Not all things must come to an end.
Erj is a world kept alight by a sun that has orbited faithfully since recorded memory—but now, that faith is faltering.
As the world slips ever deeper into despair, a contingent of outsiders, driven by little more than a desire to survive, will do what they can to illustrate that all things mustn’t come to an end.
Rising Sand
is a webcomic produced by Ty Dunitz and Jenn Lee.
General Tropes:
- The Almighty Dollar: The sect Queb follows interprets Nyue, the goddess of existence, as a materialist. As such, it is considered holy sacrament to bring as much wealth in glass as possible to her temple to be absolved of birthright sins; this is the practice of Indulgence taken to its logical conclusion. This is deconstructed when Ro accidentally destroys Queb's wealth, causing him to fly into a rage and (try to) sadistically torture her to death by ripping out her air filter. Afterwards, Dal hates his guts for murdering her sister in front of her over money, money that he was going to donate to a goddess no less, and Queb realizes his religion has turned him into a wizened thug. He decides to become a heretic.
- An Arm and a Leg: Dal has her leg amputated by none other than Ro after it was crushed by a boulder.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The Suneaters' eyes are completely covered over by skin, but they can still see through that skin and can even use binoculars and visors.
- Comfort Food: Ro gives Dal a spicecake, supposedly made by their father, in a somewhat crude way to lift her spirits.
- Just Before the End: The sun is reportedly about to fall from the sky.note The main characters get involved in a plan to hopefully stop it.
- The Plague: 'Ash' is a super-evolved fungus that infests all of Erj. Those whose immune systems are weakened (or Sylphs) grow glowing barnacle-like mushrooms that burst open, killing the infected and spreading even more Ash. They have evolved to flourish in the day, while most of the world has evolved a resistance to the spores, and the Sylphs have developed anti-spore botanicas and technology.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Dal's family believes she committed suicide and jumped off a cliff. Not helping matters is that living without a filter in Ash-infested zones (which is everywhere but the city of Sylphs) is typically a death sentence for Sylphs.
- Space Elves: The Sylphs claim to be the descendants of these. Their ancestors crash-landed on this planet, having pissed off the goddess of space for some unknown reason, and they have been praying and repenting to the goddess to take them off this rock before they all die of air poisoning.
- Straw Nihilist: Thralls worship Ybris as the goddess of the concept of nonexistence. As such, they seek to divest themselves of materialism, frequently discarding wealth and mutilating themselves to break their addiction to existing. However, in the same vein, some of these thralls will engage in holy wars against heretics - especially the Sylphs, who venerate Ybris as the goddess of space and are very materialistic - and steal their technology. Commentary notes that hypocrisy 'to gain an advantage' is normal in most religions, and that this is especially true for the less faithful of the outcasts.
- Why Isn't It Attacking?: Ro is rescued by thralls, the very people who view her species as heretics and have committed genocide on her city. Even when she kills a few, they don't even flinch and point for her to leave.
