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Dark Ascension Horizon (SPECIAL): Chapter 9


devious-Drunna

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Alone, Jenna takes on a contract to save a village from bandits!

Spoiler

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This is a "special" entry as it was inspired by an upcoming video game.  Originally,  this story was its own separate thing, with a very unique art style and format from my other comics,. It was then  to be published on my Drunna's Den Blog rather than the Dark Ascension Blog. I had the idea later to tie this standalone story back to Jenny's main story. 

Usually there is a good month between the release of each of the Dark Ascension Chapters.  This entry (Chapter 9, Part 1) is released less than a week from the previous Chapter 8 of Dark Ascension release ( you may read more about why this was released early below). If you missed it, here is the link to the previous chapter:  Dark Ascension Horizon: Chapter 8

 


Background Origin for this "Different" Comic

After watching Playstation's State of Play video for "Ghost of Tsushima" back in June, I was inspired to reactivate my samurai mods on Skyrim! I created a brand new worldspace, stuck Aspen trees everywhere, and starting taking screenshots. Eventually the screenshots lead to doing a comic storyline with a Samurai feel. The original samurai inspired part of the story was completed well before I had finished Chapter 8 with the intention of releasing the comic the morning of July 17 to celebrate "Ghosts of Tsushima" release on the PS4.

 

This entry was given a  SPECIAL event title as originally the comic was its own separate thing and was to be published on the Drunna's Den Blog rather than the Dark Ascension Blog. It wasn't until around 2AM on the 17th, while playing "Ghost of Tsushima," that I had the idea to tie the standalone back into Jenny's main story. I figured it would also add an extended reprieve for Jenny from her ordeal at the beginning of Chapter 8 and gives her some time before the events in Parts 2 and 3 of Chapter 9 hit Jenny.

 

So, the comic release was delayed as I wrote and created new screenshots over the weekend. The original ended within one page from what you see that had the villagers thanking Jenny in their special, but very straightforward way. I extended that scene to something (in my opinion) a bit different and "interesting." Don't worry - it is very, VERY clear which part of the comic was the original, and which parts of the comic were the recently added parts!

 

Here is a link to the Playstation State of Play for "Ghost of Tsushima" if you are curious:


And just for fun, here is a clip from “Harakiri” one of the many samurai movies that helped with the inspiration for my unique chapter :)

 

 

 

Dark Ascension: Horizon, Book 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7: Part 1

Chapter 7: Parts 2 and 3

Chapter 8

Chapter 9: Part 1 "SPECIAL"

 

Dark Ascension, Book 1

Chapter 1: Fortune's Bedfellows

Chapter 2: Reaper's Covenant

Chapter 3: Journey's Shadowed Path

Chapter 4: Essence Awakenings

Chapter 5:Secrets Under the Stairs

Chapter 6: Vestal's Order

Chapter 7: Veracity’s Twilight

Chapter 8: Pawns in Portension’s Shadow

Chapter 9: Hath Thee in Thrall

Chapter 10: No Tomorrow

Chapter 11: In the Mouth of Chaos and Lust

Chapter 12: The Laconic Pathway

Chapter 13: Divine Pestilence

Chapter 14: Lascivious Connections 

Chapter 15: Cross the Rubikon

 

Dark Ascension, Initiates' Tales

-From the Drunna’s Den Blog-

Part 1

Part 2

Edited by devious-Drunna

17 Comments


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The Ghost of Tsushima influence is definitely visible here!  I was asking myself, "why'd he switch to black and white?" , until I saw the blood effects.  Good Work!  Got a Kill Bill vibe as well.  

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Other Notes:

1. Sorry if the banner image for this blog entry I does not match the tone of the actual comic itself. I was beyond impressed how the screenshots looked with the lighting but most important, how I got Jenny to look so sexy and dangerous especially that facial expression she has!  Other images I had for possible banner or cover couldn’t match this one, despite tonally being closer to the comic entry itself.

 

2. Inconsistent font sizes for the subtitles...

 The program I use to create the comics is on an iPad. The subtitles aren’t textboxes like the word bubbles, but instead letter art where font sizes are adjusted by cropping - using the iPad touch screen :( 

 

3. The “Title” font used that was being translated is a runic font called Barazhad (from Forgotten Realms D&D). I used it because it had a similar look to Hanzi/Kanji 

4. “All your base are belong to us” was an intentional grammatical quote from an old game, infamous for its horrid English translations
 

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2 hours ago, djregs said:

The Ghost of Tsushima influence is definitely visible here!  I was asking myself, "why'd he switch to black and white?" , until I saw the blood effects.  Good Work!  Got a Kill Bill vibe as well.  

Thanks! I was also going for the look and feel of the older samurai movies and old western movies of the 60s and 70s. Hence why I even added the in comic titles, production titles, etc as if one was watching an old movie with film lines and scratches! 
 

Btw, I also loved your cropped image of mine in the NSFW channel to relay your approval of my pic! 

OyH7RYhA_o.png

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The Dickeda's sacking was large with Lord Cunto leading the charge but they lost their heads thinking below the belt with their heads not focused on the fight... Oh Well. ;)

 

I see your still having neck, hands and feet seem issues with some of you npcs. :O What going on with that? :sweat_smile: Why don't you use npc replacers like Botox

or something etc. ?  ?

To bad Ghost of Tsushima won't be coming to PC anytime soon. :cry: Good work though on visuals for this chapter. ;):thumbsup:

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I dig the Fist Full of Dollars vibe to this one, and the fight scenes were great!

Love the way the Blood pops even in black and white ?

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Wow!

Great work! I love every part of it, especially the very unique visuals!

I was wondering all the time weather you built this location from scratch cause it's very close to the Ghost of Tsushima look, way to close to just be from a random mod.

Also playing the game my selves right now and I'm really really enjoying my time with it.

 

Also the header image is fantastic! Great work there too!

Are you planning to publish this worldspace? Would be very tempting to take some screesnhots in it.

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15 hours ago, Jayomms said:

The Dickeda's sacking was large with Lord Cunto leading the charge but they lost their heads thinking below the belt with their heads not focused on the fight... Oh Well. ;)

The village takeover wasn’t an order from Dickeda Clan itself, but Lord Cunto’s side endeavor separate from any of the Dickeda Clan’s initiatives. Hence if Jenna stopped or killed Cunto, she wouldn’t need to worry about retribution from the Dickeda Clan

 

15 hours ago, Jayomms said:

I see your still having neck, hands and feet seem issues with some of you npcs. :O What going on with that? :sweat_smile: Why don't you use npc replacers like BotoX

-I wasn’t aware of the Botox mod. Does it only fix specific NPCs or  is it a default body mod that fixes all neckseam issues even if I create new NPCs?

-I try not to use too many vanilla NPCs esp as background characters as it requires me to go into CreationKit and delete AI packages and Factions  so that I don’t end up with a bloodbath, or half of them deciding to go home during photo-shoot.

 

15 hours ago, Jayomms said:

To bad Ghost of Tsushima won't be coming to PC anytime soon. :cry: Good work though on visuals for this chapter. ;):thumbsup:

With the PS5 launching this fall, there will be a huge influx of used PS4s or new PS4s marked down dirt cheap. The library of high quality of PS4 exclusives alone (Tsushima, God of War, SpiderManPS4, etc.....) makes it  really worth to buy a PS4 esp when it really drops in price for the holidays! (Horizon Zero Dawn is coming to PC August 7th and it’s still my top favorite game so far-even more thanGhost of Tsushima)

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13 hours ago, WANOBI12 said:

I dig the Fist Full of Dollars vibe to this one, and the fight scenes were great!

Love the way the Blood pops even in black and white ?

I was debating if I should have adjusted the black levels on the blood to match the blacks in the screenshots. Even now, the blood still looks a bit floaty to me, but at the same they do stand out more dramatic.

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6 hours ago, Alter Native said:

Wow!

Great work! I love every part of it, especially the very unique visuals!

I was wondering all the time weather you built this location from scratch cause it's very close to the Ghost of Tsushima look, way to close to just be from a random mod.

 

You know me. Especially with Book 2, most of the locations were built (and NavMeshes) from scratch.

 

6 hours ago, Alter Native said:

Are you planning to publish this worldspace? Would be very tempting to take some screesnhots in it.

Of course! Just give me time to cleanup the area and check a few files, and I’ll send it to you on Discord. Do you prefer a teleporting door or COC Spawn Marker?

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6 minutes ago, devious-Drunna said:

Of course! Just give me time to cleanup the area and check a few files, and I’ll send it to you on Discord. Do you prefer a teleporting door or COC Spawn Marker?

Great!

Thanks, COC Markers are fine. You could also publish it publicly, I think many people would be interested. 

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45 minutes ago, devious-Drunna said:

-I wasn’t aware of the Botox mod. Does it only fix specific NPCs or  is it a default body mod that fixes all neck seam issues even if I create new NPCs?

-I try not to use too many vanilla NPCs esp as background characters as it requires me to go into Creation Kit and delete AI packages and Factions  so that I don’t end up with a bloodbath, or half of them deciding to go home during photo-shoot.

Facelift all female faces of skyrim, including bandits, vampires and other no-names just the face though with autogenerated heads and KS Hairdos hair. Adds Vampire fangs to female vampire NPCs too. The  Botox ESP files are empty and only needed for .bsa archive loading. It is possible to use this mod in combination with other head replacer mods if you want more variation. Load other NPC replacer mods after botox. Compatible with Bijin mods. You can safely install/uninstall it mid-game. It's only meshes and textures, no esp-settings. Player head optional just disable the esp for it and there is also a patcher kit for it. I'm sure with your experience in creation kit you should be able to figure it out no problem. ;):thumbsup: I stumbled upon this mod might be helpful.

 

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Loved the B&W old movie visuals, with the captions it almost felt like looking a sexualized Eastwood/Morricone western ! ^^ The photoshopped blood effect were globally nice, but if looked at with a photoshopper's eyes, they look to me as being done all with the same template. I would advice to warp the shapes a bit a each shot to avoid it being too recognizable. Yet, storywise, though it's rather conventional, you managed to create a decent amount of tension (revolving about the bandit's chief being treacherously helped or not), and the combats felt nice and clear. The colors did came back a bit to suddenly considering the subtitles didn't though, but globally creative and entertaining work ! :smiley::thumbsup:

 

Malicia : « It's very creative and everything, but those people being very polite and calling you goddess while going honey-honey only happens in the movies, uh.

 

                 Plus if they were so interested in kissing a gal's pee-pee, they could've kissed each other instead. :classic_sleep: »

 

 

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On 7/20/2020 at 2:14 PM, Jayomms said:

Facelift all female faces of skyrim, including bandits, vampires and other no-names just the face though with autogenerated heads and KS Hairdos hair. Adds Vampire fangs to female vampire NPCs too. The  Botox ESP files are empty and only needed for .bsa archive loading. It is possible to use this mod in combination with other head replacer mods if you want more variation. Load other NPC replacer mods after botox. Compatible with Bijin mods. You can safely install/uninstall it mid-game. It's only meshes and textures, no esp-settings. Player head optional just disable the esp for it and there is also a patcher kit for it. I'm sure with your experience in creation kit you should be able to figure it out no problem. ;):thumbsup: I stumbled upon this mod might be helpful.

 

I’ll see what I can do with that mod! Thanks! 
Hopefully I can get it work along for the next chapter, but no guarantees. At the moment, I’m busy creating several new cells and trying to get the next chapter done by the end of August.

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On 7/22/2020 at 3:36 AM, Tirloque said:

Loved the B&W old movie visuals, with the captions it almost felt like looking a sexualized Eastwood/Morricone western ! ^^ The photoshopped blood effect were globally nice, but if looked at with a photoshopper's eyes, they look to me as being done all with the same template. I would advice to warp the shapes a bit a each shot to avoid it being too recognizable. Yet, storywise, though it's rather conventional, you managed to create a decent amount of tension (revolving about the bandit's chief being treacherously helped or not), and the combats felt nice and clear.

-Thanks for the awesome comments and support! ??

-Story was very, very conventional on purpose as I wanted to stick to a stereotypical Samurai movie plot (didn’t have time to do a train the village plot, or had anything setup for a Jenna as a revenge plot). It was something I was doing as a “quick” side project so I could focus back onto the Dark Ascension story.

-the blood effects were the same 4 images I used and warped/distorted them. 
 

On 7/22/2020 at 3:36 AM, Tirloque said:

The colors did came back a bit to suddenly considering the subtitles didn't though . . . .

Yeah. It was a very last minute decision to extend the ending, and a very last minute decision to drop my plan of slowly bring color back panel by panel, and switching from subtitles to bubbles character by character. But this chapter already took time away from my next chapter, which I’m hoping to finish for an August 30th release ?

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Wow! All the photo editing really captured that Kurosawa sort of vibe perfectly as did the textless screens during the showdown. I'm so impressed by this on so many levels, really astounding work ?. The decapitation was so well done with the blood splatter and the framing of the shot. From the sort of vintage horror feel to this samurai movie feel you really are unparalleled at capturing the essence of a genre in Skyrim,

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On 8/26/2020 at 7:44 PM, SpyVsPie said:

Wow! All the photo editing really captured that Kurosawa sort of vibe perfectly as did the textless screens during the showdown. I'm so impressed by this on so many levels, really astounding work ?. The decapitation was so well done with the blood splatter and the framing of the shot. From the sort of vintage horror feel to this samurai movie feel you really are unparalleled at capturing the essence of a genre in Skyrim,


hey thanks for your thoughts and comments! Sorry for replaying to your comments so late! After reading your DCI session storyline, I really need to up my decapitation game! 

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On 3/9/2021 at 8:56 PM, devious-Drunna said:


hey thanks for your thoughts and comments! Sorry for replaying to your comments so late! After reading your DCI session storyline, I really need to up my decapitation game! 

?LL decapitation stocks on the rise ?

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