Originally posted October 17, 2011 @ 12:01 am
Words can’t quite describe how I feel at the moment, it’s very strange and new and exiting as anything! I can only hope you guys had a good time with this comic, because I did, I really did.
www.widdershinscomic.com
And finally, here are the extra character epilogues! Some are pretty much forgone conclusions, some have a few surprises. It’s all there for a little closure.
Gort:
Mink:
Silvador II:
Jill:
Casper and Komi:
Tyr:
Elia and Lyam:
Vargo:
Mary:
The Shadey Bunch:
Am I missing someone or something? Ask me anything in the comments or via the ask box on my Tumblr!
And.. I guess that’s it for now! Basically just.. thank you, thanks to all of you for making this an amazing, honestly life-changing experience. See you in Victorian-era England!
45 Comments
Thank you so much for writing this. I only found out about it after it had finished, and it brought me out of a really dark place I was in at the time. It is an amazing comic, and, when you finish Widdershins, sequel?
Aw, thanks for reading! So glad to have brightened your day 🙂 I’ve got a few more years of Widdershins in me yet, then after that, who knows?
Pretty fun reading all of this again after seven years. Such jolly good memories. And I hope things are going alright for you now a days, Komi.
Thank you for this!!! Loved every page.
Can you share the character stats? If not complete, at least race/class/levels?
The stats are somewhat lost to the ages, I’m afraid- the campaign was a good 10+ years ago! Races are as you’d expect, really- mostly human, except for Komi as a drow and Mink as a half-dragon, which was its own race back in 3rd edition. Classes, hmm… This is half-remembered, so bear with me!
-Mink was all cleric all the time, I think.
-Gort was mostly fighter, with some levels in a specially-created-by-the-DM class called Disciple of Mephistopheles, think that was a reskinned prestige class of some form- it’s where the fire powers came in, anyway.
-Komiyan was mostly ranger, a variant that let you swap out magic and animal companion for MORE SWORD.
-Jill was pure rogue.
-Casper was a rogue with levels in fighter, and a level or two in ranger because that’s what you did in 3rd edition
-Michaelus was an unholy combo of monk, barbarian, fighter, and possibly ranger. His player was extremely good at minmaxing, it was pretty outrageous
Mink, Komi and Michaelus all had ECLs in their various races too because 3rd ed wasn’t very fair about that sort of thing.
That’s all I remember, really!
Thanks for your answer! That’s actually more than enough for what I had in mind!
Disciple of Mephistopheles appears in the Book of Vile Darkness with the same powers Gort has, as does the regalia…
Also, I love the setting so I’ll take inspiration from it for my next campaign.
Thanks again for this amazing comic. Wish you all the best in your coming endeavors!
So it really was a campaign! I suspected so! Did you run it? The comic is amazing and the campaign must have been! Did you do a lot of editing when writing a script for the comic? Sorry for a lot of questions (and exclamations), I’m so exited, this is so good, how comes I found it only now?!.
I didn’t run it, no! I played Komiyan. The comic is honestly massively different to the campaign, mostly for pacing and coherence issues, and because i didnt want to draw a fight scene every two pages 🙂
But it sort of follows the campaign you did, or there were some significative differences even in the outcomes? What happened to michaelus player, if he died like in the comic? Made a new character or quitted the campagin?
Loved this comic at the time, and loved it now. Also, it’s always interesting seeing how the artstyle evolved during the years. Have you ever considered redrawing the earlier strips?
Loved reading this story. It was great. I could tell right away it was story that would keep coming back to the end. If your group had as much fun playing these characters as these characters had throughout the story, it must have been a blast. Hard to find a group with that kind of synergy.
I found this comic back a couple of years ago I really loved it, lost my bookmark and didn’t notice this page the first time so glad to get to see what happened to all the characters afterward. Really didn’t get that this was a real campaign, must have been epic, you are awesome thank you for everything.
Just re-read this again because I fondly remembered reading it the first time and it holds up well. Writing an evil party that works together believably and is likeable isn’t always easy but you pull it off quite enjoyably.
I guess next I should get around to catching up again on Widdershins.
Read this comic for the third time. Every few years i want to read something good, with “evil” as the winner, which has an end and i come back here. Really enjoyable each time 🙂
Thank you.
Whatever happened to Blackshard, anyway?
I’ve read this for the third time now. It gives me immense joy and inspiration every time I do. Since I’m going to play my first D&D game soon, I’ve decided to play an Oath of Conquest Paladin and I’m absolutely taking inspiration from the Darken-Crew.
Thank you so much Kate
oh hey, that’s so neat! enjoy your game, i’m sure it’ll be rad!
i love that people are still leaving little comments here when they stumble across the comic, btw, i check back every now and then and it gives me the warm fuzzies 🙂
Binge-reread it just now. Still as much fun as when I first read it in my teens! Thanks for keeping it online after all those years 🙂 Gotta go try Widdershins now!
I know it’s not very likely that Kate will see this, but just in case…
Could we please have all the main cast’s ages, heights, and favorite food??
Or just Komi and Casper….
(I hope I don’t sound too demanding, I understand if you have other things to do. ;D)
And of course, excellent comic!!!!
Just forgot, I was meaning to ask how to pronounce “xsa”
Also, how strong is it??
Always glad to learn a new curse!
I first discovered Darken somewhere in autumn 2008 and have kept coming back to it ever since. Much as I enjoy Widdershins, Darken will always remain the most entertaining webcomic I’ve ever come across.
Excellent username.
P.S.
If you happen to be able to comment on widdershins pages, do you mind asking Kate if she minds reading my questions I left in the comments above?? I can’t comment on widdershins because I don’t want to make an account.
Sorry, it’s kinda forward of me, but I really would like to know the answers to my questions, and I couldn’t find another way.
Thanks!
Always fun to reread Darken. I first read it just as it was drawing to a close, in early 2011 – indeed, it’s the one comic I know the exact date for, since it was February 22 2011, and in the middle of the Beholder chapter my sister and I dropped the laptop and hid under the doorframe as the great earthquake hit…
Even though it can often be distressing following the triumphs of a group of reprehensible villains, Darken manages to make the whole thing very enjoyable too, and the characters are very vivid and unique.
And best of all, this comic nurtured the talen that later produced Widdershins, one of my all time favourites.
So, thank you Kate, for the dedication and talent you poured into this!
~postscript~ I’ve made a point to leave comments on a lot of pages, this readthrough; I fsaw the old comments had vanished, and I find a good comic should always have an extensive discussion section! Hopefully, over the next decade, it might gain some more. Hopefully my sporadic venting about Gort (I hate the person he is, but that’sno reflection onthe writing!) are not too tiresome.
I was running back through this for a re-read and I have to say I really appreciated having your comments below to fill the void a bit. This comic can absolutely hold its own, but it’s always more fun when there’s a comment section going! Makes it feel less like an abandoned archive and more like reading in a cafe with folks to chat with.
Plus, I’m right there with you on hating Gort as a person, even though he’s great as a character. I rather think that’s the point. He really had the soul of a demon from the start, so his fate seems … fitting.
Kate – I remember there being some very funny “ask the characters” sketch comics for Darken back in the day. Are these still available somewhere? Thanks!
They are in the (e-)book version of Volume 1 (chapters 1-14, when Gort gets the sword back from Tyr). You can buy them through the links below. If those don’t work or you’d rather not trust a random stranger’s links, you can also easily find them at the top of the page (“Buy the Book”, self explanatory)
Print:
https://gumroad.com/l/UjZC
E-Book:
https://widdershins.storenvy.com/collections/268183-books/products/1709874-darken-vol-1
Catching up on Widdershins recently and decided to re-read Darken. Still is a “Hell” of a story!
Thank you Komiyan (aka Kate) for keeping this available.
It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again; this is a really fantastic story. Thank you for sharing it with us!
I am very late to the Q&A party, but one thing I have been dying to know after rereading this comic (still a favorite btw!) : Where did Shard go???
From what I understand, Shard was released and won’t be able to take on any particular forms for the near future. However, he could end up possessing people again at some point, so it’s not exactly fixed.
It seems Shard’s possession rots a body over time, so I’m not sure why he tried to take over Komi (I assume that’s what him trying to spook him while he’s sleeping was meant to do), unless there’s some “the more time spent together, the more effectively Shard can keep the body” thing going on.
not quite on the shard thing- tarvin was only rotting cus komi stabbed him in the chest minutes after shard took him over, effectively killing him.
Does that mean Shard wanted to possess Komi because he was the only one he could realistically enter in short notice? (Presumably no one else had the same…familiarity with Shard, nor had their mind as cracked as he had).
Or did he specifically want Komi over anyone else for some reason?
that, and he was pretty dang strong, despite what he thought of himself! there are definitely worse people to possess :V
I keep coming back to reread this. I love it SO MUCH!!! Is there a complete book that can be bought? I only see a book that has chapters one through fourteen.
Haha, thanks 🙂 I’m afraid I only got around to redoing the comics for the first book- unfortunately it’s hundreds of hours of work to reshuffle the pages into a printable format, and I decided it’d be better to use that time to make new comics instead. I’ll keep Darken online forever though so it’s not going anywhere as long as I’m still around!
I remember reading through all of Darken during the summer I was 15, cross-legged on my bed, shades drawn, on an ancient laptop I got from my sister. I had a huge crush on Komi and internalized almost nothing about the other characters at the time. I’m so happy I came back to it as an adult and SO happy it holds up. Now…on to a Widdershins reread! <3
It was absolutely wonderful to see the art development and being able to note the similarities to Widdershin’s style.
That said, the one big thing that I don’t think was answered was what happened to the amulet Casper had? Did it vanish after he slept with it? Does it have any relation to Shard, and was it actually a “benign” curse (“will haunt you until you let it chat with you” is pretty mild by curse standards) or was it eeeeevilllll?
Anyways, thanks for all the comics! You’re absolutely incredible!
haha, thank you 🙂 yes, it vanished- benign curse is a good way to put it!
Kate, I found you first on Widdershins, which is wonderful, and so is Darken. I whole-heartedly second all of the above praise! but I do have a question. Jill seems so positive that she knows that the two leader’s deaths at The Danderby School were murder but I don’t think we were ever told any more about that/those incidents. Were they murders, and if so, by whom? Mary presumably could have (I bet that her powers include getting out of locked rooms) but why would she? Or does Jill just mean that she herself caused them by being who she is?
And thank you very much for continuing to share these and to write more Widdershins!
there’s a link underneath the last page of jill’s story that explains all 🙂 here you go https://darkencomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/jillsolution.jpg
Thanks very much, Komi! Yes, I’d totally missed that link as I read the story. I’ll pay closer attention the next time I read through (now that my copy of the book of the first set of chapters has re-surfaced, that will be sooner than my last time).
I completely missed this the first time around as well. Thank you!
This was a gem of a comic to randomly find in a Reddit comment! It really gripped me and I couldn’t put it down (Is this comic CURSED?!).
The earlier art style reminds me of Dominic Deegan: Seer for Hire. I loved watching the quality improve and improve over time, some of the effects the artist did with paneling and speech bubbles was very clever (That chase scene in the castle with shard was so good I had to share it with friends)! Thank you Komiyan for keeping the comic hosted, you guys made a real great story together ^.^
I actually found the comic because I was searching for Yuan-ti in webcomics.
I remember finding this comic when it was nearing the end back in 2010, and have been reading widdershins since it’s come out
Decided to give this a reread and gotta say I still love the last 2-3 chapters of this so much. I play a lot of evil characters in dnd and I thin its partly due to this comics influence XD
Thanks so much for all the work you’ve done on this and widdershins, they’re really masterpieces
So I gotta ask: what happened to Tyr? Is the feather supposed to represent his death? Or is it supposed to mean he turned into an angel? Or did an angel swoop down to cure him?