January Mini-comic Poll #1

Time to choose the first mini-comic of 2024! Let's see how the year starts off :D

This poll will be open from December 19th (10pm CET) to December 22nd (10pm CET).

And here are the options:

1. Out of the Hoodie - A young miscreant in Empire Bay finds an antique cloak that belonged to a roguish ancestor. It looks surprisingly modern thanks to its high quality, but more importantly it's just about baggy enough to serve as the perfect dysphoria hoody (not that she realises that's what she wants). She spends every waking moment practically living in it (and suppressing the urge to think about what she looks like...for some reason).

After several months of graffiti tagging, recording law enforcement misdeeds and vending machine hacks (everyone does it!), our hero's getting a reputation. There's no end of speculation (amongst people who care about such things) about who's under this stylish cloak...and she's strangely happy when they get this "wrong" and speculate she's a girl.

As of the comic, she's just tripped up (literally) and been caught. The reveal that she's a girl is as much a surprise to her as everyone else (except a few friends who assumed she was transitioning, but didn't mention it). Luckily for her, she's able to slink away just before the 5-0 tosses her into the car. Rumor has it she's still at large, tagging buildings and hacking vending machines.

[Empire Bay, Egg to tomboyish trans woman minicomic]

2. New Year, New World, New Me! -Just before New Years, a shy 30ish man plans his resolutions for the next year; one of which is to be more outgoing and extroverted. The universe decides to help in it its own strange way and right at midnight when the countdown reaches 0, a shimmering blue portal rips open in front of him and takes him to a sunny glade somewhere far away.

After admiring the view for a few minutes, he feels his body ripple and shake as it begins transforming into that of a very curvy Water Nymph.

As if the transformation had cracked her shell in the span of a few minutes, she is overwhelmed with feelings of confidence, happiness and extrovertedness before she sets off on her new life.

[Gateworld, human male-to-female Water Nymph]

3. Kindness for Kindness - Falling through the swirling blue portal into the darkened forests of the Wyldefree, a depressed and angry young "man" who sought an end to his old life finds himself lost. Still a conflicted mess but perplexed and frustrated by his current situation, he tries to find his way out of the dense and forbidding wood time and time again, yet after several days finds himself no closer to escaping. The most help he gets is scraps of food dropped by other denizens of the woods, who seem to take pity on this lost soul.

Broken with despair and exhausted from wandering in the mountains, he collapses in the middle of a sunlit clearing. Lying there only a few feet away is a dying bird which suddenly catches his attention. With tears in his eyes, he uses the last of his energy to cup his hands over the poor creature and comfort it in its final moments.  Worn clothes rip and fall away as his form radically shifts. His lower body lengthens and contorts, going from a bipedal to a quadrupedal form standing on cloven hooves and covered in soft brown and white dappled fur. A fluffy tail, white on the underside, emerges from the changed rump. While his upper body remains humanoid, it too is soon covered up to his rapidly softening chest in velvety fur.

Long reddish brown hair pours out of her scalp to the small of her back, parted by furry mobile ears and a pair of strange black nubs that slowly grow into impressive antlers. A white stripe down the center of her now feminine face reaches a black, shiny nose at the end of a small muzzle, completing the metamorphosis into a rare and beautiful Faun maiden. The rejuvenating energy flowing through the newborn Kindred's body heals the bird, who releases a grateful chirp as it flies away.

Standing in a meadow now vibrant with freshly opened blooms, the young Faun bounds off into the clearing full of celebrating Fae as she joins the company of her new herd.

[Gateworld, human male-to-female Faun/Deer-taur]

4. When the Terms Change - An otherworldly entity/demon strikes a classic deal with a foolish Halfling warlock - five years of wealth and prosperity, after which they would come to collect his soul/life/eternal servitude. Confident in the terms, the demon slips back into their home realm to wait and collect.

Five years pass, and the demon returns to collect payment. Problem is, this Halfling is from the Seventh Realm, and in the years between the Demon and the Halfling's meeting, certain cornerstone chicanery has swapped things around.

So rather than dealing with a hapless halfling fellow, the demon finds themself up against a confident and savvy Nightfolk sorceress - one who has found all sorts of error and loopholes in the original contract, and has the cunning and charisma to turn the tables on just how this "eternal servitude" arrangement should work...

[Seventh Realm Male Halfling Acolyte to Female Nightfolk Dommy Sorceress]

5. Nyappy Mew Year! >^.^< - On New Years Eve, a lonely and aloof dude looks at the fancy fireworks from inside his apartment while hearing his noisy neighbors having a fun-sounding party. Silently he wishes that his introverted self could have as much fun as they are having. And a certain horned kitten hears the wish from the shadows...

With a green zap from their horns, the kitten transforms the human into a cute Calico Catgirl!  So she's still somewhat aloof but deep down she loves attention and rushes up to her neighbors for cuddles!

[Empire Bay, human male-to-female catgirl]

6. Artist's Suggestion: The Ultimate Weapon - In the Dieselpunk world of Tyrodas (the one with Countess Siobhan Everton-Coldflame), war has raged for as long as anyone can remember. It would have helped if there were any historians left to chronicle what happens in Tyrodas, but alas all higher forms of science were outlawed shortly after the West Empire of Kalcyria and the Paralaesian National Coalition started the war. No one even knows what the original cause was.

On the frontlines, Kalcyrian artillery is far superior compared to the Paralaesians' own machines of war - But the P.N.C. is far from outmatched, they have their own superior weapon. The Bellatrix Ultima. Towering infantry units clad in the toughest and heaviest of armors while carrying terrifying cannons. The Kalcyrian artillery often keep them away from directly confronting their soldiers in the trenches, but the few survivors of such encounters speak of them as if they were demons summoned directly from Hell.

The truth isn't quite as fantastical.

Convincts of the P.N.C. are often just made to perform hard labor in mines and foundries, but everyone of them has had their bodies tested for certain compatibilities... Whenever such compatibilities are discovered, these lucky convicts are privileged to serve their nation in a different way.

With or without their consent, they are taken to secret facilities where they are bathed in and injected with chemicals that normal people wouldn't last through. They have their organs mutated and their whole forms altered. Growing several times their original size, gaining muscles so big and solid that they can stop small firearms. And curiously, regardless of their previous gender, they all become female. Which is why Bellatrix Ultimae are colloquial called the War Sisters.

[Dieselpunk, corruption themes, human somewhat beefy man to way more beefy woman. A kind of spin on WH40K's Space Marines, except that while Space Marines can only be men, War Sisters can only be ladies!]