a demon, Ferragus responded by punching a hole through his chest. After (unwittingly) obtaining his sister's horde of gold and magical items, it seems to have awaken some of his natural dragon instincts, a fact he lampshades in one of the comics.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Noted in this comic Where the chicken in charge of baking a dragon-sized black forest cake is forcing them to pull the cake up a volcano to bake the cake. She says "..the Lava only hurts you if it touches you."
• Creepy Crows: Otho's by far the most sadistic character in the comic and due to Ferragus' laziness, probably tied with or just as greedy as Hildegard, willing to get people killed without a second thought if it profits him somehow or if he's just feeling bored. That being said, since he's just a regular-sized crow who's able to talk, most of his methods to do so boil down to telling passing peasants "there's candy in that bottomless pit" and laughing at them when they keep falling for it or hiring other monsters as his muscle.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Ferragus usually manages to stomp most would be heroes and the like who would love to slay him. Usually justified in the fact that most humans even with magic would be woefully outmatched against a dragon as depicted in mythology, even a lazy one. There are only a handful of times where Ferragus has been legitimately defeated in combat; one where he had to face an entire fleet of Sky Pirates with heavy artillery and a Physical God on their side, and another where he got sucker punched in the gut by someone who actually can match him in physical strength.
• Deconstructive Parody: Of Fantasy Kitchen Sink worlds. The comic does not gloss over how a Tolkien-esque world would be an absolute nightmare to live in, considering there are multiple creatures vastly more powerful than humans who would view humanity as an annoyance at best, and have senses of morality that are straight up alien to humans. But since the protagonist is Ferragus (a dragon), half the comedy often tends to be derived from how messed up this world is.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Whenever one of the dragons is defeated, it can come across this way given how often they hand out Curb Stomp Battles. It's most apparent with EdgeGod, who so far is the only human(-ish) character who has successfully both beat and killed Gretch. (Granted, Death Is Cheap and she was back only a few pages later, but still.)
• Deus ex Machina: Invoked with The Deus Ex Box. A magical box that will solve all your problems in a vague and unsatisfying way. In this case, it helped Ferragus pay off his debts (without him knowing), removed his sister from keep (something he was previously unware of), and raised Lord EdgeGod's edginess level to 99%.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Ferragus once burned down a peasant's house... simply for talking shit about him.
• Dragon Hoard: One of the defining features of Ferragus is his lack of dragon horde. He's often mocked for having nothing in comparison to his sister Hildegard Gretchwyrm who rests upon a massive mount of gold. Eventually Ferragus does get something to add to his "horde", a magical self-perpetuating cake.
  • Hildegard's horde ended up in Ferragus' lair after the latter used the Deus Ex Box. As Ferragus was not there and the monsters that guard it are not paid for their jobs, they distributed most of it among themselves, leaving a small part for Ferragus… that went to pay his debts. All without the dragon's knowledge.
• Dragons Prefer Princesses: Discussed; Duchess Doris isn't taken captive because she is "only" a Duchess.
• Dragon Rider: Defied by both Ferragus and Hildegard: When he's temporarily unable to use his giant flying bubble-spitting goldfish and he needs to follow Ferragus, he makes Zizok travel in an oversized pet carrier instead of on his back on the justification that he's "not Zizok's beast, Zizok is his", and Hildegard forces a village of peasants to build a giant dragon saddle so that they can "all travel in style"...by which she means that she'll use it as a litter and force the villagers to carry her around.
  • Ferragus was willing to make an exception to this once for Lizardman when they were planning to make a heist together, but it turns out Lizardman has his own private fighter jet.
  • Hildegard allows a mind-controlled Lord Edgegod to ride her. The chicken admits that it looks quite badass.
  • Jocasta is the only human that manages to play this trope straight, and this is only because Arbalast (the dragon) has a thing for human women. Later Arbalast allows Lord Edgegod to ride on his back as part of a play to get him on his side.
• The Dragonslayer: Sir Corpse was one before he, well, failed to kill Ferragus and became a corpse. Several other would-be knights attempt to be this over the course of the comic with very little success.
• Dragons Versus Knights: Naturally pops up from time to time.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Gretch ends up being defeated by Arbalast when she ate his Paladin rider. Due to their connection, Arbalast is able to completely disrupt her ability to use her flames, in turn allowing him completely encase her in ice.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • While the comic is no stranger to crass humor, the earliest comics were especially so. Sex jokes were a lot more frequent, and the humor could reach downright South Park levels. While the comic still has a fair bit of dark jokes later on, these would be greatly toned down by comparison.
  • Ferragus was surprisingly a lot more active in the early parts of the comic despite the name sake of the comic, with his laziness largely boiling down to wanting to sleep unless he's actively getting paid or rewarded in some way to do a job. Later in the comic he wouldn't even do such things even if he was being rewarded.
  • His relationship with his sister Gretch was far more civil, with Gretch even offering Ferragus life advice and willing to loan him (if begrudgingly) some of her horde if he really needed it. Quite the far cry from later on in the comic where she would downright despise her brother and make multiple attempts on his life.
• Eats Babies: Sharon and Clair Goblin have been shown eating a baby sandwich. Ferragus himself tricks kids into thinking his mouth is a magical cave.
• Eldritch Abomination: Barrabhu is occasionally caught summoning elder gods in private in his room.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Sir Corpse. He claims that there's no afterlife, so he's not going anywhere, even if his ancestors claims he's an asshole and has said he's pissing off God that way.
• Friend to All Living Things: Parodied with Duchess Doris who at first appears with a host of friendly woodland animals. However, she soon uses them to figure out potential traps.
• Giant Flyer: Both dragons are massive, towering over almost every other character. Flying, however, is no issue.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Gretch may be a way more successful dragon than her brother, a fact she loves throwing in his face (not that he cares), but there is one thing Ferragus has that she wants above all else; their parents keep. Partly because she was the one who killed their father for it, but Ferragus managed to weasel his way into owning it anyways. Almost all her schemes usually involve trying to either kill her brother for it or trick him out of it.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Ferragus just does not like humans in general, regardless of race, gender, orientation or whatever factors. There are only a very few humans he tolerates being around, and even then it's clear his patience for them is rather short. Subverted when it comes to most non-human races, which Ferragus is more okay with being around, and he seems to have a soft spot for animals, especially if they've been wronged by humans.
• The Heavy: Lord EdgeGod is Ferragus' go to man to deal with anything he doesn't want to fight himself. Which basically means he does 98% of the fighting for Ferragus in the comic. Despite the joke about him being poking fun at ridiculously edgy dark knights, he has a fairly impressive win/loss ratio.
• Human Sacrifice: The volcano god, Eurpto, demands this when the magic Black Forest cake is baked. Ferragus also gets offered a female offering but is turned off by the implications.
• Husky Russkie: Viktor the warg follows the archetype to a tee, complete with wearing an ushanka and brewing his own vodka.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: EdgeGod's armory consists of mostly oversized and impossible-to-wield weaponry, along with some more esoteric ones, such as a giant shuriken flying ninja surfboard, a double-bladed giant berserker sword, a 9+ boxing glove, and a genuine Bengal tiger.
• Interspecies Romance: Arbalast (a silver dragon) is married to Jocasta (a human paladin). Gretch calls them both perverts because of it.
• It's All About Me: Ferragus is quite self absorbed. He usually has to be prodded and/or promised a quest will benefit him in some way in order to actually do something.
• Lazy Dragon: Ferragus will happily sleep through getting attacked and is quite content to watch the days fly by without moving an inch. However, someone will always come along and interrupt his quiet life and persuade him to come on a quest.
• Medieval Morons: The human inhabitants of the comic are rarely depicted as being smart.
• Middle-Management Mook: Quite literally. Part of the comic deals with the "office" politics of the Wyrm's lair. Linda the slime being promoted to HR is a minor plot point.
• Morality Pet: Lizardman is easily one of the more well adjusted characters (or at least down to earth) characters at Slackwyrm Keep, and easily the one Ferragus seems to care the most about. When Lizardman was almost killed by a demon, Ferragus response was to punch a hole through the demon's chest. The fact that Lizardman is the keep's head chef might have something to do with it.
• Mushroom Samba: Hildegard starts to freak out after eating the hippy, after throwing up her outlook on life has changed and the last we saw of her she was worried about "vegetable rights". She eventually returns back to her normal self after being slayed by Edgegod and using the built up edge in his sword to revive herself.
• Nay-Theist: Sir Corpse. The main reason he's a living corpse in the first place instead of moving on to this universe's afterlife. In his own words;
  Sir Corpse: I refuse to give God the satisfaction.
• Only Sane Man: Leroy Smalls is by far easily the most 'normal' of the cast at Slack Wyrm keep, usually lampshading the insanity that goes on there and (sometimes) tries to keep the cast (mostly Duchess Doris) on track, and is also the one in charge of keeping the mechanics of Slack Wyrm keep running. Fittingly, he's also a Dwarf.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Ferragus Slackwyrm is a lazy, uncaring, European red dragon — er, fire drake. His sister Hildegard Gretchwyrm, while broadly similar, is much more serpentine in appearance, has golden scales and horns, and rules over a city whose citizens she forces to worship her. According to Ferragus, only other dragons are allowed to know or use a dragon's first name.
• Our Hydras Are Different: Minor antagonist is a four-headed Hydra that has similar powers as Ferragus. Notably baking a cake using a Hydra egg grants the cake a self-regenerating property.
• Our Sphinxes Are Different: The titular dragon's castle is home to a sphinx among its other fantasy creatures, who resembles a winged lion with human hair, ears, and a beard and whose riddles are thinly veiled attempts to sort out his highly depressing life.
• Religion of Evil: Or at least what the founders of the Dragon Cult that placed Ferragus at the head thought it would be. However, given the nature of the lazy dragon, it quickly devolved into making snacks.
• Riddle of the Sphinx: Parodied when Duchess Doris ends up caged as prisoner of a sphinx, that gives her meaningless riddles. She frees herself by smashing the sphinx's head with a mace (it gets better) and giving it an unexpected reply.
• Riddling Sphinx: Rene the Sphinx is in the habit of imprisoning people who can't answer his riddles and not letting them go until they get one right, although his "riddles" tend to be fewer mental challenges and more direct questions about why his wife left him or why you only realize you were happy when you become unhappy.
• Round Hippie Shades: Old Man Moog, holistic sorcerer and part-time yoga instructor, is sporting a pink set of these.
• Schizo Tech: Even though the setting looks medieval and magical things are everywhere, everyone uses modern technology whenever the plot demands it.
• Spiked Blood: Old Man Moog has enough drugs in his system to send Gretch tripping balls after eating him, and after puking him back up (undigested) she's still stoned out of her mind.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Pretty much every classical trope involving dragons gets picked to pieces at some point throughout the comic. Humans trying to fight them even with magic? They end up burnt to a crisp. Trying to get the dragon on your side? Likely to get burnt to a crisp, or the dragon will only put up with you until it gets bored. Try to ride them? Turns out any intelligent species would not take kindly to being treated as a glorified horse. Even the one human who does manage to be a Dragon Rider only accomplished it because said dragon was in love with them, and is easily snatched away and eaten by Gretch when the two confront her, since she's completely out in the open with no form of protection, even with a dragon on her side. Ferragus outright says that dragons are on top of the food chain, and that is apparent multiple times throughout the comic's run.
• Take That!: So many that it'd be much easier to say 'the entire internet' and leave it at that, if it weren't against TV Trope policies. Let's just say if it's a common argument or sight on the internet to be hand, both sides of it will be mocked at some point.
• Trap Door: A classic one set up just in front of the Wyrm's front door. Many an adventurer has fallen afoul of this trap, with the help of Otho's guidance.
• The Undead: Sir Corpse. Also Moog after Gretch revives him as a lich.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Ferragus usually just relies on his natural strength as a red dragon to stomp most opponents flat. Usually. Whenever he has to go up against someone who can match his natural strength, or simply outlast what little energy he has, his naturally lazy nature ends up coming back to bite him in the ass hard.
• Vicious Vac: The Demon Lord Baal was inexplicably summoned as a vacuum cleaner. He still isn't a push-over though, able to suck up dragon fire and unable to be squashed, as such Ferragus gives up the cult when he attempts to take over.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Dragons are shown to be able to transform into various creatures. Gretch turns into an old lady selling explosive shuttlecocks and into the Old Man Moog. Ferragus meanwhile turns into a younger dragon so he can go on the water slides.
• Wall of Weapons: After EdgeGod's weapon was sucked dry of its "edgyness" he consults Otho on what will be his next weapon, revealing a large wall of Impossibly Cool Weapons before settling on the Mystery Box.
• Wizard Classic: Zizok is a very wise, foolish man with a lot of time on his hands. He knows all the spells and has been on many adventures. He likes the ladies and interacting with inter-dimensional horrors.
• Wizard Duel: Ferragus and the Hydra "battle" by attempting to manipulate creatures into a deadly fight. However, they both manage to pick well-meaning pacifists that want to talk over their issues. In the end, they resort to picking them up and manually attacking the other's avatars.

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