Relic Comic: The Hero Comic

I made this as a way to illustrate the story of The Hero, the pen-and-paper precursor to Corridor. The story used to begin this way, with King Forseti defeating the Hero and banishing him to his personal dungeon. This comic also shows briefly the second level of the dungeon, the Hedge Maze, which would be encountered after making it through the dungeon (although my friends and I never kept a single game going that long). Thirdly, the Hero would have to navigate through the final 'layer,' Forseti's castle.

I apologize for some of the hard-to-read text. It's a lot easier to read on the pencil copy.

There are a few notable things in this comic. Every game of The Hero would begin with you alone in a room with a sword. You would always get the sword straight off, as well as sometimes a simple spell leaflet. Also, this was when I was obsessed with Norse Runes, so one version of this game had an entire array of runes you could socket into your weapons to give them abilities. The Princess uses the Ansuz rune, which was the rune of wisdom (and thus, the mind, used for telepathy in this case). Any playtesters of Corridor will recognize nearly all the enemies here—the orc/ogre, the ghost, and the stone dragon head, which is what is attempting to kill the hero in the last frames. The boss monster Krakgrag is based off of the giant seen here, and Heimdall the shopkeeper is indirectly implemented in the board game as well.
I have also since done away with the "no eyes" concept of art used in this comic. Though in a future post I will talk more about where I got the idea for the little stick figures in the The Hero/Corridor universe.