Gooday everyone,
Welcome to the Deacon Corner. If you’re new here, this space dives into the inspirations behind the images you’ll find throughout the books on these pages. What began as a place to share commission breakdowns has grown into something more. In addition to detailing how each piece came to life, you’ll now find expanded chapter notes, lore entries, and my own black-and-white concept illustrations which are raw glimpses into the ideas that shaped this world before they fully took form.
Before we begin, it’s important to say that none of the beautiful stylized images found in the hard and soft copies of these books would exist without the incredible talent of Sickjoe who is quite literally the heart and soul of this visual world. If you appreciate his work as much as I do, I highly encourage you to visit his gallery and explore more of his creations.
Now, without further ado, let’s take a look at the featured image and learn a bit more about the lore hidden in this chapter.
Are you ready for nightmare fuel? I’m ready for nightmare fuel. Remember how I mentioned Nona’s mother was a monster? Well, now we’re going to show it and I’m going to be pulling inspiration from your previous work in the Pallid War, The Scholars of the Sunken Valley (Night).
The scholars were human during the day but cannibalistic monsters at night. They behave in this way because they have an unsteady alliance with Morta, who allows them to live beyond the point of their deaths. Humans who live beyond death succumb to a curse known as the mangle, a curse that was implanted in Adelaide, our Eve, when she was given a kiln of her own. Iapyx granted Adelaide and her descendants death (i.e. Morta) to avoid returning to the primordial soup.
Madeline is much like the scholars and twists into a horrific monster at night, with teeth, claws, vestigial mouths, hair, and eyes. However, she is far more vile than even the scholars, for she has been allowed to live for hundreds of thousands of years. She takes on the qualities of serpents, her jaw double-jointed, allowing her mouth to open into a great maw. Her eyes grow horizontal slits like a cephalopod and, worst of all, we can see the faces of children pressed against her engorged belly trying to claw their way out of her stomach. She is a gourmet with a preference for young flesh.
In this scene, the monster is pulling herself from a manhole in the cellar. She has been using the sewers to hunt, whispering to children through the drains, pipes, and tubs.
For a quick and dirty summary, Madeline is a cross between the creature from ‘The Thing’ and the one from ‘The Taking of Deborah Logan’... Do I have an unhealthy obsession with practical effects from horror cinema? Probably, :p
Background: We’re still in that creepy cellar from the prior commission with claw marks, tissue, a leaky faucet, and a discarded manhole cover. Let’s add a pile of children's shoes in the corner, a chilling hint as to what she’s been snacking on.