Webcomic / Necropolis

Men and women roamed the countryside in bands, taking what they wanted from those weaker than themselves. Her village was weaker. Her family was weaker. They took her father's life. They took her mother's fields. They took her very home. And the girl saw and understood the nature of power. And knew that without power, she had nothing.

A fantasy webcomic by Jake Wyatt, Necropolis is the story of a young girl who, after her village is ravaged by bandits, makes an ill-advised Deal with the Devil to acquire a magic sword to take revenge on the bandits. After destroying the gang of bandits, she continued to use the sword against other bandits and law breakers in the countryside until eventually her deeds brought her to the attention of the Conquerer Queen's guards, who come to investigate and detain the girl leaving so many bodies in her wake.

Spared from a death sentence at the last minute and recruited into the Queen's service instead, the girl struggles to adapt to her new life. Unfortunately for her, she doesn't have long to adapt. The rule of the land's seemingly immortal Conquerer Queen and Seer King is breaking down after centuries of peace, as the Seer King has seen a vision of his wife killing him and his kingdom destroyed, and is attempting to thwart this vision of the future. This attempt will bring bloodshed and the horrors of civil war to the land.

The comic can be read at its tumblr, starting here. The preview pages can be found here, here, and here. Unfortunately the main comic has not been updated since July of 2020, when Wyatt noted that he was starting a new job that might interfere with his ability to update the comic. In mid-2022 he stated on twitter that he expects to be able to return to Necropolis sometime in 2023, but as of November 2023 no updates to the comic have been made.

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This series provides examples of:

• Action Girlfriend: The Conqueror Queen to the Seer King.
• The Ageless: Implied with the Seer King and the Conqueror Queen, who were stated to have lived long lives while never aging. This left Death sort of pissed off.
• April Fools' Day: A comic wherein the Third Sword trades back everything she owns and a big horse with a pink bow to the "wizard cat" in exchange for two sandwiches. Comically Small Bribe usually doesn't work...
• Badass Boast: The original, stand-alone comic from which this comic started had The Third Sword confronted by and defeating a trio of undead skeleton monsters. Upon defeat, the spirits animating them promise to return to take her later when she is unprepared and without her sword.
  The Third Sword: A foolish plan. My sword is only steel in a useful shape. It's me you should fear, you stupid, dead things.
  • Ironically, in the early part of the actual comic, she is really only formidable in any way because of her magic sword. As of when the comic stopped updating in 2020, she was only just starting to learn how to be a proper warrior with any other weapon, having just managed to defeat an enemy with a normal sword for the first time.
• Barefoot Poverty: In the first arc, the main character (then the poor daughter of a peasant family in a backwoods area) and her family are never seen wearing any kind of footwear. Even when she starts acting as something like a bounty hunter she still doesn't get any sort of footwear. Not until she's forcibly taken into the Queen's service and given an entirely new outfit is she seen wearing shoes.
• Battle Couple: The Conqueror Queen and Seer King.
• Bifauxnen: The royal court has plenty of fighting women who could cause a bit of confusion at first glance - Lin, being a heavyset old woman shorter than the rest of them, is pretty much the most obviously female out of all of them until the Third Sword got recruited. By contrast, the Bellicuses have hairstyles and forms of dress which are more stereotypically feminine.
• Bloodsplattered Warrior: The Conqueror Queen, covered in the blood of rebellious subjects when she never raised her blade against her people before in her long life.
• Blush Sticker: The Third Sword has them all of the time in the preview pages, but they aren't as much of a constant to her in the actual comic. She has them again for the April Fools' Day comic. This is also always on the Conqueror Queen - most disturbingly when the Seer King has dreamed of her plunging her sword into his chest, or when she is standing armed and armored drenched in blood.
• Bounty Hunter: After killing the bandits that attacked her village and killed her father, the Third Sword essentially worked as one until she was captured by the wardens. When hearing of bandits or worse than usual criminals operating nearby, she'd take the magic sword, go out, kill them, then either take their money and belongings or a reward from the local town as her payment.
  Mother: Hope you've got a good reason for dragging another sword back to my house.
  The Third Sword: He'd been stealing sheep out near Pine. Killed a shepherd boy and a village elder out of the posse that went to round him up. That scared off the rest. They sent for me last week.
• Cassandra Truth: How the Seer King's marriage with the Conqueror Queen first started falling apart. The Seer King had a vision of being killed by his own wife, but the Conqueror Queen didn't believe him as she had faith in their love. The lack of communication, the lies spread by ambitious nobles in their court, and the Seer King's distrust led to him betraying his wife and staging a coup against her while she was gone on state affairs.
• Clothes Make the Superman: The Third Sword's...well, sword, made her practically invincible against the bandits and criminals she faced in the remote countryside, so much so that her slaughtering of the various bandits and such caused the remaining bandits and criminals to give up their criminals ways rather than risk facing her wrath. And while it didn't protect her against magic, not many of targets knew magic and what she picked up from the mysterious witch taught her at least some magical defenses. That said, once the imperial wardens go to find her and bring her to the city, it's obvious that against individuals truly competent in magic or even just unarmed combat, she hasn't a chance. In the following arc during her training, the consequences of having the sword do all the work for her becomes obvious, as Third Sword hasn't developed the skills and tactics to be successful with a normal blade, so she's absolutely hopeless in sparring other trainees.
  Lin: That sword didn't make you strong, girl. It kept you weak.
• Country Mouse: The main character is a young girl from the "hinterlands" a countryside so far from the centers of power in the kingdom that for all the powers of the Conquerer Queen and Seer King, their guards, wardens, and armies, the government effectively had no control whatsoever and people were left to fend for themselves in life. After being captured by the wardens and then taken into the Queen's service, she has to adjust to a very different sort of life and culture with different expectations regarding how she should act, what she should know, etc.
• Cute Bruiser: The Third Sword. Wears a skirt, has a pretty silk bow in her hair, fights undead creatures with no fear.
• Deal with the Devil: The Third Sword offers up "All she has" in return for the magic sword she takes her name from. She is under the impression that she has nothing left to lose, though a mysterious woman knows that she certainly has more than that, or else Ibis would not trade with her.
  Even children in the hinterlands know that more is lost than gained in a deal with devils. But all that remained to her was a weeping mother, a sleeping sister, and her own young life. She believed that she had nothing left to lose. So she went to bargain. And that was the beginning of all her troubles.
• Dem Bones: Several of the dead things the Third Sword encounters within the preview pages. Some engulfed in a sort of spectral flame.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Lin accuses Anise of wanting the Third Sword executed for embarrassing her by managing to hit her with magic (that doesn't do anything more numb her arm a bit due to her clothing's counterhex inlays). Anise counteracts that Third Sword waged "a protracted campaign of unsanctioned murder, witchcraft and violence". Fortunately, Lin managed to successfully put forward the idea of recruiting her.
• The Dreaded: Third Sword was well into being this in the hinterlands. And her actions against criminals and bandits didn't mean she was feared just by them, because the locals and even her own family responded to a hot blooded, teen girl who wields a magic sword that made her virtually invincible and is ready to get in a fight at the drop of a hat with just as much fear as the bandits and criminals she hunted.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Lin the Second Sword is a relentless trainer. While she and Third Sword travel to the oracle, there are three pages one after the other of the Third Sword enduring her instruction and sharp tongue.
• Eldritch Abomination: Whatever the "horrors" are on the second preview page, they're most likely this. Yeesh, those are some Giant Spiders, except their faces don't look entirely like how a spider's should...
• Et Tu, Brute?: Learning that it was her own mother who alerted the Queen's wardens to her activities and had them come capture her hits the Third Sword hard.
• Exact Words:
  • The Third Sword was promised a weapon that while she holds it no steel can harm her. She presumes this means she's invincible, but all it protects her from is other weapons. Against magic users and hand-to-hand combat her sword is no better than any other weapon.
  • A mysterious witch also hoped to turn this trope in the Third Sword's favor regarding her deal with Ibis, noting that the nature of these deals often means that Loophole Abuse can be used due to imprecise use of language, but because Third Sword had promised "everything" she had to Ibis, said witch is certain there is no chance of it happening for her. Third Sword's only chance with with using exact words on Ibis might come from the fact that Ibis assured her that no one could hurt her while she held the sword, something that was emphatically not true, but she doesn't seem to remember that part of the bargain.
• Eyepatch of Power: Lin wears a headband that also dips down to cover her right eye socket, which is clearly missing a working eye considering the scar going straight down it.
• Fearless Undead: They see the Third Sword chop up their comrades and still go after her. Then after she's done wiping the floor with them, they tell her they'll get her later. Persistent little buggers.
• Feminist Fantasy: Looks to be headed in this direction. All the prominent characters are female, half of them in high positions of power and authority, half of them capable of combat and magic (Notably, when the Third Sword is brought to the royal court, everyone present is a woman aside from a young prince). Meanwhile, the male characters have supporting roles and are usually either incompetent or villainous.
• Field of Blades: The Third Sword used a downplayed example - with all of the people she fought and killed in the hinterlands, she took to making a fence for her house by sticking all of the dead men's swords in the ground around it. Unlike the usual example, she probably did it to be intimidating.
• Flaming Skulls: Actually, the preview comic has flaming entire skeletons!
• The Grim Reaper: Or at least a personification of Death. He ain't happy with the long lifespans of the Conquerors.
• Happily Married: One of the things the Seer King is mentioned as doing is "delighting his Queen", not to mention the first page has her touching his arm fairly affectionately. Then it's subverted as it's revealed their relationship slowly fell apart from a combination of lack of communication, ambitious aristocrats feeding them lies, and the Conqueror Queen ignoring a vision the Seer King had (both sides even find solace in other concubines instead and sired numerous bastards). This leads to the Seer King, driven mad and fearing death by his wife's hands, staging a coup in an attempt to overthrow her.
• Heroic BSoD: The Third Sword undergoes one after she finds out that her own mother let her be arrested by the Queen's wardens because she was scared of what her eldest daughter was becoming.
• I Did What I Had to Do: The Third Sword's mother let her be arrested by the Queen's wardens for various crimes, seeing her own daughter as beyond her help and too afraid to be around a killer.
• I Have Your Wife: Prince Lonso is a hostage to guarantee peace between inner and outer Hyberia. His mother is irate at this and encourages him to detest his circumstances, though he appears to have gotten along fine with his guards and in the meantime says he's not going to start a war.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Subverted Trope with the Third Sword - her deep blue eyes stand out frequently among the pages, but the comic doesn't shy from describing her as having become a killer while those eyes still stick out.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: The heroine is even called "the Third Sword"!
• Hot-Blooded: One of the Third Sword's biggest character flaws is her temper, and especially that it makes her prone to rush into things recklessly or lash out in anger even in circumstances when anger may not be an appropriate response. The very end of the comic that is currently uploaded is her finally listening to Lin's advice about fighting and patiently looking for an opportunity or an opponent's mistake instead of simply charging in and attacking blindly.
• Impressed by the Civilian: This is why the main character's Third Sword's mentor Lin decides to take her into the Queen's service rather than having her executed after a year of acting as, essentially, a combination of Vigilante Man and unofficial Bounty Hunter. As Lin says before the Queen's administrator at Third Sword's trial:
  Lin: Majesty, you got the right of it. The girl's an insolent, ignorant little killer with no shoes and less sense. But I like what she's made of. Kid's got real iron in her. You don't toss out good iron just because you found it in the dirt. You beat it into steel and point it at your enemies.
• Lady Legionnaire Wear: The Third Sword dresses something like this.
• Lady of War: The Third Sword and the Conqueror Queen. Both fairly feminine, both able to kick much ass.
• Magic Knight: Lin, Anise, and the various other warriors in service to the Conquerer Queen are all expected to be skilled in both physical battle and magic. The Third Sword was a downplayed case before she was recruited into the Conquerer Queen's service; she cut a swath through the bandits and brigands in the area thanks to her magic sword, and learned some minor magical words and charms from a mysterious witch living in the woods. It's a downplayed case however because most of her fearsome fighting ability is due to the magic of the sword, so without it the Third Sword is a mediocre fighter, at least at that point in her life, and Lin dismisses the magic that the Third Sword tries to throw at Lin and Anise as low grade stuff that's not a threat to anyone who know what they're doing with magic.
• Nerves of Steel: The second preview comic has two individuals in a well telling the Third Sword to hide in a well because of the Giant Spiders walking around in eyeshot (judging from their flame-shaped text bubbles that gets used again for the skeletons in the third comic, they may be evil spirits trying to bait her into trouble). She retorts that a hole cannot offer her anything compared to the sun, the grass, and the road she wishes to travel, and walks underneath the giant spiders without fear.
• Never Learned to Read: Training with Lin reveals that the Third Sword isn't exactly at a high school-grade reading level...she has trouble pronouncing wood and field!
• Non-Human Undead: Some of the creatures that the Third Sword fights definitely weren't all human.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The Third Sword, the Conqueror Queen, and the Seer King. Though Word of God says the Third Sword has a real name that she doesn't give out often.
• Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: One page symbolically portrays the violence of the Seer King's rebellion as a sea of blood with dead bodies floating in it, and swords stabbed into it and a corpse.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: The rebels killed the Conqueror Queen's guards and then came for her. She killed their leaders, conscripted the mob, and then brought the entire city back under control.
• Recruiting the Criminal: The royal court basically does this to the Third Sword as Lin's suggestion. (By contrast, Anise wanted her publicly executed). Even though she was hunting bandits and criminals, she wasn't sanctioned to learn magic or kill anyone who tangles with her.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Conqueror Queen and Seer King used their abilities to keep the land that they've claimed safe, well-fed, well-educated, and they also built cities, roads, and aqueducts.
• Rugged Scar: Ouna, the First Sword, has one on her left eyebrow and two on her left cheek. Lin, the Second Sword has a scar going down her right eye, which is presumed to be blind considering the red headband she always has covering it.
• Seers: The Seer King has used prophetic visions and dreams to help guide himself and his wife the Conquerer Queen to first taking over lands successfully and then ruling them well.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: It's all but spelled out that the vision the Seer King saw of his wife killing him and the kingdom being destroyed is going to result from his attempts to avert it, especially his attempt to pull off a coup/assassination on the Conquerer Queen.
• Shout-Out: When the main character catches up with the Bandits who destroyed her village, the leader bears an uncanny resemblance to Woodchuk from Record of Lodoss War, while another bandit strongly resembles a young Guts from the Golden Age arc of Berserk.
• Stripperiffic: The Seer King usually isn't wearing a ton - the most, the first page, has him wearing a skirt and clothing from his right shoulder stretching down to his left waist. In later pages, he's wearing nothing but a Loincloth and some golden accoutrements.
• Sword and Sorcerer: The Conqueror Queen is the Sword who kept the peace in the kingdom she shared with her husband, the Seer King, a Sorcerer who aided his wife with his powerful future visions.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: The main character defeats the bandits who burned her village with ease on the page after she catches up with them at their camp.
• Training from Hell: The Third Sword is getting put through this at hands of Lin. There isn't any significant danger to Third Sword herself, but as they travel to answer the oracle's summons, it's implied that she's basically getting trained every waking hour in a variety of skills, such as horse-riding, archery, reading, and campcraft. The mountain climbing with the huge backpacks isn't the safest thing she's ever done though...
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The Third Sword was either a pre-teen or just in her teens when she makes a deal with the devil for her magic sword (when brought before the court, her age is guessed at as 14, and it's estimated that it had been about a year since she made the deal), and goes to kill the bandits who killed her father and plundered her village. From there she goes on to cut such a devastating swath through the bandits in the countryside that many bandits don't even dare try to steal or kill for fear of her. She is shown, while still quite young, to have a fierce temper, little to no inhibition towards killing people, and is willing to start an armed fight with little to no provocation.
• The Undead: They abound in the test pages.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Before becoming Lin's student and while in possession of her magic sword, the Third Sword was this: she had no training in how to fight but thanks to the weapon she didn't need to have that training. In her first battle the magic sword is shown easily cutting through a bandit's blade, with implication that it can routinely do the same to any blade or even armor, and the various comments about how it made the Third Sword almost invincible also implies that it extends some sort of protection from the attacks of others. This quickly is deconstructed into a case of Crippling Overspecialization; the sword may be super effective against other armed opponents, but it does nothing to protect her from magic, Anise casually beats the Third Sword into unconsciousness when unarmed, and with any other weapon the Third Sword lacks the fundamental skills and training to succeed. Hence Lin putting her through Training from Hell to try to get her up to speed on the fundamentals of fighting.
• Walking the Earth: What it appears the Third Sword will be doing in the preview pages. She's got a long way to go for doing so in the actual comic, however.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: The Seer King's always got a good bit of his torso hanging out clear as day.
• Wretched Hive: The hinterlands around the Old Necropolis is depicted as this; dead cities that house devils making bargains, bandits ceaselessly terrorizing the land (Anise points out the irony of Lin and herself going out to investigate not that bandits are terrorizing people, but that the bandits have been so badly scared that they're not terrorizing the countryside), human skulls casually left by the side of the road, and no help from rest of the kingdom because it's too remote for them to do anything about it. Notably, the warden Anise is also originally from the hinterlands and despises the place.
• You Got Guts: Lin, a grizzled veteran Magic Knight in service to the Queen, is impressed by the toughness and grit of the teenage main character when sent to investigate and arrest her. This results in Lin speaking up in the young girl's favor at her trial, saying that the girl has "good iron" in her and leading Lin to propose turning her into a warrior in service to the Queen instead of simply executing her.
  Lin: Majesty, you got the right of it. The girl's an insolent, ignorant little killer with no shoes and less sense. But I like what she's made of. Kid's got real iron in her. You don't toss out good iron just because you found it in the dirt. You beat it into steel and point it at your enemies.