Process This is from 2008 sometime, I think. Recovered and posted here in 2024; no edits except for repairing the links. Angel-Eye: A name that Golgo went by many years ago. Link. Arctaur: A purple person who lives alone in the abandoned city of Whetton. He fancies himself a historian, and knows much of the history and lore of Overside. He is particularly fascinated by Whetton’s dead Tree of Thought, and the magic it once possessed. Link. Avatar: In the old stories, there are three massive pillars called "Avatars" that were left to control and maintain the world once God departed after its creation. There is an Avatar of Time, an avatar of Space, and an avatar of Mind. They were hidden across the world, "never to found, corrupted, or destroyed." One of the Avatars has disappeared, and Ridrom’s prophecy says that a Fulfiller will bring it back. Link. Backtown: A town of sand on the Western border of Skortch, where water and hospitality are scarce. Link. Bird: Spatch II’s small pet, which says "Fuh" over and over. Link. Black Spirit: A black potion with strange properties. Anyone who drinks it is immortal for as long as he drinks it, but it isn’t the same life as before. Extended use is thought to make the drinker increasingly evil, and eventually change his physical form. Few know of the drink, and only Olga knows how it is made. Link. Black Teeth: A mountain range north of Skortch, and the hidden homeland of the reclusive Machine-Men. The symbol of the Black Teeth is a circle over two isosceles triangles, and the colors of its military are dark purple and gold. Bleach Beast: The Slave beast, who serves whoever claims it, and has roamed the world for ages. Link. Book of Spatch: A very large book bound in green. Its contents were dictated by an aging Spatch, a particularly self-confident King of Sunk, to lay down the laws for the continuation of his empire. The last page is marked with Spatch’s handprint. Link. Bor the Very Large: An appropriately named large, one-eyed citizen of the Dorlish Wood. He is not very helpful. Link. Brain Child: A massive purple beast who lives in Lonely Land, and seems to be its de facto ruler. He has obsessively filled his land with lightbulbs, towers, and small clockwork machines. The Dimmons fear and respect him. Link. Calabash: T-O-E’s old friend and partner in a very difficult job. He was alive and drinking heavily for over 3,000 years, searching for the Fulfiller with T-O-E with varying degrees of conviction. He enjoys vodka, the Occasional Cigar, and in general being a bad role model. In The Book of Spatch, and by those who do not know him personally, he is referred to as the "Round Brown One." Link. Calendar: The calendar of Overside resembles our own. Days are roughly the same length, and are created by the world-disk spinning on a North/South axis. A year, made of five 25-day months, is about a third the length of our years (all times expressed in Rice Boy are in Overside Years). The calendar resets every thousand years, starting a new Age. Each Age is named for a color, somewhat arbitrarily. The year in which Rice Boy takes place is Red 854 OSS (the 854th year of the Red Age, OverSide Standard). Lately, the population of Overside is so decentralized that few actually continue to follow this calendar. Dimmons: Dark creatures with glowing white faces that live in Lonely Land. They feed on the misery and loneliness of those who travel through the land, and they bring donations of food to their old incarcerated master, Father Dimmon. Link. Dolly: Golgo’s assistant and sort-of girlfriend. She wears magic boots that talk to her when she is alone. Link. Dorlish Wood: A thick green forest downstream from the Matchwoods. The Dorlish Wood is home to the Tree Keeper, who T-O-E wishes Rice Boy would meet. It is also very large and strange, filled with many magic trees, fruits, and little animals. The fruits that grow in the Dorlish wood are poisonous to diurnal peoples after sunset. Link. Evan Dahm: A liberal-minded young college student in North Carolina, who does the creating of this comic. There is really very little to say about him. Father Dimmon: A massive, many-legged Dimmon. His hands are nailed into the earth of Lonely Land, so he depends on his smaller Dimmons to bring him food. He can only speak in one word phrases. Link. Frog-Men: Native inhabitants of Sunk. Every King of Sunk has been a Frog person, but until Spatch’s coronation, the population of the Swamp has been very diverse. Frog-Men are green and three-fingered. Link. Fruit of Thought: A fruit that grows on the Tree of Thought and is thought to cure all ills. They are purple and can be extremely addictive. Link. Fulfiller: The person who Calabash and T-O-E have been searching for for quite a while; one who will fulfill Ridrom’s Prophecy. Gerund: An orange horned fellow from the Stone Palm. Eating is definitely his favorite thing to do. Gerund is shy and pretty nervous, and has never fit in with other natives of the Stone Palm. He is traveling in search of the Bleach Beast. Link. God: Believed to be the employer of T-O-E and Calabash, and supplier of their immortality. T-O-E talks to God on a tiny island in the center of a glowing pink lake, somewhere. In old lore, God is the indifferent creator of the World and the Avatars, and is never referred to with pronouns. Golgo: An extremely nasty bounty hunter with a magic right eye that goes wherever he cannot. Golgo will kill or spy on anyone for the right price. His mount is a green thing with a large nose, and he was usually accompanied by Dolly, until recently. He is drinking the Black Spirit more and more to keep himself alive, and once knew T-O-E very well. Link. Gortch: Spatch’s father and King of Sunk before him. Pretty much a nice guy and a good ruler with an asshole for a son. Also, a Frog-Man. Link. Grand Vizier: A high-ranking egg-shaped official of Satuar and the Prince’s traveling companion. On most matters, the Vizier is much more sensible than his counterpart. Link. Greeny Weens: A relatively small grassy plain between Whetton (to the south) and the Mountain Ring (to the north). There is a massive stone in the Greeny Weens, in which lives a monstrous serpent. Link. Heart of the Dorlish Wood: The very center of the Tree Keeper’s wood, where there is a massive tree named Daughter. Under this tree is a spherical chamber that houses the Tree Keeper’s most important possession. Link. Heir of Ridrom: One of the lineage of Ridrom’s secrets, who knows the true meaning and implications of the Prophecy. Hideous Child Tavern: A bar in Suntown, frequented by Calabash, owned and operated by Suzy. Its walls are a lovely shade of red. Link. Horn-Plant: Massive weird tree plants native to Sunk, and generally associated with the royalty thereof. Spatch’s palace/fortress is made of the largest Horn-Plant in Sunk. Link. Iron Tower: A tower mentioned in Ridrom’s prophecy, where the Fulfiller’s quest is meant to end. No one knows where the tower is, or really anything about it at all. Thought to be a remnant of the time when Machine-Men ruled Overside. Knosus: A shaman who looks like a rabbit and lives on a beach. He is one of many old friends of T-O-E’s. Link. Korpum: Maquin’s mount, a bluish four-legged creature with a cube for a head. The entire body of Korpum can be contracted into its head, which can then shrink to be carried easily. Link. Little Blue: T-O-E’s little brother, who was taken by the Bleach Beast when they were both very young. Link. Lonely Land: A hilly area south of the Dorlish Wood. People who enter are immediately separated from their companions, and the water there contains a powerful curse: whoever drinks it turns blue and can only talk unintelligibly. Lonely Land is the home of the Brain Child, the Dimmons, and the Brain Child’s mechanical creations. Link. Machine-Men: A species of robot men of which T-O-E is a part. They live for a very long time (though few as long as T-O-E), and there are not very many of them. For the most part, the Machine-Men stay in their homeland, and even those that wander the World avoid most civilization when they do. Maquin: A young Machine-Man, and a scout of the military of the Black Teeth. He adheres to the traditional morals and ways of thought of the Machine-Men, and is somewhat quick to anger. Pronounced Mah-KEEN. Link. Mark of Seen: The symbol of the legendary kingdom of Seen: a vertical eye with a black and red pupil. It is thought that anyone who visits Seen is marked by it. T-O-E has the Mark on his chest. Link. Matchwoods: Largish forested area filled with tall trees with bulbous tips, and what Rice Boy calls "orange popping plants." The Matchwoods are the home of Rice Boy and Rosemary. Link. Memoar: A legendary garden of Memoryflowers inside a massive white dome, guarded by a man of white stone hundreds of feet tall. Only those bearing the Mark of Seen may enter Memoar. Link. Memoryflower: Glowing white flowers that cover the white-enamel ground of Memoar. Each takes a different shape, and corresponds to a particular inhabitant of Overside. When someone smells a Memoryflower, they can see into the memories of its owner. Link. Northern Mountains: A mountain range north of the Matchwoods. The Stone Palm is deep inside them. Oire: A large magic monster who can see clearly into the future. Pons’ brother. Link. Olga: Golgo’s sister, and one of the most knowledgeable apothecaries of Overside. Link. Orange Popping Plants: Plants native to the Matchwoods. They are orange balls on short stalks, and float into the air, glowing, at night. They grow most densely near areas of great heat. Link. Overside: The side of the World on which the events of Rice Boy take place. Parod: A wise man who lives in the Red Mountains of the desert Skortch. Feared by all who know of the Red Mountains as a vicious sorcerer. An Heir of Ridrom. Link. Pons: A large magic monster who can see clearly into the past. Oire’s brother. Link. Prince Yureg: A zealous prince of Satuar, who is going on a quest to glorify his homeland and gain his father’s respect. Link. Prophecy: A text written through Ridrom, ages ago, in the tongue of the Avatars, which few have ever been able to comprehend. It foretells the coming of someone who will call forth the missing third Avatar. This fulfiller will be thrice transfigured, and his task will end on the Iron Tower, which no one really knows anything about. Link. Ragged Lands: A small land on the edge of the Matchwoods, lined with many cracks in the earth, which glow orange with lava. Orange Popping Plants were cultivated by a civilation here many years ago. Columns that serve as channels to bring the lava’s heat to the surface still exist. Link. Red Mountains: A mountain range inside the desert of Skortch. It is a land of thousands of insurmountable spires, and is universally feared. Link. Rice Boy: A little fellow with no arms or legs who lives in the Matchwoods. All he can do is grow plants and watch sunsets and listen to stories, but he’s gone on his way to maybe repair the world. Link. Ridrom: The person who wrote the Prophecy many hundreds of years ago. Rosemary: A large blue nocturnal female person who lives in the Matchwoods. She enjoys eating things that produce light. A few years ago, the White Formless came and gave her Rice Boy, and she has done her best to care for him since. Link. Satuar: A small kingdom in the Mountain Ring. It is barely large enough to be shown on most maps, and its population is barely greater than its own royal family. Seen: A legendary kingdom far underground. Most doubt its existence. Skortch: A massive, dangerous desert. Link. Spatch: Recently deceased King and self-assured Savior of the Frog-Men of the great swamp called Sunk. Though selected by Calabash and T-O-E to be Fulfiller, he did nothing to that end. Spatch exiled every non-Frog-Person from Sunk and assembled a massive army to defend his empire. By the time of his death, every Frog-Person strongly believed in his divinity, and was ready to follow his words to the end of the world. This is possibly bad news. Link. Spatch II: Son of Spatch, who, according to the Book of Spatch, holds all of his father’s power and divinity. Spatch II has black eyes, a black robe, and a strange hat. He is trying to initiate a Holy War against the latest Candidate chosen by T-O-E and Calabash. Link. Stone Palm: A mining village in the Northern Mountains, located in the palm of a great naturally-formed stone hand. The village is populated mostly by warlike horned people of varying shades of red, of which Gerund is one. Link. Sunk: A great Swamp far south of the Matchwoods. More specifically, Sunk is the name of Spatch’s kingdom within this swamp, now full of malignant and zealous Frog-Men. The flag of Sunk is an image of three gold droplets on a blue field. After Spatch’s death, a flag with a black frog’s hand on a red field has become associated with Sunk. Link. Suntown: The city where Calabash lives, and where the Hideous Child is. Suntown is characterized by stucco and topiary. It is on a plateau in the mountains, surrounded by a circular wall. Suntown is one of the largest and most prosperous cities on Overside. It was once home to one of Overside’s last Trees of Thought, which was burned down in a war with Whetton. Link. Suzy: The bartendress at the Hideous Child Tavern. She is friendly and almost completely blind. Fella named a boat after her, once. Link. T-O-E (The One Electronic): Machine-Man prophet, ceaseless chain-smoking wanderer with a monitor for a face. He is a pretty nervous fellow with a purple jacket he’s been wearing for several centuries. He is very serious about the job he has to do with Calabash, his only friend: locate the Fulfiller and assign him to his task. Please forgive his occasional insensitivity; he is a robot, after all, and he’s under a lot of stress. Pronounced Tee-Oh-EE, or teeyoWEE. Link. Tree Keeper: Protector of the Dorlish Wood. The Tree Keeper has control over all the plants of the Wood, and can communicate with them. He travels in a massive carriage made of an animated tree stump, and smokes a pipe. Link. Tree of Thought: A mythical plant with fruit that can heal almost all ills. Many years ago, several existed across the world. Now only one is known of, and only by few, in the Black Teeth. Link. Trill-Folk: People too small to be seen, who once lived all over every surface of Overside, connecting and filling all with thought and magic. Their existence is tied to that of the Avatar of Mind. Link. Trill-Tongue: The language of the Trill-Folk, and the medium through which their strange and subtle magic is made manifest. Link. Underside: The other side of the disk-shaped world, long isolated from Overside. Whetton: A city, now abandoned, near Lonely Land. Whetton is in a large grassy field, and its streets are trenches dug into the earth. Three watchtowers are the only parts of Whetton that stick above the ground’s surface. Link. White Formless: Strange white creatures from far away. They cannot speak without cutting off their own heads, and for this reason they sometimes carry ceremonial glowing knives. A White Formless brought Rice Boy to Rosemary. Link. World: The World of Rice Boy is huge and disk-shaped. The side on which Rice Boy lives is called the Overside. Once, Ages ago, the Overside and Underside were united, and people traveled between them frequently. Now, both are completely isolated.