Golden Shrike - 205 (Patreon)

Do you want some background info about how I made stonekrovns?

This chapter was a lot different in the first draft. These were my headcanons for the longest time until I scrapped a lot of it to keep the story more compact.

One thing where stonekrovns differ from the deer majority (on top of the predatory bits) was that they were actually very smart when it came to crafting and using tools. In the first draft they don't draw the gang back by their scruffs, but use woven ropes to catch them. They actually jail them in the ribcage of some huge animal (homage to this ribcage is on the earlier page) and they'd have some kind of mechanism for opening it. The bone would be hardened with something too — I think in one draft Loudkill states it's done with thunderfire that happens when thunder sets a tree on fire, but I doubt that'd make any sense other than sound cool. Also in the first scene I wrote, while Nero i still outcold, Kasko apologizes to Runi for being such a scaredy-cat through it all.

ANYWAY, there was supposed to be much more crafted things than I'm showing here, which is kind of why the scene jars me a little. Just know that stonekrovns use bone toothpicks and maybe even get to comb mats out of their fur.

We have yet another red antlered deer, this time a teen! She has no bigger role, but she's Gutpull's daughter and Boneslav's cousin. Very fierce thing unlike her bone gnawing friend.

Also the rightmost stonekrovn on panel one is a cameo of a a friend's character. (I don't do cameo calls anymore, this was just a friendly gesture.)