Darkona once possessed Nucleo after luring him into a trap. As children, mountaindevils are taught that Darkona is their goddess and to pray to her when they need help. After losing his wife to the fire lord, Karma, Nucleo took it upon himself to find out if Darkona actually existed and if she would help him fight Karma. During one of his expeditions, he discovered the tower where she had been sealed up by humans many years ago. Unfortunately, he was unaware that her cause was as evil as Karma's when he unleashed her from her prison. Nucleo was saved when Jack struck him with the Sword of Skiva, which severed Darkona's link to him. (The sword had been made from the blood and bones of the ultimate god, Skiva and was specially forged to fight against the Great Spirits.) Although Nucleo returned to normal, the psychic connection between him and Darkona was never truly gone. He suffered weird seizures for awhile and couldn't stand in her presence without freezing up. Darkona rules the Tower of Grimmora, and her direct servants are the Banshee and the Calico King. Calico doesn't like her too much and wishes to be set free of his servitude. Character Design Notes: Darkona has two distinct forms: The first is a giant purple serpent with dragon-like wings and a mask. When she removes the mask, she changes into a more humanoid blue spider-demon. She has multiple arms in both forms. Darkona in the RAU Gallery: When Nucleo was set free of Darkona's control in Nispatia, he returned to Grimmora to find it overrun by Darkona's forces - the result of him having freed her from the buried and sealed Dark Tower. With help from his friends and the Calico King (who eventually turned on his master), the tower was destroyed and Darkona was defeated. Therefore, she is deceased and an appearance in the current RAU Gallery series is unlikely.
The Great Spirit of Darkness, Darkona, in one of her more humanoid forms. She tends to be very smiley.
This is some early conceptual art of Nucleo McRaven, but I have no idea what is with the ghost/ninja-like cat behind him on the left. My guess is that he must be a minion of Darkona that I never used for anything. (I think it might have been replaced with the Banshee or the Calico King.) The right picture shows Nucleo being controlled by Darkona like a puppet, but in the actual comics, he wasn't wearing his mage garb when that happened. In my original Image Arcane strips, 'Cleo was drawn so poorly that I couldn't stand the way he looked, so I went "back to the drawing board" and tried improving the design. He's still kind of ugly here, and his feet look slightly different from the way I draw them now, but it's still a million times better than before.
Updated version of the above drawing.
Elemental Chart. Darkona is the Spirit of Darkness. She has possession of the buried Tower of Grimmora, where humans sealed her away long ago. She created the Mountain Devils. Mountain Devils were given that name by humans because they mostly live in mountain caves, and they have wings, tails, horns, claws, and fangs, reminiscent of devils or imps. Some mountain devils have really strong magic powers, and are physically strong, too, but their reclusive society is very corrupt. (Examples of Mountain Devils: Bazil Kyradius, Nucleo Amadeus McRaven, Talon Kyradius.)
A Darkona notebook doodle!
This is a very old (gradeschool) drawing of Darkona, so please don't laugh at it too much.
Unfinished sketch of a more "modernized" version of Darkona.
Two Darkona pogs, one for each of her two distinct forms (with the mask and without).
Darkona from a group sprite picture.
Darkona in the more "humanoid" of her two forms, this is what she turns into when she removes her mask. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure it really makes sense that Darkona's minions, such as the Mountain Devils and the Calico King, often exhibit cat-like features and mannerisms because her own form is either that of a spider-demon or a dragon. Oh well... |
Backstory From My Old Comics: Darkona is the Elemental Lord of Darkness. (Sorry about how uncreative her name is, but I had a hard time remembering character names and that was the only way to assure that I would.) Like most of the Great Spirits, Darkona has specially evolved certain humans into an altogether new race that she plans to eventually take control of as an army to conquer the world. Her mutations are the mountaindevils, which explains why many of them are born with the power of dark magic. Darkona can manipulate the dark magic within them to take possession of them. She can then use them to do her "dirty work", controlling them like puppets on strings, or evolve them into more powerful forms. When superevolved into the most powerful possible form, Aridian mountaindevils become demons like the Calico King and Nispatian mountaindevils become demons like the Banshee.
