So you probably noticed that this wasn't a comic. Whoops. What you're actually seeing is me messing around with a new style of digitizing the comic (I love that word, 'digitize'). It doesn't actually look all that different, but it becomes much more interesting work.
On the upside, the originals look quite a bit different. I don't normally shade my work, y'see.
But then, you dropped by to hear more of the story, and I'm failing to deliver, so I reckon I owe you something, right? So let's get a little back story on Soverliss. I'm not playing favorites either, I just happened to pick Soverliss because magic is interesting to draw.
Last time I checked, Soverliss was a hundred or so years old, which for an elf isn't very old at all. It puts him roughly on par with a human rebellious teenager. Imagine taking care of a teen that can sling around fireballs though.
Soverliss spends most of his time with his nose shut up in a book, but during combat he's a terrifying force. He has a tendency to let loose with his most powerful spells first. This habit makes short work of most standard encounters, but leaves him exhausted when it comes time to fight tougher opponents.
Most elvish wizards spend a great deal of time and study on the finer points and subtleties of magic. However, a traumatic event in his past (oooh, spoilers! I know something you don't!) left him boiling over with rage and emo hair. The fury in his blood lends itself to evocation magic, and Soverliss chose to specialize in such spells that deal incredible damage.
Another aside for fellow nerds: Soverliss' specialty school is Evocation, and he chose to give up Enchantment and Necromancy for it. Necromancy is a common choice of exclusion for good characters because it has such a bad reputation, but I was surprised to see him abandon Enchantment, as it can be one of the more powerful schools. When I asked Ryan about it, he said that he didn't like the idea of a hero casting compulsion spells, that it seemed a touch evil.
Soverliss is Lawful Good. He spends hours diligently studying, and either upholds the tenets of Good or champions the cause against Evil. He rarely attacks another unprovoked (although the occasional lightning bolt might slip out), and is often in favour of taking prisoners as an alternative to slaying a surrendered enemy.
Some of you who were paying extra special close attention noticed that his hands were all bandaged up. What's up with that? Truth be told, for the longest time Ryan never had an answer for that outside of 'magical accident'. Fortunately, we've since come up with a suitably detailed explanation. (Oh man, these spoilers are so amazing. Seriously, you don't know what you're missing out on)
After this adventure, you're going to see Soverliss disappear for a little while. Due to scheduling conflicts, Ryan wasn't able to attend a few games. Then, a few of his adventures that he was able to attend got cut out of the main plot (I might add them into any comics I publish). In order to keep party members from falling behind, I allowed for him to gain experience and gold along with the rest of the party. There were also some business investments that opened up to party members. Soverliss jumped onto a tavern, and ended up making a killing at it. Plus, he wasn't spending all the gold he was earning from missed adventures. These two quirks ended up making him the wealthiest character in the campaign. So, uh, whoops.
Does any of this stuff interest you? I imagine to the average reader it probably doesn't. But if there are other characters you want to hear more about, send me a message, or feel free to comment. These don't take very long to draw, and even less time to write out, so you can expect to see more of them. I'm hoping to do up a Cast page sometime, where you can find all sorts of info like this for each of the characters.
