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Oren's Forge PG 350 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-07-14 21:00:05
Imported:
2026-09
Tags:

Content

New page will be out... hopefully next Monday, but maybe the week after. I have to fly out in a couple days to help a family member with some medical stuff, and I don't know if I can finish the next page before I go. (It's a pretty good one and I don't want to rush it, either.)

Here's the middle panel without the text bubbles, by the by. I just liked how this one came out, unobstructed!

Files

Comments

Dhaka Yeena

Yo!!! This is the lore I live for!! Love how this is like an arms race between nature and technology advances. It’s an all out war

LukeOnTheBrightSide

Oh wow! This page explains A LOT of what’s been going on. Some hints and speculation before, but it’s great to see things fall into place like this.

Julian Seguin

Appreciate that shot of Keen's mate being informed of his death. He was a minor character (had only one or two lines) but he still had family that cared about him. Really adds a greyer level of morality to the story.

Microgrampup

Raising the stakes for Swift. She still thinks they’re just “sharp sticks” and the only options for the forest prey are to run or talk.

Furlop

We're gonna need Wolf Armor.

Dinah

What a fantastic page!

Krzysztof K

I still hope that the Zenith and Hollow herds will somehow come to an understanding. Maybe the bison will understand that they only want to defend themselves against predators, but on the other hand, it's unclear whether the bison wouldn't use all the resources for themselves (water, food) and be reluctant to share. I'm very curious if the bison tried to reach an understanding with the antelope without the wolves, like a herbivore with a herbivore, but the antelope probably also wanted to defend their territory and resources.

Dario

Rask's breakthrough of knowing the way of the blade isn't the right path is as important as ever now.. he knows it's not sustainable because it allows what predator and prey already went through, except on a larger, more tribal/faction scale. Really cool to see how this is all playing out

Grey

I wonder if the herd has gained a reputation. The wolves actively destroy wild packs they come across (other predators too?), so I can’t imagine the bison are known for sharing resources with other herbivores either.

Luckyclaw

At least 10 wolves dead in an hour and they still had the absolute gall to demand Swift's pack make a child sacrifice to join them. I can tell that the rest of the audience is feeling much more sympathetic for the Zenith after these last few pages, but the more I see, the more I absolutely despise Singer and Hap.

Luckyclaw

"Nothing could stand against us!!1" Maybe nothing would NEED to stand against you if you weren't going around slaughtering people and telling them to kill their kids??? Sounds like a taste of your own medicine ngl. Get sharp stuff'd idiot.

Luckyclaw

This series is fantastic at driving home that every character in it is someone with a life outside of their appearances on-screen. From the way that the pronghorns have different markings, to the fact that Rask was previously recalling the look of fear on the face of a mouse he hunted, and up to little background details like this. It's one of my favorite things about this world.

Karroo

I like how the pronghorn blades have a little point that juts out at the base. It's an antler on a stick.

Dinah

I also loved this detail!

Wyn Bird

I am so enthralled with this story!

Gale Tazzin

I think Swift is a lot more concerned about the Hollow than she lets on. She's in charge, she has to project an air of calm so nobody else freaks out, but she knows that for a brief moment, Rask had her dead to rights, and that Baneberry might've had a chance too if he hadn't chickened out

Microgrampup

The author suggested that she was absolutely sure that the prey were just begging for their lives. Baneberry didn’t chicken out in their last encounter, he’s not experienced in fighting at all and didn’t use the spear properly when he tried defending himself.

treefiddy

The advantage that the Hollow has that the pronghorn didnt is that their territories don't overlap. According to Singer, the herd has no interest in the deep forest where the Hollow resides. Where's the pronghorn could have been protecting their grazeland from the bison. It's also likely that the pronghorn were just protecting themselves from the wolves, and further hostilities grew from that. There has to have been a lot of casualties though, because the Grey mothers have multiple baskets completely filled with metal spears.

Screw the Shadow Walker

Exactly my thoughts. The violence from their side was completely unnecessary and just felt like an exercise of power. Especially since they seem to be short-staffed at the moment

Krzysztof K

Singer also said that they don't want any small herds close to them that could attack the zenith in the future, so maybe they're not interested in the deep forest, but they don't want a herd with spears close to them either. I just wonder why Hap and Singer have such different opinions. On the previous page, Hap talks about Swift's new pack, while Singer wanted to kill her to prevent the formation of a new pack.

Krzysztof K

For me this is also strange behavior, but maybe on the next pages we will find out what happened, maybe during these wars between the packs something happened, because of which at this moment (and in the future) the wolves of Zenith do not have so much food.

Luckyclaw

Maybe we'll learn more, but I absolutely do not believe they're "low on food." Every panel is teeming with endless buffalo and calves, while there's maybe 15-ish pups and constant wolf deaths. Singer gave Seral an ENTIRE LEG as a deal-sweetener. Even the mini-comic Run suggests that there's a hierarchical order to the buffalo sub-groups ensuring consistent access to beef. "Low food stocks" looks like yet another lie the pack's serving Ramble. A hap-truth, if you will.

treefiddy

I don't think it's a lack of overall food issue. It's a relationship issue between the wolves and the bison. Hap says that the alliance is a balance that mutually helps both sides. The wolves get an easy source of food, and the bison get to grow up without fear of the outside. But, as we saw in the run comic, Clay was told that the world outside of the herd is a terrible and dangerous place. That he should fear the outside world. That means the delicate balance is upset; that the bison feel they aren't getting their fair share out of the deal. Like Hap says, the Grey Mothers choose how much meat is going to be given to the wolves. If the Grey mother's feel that the balance is lopsided and that they're not getting the protection that they're seeking, then they're not going to give as much meat in return. So Hap is in a really hard spot, she has a huge amount of pups that need to be fed, but not enough strong hunters to maintain the trust with the Grey mothers. And theres no guarantee that the pact can be maintained long enough for the pups to grow up and become hunters themselves. All in all, gaining two or three strong hunters may not actually be worth also gaining two additional pups. Hence why Hap refused to allow them entry. I don't think hap actually expected things to blow up the way they did. Not only did they net lose 1 hunter (they lost Scree and Keen but gained Ramble) they also still have a rival pack out there AND they found out that metal has already spread this far north. So while they may have enough food at the current moment, Hap is worried about not having enough food in the near-ish future if she can't restore the faith within the Grey Mothers.

Luckyclaw

I think you're missing the point I'm making, because we're kind of agreeing here. Hap is telling Ramble that his sister's pups needed to die because of a food issue, but that's not true. The "food" issue is a relationship issue. She says the alliance is a "balance," but that is a visibly absurd claim to make when these bison outnumber the wolves in numbers upwards of 30:1 and have complete control over what they give. Everything Hap says about "safety" and "mutual respect" is undermined by panels and panels of death, fear, and coercion. On both sides! The bison are taught to be afraid of a world beyond their wolves, but are also "herded in" by them (Clay would have been fine with the help of the humble Buddy System, which he couldn't do while sneaking away like he did). The wolves believe the herd is "stability" while we're watching them get slaughtered. Nothing about this is a "balance." It's a ratio. That ratio is the number of wolves the bison have to SEE compared to what they FEEL they're getting. The puppies are not described as problems but "voracious" problems, and Ramble was told to shut up and stop asking questions about meat in fear of upsetting the herd. So much trepidation about food, in spite of the fact this panel revealed that anywhere between 10 and 30 wolves were stabbed to death by pronghorns. There are less mouths to feed now than there used to be, by a lot. A lot more than the 10 - 30 we just learned about, if the baskets full of metal spears is anything to factor into an estimate. 15 is not "a huge amount" in this context. It's just not. It might even be below replacement value. Population isn't actually the primary concern here. If the Gray Mothers are reducing the rations, it is preventing the wolves from recouping their numbers, and creating a cycle where these wolves cannot do the job that the bison feed them for. But, there is plenty of food. No one here is weak or starving. Two pups would not have affected this, especially while there's apparently a need for the adult wolves they'd come with. (Side note; I love how many panels are filled with the subtle detail of the bison giving side-eyes to the wolves. It's also noteworthy that the bison never seem happy to see them, no smiles, no waves, calves carefully protected within circles of adults. Dogs on the outskirts, cattle in the herd. It's legitimately genius, there's a massive social divide between the two species that you might overlook at first glance.) Hap is essentially a politician. She is making choices, and framing the facts of the matter to justify them. That's not inherently nefarious, it's actually something any leader does-- but the simple truth is that her orders included "child sacrifice," and the way she justifies that is "We've Got Too Many Mouths To Feed," which is not completely true. It's a half-truth at best. She "didn't expect" things to blow up the way they did because she is used to being part of a barbaric horde of puppy-killing invaders that can mow down anything in their path. Surprise! People don't like it when you come to their house and tell them to kill their kids! Now they're armed and you can't murder with impunity anymore. I cannot muster up sympathy for Hap's "worries" when the solution they've decided to go with is "kill everyone else's kids harder." Eat less. Supplement your diet with something that isn't beef. Ration better. Or at the VERY least, don't act Surprised Pikachu when you get jumpy, anxious additions to the pack who don't really want to be there. (or, worse, the previous Zenith WASN'T killing kids or forcefully assimilating wolf packs, and this "rolling thunder xenocide" is all just Hap's new idea. Possibly to politically justify the bison's tolerance of the wolves? I'm reserving my judgement and giving Hap the benefit of the doubt, especially since Teagan tends to try to give his characters a lot of nuance. As always, I'm hungry to learn more details about this setting, I just like to over-analyze things I enjoy a lot.) The "old world" is dying in many more ways than just the death of "traditional" pack structure. I think about Swift's words to Scree back in Volume 2 a lot, just after she pitched abandoning Red; "Your new world's the same as the old. Keep it."

Luckyclaw

Oh no, I just realized those Pronghorns have copper blades in the same style as the multi-species Enclave where Oren learned how to forge! I hope they're all okay down there, but based on how murderous the Zenith pack is and how many baskets full of spearheads they have, I'm worried now.