It’s the sort of fairy tale where they chop off people’s toes in order to fit into glass slippers. (I am getting SO MUCH COAL IN MY STOCKING for this bit, I swear.)
That big strand of hair blocking panel 1 was an afterthought. Got a little R-Rated for a moment there.
The binding of clasped wrists is part of a sarnothi wedding ceremony. And you can’t really tell with how simply I draw… well EVERYTHING, but native sarnothi clothing is made of thin leather, not cloth.
My non-canon goofy nicknames for the maiden and her mate are Wai Fu and Huzubando.
Sarnothi have a saying for when someone passes away unexpectedly or otherwise “before their time”: they are said to have “repaid the debt of the eels”. – – – – – For Springfield, IL readers, I am going to be[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
In my very early iterations of Sarnoth they were a more directly high-fantasy magic-using people, and a very common multi-purpose cantrip that would have been used regularly in the comic was "Han Shin Jian Tho". Eventually I moved towards a more magitech-y theme for Sarnoth, but Han Shin Jian Tho was still something bouncing around my mental notes. So when I needed a name for the Eel Spirit, I jumped right away to repurpose the former "magic phrase" into his name. Back when I teased an early drawing of "The Maiden and the Eel Spirit" I had not yet worked out the Eel Spirit's proper name. Which is why it wasn't mentioned back then. XD