Know Your Place Page 6
March 7th, 2017The plague comes to town. The malignant spirits prey on the old and weak, including Old Alcide. The sudden tragedy starts the dominoes falling as you can see when you vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics! This page is brought to you by the incredible talents of Robin Childs of Leylines! Go read her comic too!
Steph and I are back from ECCC in Seattle! Oh wow, is that a long flight. We had a marvelous time meeting new readers and comic fans. We pretty much sold out of everything! Which was great for our luggage heading home. I was even able to pick up some new books from other great artists. A huge shout out to K. Lynn Smith of Plume who will be doing the Ch16 vignette. You should read her comic as well!
Waaait … is it only what people are believing in or is plague actually caused by spirits in your world instead of bacteria/viri?
The plague is actually caused by spirits in Corthis. You can read about it in the Almanac.
Before ever looking at the next scene for voting if you are going by typical tradition the first to die of plague was usually seen as cursed. Such superstitions lead to misfortune for the others of the household too. I have feeling Jassart is about to be run out of town for being associated with the first to die in the plague.
That poor kind old man. I hope he was happy to have an apprentice to leave his business to and felt like he could go in peace. Though Jassart obviously didn’t end up staying there, but Alcide never got to know that.
I see a crescent-and-star on Alcide’s grave. Alcide’s name follows a typical Arabic form: “Al-something” (or El-something, or Il-something) means “the-something”. In fact, Al Cid would mean “the lord” (as in the Cantar de mio Cid). Is that a coincidence?
(Of course El Cid, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, was a Christian, thus would not have had a crescent-and-star on his grave. But that’s really beside the point.)
I feel like the crescent and star must have a meaning of their own in this world’s belief system. *goes off to consult the Almanac*
Yes, it’s for Giavere, the spirit of the moon who shines light through the dark of the night. The same one for whom they lit candles in the night in that lovely scene in chapter 6. She’s the patron god of Saronne, where I think this is taking place. So perhaps everybody there gets a Giavere symbol to protect their grave?
I wouldn’t read too much into the name. The crescent and star in Corthis is a symbol of Giavere, the goddess of the moon and patron of Saronne. Alcide is an old-fashioned French name recommended to me by my French translator.