Chapter 15, Page 6

RobertRVeith on Feb. 11, 2025

Okay, I really enjoy creating cultures. My wife tells me not to spend too much time pointing out the various cultural distinctives in the world. And she's right, I can't really bounce out of the story to exposit on cultural phenomena. It's awkward enough in prose, but in a comic book, you just don't have enough space on a page.

So, here we see a single panel of an Alben greeting ritual. When entering someone else's home, the visitor will bow and make the sign of their house on their chest. Each Alben House has its own unique hand sign. You can see, for example, Samandria makes the sign of the house of Tyr, with her right hand in a fist and her left hand has index finger and thumb extended. The proper response would be for the host to identify each visitor by name and raise them to their feet. A ghost, of course, cannot raise someone to their feet. And this ghost seems confused, perhaps because Tahni also makes a house sign. “Are you human?” Why would a human make the sign of an Alben house?