Dark Fantasy • Sword & Sorcery
Vinlar is a fugitive noble turned rogue adventurer, hunted by the uncle who betrayed his family for power. He wanders the fractured Old Empire, becoming entangled in the lives and conflicts of those he meets while searching for a way to return home and take his revenge.
VINLAR s an ongoing sword-and-sorcery adventure comic built around largely self-contained stories set across the remains of a fallen empire.
Vinlar was born into privilege, but his uncle’s betrayal fractured his family, caused his mothers death, and forced him into exile. Now he survives as a rogue, mercenary, merchant, and adventurer, moving from kingdom to kingdom while agents of his uncle continue to hunt him.
His driving force: survive long enough to return home and take revenge!
But most days that goal must wait...
Wherever Vinlar goes, he has a habit of getting involved. Local feuds, political intrigue, injustice, opportunity, and simple bad luck have a way of pulling him off course. Sometimes there is money to be made. Sometimes someone needs help. Sometimes Vinlar sees a wrong he can’t quite convince himself to walk past.
Some of these adventures bring him closer to his larger goal. Others leave him with little more than a new enemy, an unexpected ally, or a story worth telling.
Vinlar isn't a traditional heroic knight, and he isn't an amoral thug either.
He is educated, capable, observant, and dangerous when necessary. He steals, lies, works for questionable people, and is willing to kill. At the same time, he has a strong sense of fairness that repeatedly gets in the way of his own self-interest.
That contradiction is a big part of the character.
Vinlar tells himself that everything he does is ultimately about revenge. The longer he wanders, the less certain that becomes.
The Old Empire which stretched most of the known world has been collapsing.
Its former provinces have become independent kingdoms, city-states, borderlands, and contested territories. Old noble families cling to power. New rulers fight over what remains. Forgotten religions and older forms of magic survive at the edges of civilization.
There is no single area where the series takes place. Vinlar moves through the world.
That lets each story have its own identity: gothic cities, desert nomads, mountain kingdoms, ruined temples, frontier settlements, pirate ports, ancient forests, or whatever lies ahead.
The setting is broad enough to support horror, mystery, war stories, political intrigue, heists, romance, and straightforward sword-and-sorcery adventure without changing what the series is.
The basic model is closer to an old adventure serial than a single continuous quest.
A story might run three issues and then Vinlar moves on. Characters can return. Decisions can follow him. The larger conflict with his uncle develops in the background and periodically comes to the foreground.
You could pick up a VINLAR story and understand what is happening without knowing years of continuity, while regular readers gradually see the larger picture coming together.
Primary: Conan the Barbarian, Kung-Fu, The Witcher
Secondary: Batman, Man With No Name Trilogy, Theif: The Dark Project