A children’s edufantasy starring three young geckos learning their place within the ecosystem of New Caledonia— and protecting musical ghosts from a mysterious threat through lessons in Song magic!
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Synopsis: A trio of gecko boys whose voices are out of harmony with their community find themselves wielding different parts of a Song magic they don't understand.
In order to salvage the broken "g-echoes" reaped by a materialistic witch's vanishing spell, they must work together to understand self-expression within the ecology's song.
Characters
Turnarounds
Turnarounds
Srax character turnaround
9/5/2023, digital file, 3564 × 1004 px
Srax character turnaround
9/5/2023, digital file, 3564 × 1004 px
VES
Ves is a relentless question-asker, and very perceptive. This includes being thoughtful of, and taking responsibility for, others. However, he fights a losing battle to be heard. So when he gains access to a repertoire of spirit hymns, he's thrilled to show everyone how much he wants to help-- except he still hasn’t figured out how to wield it.
SRAX
Srax is Ves' brother, with the goal of being the bravest fighter in the forest– and he is extremely vocal about it. The troupe actually made Ves take him so he’d stop pestering everyone. He lives fiercely, brazenly, and doesn’t always understand when he’s being too loud.
He is talented, but lacks maturity and experience.
BRAM
Bram is a spirit shepherd who cannot hear ghosts. He is resilient and compassionate, and tries to do something he loves anyways.
When the gechoes' agony debilitates other spirit shepherds, Bram’s hardness of hearing becomes a strength. He comes along with Ves and Srax to help his incapacitated friends and family.
THE GRAP
The Grap kidnaps creatures to reap their parts for his creations. He understands their mileage as a resource but ignores the voice which animates them-- he crushes and discards their soul as waste-refuse, then fills it with something of his own wicked imagination-- leaving only gechoes.
His magic is evocative of weeds and wires, which parasitize the ledger-lines in gecko magic (see setting).
ANTERN
Antern is the Grap's reluctant intern who stumbled into her role as assistant and now fights the constant balancing act of trying to sabotage his schemes and wanting to get paid.
Setting
Geckos are one of the only lizards to have true vocal chords.
To reflect this, the geckos in Rhaco have a script of fingerprints that are arranged resembling a musical staff, called Song. The ghosts of past geckos are literally visualized this way.
Compositions are written in geckos' souls through living, and as they decompose in death, the Songs of their soul are read and tended by the spirit shepherds.
Spirit shepherds are a community within the gecko societies who are gifted with seeing and hearing Song, provided they must learn to read it. Shepherds relay ghosts' voices back to the population, and help them decompose with honor and respect.
Hymns are the conscious use of Song as a magical incantation, which is outside the realm of normal spirit shepherding. This manifests defensively, to ward against attacks on one's sense of self.
Hymns are not a thing created, but rather, passed down and learnt by geckos with access to a library. To master each hymn requires personal embellishment on the original verse; a by-the-book reading won’t work.
The speaker has to phrase an iteration that is personally meaningful to them, making the mastery of each hymn a lesson learned.
Son is a song deeply connected to this story: “I was given a gift of hope in a thousand fingerprints / on the surface of who I am”.
All those tiny mementos and cumulative experiences that situate us within our ecosystems of care, also contribute to our unique voices.
The piano patterns are like cascading fingerprints themselves.
Gechoes are what happens when the Grap destroys a soul to build his creations.
He steals the lines which give letters structure and constructs something out of them, but the result is a jumbled chaos of runes that are the discarded feelings, ideas, and personhood of the creature he just stole from.
Pitching & Look
cover art & book jackets
promotional material
The Joy of Character
Sketches
Thumbnails for a "duos" cover illustration featuring Ves and Srax exploring the trees.
In the middle, both characters look up into the leaves, determined expressions.
On the far right, the shadow of the Grap falls over the two cornered protagonists.
Loor's library - Loor is a minor character and leachianus gecko who can give Ves access to the special hymns. This was the draft for a library visit cover design.
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