Tales of Beefgnawpolis stuff

A place for my comic-about-food-themed-countries plot/worldbuilding shitposts.

For starters let's just dump the basic plot of Zucchinipocalypse right here:

Spoiler: Zucchinipocalypse part the first: the cold open

Scene: a dark alley. A terrified man runs past, looking over his shoulder. Behind him, we see three large figures. one of them appears to be pushing a cart of some kind.

"There he goes!" one of them yells.

"Hey, buddy!" another yells. "C'mere! We're not gonna hurt you!" The three large figures laugh and give chase. The frightened man is not reassured and keeps running...

...until he hits a dead end. And turns around to see the three large figures bearing down on him. He scrabbles at the wall like he thinks he's going to climb it or burrow through it, to no avail. Then he realizes he's cornered, backs against the wall, and slides down it as his legs give out in terror.

"Please!" the frightened man begs. "Please, don't! I have children! Three of them! Very small!"

"Hey boss," one of the large figures says to the largest, "he says he's got kids."

"Hmm," says the largest.

"Three of them," says another to the largest. "Bet it gets reeeeeal expensive, feeding a family like that."

"Hmm," says the largest, while the frightened man is possibly laying some masonry in his shorts.

"Whaddya think, boss?" the first large figure says.

"Hmmmm," says the largest. "Welp. Guess we'll just have to..."

The frightened man curls into a ball and whimpers.

"...give him an extra bag."

"Got it, boss!"

"Wait, what?" says the frightened man.

Two of the large figures pull burlap bags off the cart and deposit them at the frightened man's feet. "There ya go, buddy! Compliments of the Vegan Tribe!"

The frightened man blinks at the bags and the large figures. "...you're not going to rob me?"

"Course not. We just wanted to give you--"

"Could you?"

"...come again?"

"Could you rob me instead? Please?" The now even more frightened man holds out his wallet. "Here. Take my whole wallet. Please. Take my watch too. I'm begging you, please don't give me any more--"

"Um..." The large figures back away a little. "Dude, don't make this weird--"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" the frightened man wails. "YOU LEFT A BAG ON MY PORCH LAST WEEK! AND THE WEEK BEFORE! IF I BRING THIS HOME MY WIFE AND KIDS ARE GONNA KILL ME!"

The large figures confer for a moment. "Here," one of them says, and lays a little booklet on top of a bag. 300 Ways to Cook Zucchini When You're Sick of Zucchini, is the title. "There's a chocolate cake recipe in there, try that, your kids'll never know it's got zucchini in it!"

"THEY'LL KNOW! THEY ALWAYS KNOW!"

But it's too late. The large figures have gone, leaving the poor man with two huge sacks of unsolicited zucchini. Long high shot of the alley with Big No from the frightened man.

 

Spoiler: Zucchinipocalypse part the second: the Zucchinipocalypse, explained

Every year, in late summer, people all over the world will see a Vegan Tribe hoverwagon coming and just... fear. Because they know what that wagon is carrying, and they know they are 100% going to get saddled with way too much of it. But the Vegan Tribespeople are so darn nice about it, and you hate to hurt their feelings, surely you can find something to do with just one bag of zucchini...

But it's never "just one bag," is it?

You cheerfully accept the bag that's handed to you, and you're thinking zoodles and zucchini bread for a couple of days... and then you get home and there's another bag on your porch. And then you finally use up one bag and think you're making some headway and then you catch your neighbor climbing into your kitchen window to leave a bag of zucchini in your pantry so you'll just think you put it there yourself and forgot about it. You hitch up your wagon to do some shopping and come back and your wagon is full of zucchini. You might make the mistake of cracking the "is that a zucchini in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" joke to a Vegan Tribesperson once. Only once. Because they'll laugh, they love that joke... they love it so much that they give you another bag of zucchini.

There are little white lies told about road closures and barbecue cookoffs in the town squares. They don't work. They never work. The guards eventually let the hoverwagons through... and for their kindness, they receive a bag of zucchini.

So how and why does this happen?

1. Young and newly naturalized Vegan Tribespeople plan their first gardens and learn that zucchini is easy to grow and very productive.

2. Young and newly naturalized Vegan Tribespeople take their garden plans to the elders for review and are warned: do what you want, but we strongly suggest no more than one zucchini plant. just one. trust us on this.

3. Young and newly naturalized Vegan Tribespeople do some research, learn that a single zucchini plant produces an average of 8-10 pounds of zucchini in a season.

3a. Well, that doesn't sound like much. Maybe two plants.

3b. oops I accidentally a whole row of zucchini seedlings. eh, it's fine.

4. Zucchini plants begin to produce.

4a. This is enough zucchinis.

4b. ...this is too many zucchinis.

4c. OH GOD WHY WON'T THE ZUCCHINIS STOP

5. Young and newly naturalized Vegan Tribespeople attempt to foist zucchini off on their neighbors to no avail, because THEY'VE all got more zucchini than anyone's body has room for. And the more experienced Vegan Tribespeople are like "lol no" because they zucchini'd responsibly and have enough for themselves.

6. Now thoroughly panicked young and newly naturalized Vegan Tribespeople descend upon their elders begging for help. "This happens every year. We warned you about zucchini," the elders say. "We told you."

But it keeps happening.

So the Vegan Tribe deals with its zucchini glut in the friendliest, nicest possible way: by loading up the wagons and giving it away... whether the recipient is willing or not.

 

Spoiler: Zucchinipocalypse part the third: the rest of the world gets zucchini'd

The Fryer Nation is large and densely populated, and their national cuisine tends to be heavily seasoned and sauced so they're better equipped to deal with their sudden abundance of zucchini than other countries. And the Mystery Meat Islanders will eat just about anything that doesn't eat them first, so they're glad to take some zucchini off the Vegan Tribe's hands too. Both of them still eventually resort to hidden shreds and purees in literally everything.

The Pescadonians who can retreat to the ocean depths to escape the zucchinipocalypse do so. Too bad for the ones who can't. Rumor has it that the Pescadonian Institute of Technology (fondly referred to by students and alumni as "the PIT") is working on a new type of power generator that runs off food waste, but if they've made any breakthroughs they sure aren't sharing, at least not during zucchini season.

Every year Porkshire makes a huge production out of welcoming any surplus zucchini. Every year, two weeks into zucchini season, they end up feeding it to the hogs. And then they retract their welcome when even the hogs won't eat it anymore.

In the young nation of Beefgnawpolis, zucchini season proves to be an early test of a new ruler's leadership skills...

Scene: the throne room of Castle Beefgnaw, packed with an angry, shouty mob. Many of them are brandishing bags and bushel baskets of zucchini. The throne itself is surrounded by bags of zucchini, and Emperor Beefgnaw has to hand the bag in his lap off to his long-suffering advisor Dale Wensley to address the mob.

"Look," he says, "I don't like this any more than you do, but what the hell do you want me to do about it? Make a proclamation to classify zucchini as a controlled substance!?"

Interested murmuring from the mob.

One voice from deep within the mob: "Can you do that?"

Obviously not the response Beefgnaw was expecting, but... he surrepetitiously turns to Dale. "Can I do that?"

"You're asking me? You're the Emperor! You can do whatever you want, but that's a slippery slope--"

"...yeah, at this point I'm kinda willing to risk it."

"OK, then ban broccoli while you're at it."

"What!? No! I LIKE broccoli!"

"See? SLIPPERY SLOPE."

"Dammit!"

The only country that's gone so far as to ban zucchini is the Sweets Kingdom, but that doesn't stop people from trying...

Scene: the Gingerbread Palace's throne room. Theobroma, the adorable tiny magical-girl-looking queen of the Sweets Kingdom, sits on her blessedly zucchini-free throne in her blessedly zucchini-free throne room, and receives a visitor.

"I bring a tribute, Your Highness," announces the visitor. With a dramatic flair, he uncovers a beautifully decorated multi-tiered chocolate cake. It has marshmallow clouds with sugar glass rainbows and even a small chocolate fountain in the top tier that sends a cascading waterfall of chocolate down to the lower layers, and--

"It has zucchini in it, doesn't it?" Theobroma says. Her face stays like this: ^_^ but the tone of her voice says murder.

The visitor goes ghost-white. "N--no, of course not--"

"Yes it does." ^_^ . o ( m u r d e r )

"Please, Your Highness, I swear it, there is no--"

"There is. I know there is. Children always know." Theobroma nods to a guard. "Off with his head." ^_____^

The visitor sighs."All right, fair enough--" He is dragged away, put in the guillotine, and beheaded. A few minutes later, he respawns at the Beefgnawpolis Lifespring. "Ahh," he sighs, with some degree of relief. It's going to take him a week to work off the cost of passage home, but at least for a few days he won't have to eat any damned zucchini...

...he thinks as he passes by the dining hall, where Brother Doppio is writing up the menu board for the day. Breakfast: Zucchini scones, zucchini frittata, zucchini banana bread. Lunch: zucchini burger with zucchini fries. Dinner: zucchini parm over zoodles. Brother Doppio shrugs as the man's face falls. Sorry, but the Lifesprings do rely on donations, after all...

[edited because I spotted an opportunity for a callback to the "they'll know it's there! They always know!" bit from the cold open. :D]

 

Spoiler: Zucchinipocalypse part the fourth: epilogue

And then a little later into fall you don't see quite so many hoverwagons coming, and there'll be a week you only get a ten-pound bag of zucchini on your doorstep, and then after that... nothing.

Zucchini season is over, for another year.

At first, there's celebration. There are Anything But Zucchini Festivals. There are ritual bonfires to burn the last shriveled zucchini that didn't get eaten before they went bad. Children are no longer suspicious of random chocolate cakes appearing in their homes.

And in a couple of months you might even buy a zucchini or two at the market again... but they're not the same, are they? They're smaller and seedier and tougher and--well, not that zucchini is all that flavorful to begin with, but those hand-delivered Vegan Tribe zucchini seemed to have a little more ...something to them, didn't they?

And you actually... kind of.. miss it. Just a little.

Meanwhile, in Vegan Tribe lands, this year's young and newly naturalized Vegan Tribespeople plan their first gardens and take their garden plans to their elders (including a few of last year's first-time gardeners) for review and are warned: do what you want, but we strongly suggest no more than one (1) zucchini plant. trust us on this one.

And the cycle begins again.

 

i love this

 

These are incredibly charming.

 

Thanks! :D

The guiding philosophy in all the ToB stuff is pretty much "FFS don't ever let it go grimdark." At the end of the day it is born of my Minecraft LPs and it is about food-themed countries and that just has to skew silly. Not to say there's not some serious subject matter at times, but overall I want it to ...well, I'd say "leave a pleasant taste in your mouth" but.

So... originally ToB was going to be a straight up Minecraft comic. And then I decided to file off the serial numbers because dammit I might maybe want to make a little money off it someday. Some concepts stuck around, with modifications:

Spoiler: totes not minecraft stuff

1. Spawn/respawn. In ToB, death by anything other than natural causes is a temporary inconvenience. If you kick the bucket prematurely, you respawn at a Lifespring wearing a T-shirt, jeans, comfortable but sturdy shoes, and whatever underwear you croaked in. Yes, for reasons nobody really knows and nobody really wants to, your underwear stays with you. (which is how I handwave the protagonist not having to get a new binder every time he croaks--which he does a lot). There are ways to permakill someone before their time, but they're all pretty much universally taboo. More on this when I infodump about the Lifesprings.

2. Creepers, sort of. They became Boomers, which are pretty much snakes with bombs for heads. Boomers will not explode if they can't see your face, a fun fact the protagonist uses against a pack of bandits at one point.

3. Endermen, sort of. They became Void Walkers. Getting into a staring contest with one is still lethal, but not because it pisses the Void Walker off--because there's something about a Void Walker's gaze that sort of jolts one's soul out of one's meat long enough that the world goes "whoops, dead" and sends your soul to your Lifespring to be respawned. They're pretty rare. They're mentioned a few times, but we may not ever actually see one aside from a pair of eyes in the background in one flashback.

4. Blood Moons. One exception to the respawn rule: if you kick the bucket during a blood moon, you're gone. Unless you happened to be born during a blood moon, in which case you respawn normally. However, there is a great deal of Superstition about this in some places, and generally if you're bloodborn you really don't want everyone to know about it. In the olden days, blood moons happened every couple of months, sometimes two or three days in a row. After the mysterious disappearance of a crazy lady who fancied herself a queen and supposedly built a rocket a few hundred years ago, they suddenly quit coming so often and now they generally only happen once a decade or so.

5. Zombies, just because.

6. the Advanced Genetics mod, sort of. Another thing the crazy queen lady was supposedly into: shooting herself up with all kinds of monster DNA to get superpowers. Which is why the current president of Porkshire (or the guy pulling his strings) wants the ruins of her castle so much.

 

Important locations:

Spoiler: The Lifesprings and respawning

Lifesprings are where you respawn if you die before your time. Every country in this world has a food and/or beverage theme and the Lifesprings, while not exactly countries, are no exception. Their theme is caffeinated beverages. The Lifespring itself is some sort of giant vessel of caffeinated beverage which varies by location; it always sits at the center of a little lodging complex staffed by a quasi-religious order of barista monks and barista nuns. There are three known Lifesprings, and which one you respawn at is determined by where you were born.

The Lifespring near the cattle ranching no-man's-land that becomes Beefgnawpolis makes coffee and is shaped like a giant percolator. People from Pescadonia, Lactovonia, the western half of the Fryer Nation, and said no-man's-land/Beefgnawpolis respawn here.

The Lifespring near the Sweets Kingdom is a giant samovar full of tea. People from the Sweets Kingdom, Porkshire, Muttonia, and the eastern half of the Fryer Nation respawn here.

The Lifespring off the coast of Mystery Meat Island looks like one of those punch dispenser things you see at convenience stores, and it's full of... well, nobody's really sure exactly what that Godawful sugary day-glow green crap is, and nobody really wants to know. People from Mystery Meat Island respawn here.

Vegan Tribespeople respawn at whichever Lifespring they were born closest to.

The Lifespring complexes vary in layout, but generally include a lodge, a laundromat, a dining hall and cafe, an administration/check-in/check-out building, a coffer claim center (more on coffers in a bit), a thrift store, and various shops and gardens and such.

There are rumors about a fourth Lifespring, but if it does exist it's in cannibal territory and nobody cares enough about confirming or denying its existence to traipse into cannibal territory just to look for it. Mostly because death by being eaten is one of the kinds of untimely death you don't come back from.

Spoiler

It's real. It's an artificial Lifespring, created with forbidden-and-not-in-the-cool-way magic, and it's full of blood.

So, what happens when someone respawns?

On the body side: the body just sort of poofs, leaving behind a slightly magic box called a coffer. Inside the coffer is everything the decedent was wearing or carrying (except their underwear, again, for reasons nobody really wants to explore). The lid of the coffer is engraved with the decedent's name, date and manner of death, and sometimes their last words. A coffer can be picked up, opened, and emptied by anyone who runs across it and will disappear as soon as it's emptied. Sometimes folks who've had Darwin-award worthy trips to the Lifespring will leave one small item in their coffer to preserve it.

The unwritten law of scavenging from other peoples' coffers is "finders keepers" with one caveat: if the owner of the item catches you with it and asks for it back, you give it back. This is a thing that causes Problems for our protagonist Alex Hereford in the Prologue.

Anyway. Honest adventurers tend to pick up coffers they find on their travels and bring them to the nearest Lifespring. Lifesprings have coffer claim centers where guests can check to see if anyone's picked up their stuff. Unclaimed stuff goes to an on-site thrift store, which serves as a source of income for the Lifespring and also a source of cheap gear for noob adventurers.

On the soul side: some sort of Thing happens, and you wake up at your Lifespring in what as far as anyone knows is your same old body. If it's your first time, or your death was particularly nasty, you might be a little disoriented. If that's the case, a helpful barista monk or nun will feed you a cup of your Lifespring's beverage.

Now. You would think that coffee and tea with the power to bring the dead back to life would be amazing, wouldn't you? You'd think it'd be the most delicious coffee you've ever tasted. You would think that, and you would be wrong. It's terrible. It's bitter and there are frequently mouthfuls of grounds in it. The Sweets Kingdom Lifespring's tea is no better, it's just hot leaf water. And that green crap at the Mystery Meat Island Lifespring...well.

(fun fact: as part of their initiation, barista nuns and monks have to drink a cup of unadulterated Lifespring beverage without spitting it out or barfing. At the highest level they have to chug a venti.)

Once you're awake and understand where you are and what's happened, you're checked in. If you croaked pretty close by and it's early enough in the day that you can walk home or have someone come pick you up, you can check right out if you like. Otherwise you'll need to book passage home or wait for a cargo ship or wagons or airships to come through. In that case, you'll be checked into the lodge, where you'll stay while you work at the Lifespring to earn chore credits that will pay for your passage home or a set of low-end equipment and provisions to get you to the nearest town. While you're there you get a room, three hot meals a day, and a couple extra sets of clothes in exchange for a few hours of work a day.

Chores range from filing and sorting paperwork in the admin building to helping out in the dining hall kitchen to carpentry to blacksmithing to gardening to--whatever your skill set or ability, they'll find you something to do. The chore system has the side benefit of teaching marketable skills to frequent-visitor wannabe adventurers who find they're just not cut out for adventuring.

Once you've worked off the cost of passage or a survival kit, you can check out and be on your way. Or if a cargo ship/airship/wagon that's going your way comes through, you can just hop right on there. Some people prefer to bail out as soon as possible; others like to hang around for a week or two to see if their coffer shows up. As long as you're doing chores, you can stay as long as you like.

Lifesprings are considered international territory, and no country can claim them. That hasn't stopped Porkshire from trying.

Spoiler: Scrub Village and the ruins of Old Castle Beefgnaw

About two hours north of the future-Beefgnawpolis Lifespring is a little cattle ranching village that is the main supplier of beef for the Lifespring's kitchen. Scrub Village is a hot mess. It's not so much a village as a collection of ratty shacks and abandoned shops. Its docks are falling apart, its blacksmith just up and left town one day and left his tools and forge and everything to gather dust, and it has one wagon left... which got stolen not too long before we first see Scrub Village. The people of Scrub Village have a tendency to see bandits coming and just wave white flags and give them whatever they want so they'll go away. Of course they never really do go away, they'll always come back. But hey, that's okay. Every few months the fish lady comes and brings them supplies and makes sure they're okay. So next time the fish lady comes, they'll just ask her for a wagon. Problem solved.

For a while the people of Scrub Village scavenged stuff from the ruins of an old castle nearby, but the above-ground parts have been pretty much picked clean and the below-ground parts are full of monsters and very dangerous. Very, very dangerous. The fish lady told them never to go down there.

Spoiler

The "fish lady," as it turns out, is one Gerda Sigridsdottir Lutefisk, the actual gotdamn Prime Minister of Pescadonia. She comes to Scrub Village on her personal time, in her personal ship, to take care of the villagers as best she can without Porkshire and the Fryer Nation noticing, because then they'll wonder why the Prime Minister of Pescadonia has taken an interest in this little cattle town near the Lifespring, and then there will be Drama and nobody wants that. Also as it turns out, certain people in Porkshire are looking for the ruins of Old Castle Beefgnaw exactly because of what's supposedly hidden under it--that being, the Mad Queen's lab and research notes, particularly the ones pertaining to shooting herself up with monster DNA to get superpowers. The ruins are fairly well hidden by woods, and the locals don't even know exactly what ruins those are, so any Porkshire or Fryer Nation randos asking about Old Castle Beefgnaw are just going to get "I dunno mate maybe try up Brisketburg way?"

The truth is, there actually is a giant Boomer in the lower levels of the castle ruins...an animatronic one placed there by Mrs. Lutefisk herself for the express purpose of keeping people out.

Later, when the cattle towns unite and become Beefgnawpolis, a new Castle Beefgnaw is built on top of the old ruins and Scrub Village becomes the castle town.

 

Important locations, continued:

Spoiler: Pescadonia

The Republic of Pescadonia is one of the world's two tech superpowers, the other being the Vegan Tribe. They have a friendly rivalry and there's a fair bit of good-natured trolling going on between the Pescadonian and Vegan science communities.

From the surface, Pescadonia looks like a big island. Doesn't look like a huge country. That's because most of it is underwater. There are surface-dwelling Pescadonians, and there are deep-dwelling Pescadonians. They get along pretty well; deep dwellers are just normal people who happen to have gills either by luck of the genetic draw or by Science, and surface dwellers can get a 24-hour water breathing potion at any old convenience store if they want to hang out down below.

When the cattle towns unite and form the Beefgnawpolis Empire, Pescadonia becomes their first ally.

Spoiler: the Fryer Nation

The Fryer Nation is one of the magic superpowers--they tend to specialize in high-end thaumaturgy, as opposed to the more nature-oriented schools found in the cattle territories.

There used to be four chicken nation-states--the Fryer, Roaster, Broiler, and Layer Nations. Under the rule of Napouleton I, the Fryer Nation conquered them all. The Fryer Nation is the only true empire left in the world (although Porkshire sure does make a lot of imperialist noises these days), and its people are a little worried because the current emperor, Napouleton III, is rapidly losing popularity on account of him doing pretty much whatever Porkshire wants him to do and there's this archaic but still enforceable law on the books that an assassinated emperor must step down--and he has no heir.

Spoiler

he does actually have an heir, but for an assortment of Reasons, not the least of which being that she was born under a blood moon, she was disowned pretty much at birth and sent to an orphanage. Later, she would be adopted by one of Napouleton III's advisers and later still, she would join the military.

The Fryer Nation is currently allied with Porkshire, and pretty much just serves as its hired muscle when Porkshire decides to annex another piece of cattle territory.

Spoiler: the Sweets Kingdom

Here's the main thing you need to know about the Sweets Kingdom: its chief exports are fine desserts and HIGHLY TRAINED ASSASSINS.

(yes, it turns out assassins are handy even in a world where untimely death is just a temporary setback--for one thing, killing someone will get the target out of the way and get you all the stuff they were carrying. There's also a humiliation factor. Anyway.)

The current queen of the Sweets Kingdom is a cute little girl named Theobroma (or Coco to her close personal friends)... who personally shanked the previous king for Reasons yet to be completely figured out. That's how succession works there. You make a claim to the throne by showing the current monarch your stabs. That's it. It's like Westeros and Candy Land smushed together and I swear to God I will somehow work the phrase "game of scones" into the comic if it fucking KILLS ME.

Spoiler

One of the barista nuns at the Beefgnawpolis Lifespring is later revealed in the most badass possible way to be a former assassin.

Spoiler: Porkshire

hoo boy. Porkshire does a lot of tech and magic, so why didn't I mention them as global superpowers on either front? BECAUSE THEY EITHER BUY OR RIP SHIT OFF AND THEN TRY TO TAKE CREDIT FOR IT.

They've always been kinda dickish, but it's gotten even worse since their current president was elected and god fucking dammit there are so many things I loathe about our own Lord Dampnut but I am pissed off on a personal level about just how much of Chester Fucking Hogg's behavior that seemed so cartoonishly outrageous a year ago looks downright tame in comparison to the shit Dampnut is pulling on a nigh-daily basis. FUCK YOU TEN THOUSAND TIMES FOR OUT-CARICATURING MY CARICATURE, DONALD.

...anyway.

President Hogg is either dumber than a bag of hammers, or he's pretending to be. If the former, he's almost certainly someone's puppet. The prime suspect is one of his biggest campaign donors, who is rumored (but has never been proven) to have some ties with the cannibals.

Spoiler: Mystery Meat Island

okay these people are my favorite and it kills me that we won't meet them for so long because they are going to be so fucking fun.

Mystery Meat Island's food theme is exactly what it says on the tin. Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler would be a Mystery Meat Islander if he existed in this world. They will eat anything that doesn't eat them first--with one exception. Eat no meat on Mystery Meat Island unless you know exactly what animal (and what part of that animal) it came from. This will be difficult unless you've got a babelfish, because Mystery Meat Islanders speak with this crazy thick accent and use this mishmash of slang that's some unholy union of Scottish, Australian, and Deep East Texan and it is spoken at maximum possible volume at all times. Hint: if you are offered "bangas," "sossies," or "linkums" those are various types of sausage and there is a good chance that even the person who made them has no idea what animal or bits thereof they were stuffing into those casings.

They're also the world capital of "shoving sticks into things and deep frying them just to see if we can." If it exists and is edible, a Mystery Meat Islander has figured out how to deep fry it.

Now, for the most part, Mystery Meat Islanders are pretty friendly and have a pretty great sense of humor, but there is one thing you should never, ever, EVER do: accuse them of eating people. Don't joke about finding a hospital bracelet in your stew. Don't joke about seeing part of a tattoo on the cracklins. Do not ever even jokingly imply that a Mystery Meat Islander is a cannibal, just do Not. Because there are cannibals in the world, and the Mystery Meat islanders hate them with the fury of a thousand suns. I mean, pretty much everyone hates the cannibals, but especially the Mystery Meat Islanders because they're so fucking sick of the "lol, is ur vegan burger made w/real vegans?" jokes. So keep those to yourself unless you really, really, really want a thorough ass-kicking.

Which isn't to say they don't have a sense of humor! They do! They can laugh at their own horrible food! Lips-n-assholes jokes are fine! Just not, y'know, human lips-n-assholes jokes.

and obviously

Spoiler: Beefgnawpolis

Beefgnawpolis is what happened when the cattle territories got tired of the Fryer Nation and Porkshire's shit and saw Scrub Village stand up against them and decided to join in. It's referred to as an empire and ruled by an emperor, but it's an empire in name only--possibly in large part just to troll Napouleton. They don't conquer anything, they don't colonize anything, they don't start shit with other countries, they just keep to themselves and ask nicely that other countries do likewise.

Emperor Beefgnaw (a name also taken for the purpose of trolling Napouleton) keeps getting picked on by his advisors about his lack of a successor and he's like no, you guys, what I'm trying to do here is get you to a point where by the time I'm ready to step down YOU WON'T NEED AN EMPEROR ANYMORE, plslrn2governurselves ok. Which they do, eventually, but that's way off in "stuff that still hasn't been properly figured out and won't be touched in the comic anytime even remotely soon" territory.

Beefgnawpolis was born out of Scrub Village. For a long time, Scrub Village didn't even have a mayor and when they did "elect" Alex Hereford, it was a) as a cruel joke and b) because some bandits were demanding to know who was in charge of this village and this Hereford asshole had just come from the Lifespring to chew them out for letting other bandits run off with their beef delivery wagon and they figured "hey, let's just throw this new guy under the bus." This did not work quite as planned. It got worse. And then thanks to some creative bullshittery and a live boomer in a burlap bag, it got better. So they kept their new mayor around, what the hell, why not.

The name "Beefgnawpolis" was kinda pulled out of Hereford's ass on the spot; he came up with a flag, but forgot to think up a name. And uh well they'd just come back from blowing up the Mad Queen's lab under Old Castle Beefgnaw and uhhhhh oh heck it. BEEFGNAWPOLIS. Then he figured he might as well take the name himself while he was at it.

The cattle territories and later Beefgnawpolis are the other magic superpower; their specialty is nature-based magic. The high wizards dismissively refer to them as "those tree-hugging dirt-worshipping hipstamancers." The hedgecrafters, in return, refer to the high wizards as "those forever-alone magebros." There are regional variations in magical genre, but that's pretty much the gist of it. Passive-aggressive pissing contests between the two major schools of magic are common and frequently public worldwide, but especially so in Beefgnawpolis and the Fryer Nation.

Fun fact: as Emperor, Beefgnaw is technically not supposed to get into magic, because he doesn't want to give the impression that the state favors any particular school of magic over another even though Beefgnawpolis' magical population is mostly hedgecrafters. However, off the record, he does dabble in a bit of nature magic. There's a similar restriction on high-ranking military officers of the Fryer Nation; General Tso has taught herself a bit of high magic. Neither of them are particularly good at it. This does not stop either of them from gleefully but savagely dragging the other when they find out.

Emperor Beefgnaw and Pescadonian Prime Minster Lutefisk are bffs.

 

I have thoroughly enjoyed everything you've posted so far, and am putting this thread on my watch list for further enjoyment!

 

Aw, thanks!

I've had an beer or two tonight so lemme ramble about

Spoiler: Lactovonia and Muttonia

These are two little countries, the former's theme being milk and eggs and the latter's being mutton/lamb/whathaveya. Sry2say I have done basically fuckall with Muttonia other than call its capital Eweston.

Lactovonia is known for amazing cheese. also for psychics, based on there actually being an amusing number of divination methods that involve cows and/or milk and/or eggs.

Spoiler: the Vegan Tribe

Mushroom biomes are another concept that carried over from the Minecrafted version of ToB, though they have a slightly different name and don't have mooshrooms (although there may be other fungal fauna). There's a pretty much globally recognized unwritten law that mushroom plains belong to the Vegan Tribe. They're the other tech superpower. They've developed mushroom-based Internet. They have mushrooms that give off wifi (called "data caps") They developed the first horseless wagons (solar powered personal hovercraft). Many of the Vegan Tribe's recent tech achievements appear to have either been led or funded by some guy by the name of Noel Casaba.

They're more than willing to share their tech and plant data caps on your turf, but there's a catch: they don't do money. They barter. Pescadonia trades them seaweed and salt, Lactovonia gives them what dairy and eggs they do use, and Beefgnawpolis gives them compost. Turns out most Vegan Tribespeople don't have a problem with reusing grass that's already been gently used by a cow. Like... the cow's not using it anymore.

"Vegan Tribe" is actually a bit of a misnomer, though; the Vegan Tribe has lacto-ovo-vegetarian members and a few pescetarian members as well. You can be born into the tribe, or naturalized into it; whether you're a born or naturalized Vegan Tribesperson, you won't be recognized as a full adult member until you plan, plant, and harvest your first garden. Some people keep gardening for the rest of their lives, some just do the coming-of-age garden and never touch dirt again.

There are legends of a lost Breathairian tribe. They are lost because they didn't fucking eat.

Spoiler: the Crimson Order, aka the cannibals

We don't know much about the cannibals except

a) they're into some really gross forbidden magic. Not the cool kind of forbidden either. Every once in a while some neckbeard magebro decides to be ~edgy~ and learn some shit about blood magic and they hit up Mycopedia and half a page into the sanitized-for-the-greater-web version they're just like



and they close the tab and fumigate their ShroomBook with all the sage they can find just to be on the safe side.

b) they eat people. I mean. obviously. they're fucking cannibals.
c) they seem to have a big chip on their shoulder because their territory isn't recognized as a country (possibly owing to the fact that nobody wants any truck with them because see item b) ) and that chip just gets bigger when a bunch of countries, however begrudgingly, recognize this new country that sprang up out of the cattle territory no-man's-land.

[edited to add a bit to the Vegan Tribe entry]

 

Spoiler: a thing I forgot to mention about the Fryer Nation

They got airships. And Air Marines with magic jetpacks. The first time we see General Tso she's flying down from an airship like a total badass and it's awesome and also kinda Extra but still pretty awesome.

The Fryer Nation soldier's weapon of choice is a magic energy weapon called a gladius. It works kinda like the bayards in Voltron--its inactive form is a ring, and when activated it turns into a weapon and/or shield. It does require some magical ability to work, but like... if you can do shit tier cantrips or whatever you can make a gladius work.

At some point in the war arc the Beefgnawpolis bull cavalry will kick the ever-loving shit out of General Tso and her unit, grab her coffer, and go through all her stuff looking for valuable intel. Emperor Beefgnaw will poke on General Tso's gladius and hand it to his magic-ministry advisors and go "so could y'all reverse engineer this and make one that would work for someone like say a shit tier hedgecrafter, asking for a friend"

There follows a montage of Beefgnaw's WIP gladius manifesting ridiculous shit like punchstabguns and a shield on a stick and crossbow knuckles and a sword with a handle at both ends before they work the bugs out.

 

I'ma ramble about some characters...

Spoiler: Alex Hereford/Emperor Beefgnaw

Age: 30ish
Origin: Cattle territory
Occupation: shit tier wannabe adventurer turned mayor of Scrub Village turned first emperor of Beefgnawpolis

Has practically lived at the Lifespring for most of his adult life. (actually if you want to split hairs he DOES live at the Lifespring. Or rather, just outside it in a technically illegal dirt hut). Goes on Adventures, chokes while fighting a monster, gets his ass handed to him. He squirreled away every spare Nug he could scrounge up in a jar for months until he could afford a half decent sword, killed his first Boomer with it, and was so pumped and so busy celebrating that he kind of didn't notice, uh... everything else in the cave.

So he shows up at the Lifespring again, and figures he'll hang around a while, maybe see if his coffer shows up with his nice new sword safe inside. Instead, he gets summoned to Mother Robusta's office and assigned to a chore normally reserved for barista monks and nuns: getting freshly respawned people woken up and checked in. Mother Robusta has assigned Alex this particular chore for two reasons: 1) he's been there enough times to know the routine and 2) she wants him to consider taking the vows and becoming a barista monk.

To which Alex basically goes because the Lifespring is a nice place but the hell does he want to be stuck there forever. But he agrees to do the thing until the monk he's filling in for gets back.

A few days into this gig he notices something odd going on at the dining hall. Like... it's Wednesday, it's supposed to be pot roast night, why chicken? And Brother Doppio is acting kind of cagey and weird and handwaving it off.

And then a Fryer Nation troop carrier comes through, which is weird because no Fryer Nation soldiers have respawned recently? And this Air Marine general comes flying down with her magic jetpack thing and just being cool as shit. Turns out she'd taken her unit to some caves and had them pick up coffers as a team building training thing, and then some more Air Marines fly a pallet of coffers down. One of the Air Marines asks if there's a Hereford here, because his squad won because there were like six of this dumbshit's coffers in the same spot, lol this idiot kept going back can you believe that shit?

Sooooo Alex is now thoroughly salty about this, and also this wasn't the cave he lost his good sword in so he's even saltier, and when he overhears Brother Doppio asking the general if she can swing by Scrub Village and see why they haven't sent the beef wagon lately and the general turning him down because Reasons, Alex jumps on it. Fine, HE'LL go to Scrub Village, it's like a two hour hike! What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

After some negotiation (he's got two weeks to get a beef wagon to the Lifespring or he has to come back and take the vows) he sets off for Scrub Village.

He finds an absolute wreck of a town. Bandits stole their last wagon. Houses are falling down. The blacksmith just up and left town one day, leaving his forge and tools and all. The dock is falling apart. And the wifi is terrible. What's the mayor doing? Well... what mayor? There is none. Great. Alex spends a couple days trying to talk some sense into these people, but he keeps hearing the same thing--next time the fish lady comes, they'll tell her they need a new wagon.

About this time some more bandits show up, and the Scrubs start passing out white flags to wave at them, and Alex is Done. "just give them what they want and they'll go away, the fish lady will bring us more stuff when she comes through." "Okay, but what happens if this fish lady doesn't come back?" "...???" "OMFG"

About that time, the bandits arrive in town and demand to know who's in charge. And the Scrubs, thoroughly Done with this new guy and his shit, all point at Alex. Yeah, fair enough.

So the biggest bandit starts talking shit and making threatening noises but Alex doesn't really hear it because he's just noticed that the nice sword the bandit is wearing is HIS DAMN SWORD! So he makes a tactical error: politely asking for it back. It's got his initials on it and everything. Nope, says the bandit. Unwritten law, finders keepers. Okay, but the other part of the unwritten law is "give it back if you're caught with it." Tl;dr: the bandit gives it to him. Sort of.

So Alex wakes up at the Lifespring. Again. And he remembers that he's just pissed off some bandits that are probably taking it out on the Scrubs at that moment, and oh god he has to get back there but it's getting dark and monsters come out at night... he begs a set of shit tier gear off a barista nun and starts on the way back after getting a protip about boomers.

A couple hours later, the bandits are still terrorizing the Scrubs when this Hereford idiot shows up again in thrift store leather armor with a burlap bag. "Okay," he says, "I didn't want to do this but you can have this, it's our town treasure--shh play along ok--but see it's cursed and if you open it here we're all doomed including you, so just take it away from the village before you open it. Yes. AWAY from the village. OK yeah that's good."

And the bandits realize too late that they have been handed a bag of live boomer. Which sees bandit faces and then blows them to bits, leaving a bunch of coffers in a gently smoldering crater.

The bandits come back a couple days later in Lifespring garb with their heads hung, and Alex offers them an honest job: get the Scrubs' wagon back. Which they do, and the Lifespring gets its beef shipments again. And Scrub Village decides ots nes mayor is kind of okay.

Later, Scrub Village attracts the attention of the Cordon Bleu alliance of Porkshire and the Fryer Nation, and decides it's sick of their shit and tl;dr the Beefgnawpolis Empire is born.

Emperor Beefgnaw has a proper crown but doesn't wear it unless forced. Usually he just wears a snapback with a crown embroidered on it instead.

 

Spoiler: General Elina Tso

Age: 30ish
Origin: western Fryer Nation
Occupation: magic jetpack Air Marine, tactician, closet self-taught neophyte High Mage

"Tso" is not a family name. When kids in the Fryer Nation end up at orphanages for whatever reason, they're given the name of the prefecture the orphanage is in as a surname. This wee baby named Elina was adopted from the orphanage in Tso prefecture by one of Emperor Napouleton's finest military tacticians, who taught her everything he knew and over the years, the wee baby grew up into six feet and a hundred and eighty pounds of scary smart whoopass and joined the Air Marines and became FLYING WHOOPASS. Eventually she rose to the rank of General and became FLYING WHOOPASS IN COMMAND OF A WHOLE LOT MORE FLYING WHOOPASS.

She didn't learn the high arts from her adopted father, though. He wasn't into magic. And as a high-ranking military officer, she was kinda technically not supposed to get into it beyond what was necessary to make her weapon work, on account of that little passive-aggressive pissing contest between the high mages and the hedgecrafters. So she has no mentor and a really hilariously bad homemade wand and she's pirated sampled e-texts of enough High Arts for Dummies books to understand the basic theory, but when it comes to the actual practice she can, like... generate a fireball that might light a birthday candle at close enough range. Towards the end of the war arc she discovers a certain thing that actually boosts her ability a little, and she uses it to cast a glamor to scare the absolute shit out of a bunch of people so she won't have to fight them during a Blood Moon.

She is so very, very sick of President Hogg's shit, and even more sick of having to go along with President Hogg's shit because Emperor Napouleton does whatever the fuck Hogg wants because... Reasons. And not just that, but since Napouleton is a recluse and hardly leaves the palace and the advisor he used to send out on Diplomatic Shit sort of up and vanished shortly after the founding of Beefgnawpolis (the same advisor who adopted General Tso, the same advisor who asked her if she really wanted history to remember her as the general who started a war with Pescadonia because this idiot from Porkshire was afraid of some cattle towns), General Tso now gets saddled with the odious task of representing the Fryer Nation in Diplomatic Shit. And because of the Fryer Nation's alliance with Porkshire, this means she gets to spend lots of time around President Chester Fucking Hogg, Lucky her.

 

Spoiler: President Chester Fucking Hogg

...actually in-universe he's referred to as Chester Clucking Hogg, or Chester Plucking Hogg, or sometimes Chester Porking Hogg, or sometimes, just sometimes, when he's done something really awful, Chester H**king Hogg. in the interest of keeping the series PG-rated there is no language stronger than hell/crap/damn. "fuck" and "shit" don't exist in this universe, instead there's "cluck/pluck/pork" and "chips." And then there's the heck word, which is the Worst Bad Word In The World. But anyway.

Age: old fart
Origin: Porkshire
Occupation: President of Porkshire

let me first say once again: fuck you Lord Dampnut for out-caricaturing my caricature. All the shenanigans I came up with for Hogg that seemed so cartoonishly outrageous a year ago seem pretty tame now. except maybe the "Pink Was A MAN COLOR Until Teh Wimminz Stoled It So It's Time For Men TO RECLAIM PINK" thing. 45 hasn't done that yet! ...ANYWAY.

Nobody's really sure how old he is or how many times he's been married or divorced. He can't seem to keep his story straight on the first but we can assume he's older than he says--not Freaky Immortality Shit or anything, he just lies about his age because he doesn't want anyone (especially The Ladies--he's available btw!) to think he's an Old Fart. this doesn't work very well. As for the second, everyone's just straight up lost count. (has he mentioned he's available, ladies? because he's totally available.)

Has the most epic combover. Really. It's amazing. It defies all known laws of physics. It's not fooling anyone. He does not care.

So here's the thing about Chester Fucking Hogg. He's either just comletely eat up with dumbass, or he's pretending to be. Either way, he keeps doing and saying shit that's just outrageous and bizarre and sometimes fairly gross, and it keeps setting off chains of events that eventually work in his favor. So either he's way smarter than he lets on, or there's someone pulling his strings.

Spoiler

It's actually a little of column A and a little of column B, but less of column A and more of column B than he will ever admit, even to himself. Yes, Hogg's dumbassery is at least partly an act and at one point, by just completely grossing both Emperor Beefgnaw and General Tso out on separate occasions, he gets hold of their worn clothing and hands it over to some nefarious magic people for nefarious Reasons. He does shit like this on the friendly advice of one Stump Wadlington, CEO of StumpCo and major campaign donor. Hogg thinks he's in charge in this relationship. And Wadlington--and his friends on Cannibal Island--are ever so happy to let him continue to think that for as long as it serves their purposes.

He's just... gross. He has hit on General Tso more times than she cares to count. She has threatened to throw him overboard (then pick him up at the Lifespring, then throw him overboard again, etc.) more than once. It just rolls off. Mostly because he knows perfectly well she can't do shit to him. He almost started a war with the Sweets Kingdom by making an inappropriate comment about "dipping [his] sausage in that" when he was introduced to the Duchess of Maple... and he said this in front of the Duchess of Maple's WIFE. It took General Tso weeks to smooth that shit over because the LAST thing you want in this world is to piss off the country where there's a good chance that any rando you meet on the street knows sixteen ways to kill you with their bare hands.

Unless, of course, you're Chester Hecking Hogg and you're looking to start a war to show off how tough you are but you don't actually want to fire the first shot because you're actually kind of spineless.

 

A plot bit I wanted to get down before I forget it:

Towards the end of the Prologue we've got the party of Alex Hereford, Prime Minister Lutefisk, and General Tso down in the caves under Old Castle Beefgnaw. There's some volcanic activity that they're going to take advantage of (along with a shitload of boomer bile, thanks to the giant boomer that wasn't one of Gerda's giant animatronics) to blow up the Mad Queen's genetic crazy shit lab so as to Keep That Knowledge From Falling Into The Wrong Hands (tm), but there's a problem: a Blood Moon rises while they're down there, meaning if they get blown up they're all gone for good (General Tso does not know at the time that she's bloodborn).

Another problem: General Tso can fly out before shit blows up, but she can only carry one person. Hereford decides to be the one to stay behind, since Gerda is the prime minister of Pescadonia and the scrubs will find another mayor.

So a plan is devised wherein Hereford will hole up in the nice sturdy head-shell of the dead giant boomer, hopefully survive the cave-in, and wait until the Pescadonians can bring in the mining drill and get him out.

Thanks to Pescadonian technology, Gerda has a purse that opens up into a pocket dimension. Which is how she carries a literal damn harpoon gun around with her everywhere. Also a few days' worth of food and water and snacks and first aid kit and some crossword puzzle books and a spare air tank just in case don't ya know and oh there's these, she doesn't remember ever putting them in there but here they are, apparently that's a thing with the pocket dimensions, sometimes stuff just Appears in them and they don't know why, particularly with pocket dimensions belonging to ladies of a Certain Age, and she pulls out a handful of



... and Hereford and General Tso just kind of look at each other like

 

also re: the survival plan...

the good news is, it turns out the Pescadonian miners won't have to dig him out after all

the bad news is, the dead boomer head is in just the right place and kinda gets launched like a cannonball with a screaming dude inside it clinging to boomer headbits for dear life

 

OK. now that I have some time to sit the fuck down:

Spoiler: Prime Minster and Science Grandma Gerda Sigridsdottir Lutefisk aka The Fish Lady

First, a note on traditional Pescadonian name conventions. You get a given name, a matrilineal middle name that's your mom's given name+"-(s)son/-(s)dottir/-(s)kind", and a family name either from your dad or your husband. Yep, there's a gender-neutral middle-name suffix. As for how it's decided what name comes from who in the case of non-het couples with kids, that's left up to the family to decide for itself. So what we know from Gerda's name is that her mom was named Sigrid. I don't know what her maiden family name was, but at some point she married Mr. Lutefisk. Finally, to use Gerda's kids as an example: the eight Lutefisk kids all have the middle name "Gerdasson" or "Gerdasdottir." Let's say Inga Gerdasdottir Lutefisk married fashion magnate Bob Mackerel. Their kids would be so-and-so Ingasdottir/Ingasson/Ingaskind Mackerel. TRUST ME IT ALL MAKES SENSE

Anyway. Mrs. Lutefisk is the Prime Minister of Pescadonia. She comes by Scrub Village every couple of months, on her own time, in her own personal ship (though at least one of her kids insists on coming with every time, mostly to help Gerda down to the dock and keep her from falling through it, because it's as much a wreck as the rest of Scrub Village), just to check on the people who live there and make sure they're more or less okay.

What she isn't telling them, for their own protection: the castle ruins the Scrubs have been picking through for years are none other than the ruins of Castle Beefgnaw, where several hundred years ago some crazy lady who fancied herself a queen holed up and did a whole lot of Mad Science. And Gerda, being a tiny grandma with multiple hard science degrees, would really like to get her hands on that Mad Science, because it has a lot of potential to do a lot of good. But if even half the rumors about what the Mad Queen got up to under that castle are true, it also has a lot of potential to do a lot of really terrible shit, and she knows if Porkshire finds out about it, they will be all over it.

This is all complicated by the fact that the ruins of Castle Beefgnaw are in no-man's-land. Gerda could annex Scrub Village. A couple of her kids have in fact recommended that she just do so and get it over with. But she really doesn't want to. That just smells too much like an empire conquering some poor helpless cattle town, you know, the way some other countries do, not that we're naming names, and that is not how Pescadonians do things, don't ya know.

So she's taken some ...measures to keep the Scrubs from going too deep into the ruins. Fortunately, nobody except her and possibly her family and closest advisors seem to know that those are in fact the ruins of Castle Beefgnaw. Just to be on the safe side, she planted a giant robot Boomer in there to scare the Scrubs away. (turns out there's also a real giant Boomer deeper in, which is news to everyone including Gerda). There also may or may not be unmarked black submarines patrolling off the coast of Scrub Village at any given time. These may or may not be ...measures just in case Porkshire and the Fryer Nation find out what those ruins really are and come in guns blazing.

Gerda's standard equipment includes a sturdy but tasteful purse, which opens up into a pocket dimension. She has a number of sturdy but tasteful purses, all of which open up into the same pocket dimension, and if necessary she can call one of her kids to stuff something into one of her purses so she can get it wherever she is. In this pocket dimension, she generally keeps:

• a few packs of gum
• some packets of peanuts or cookies or whathaveyou
• reading glasses
• a first aid kit
• a couple of spare babelfish
• a little somethin' to eat, just in case, you know... okay, it's a week's worth of full freeze-dried meals
• several gallons of drinking water
• a fully charged power bank and solar charger
• a change of clothes
• a pair of work gloves
• wet wipes
• a pair of sturdy walking shoes
• an air tank
• a harpoon gun
• a couple of crossword puzzle books
• a seemingly infinite supply of those strawberry things

For the record: no, she cannot put a person in her pocket dimension. Pocket dimensions are made to store stuff, not people. There's no opening from the inside, a person inside the pocket dimension would have to wait for someone to open one of Gerda's purses or whatever other Bag of Holding leads to that pocket dimension. Also one would have to be able to physically squeeze one's entire body through the opening of a purse, which is really not a thing most people can do.

 

Holy shit, I updated the main story.

And also put up the cover of Zucchinipocalypse.

 

I doodled a Mystery Meat Islander for giggles. But this isn't just any Mystery Meat Islander--this is Dibbs, a member of the triumvirate that rules the Mystery Meat Islands. That's right... this guy is a head of state.

Yes, they all talk like that.

Yes, they all dress like that.