The Vermilion Cage

The Vermilion Cage is my second ongoing comic project, and is the giant melting pot for the hordes upon hordes of ideas that I seem to always have. I created it simply because I had a few too many ideas that I wanted to turn into comics and not enough time to actually make them.

And who am I, you ask? I'm an art major at California State University Channel Islands, known as Jennifer. I've got two snakes (a 3 year old corn snake named Ramzi and a 1year old wild-caught gopher snake named Jormundgand), two budgies (Scooby and Sapphire), and a goldfish (Flame). I also have a pet computer named Miyrkhyrer and a couple of parents, and handfulls of crazy friends who often forget to harass me to finish the comic.

"At one point and time, the Earth was beautiful and full of life. But one day, it all went wrong, and nobody is sure exactly why, even thousands of years later.
Now, with the oceans nearly gone, the world being mostly a strange red colored sand, occasionally marked with stunning mountain ranges upon which the Earth seems almost normal, the shattered remnants of civilization still live. The creatures that were once called humans have split a multitude of ways, from the desert-living M'zrakire to the winged Wyrkire, and of course, the old humans, the Cetkire. But one has been forgotten, and it is coming to rise again."

Earth: The same planet we all know, love, and hate, but it's aged quite a bit. It's about 80% red-sand deserts, 10% mountains, 5% icecaps, and 5% liquid water.

Cetkire: Standard homo sapiens. You should know what those are. Probably the least common of the surviving species. They're generally hostile to the other kinds of humans.

M'zrakire: The most common of the breakoffs of humanity, they're found in the deserts living a fairly meager life. They're exceptionally superstitious and very untrusting. The men still speak the old language, but both genders know the common tongue. They're black skinned, and usually dark-haired and dark-eyed, and have large pointed ears. In other words, they sort of look like drow with dark hair. Some Cetkire call them "Dunies."

Wyrkire: The second-most common of the other human species. The wyrkire are almost the exact opposite of the M'zrakire, pale skinned and greatly into the sciences. They also enjoy dabbling in magic. They live in the mountain ranges because that's the last of the spots on Earth that actually can support life easily. The most striking thing about them is the fact that they've got wings. Their white wings help them travel between the towns, and although functional, they don't use them as much as they used to. Because of this, they've created magical devices and spells that can shrink wings to a quarter of their natural size. Some Cetkire call them "Flappies."

Asyrea: What are the Asyrea? They're the extinct human variation. Nobody remembers what they look like, but many think they're the link between the M'zrakire and Wyrkire. However, rumor has it that a few Asyreans have reappeared.

Fenicals: The strange fennec-caracal-lion-wolf-looking creatures that inhabit the deserts. They're exceptionally ferocious pack animals that often take down M'zrakire and camledors that have wandered too far.

Camledors: Most resembling a camel, these strange animals are the replacement for oxen, horses, camels, sheep, and just about anything else like that.