Isla Aukate
is a webcomic by Foxenawolf, with writing help by Genesis Whitmore.
In the middle of the Pacific lie the Calendar Isles, a haven for legendary creatures otherwise forgotten by the Earth ranging from pegasi to dinosaurs, with a majority population of Funny Animals. Recently, a starship crewed by amphibious aliens known as the "darnathi" crashed off the coast of the isles, though the island government led by Overlord Fox managed to form a peace treaty with the invaders.
Things change when in order to prevent his adopted daughter from being experimented on, the darnathi commander Darius must leave his ship and go over to what has been the enemy's base.
Isla Aukate contains examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Hector's diet is largely liquid. It later turns out to be self-medication for his various chronic diseases and his liver came from a frost dragon.
- Alien Invasion: The darnathi were planning an infiltration, things went a bit awry. The later colony ships seem to be planning a more peaceful takeover, not dissimilar to Overlord Fox's own plans for world domination.
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Archive Binge: Over 2,500 pages. - Big Sister Instinct: Fenriria is ridiculously protective of Hector, even having resurrected him by inserting his soul into a mad elf's body and transplanting a frost dragon's liver into it.
- Breath Weapon: Freya the dragon and fire elementals are capable of breathing fire.
- Canon Immigrant: Artemis is Gen's reality-hopping character commonly known as "Three".
- Cheek Copy: Sagitar sent some to India while impersonating Overlord Fox.
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Contest Winner Cameo: Most of the background minions for the various story arcs are selected via raffle.- Some of the minions have become Ascended Extras, having their own (commissioned) story arcs.
- Crystal Prison: Uru keeps the Creator of the islands in one, later joined by Fox and Bane, he also preserves the bodies of his deceased pawns, like Governor Rex and Sagitar, in crystals.
- Dragon Ascendant: Beryl after Titan is captured, until Tungsten arrives and executes her for her crimes.
- Familiar:
- Fenriria accidentally summoned Artemis when attempting to call a familiar, and after discovering she had no magic set her aside in Hector's library.
- "Dires", such as Fox's dire Wolfsbane, are a bit different. Sort of a manifestation of the host's unconscious and repressed desires in the form of a saber-toothed canine. They might be complementary or antagonistic, and in the case of Sagitar and Paria a sadist might generate a dire who's nothing but good.
- Fantastic Caste System: Darnathi were ruled by 11-12 foot tall "Highbloods" and the human-sized "common bloods"
- Fantastic Racism:
- Carnivores vs. herbivores, at least among the demons, and Hartford Torn's agents are trying to stoke the same prejudices among the island's inhabitants.
- The "prehistorics" of June and the Dragons of July are viciously racist against eachother.
- "Prehistortics" assume (erroneously) that the other islands distrust them, or that they would have better luck sending a prehistoric mammal than a prehistoric Dinosaur as a diplomat and ambassador.
- D.K. Romanoren has this bizarre idea that white furred mammals, in particular white lions like himself, are superior to others.
- Forced Transformation: Given Overlord Fox's insistence on non-lethal methods, the Lair's standard sidearm is the Bunn-E transformation ray.
- Funny Animal: Most of the population of the Calendar Isles, mixed in with some mythical creatures.
- Hidden Elf Village: The Calendar Isles were hidden from the rest of Earth as a refuge for magical creatures, but they have some limited contact with the major world governments.
- Human Aliens: The Darnathi transformed themselves to look human before they crash-landed on Earth (their natural forms are single-gendered amphibious cats), given they're nearest an island populated primarily by beast folk they tend to stand out.
- Human Head on the Wall: Harvey Torn, the half-demon stag prince of Aukate's criminal underworld, has a room filled with the mounted heads of animal people who crossed him. Though some of Foxena's supplemental pages reveal that most of them were child traffickers.
- Incompatible Orientation: Garret had a massive crush on Hector in the early chapters, unfortunately he's straight and Garret's prototyped body has a male form.
- Interspecies Adoption: Darius' (Darnathi) adoption of Rain (pegasus) prompted the treaty.
- Interspecies Romance: Quite common given the multispecies population of the islands. One of the more notable is Darius (humanform darnathi) and Fox (fox, with feline ancestry).
- Mad Doctor: Beryl.
- The Man Behind the Man: Uru proves to be behind nearly every threat to the Lair since Titan: Sagitar, Thorn, even Titan's escape.
- Marshmallow Hell: Darius when Fox is reunited with him.
- Mayfly–December Romance:
- Most of Aukate's peoples have human-like lifespans, and more than one has fallen in love with the longer-lived Darnathi. Most notably Darius and Fox, until he re-types himself to be almost entirely human.
- Garret and Artemis are one case where the Darnathi is the "mayfly" in their relationship.
- Hector was married to the alpha of the werewolf clan about nine hundred years ago, he still hasn't gotten over her.
- Motor Mouth: Bane constantly talks like this. It normally takes some kind of enormous shock for her to slow down, such as when Darius introduced her to Knight.
- Mysterious Past: Overlord Fox doesn't like to talk about her old life. Harvey Torn implies she might have been one of his dancers.
- New First Comics: A variant: She's still doing the "old" comics, but the new pages are in color and have better writing.
- Noodle Incident: How Percival came to be Harvey's stole.
- Our Demons Are Different: They're closer to elementals than demons, but they are warded by holy symbols and water.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Hector is revealed to be a werewolf.
- Pheromones: Dolphoria pheromones can incapacitate an aggressor, the Darnathi use them as guard animals. Juveniles, or "chirrs" have pheromones that have a more relaxing effect and are popular as therapy animals.
- Practical Currency: Darnathi use ati crystals as currency and a power source.
- Really 700 Years Old: Most of the Darnathi characters are multiple centuries old. Both Hector and his sister Fenriria are 1,000. And if Artemis is much like her source material, she's older than many civilizations.
- Single Specimen Species: Due to the risks involved creating them, Bane was the only dire in the known world for most of her life, until Sagitar created Paria. When Sagitar died and took Paria with her she was left alone again, so Darius created Knight.
- Species Surname: It's tradition for the island's rulers to adopt a new name related to their species upon ascension, as a way of obscuring their true name. Overlord Fox was preceded by two cats who named themselves Rex and Queen.
- Starter Villain: Richard Titan was presented as the comic's main villain for most of the early arcs, until Fox worked out a deal with the USA to have him taken to Area 51. Then he comes back in "Hurricane" as Uru's avatar and finally gets killed by Artemis.
- Stat-O-Vision: Ian's glasses provide him information to help him manage his day.
- Super Breeding Program: The Darnathi homeworld had a program for harvesting gametes from empaths and adopting out the genefixed tadpoles. The genefixing sometimes has unintended consequences, and not all the adoptive parents are particularly nurturing.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Overlord Fox is seen resting her head on Steele's chest. She says it's for checking his heart rate. Silver points out there are other methods to do that.
- Synthetic Plague: Darius and Silver's defection in the first arc is prompted by Titan tricking Silver into infecting Darius with a virus that mimics pneumonic plague. Darius continues to be laid low by the same virus for a long time.
- Synchronization: Dires are a mixture of Bond Creatures and this. Being taken forcefully from someone's inner instincts, repressed desires, and even parts of their souls, very often dires and their creators can feel what is happening to the other, including their emotions, their pain, and even their thoughts, though this fades over time to the point where they can hide things from each other, and the relationship will often grow from this to something like a sibling relationship, as with Fox and her dire Wolfbane. While a person killing their dire will not result in their own death (one person killed the dire that came from them and committed suicide later, but this was chalked up to the person's immense self-loathing), but unfortunately the same cannot be said for the dire if their creator dies, as we learned with Paria.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Paria the dire was born from a complete and utterly vicious sadist and was one of the friendliest and kindest characters in the comic, and a devout Christian besides, who tried to do the best she could to make up for her origins. Unfortunately when Sagitar infiltrated the lair again and was killed by Hector, Paria, due to being connected to Sagitar, died as well, much to Ian's heartbreak.
- Transformation Ray: They are usually called E-Rays, the most common is the Bunn-E Ray.
- Underwear Flag: A reference is made to a boot camp hazing incident where one of Fox's minions stole all of the Darnathi ship's uniform pants, they hung Titan's on one of the banner poles.
- Wham Episode: "Hurricane," amid a tropical storm wild magic surges cause the minions to go berserk, Titan returns in an even larger form, and Fox is abducted.
