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.
At the beginning of every Pallid War, engineers often mistake the Tonsil for a distant moon.
It hangs high above the dunes of Kath’le Kal, luminous and suspended from the hard palate of the world itself. Only later do they learn that this “moon” is something far more biological.
The Tonsil is the Pallid Throne.
This piece captures the moment the Pallid Throne descends and finally blooms.
The structure should feel organic and deeply wrong. Scale is important. The Tonsil should dwarf the landscape beneath it.
Structurally, the Tonsil resembles a teardrop of immense size, pulling downward from the ceiling of Kath’le Kal. It is encased and suspended by a thick, fleshy stalk attached to the hard palate above.
From a distance, it appears almost floral; a Lovecraftian rose in bud, its petals tightly sealed. The stalk sways gently, like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, marking the passage of time.
The Tonsil responds to the death of an engineer.
With each fallen contender, it grows heavier. It descends incrementally toward the dunes below, and when only one engineer remains, the tissue anchoring it begins to strain. The Tonsil hangs impossibly low, and when it finally touches the sands, the stalk breaks.
Velbrava witnesses the moment it opens.
The throne strikes the dunes and settles into the sand. The petals unfurl slowly, revealing a horrific alien interior.
Inside, there is no pollen.
Instead, the bloom reveals jutting structures of bone; a malformed ribcage without a sternum, ribs spread wide and incomplete. From within this exposed cavity, Pallid nectar spills outward, thick and milky white, carving rivers through the dunes.
The throne is both a seat of power and a primordial kiln.
Embedded within the rib-like structures are the cocoons of the next generation of vibriatus, the vessels that the Names will inhabit during the coming war. Essentially, the throne is an incubator for the next great conflict.
At the very core of the throne rests a single seed. Velbrava discovers that this seed, once planted again in the hard palate above, will grow into a new Tonsil.
And the next Pallid War will begin.