Follow TV Tropes

Following

Webcomic / Endstone
aka: Endstone/

Go To

Endstone is a fantasy webcomic set in a extremely strange Sword and Sorcery version of the United States of America, where the "higher animals" are humanoid in shape, and the heroine Kyri is a deer — really. Where there are combined beauty salon/blacksmithies. Where magical stones can be "rocked" by the talented, the stoners, including Kyri, her estranged husband Jon, and their daughter Colindra ("Cole").

The reason they are estranged is that Jon tried to use one to destroy the world. But there are hints that this might not be a bad thing.

Presented as a comic book.

Starts here.

The comic was cancelled in January 2019 due to schedule conflicts.


Tropes included in this work

  • After the End: The Eternity Spire was a Reality Warper science project Gone Horribly Wrong. The Spire exploded, destroying civilization and causing mass extinctions. The scientists who were part of the team that created the Eternity Spire were irradiated by the dark matter the project revolved around, allowing them to warp reality using the shards of the Spire. They used their new abilities to seize power and stop all progress. For some bizarre reason, humans ended up filling the empty niches in nature, effectively resulting in cannibalism as "wolves" and humans hunted and fed on "deer". To fix his mistakes, the head scientist, the God At The Eternity Spire, intends to warp reality to become a variant of how things were before everything went wrong.
  • Androcles' Lion: In the arena, unsurprisingly.
  • Anti-Magic: The Endstone's power to disrupt other overstones.
  • Artifact of Doom: The Banestone will drive any stoner who possess it to madness, subject them to the whims of an evil "god", and compel them to aggressively pursue the Endstone at any cost. It is said that should the Banestone and Endstone be united, it will bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Herrik the Snake averts this, lampshading for any audience members who may take amiss the sudden introduction of the idea that the shattered, useless Endstone can be put back together:
I've seen dudes eat fire, and I've seen chicks turn into flying lizards, so that seems perfectly reasonable.
  • Attempted Rape: What drives Cole to use the Banestone in order to defend herself.
  • Back Story: Pops up often in flashbacks.
  • The Bait: Jon attempted to use the Endstone as bait to destroy Drakyl. It didn't go very well.
  • Came Back Wrong: The Gravestone can bring back the dead. As undead. They seem perfectly themselves apart from lacking flesh.
  • The Cavalry: When all hope seems lost, Lord Quandel brings reinforcements to fight off Jon's army.
  • Compelling Voice: The God At The Eternity Spire is able to control anyone who wields the Banestone. With John, he was able to manipulate him by acting as a false friend. With Colindra, he was able to control her through terror.
  • The Corrupter: The man behind the Banestone is able to force its wielder to commit horrific deeds, no matter their former nature.
  • Death Amnesia: Pablo doesn't have any memories of an afterlife from the time he was dead. He fears that this might mean he has no soul, or Heaven doesn't exist. Both possibilities scare him.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: What will happen if the Banestone and Endstone unite, since they will release a Mad Scientist from his prison to remake the world with a malfunctioning Reality Warper machine.
  • Every Man Has His Price: In the version of the world Simon creates, Simon is president of the world and John Montaine is CEO of Goldman Sachs. As a wealthy lobbyist, John expects this trope to hold, and demands Simon inform him of what he is doing. John knows things are very bad when the president isn't influenced by Wall Street anymore.
  • Everything's Deader with Zombies: A massive number of dead are raised as zombies. Fortunately, they don't eat brains. The protagonists aside, the vast majority of people are nonchalant or even treat it as a miracle.
  • Fantastic Racism: Humans see the other higher animals, such as "deer", the same way we would see real deer in real life. Even though they are humanoid and have a similar level of intelligence.
  • Fantasy Gun Control: Mostly holds true, but not completely. The world has forgotten that guns ever even existed. But thanks to Simon's knowledge, Drakyl is able to find a sufficiently skilled blacksmith to recreate one, and Simon himself later conjures a bunch of figures in the shape of modern military.
  • Forced Transformation:
    • When the Eternity Spire project started going horribly wrong, the head scientist accidentally converted several of the others into animals. When Simon starts using it again to rewrite reality into a variant of the world before things went wrong, some people are not translated very well. Pimrose, for example, gets turned into a dog, which is likely considered a Karmic Transformation as well.
    • The owner of the Toadstone combines its power with a massive stone that amplifies stones, and uses it to convert every humanoid on the planet save himself and Kyri into Toadmen.
  • God-Emperor: The God At The Eternity Spire intends to become a benevolent version of this so that mankind can recover from After the End and ensure that the disaster at the Eternity Spire can never be repeated.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: The humans see the other higher animals as potential meals, even though they are humanoid, of comparable intelligence, and can still be seen as something to satisfy "erotic appetites". Even worse, they actually are humans, who for some bizarre reason, have ended up filling the evolutionary niches that were left empty after the Eternity Spire caused mass extinctions.
  • In Mysterious Ways: One possible interpretation of the nature goddess's apparent lack of intervention. The God At The Eternity Spire has also been implied to have some limited ability to intervene indirectly
  • Loser Son of Loser Dad: Cole hears murmurs that she'll be as evil as her father.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: Their world is implied to be one of these. The Eternity Spire is actually a reality warping machine. It was originally hinted to have replaced the "real world" (which is much like our own) with the fantasy style world of Endstone. Though the God At The Eternity Spire eventually admits that this was a lie he used to control the various wielders of the Banestone and the "real world" those people saw merely reflects the reality he intends to create. See After the End above.
  • Love at First Sight: Kyri Thunderhead and Jon Montaine.
  • Mad Scientist: The God At The Eternity Spire is actually one of these. He was often criticized by his colleagues for not testing his theories thoroughly enough. This recklessness is ultimately what lead to the After the End state of the world. Even that failed to teach him his lesson, and he chided his critics long afterwards. Thanks to being imprisoned in the Artifact of Doom known as the Banestone, his sanity has only declined even further, and he is now willing to commit horrific and stupidly unsubtle atrocities to bring about his plans.
  • Medieval Stasis: According to the God At The Eternity Spire, the "Stoners" are descended from his original science team, who were irradiated by the Eternal Spire's explosion, giving them the ability to manipulate the shards of the Spire and warp reality. They effectively used this power to conquer the world and stopped all technological progress.
  • Mind Rape: What the God At The Eternity Spire does to Colindra after she opens her mind to him via the Banestone.
  • Not Quite Dead: Jon Montaine and Kyri Thunderhead were believed to have perished at the Eternity Spire. But as Pablo Montaine suspects, they were merely imprisoned in time.
  • Orwellian Retcon: Colindra's Alternate Self in the universe Simon intends to create was originally depicted as a fat overeating slob. Word of God says that he originally planned to make it karma for Colindra's vanity, but he never properly explored it and as such regretted it. She has since been retconned to a punk. Even past pages were altered, and those that hadn't yet were replaced with a "down for maintenance" page.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The God At The Eternity Spire is trapped in another plane of existence that overlooks normal reality, preventing him from using his reality warping powers. Though he's more of an insane Well-Intentioned Extremist than actually evil, and his imprisonment is the result of an accident.
  • Sex Slave: When someone tries to auction off Kyri, a man wants her alive, rather than butchered for meat.
  • Shape Shifting Excludes Clothing: transforming into a dragon via the Dragonstone destroys whatever clothing the user was wearing, and leaves the stoner naked when she returns to normal form. Colindra alternates between not noticing her nudity in this situation and, upon noticing, having to go get clothing.
  • The Sociopath: Anyone using the Banestone's power risks becoming this. Jon Montaine cared nothing for his family while he was under its influence. It has been implied that being trapped inside the Banestone for so long has left The God At The Eternity Spire stuck with this trait, even when he isn't using it.
  • So Proud of You: Kyri starts her talk with Cole about being a stoner with this
  • Stripperiffic: Playing with it. Because the years have not been kind to Matilda.

Top