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.
The final battle between the Rat King and the Leech Sultan unfolds not on a battlefield, but within the pulsing corridors of Icarus’s own body, his Vibriatus.
Velbrava dives into the bloodstream, becoming a vicious pathogen. Inside the roiling, vascular labyrinth, he constructs a makeshift kiln behind the lens of Icarus’s eye, fashioning a swarm of locusts bred for destruction. These chittering machines burrow through soft tissue, devouring sinew and muscle.
The war reaches its end not with a clash of swords, but with a silent, suffocating sabotage. Deep within the chambers of Icarus’s heart, Velbrava delivers the final blow—killing the Rat King from the inside out.
It is a grotesque and poetic reversal: Icarus, the shaper of shapers, becomes a husk, undone by the parasite he raised, but he is not disappointed... How proud the old rat must be.