Posted In: comic

– From now I’ll be dealing with typos in the following way.  I’ve decided to post each strip as I finish them on the Modest Medusa Discord. Several readers there have offered to review strips and spot typos. Hopefully I’ll be able to get feedback quickly and then post the new strip here for everyone to see. That will be my plan moving forward.

– This strip is… complicated. The idea for this strip goes all the way back to Urano’s death in Modest Medusa Season 2, and the backup story in the Season 2 book involving Marah following Urano’s instructions and searching out the magical spear called Lonesome Ocean, the weapon she uses to storm Dragul’s castle in Season 3 (which also eventually shows up in Ghost Kiss).

At the time of writing Urano’s death in Season 2 my idea was that Season 3 would be about Marah’s adventures trying to follow Urano’s final instructions. She would travel with the pirates and search out the magical spear, and eventually meet the Hand of Autumn and be presented with a  chance to go home. During all of this she would have dreams where she spoke to Urano’s Ghost and he revealed more of his plans to her and tried to teach her how to be an Oathbreaker.

But… right after that I introduced Medusa’s sisters in the very last Season 2 strip. This was a complete whim. Totally unplanned. And they completely took over the story, to the point where I eventually abandoned all the ideas for Marah in the first half of Season 3 instead decided to leave what happened to her while she was separated from Modest as a mystery.

Later I realized this was a story I really wanted to tell, but the details had shifted. When I decided to introduce the idea of alternate versions of Marah who had made other choices and were very different people, I also decided to introduce an alternate Urano. A Urano from another timeline (or maybe just a  possible Urano. Its not clear if any of these people are actually real or just possibilities created in this moment by the Tower and the Arsenal.) This Urano never died at the hands of the Knight of Chains, and accompanied Marah on her rescue mission. And now this Urano has come through the Tower and the Arsenal, across time and space, to be here for another Marah that needs his help.

I thought it would be nice to bookend the season with Urano. We see him in the first strips as part of Marah’s dream with the Princess, and now we see him again, about to tell Marah how to complete his plan and save her uncle and friend. He wears all black armor because, as I said before, I originally thought he would be a ghost. The design goes back to a print I did for the Modest Medusa season 2 Kickstarter, when I was first working all this out (back when the plan was still for Jake to have died, and for Marah and Medusa to meet him as a Ghost a the end of Season 3)