The comic can be found here
. A backup can be found here.
Morwenna in all her glory.
Script written by Charlotte E. English and Art illustrated by Elsa Kroese. The story follows the life of Morwenna Agenar (as seen in the page image), who spent her life thinking she's half-Alar, half-human. She's really half-Alar, and half-Ildrei royalty. The issue is that the patron deities of both races absolutely loathe each other. One deity wants her exterminated at all costs. The other wants to manipulate and exploit her, at best.
Associated tropes:
- Both Sides Have a Point: Alarina is right to say a nomadic race, the Ildrei, that cares not about borders and alienates all its neighbors by forcing their way past border check-points, doing little, if anything, to set up permanent bases for commerce, education, research and development is doomed to extinction sooner or later, which is precisely the case with the incoming Camorian Empire invading the land, looking to exterminate them all. On the other side of the coin, Ildrus is correct that Alarina's race, the Alar, are suicidally xenophobic, squirreling themselves away in the mountains, rarely engaging in contact with other races, trade, or expanding into the nearby lands to hunt and gather, and know next to nothing of the surrounding land, or their neighbors, spending all their time naval gazing and sculpting art. Should their home become untenable, for any reason, their chances of long-term survival are grim, especially if Alarina throws a tantrum and takes away their wings.
- Cosmic Chess Game: Alarina and Ildrus are vying for supremacy, and their respective races are their pawns.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: From both parents. Neva, Morwenna's mother, left her in the care of her maternal uncle because she was being exiled for the "crime" of siring a half-breed, and could not raise the child alone. Morwenna's father didn't even know he had a child until decades later, and that because his pack had need of him elsewhere, being nomads and all. Neva knew this going in, and still lay with him of her own free will.
- Even Evil Has Standards: When Ildrus learns that Alarina stripped away the Alar's wings in a tantrum, without warning, even causing some of them to fall out of the sky, and leaving the rest defenseless, he's shocked, horrified, and outraged, and this is a guy who honestly believes his Ildrei hunting other races to extinction, albeit in apparent self-defense, is something to be proud of.Ildrus: (To Alarina) "What have you done?!"(A bit later): "You've left them defenseless! You fool... Well, if it's interference you want, someone has to make you see sense!" (Slasher Smile)
- Evil Versus Evil: Both Alarina and Ildrus are villainous, and Morwenna is stuck between them, trying to survive.
- Fantastic Racism: Enforced. Alarina commands her people, the Alar, to keep themselves racially pure, treat any half-breeds among them as second-class citizens, at best, and have little to no contact with other races, especially the Ildrei. Failure to comply and the punishment is swift, harsh, and unrelenting until the offending "impurity" is purged.
- Horned Humanoid: The Ildrei are fond of modifying their bodies using the 'Drift. Most prefer to add horns to their heads in one way or another.
- Jerkass Gods: Both Alarina and Ildrus are royal jerks, to say the least. Alarina is a complete narcissist who demands her race spend its days building shrines to worship her, with statues and art that show her appearance as far more attractive than she actually is, and demands complete racial purity, woe if the Alar fail in either. While Ildrus doesn't care much about racial purity, he sees his people as merely pawns, his eyes and ears in the world, and rarely intervenes on their behalf, no matter how dire their straits.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Rivals!: The Alar lost their wings because the Rugon faction of the Ildrei tried to use Morwenna to steal them for the tactical advantage flight brings, and the self-proclaimed "goddess of purity" Alarina threw a hissy fit and took them away from everyone in Aureate.
- People Puppets: One of the abilities of the 'Drift (The titular Spindrift) is for an Ildrei to control the body of a close relative. Morwenna's father does this, albeit with extreme reluctance, to get Morwenna to steal the Alar's wings to save his people from the invading Camorian Empire. While there was some brief success, a drop of Morwenna's blood falls on the altar, immediately tipping off goddess Alarina, who then proceeds to throw a tantrum, take away the Alar's wings without warning, and then tell her priests, "kill the half-breed if you want to even think about getting them back!" This causes Morwenna to flee the Alar city for her life.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Ildrei are nomadic, travel in small groups called "packs" and gain their sustenance by hunting and scavenging, though they will plunder any fools who antagonize them. Still, they only take what they need, and leave the rest unmolested. They rarely form cities, and then only for trade and tribal councils. While this makes hunting and exterminating them difficult, it does make it hard for them to fight back against a large and well-coordinated enemy. The arrogance and incompetence of their tribal council who shrugged off Neburas's warning of the incoming Camorian Empire invasion doesn't help.
- Scenery Porn: Story aside, the illustrations would not be out of place in a museum of fine art. The primary reason for sporadic updates is that Elsa's computer frequently breaks down from the strain of putting the graphics together...
- Winged Humanoid: The Alar, after completing the rites of adulthood, are granted wings by goddess Alarina, unless they leave the Alar capital city, voluntarily or otherwise, or Alarina throws a tantrum and takes them away.
