HUBERT SPALA

[HUBERT SPALA]

INKTOBER ‘20 #29 - Shoes

Being a Pottery Golem is a hard living. Sure, folks believe you are strong as your stone cousin and imperishable like the golems made of crystal, but you’re in fact a brittle boy with little big soul that screams silently from your baked clay mouth-slit. It is a clunky existence, slow and careful – sure, your walls might be thick but your insides are hollow. And so it seems that this void inside you always calls to be filled. Who knows how true this adage is, but once thing is certain – Pottery Golems or Potties, as most kin call them, tend to fixate their sole existence on a single item and either become avid collectors of such, to a degree of raising their simple abodes entirely of the objects of their desire… Or to become as merchants, guile and deft due to sheer patience, focus and deliberate dumbness most golems display. In case of a particular Pottie called simply as Knock it was the latter. Who knows from what dark depth and shady deals he manages to plod his way out, but after his lengthy escapades he always return to the city with plethora of shoes, slippers, flip-flops and clods, of most eccentric shapes, sizes and garish colors. He claims them to be artifacts of bygone ages and forgotten civilizations. While most laugh and mock his notions, there must be some truth to it, as some of his wares are made of most incredible and unreal materials, flexible yet durable, stretchy yet unyielding. That is most likely why the citizens of Wharf Town tolerate his tall tales of ancient ruins and glyphs – quality goods are quality goods, no matter from where they stem.

Inktober 2020 art will become avaliable in fully colored variants in ‘Posterra: Folks of the Wharf’ artbook, including extended lore, two short stories and map of the Wharf Town and surroundings. Stay Tuned!

[HUBERT SPALA]

INKTOBER ‘20 #28 - Float

Postal Service is one of the most crucial city service in eyes of the Mayor Whale. Swift delivery of messages and parcels means that the merchants can operate quickly and with fewer errors. Information that passes from guild to guild, from member to member also saves plenty of possible snafus and keeps the order both within and outside the city walls. And his agents would have significantly harder job if they couldn’t intercept crucial mail or deliveries to check on the contents as well! And so, the Wharf Post is well funded and ever growing, and the laws are also very generous when it comes to offering postmen wide protections, making it a desirable position of some repute. With their gleaming caps, sturdy bags and can-do tradition the postmen are a colorful, eclectic yet sturdy and reliable addition to the city picturesque organized chaos. And they never cease to invest and reinvent, hoping to outmatch themselves in swiftness and convenience. Take for example their latest invention catered to the insectoids who work for the office, which can be temporarily hosting a semi-parasitic organism that allows them to, well… To float. Some might consider it a little silly and pointless, and yet avoiding street crowds and carriage traffics proven to be reward well worth of the potential silliness and clumsy swaying of limbs in the air to steer the unruly sack of gases. While the sight of floating postmen is still rare – and the opponents mock the notion, since there are kin and folk that can just fly in the first place – the Post proclaims it a standing idea that will ensure all postmen of proper biological profile will be able to reach for the skies!

Inktober 2020 art will become avaliable in fully colored variants in ‘Posterra: Folks of the Wharf’ artbook, including extended lore, two short stories and map of the Wharf Town and surroundings. Stay Tuned!

[HUBERT SPALA]

INKTOBER ‘20 #26 - Hide

Can an existential agoraphobic find themselves wanting to live in a bustling city? Yes. Yes they can.  Meet Fykeon Mahimas, the most elusive of the Haunts. Despite their grim reputation, Haunts aren’t malignant undead that hide in the corners of the darkest places to jump at the unsuspecting prey to suck their souls out. Nothing could be further from the truth. While indeed, Haunts are spirits of the long departed that got bound to the shadows, they are not ravaging spirits of vengeance nor they crave any souls to being with. If anything… they are shy. Bashful even. Their only craving could be to be left alone, but that would be false as well, for most of the Haunts find a new way to focus their eternity on. A passion. They are tangible enough to partake in earthly affairs – that is a part of their dire reputation, that they can spring traps and choke the live out of any miserable prey – and they have that special clarity of mind and purpose that only death can bring. And so, they find a new hobby and usually became ultimate experts in it, for the concerns of mortal living or time itself does not really register with them anymore. And Fykeon is botanist. An avid one, but not for alchemy, nor biotechonology. Just… for the sake of it. He find immense pleasure in cataloguing them, naming them, finding their properties, measuring their lives and cycles. In knowing them. And you might ask, how such a green-thumbed ghost could find itself in the city? Simple. One day he haunted the city glasshouses which were installed for hydroponics and growing food during wintertime. It was decade ago, and now he is a de facto curator of the project with a growing botanical garden that extend more and more in every direction to his quiet, mournful guidance.

Inktober 2020 art will become avaliable in fully colored variants in ‘Posterra: Folks of the Wharf’ artbook, including extended lore, two short stories and map of the Wharf Town and surroundings. Stay Tuned!

[HUBERT SPALA]

INKTOBER ‘20 #25 - Buddy

Familiars are a common sight on the streets of Wharf Town, going around in their manifold forms to do their masters bidding. Once they were unique only to wizards of some power, but the processes of summoning, crafting or enthralling them became so mundane that by now anyone with even a smidge of arcane potency can have one, and they are quite a help to be sure. While like any of the Others they vary between each other do a massive degree, in all possible aspects, be it shape or size, there are some commonalities to them, of course. They are all made to be smart, or at least crafty and cunning in some ways. Swiftness and nimbleness are common traits desirable by the magic users, as they want their familiars to be able to get to any place and be quick about it. Some are gifted with speech, to carry out more complex tasks. There are two schools of a relationship between the familiar and the master. The Traditionalists believe the familiar to be a tool, a servant – disposable and utterly devoid of a connection, treating them as such as well knowing for sure that the bond they share will protect them fully from any form of retaliation. Empathists, however, take a different route. Arguing that since the familiar is soul bonded to them, they believe they become an extension of themselves and therefore should be treated as such, with the dignity, compassion and egocentric love that once reserves for themselves. These arcane users treat their familiars as closest confidants, truest friends and most beloved companions, as they indeed believe them to be a fragment of themselves woven into external form.

Inktober 2020 art will become avaliable in fully colored variants in ‘Posterra: Folks of the Wharf’ artbook, including extended lore, two short stories and map of the Wharf Town and surroundings. Stay Tuned! 

[HUBERT SPALA]

INKTOBER ‘20 #24 - Dig

Till Joe was a worker. Made to be a simple machine, dedicated to manual labor, he retained his primary function after the Spark found his circuits and woke him of his programming. He found that working with a shovel and pickaxe is just… liberating. Stone and ore do not ask questions. Veins and rocks pose you no hostility, no matter who you are. And yet, while working the steady rhythm of hammering them down into manageable chunks, you have all the time in the world to let your complex systems play and fiddle with ideas – of freedom. Faith. Economy. Logistics. And so, Till Joe found his purpose – buying enslaved robots and employing them in his mining company until the spark wakes them to their sapience. To do so, he will need money, for he did not believe in taking the robots by force. He was not a war-machine, after all, but he knew how to dig and crack rocks. And so, he dug valuable metals. Nickel. Iron. Lead. Gold and silver never held much of an appeal to him and fortunately, the rest of Posterra agreed – gold might look nice, but as a metal, it’s pretty shoddy for most needs. And so with quiet diligence his work grew, and with it, his enterprise. Now he is a big name in the city working class and a major source of raw resources for the biggest city in the known realms – Wharf Town – which hunger for ore is seemingly endless, beating even the ravenous needs of the Brass City of robots, which should by right of their citizens be the first in demand of metals. And with wealth and prosperity, his dream turn to reality, as now hundreds of robots work in his name, more and more of them finding their Spark to a greater rejoice of the whole family, free do stay, free to go to find their own purpose.

Inktober 2020 art will become avaliable in fully colored variants in ‘Posterra: Folks of the Wharf’ artbook, including extended lore, two short stories and map of the Wharf Town and surroundings. Stay Tuned!