Pepper&Carrot
(with that orthography) is a webcomic about a young witch named Pepper, her cat Carrot, and her friends and acquaintances (who are also named after food ingredients, yes) on the magical planet Hereva. The webcomic is supported by patrons through crowdfunding, translated into around 30 languages through fanslation, and is licensed CC-BY. The main author/illustrator, David Revoy, encourages fanart.
An supplement for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, called Witchcraft: Magic Of Hereva was funded through Kickstarter and is available here.
Pepper&Carrot contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Pepper's most used magical item seems to be a broom, which she is adept at maneuvering quickly in order to avoid potentially dangerous opponents such as dragons.
- All There in the Manual: The backstory of several characters, the backstory of the world, and an explanation of the magic system are found in the wiki.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Pepper can summon demons and black holes. This isn't all that useful in a slice of life series (although that seems to be changing as she seeks employment).
- Backstory Horror: The Great War. So far, it's only been talked about in the wiki; not the comics themselves. The witches of Chaosah were wiped out, but that screwed up the balance of the world so Zombiah revived Thyme, Cayenne and Cumin.
- Background Magic Field: Rea, like Mana but stored external to the user in the environment; discussed in the wiki but not yet in the comic, but shown in the comic in Panel 8 of Episode 33.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Pepper's godmothers. Cayenne is tall and thin, Thyme is very short, and Cumin is a bit on the plump side.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Pepper is actually one of the most gifted witches out there, and a very powerful one to boot. It's her temper and laziness (as well as generally not grasping the seriousness of Chaosah magic) that make her hilariously incompetent at pretty much every serious task.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Weaponized by Pepper in Episode 31. She uses "Jpegus qualitis" and "Qualitis Minimalis", which causes Cayenne's subsequent panels to be of increasingly worse image quality until one panel fails to load entirely, forcing Cayenne to escape.
- Cold Grey Eyes: The godmothers, due to being revived from death.
- Concept Art Gallery: David's blog discussing process.
- Conveniently an Orphan: None of the apprentice's parents are shown; Pepper is adopted by the godmothers, and Coriander discusses the reason why she ascends the throne so young.
- Dirty Old Woman: one wouldn't really expect Thyme, the normally dead-serious godmother, to use her scrying stone for anything other than more evil sorcery? Turns out, she's getting busy in her free time.
- Disproportionate Retribution: What does Pepper do when the other girls won't come to her party? Summon some demons! Subverted though; she just uses the demons as backup guests.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Pepper looks a lot younger in Episode 1 than she does in later episodes. She also seems to have black hair instead of dark brown and is wearing a different outfit.
- Edible Theme Naming: zig-zagged. While the witches and their familiars are named after spices and other food (for reasons unclear aside from there being an entire school of magic for growing things) and a mayor named after a non-food plant, we have seen some royals with names that are pop culture references spelled backwards ('Lord Azeirf' for Dragon Ball: Frieza and 'Queen Aiel' for Star Wars – Leia Organa), a pigeon named simply 'Ms. Pigeon', and a prince with no apparent meaning to his (fantasy-styled) name.
- Exposed to the Elements: In the holiday episode Pepper goes running around a snowy landscape in a coat, mittens and her usual short skirt. They were inside a snowglobe, so it might not have been that cold. In The Dragon's Tooth she doesn't even bother with the coat.
- Expy: In response to a question that a reader posted as a comment on Episode 19 of Pepper&Carrotnote , the author confirmednote that Pepper's mentors — or at least two of them, specifically Cayenne and Thyme — are intentionally similar to Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg (respectively) from the Discworld novels.note Cayenne looks similar to Paul Kidby's depictions of Granny Weatherwax in his Discworld artworknote , and has a similar personality as well. Pepper's other mentors, Thyme and Cumin, both have some similarities to Nanny Ogg; basically, Thyme is more similar personality-wise, whereas Cumin has a closer physical resemblance. Outside of the canon storyline, David Revoy co-authored an intercontinuity crossover webcomicnote , which contains a gag where a character from a different webcomic meets Cayenne and mistakes her for Granny Weatherwax.
- Floating Continent: The cities of Komona and Kerberos. According to the wiki, other cities were lifted into the air during the war as well.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Pepper learns to summons the Chaosah demons, nigh omnipotent scary beasts that obey the summoner. Instead of sending them after those who wronged her, though, she just invites them for a nice cup of tea. They don't mind.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: There's a crossover webcomic titled Superflu vs Pepper&Carrot note , which is a crossover between a bande dessinée / webcomic titled Les aventures inutiles de Superflu (by Simon "Gee" Giraudot) and Pepper&Carrot, made as a collaboration between their authorsnote . The aforementioned similarities between Cayenne and one of Discworld's characters are used as a source of humor in its 9th episode, when the eponymous character from Les aventures inutiles de Superflu meets Cayenne and introduces himself thusly: "Oh, hello Granny Weatherwax! I don't remember: have you brought me to Gryffindor or to Isengard? And have you seen the stylish turban that someone put on me?!"note .
- Kaleidoscope Eyes: Pepper's eyes switch between blue and brown. It's easy to miss as neither color is particularly "flashy", and is likely due to evolving art style; no one remarks on it in-universe.
- Meaningful Name: As mentioned above, it's mostly not clear in-world why people have the names they have, but some clues are offered to the audience. Saffron is an expensive spice and the namesake of a witch with expensive tastes. Carrot was named after a bin of carrots he hid in and his orange fur. Spirulina is an aquatic witch named after an alga that lives in water. Her familiar (Durian) and another (Mango) are likely named after the codenames of Blender Foundation movies the author has worked on.
- No-Dialogue Episode:
- All episodes whose number is divisible by five. David says he likes to challenge himself to drive the story or characterisation forward without depending on textual dialogue, although symbols seem to not break the rules.
- For Carrot and his fellow familiars, works even more often: they are sentient but cannot speak, yet manage to relay complex thoughts to each other using only gestures and imagination.
- Our Demons Are Different: Chaosah witches can summon a trio of Chaos Demons, but it's not widely known that they like tea and cupcakes.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons seem to be important to the pre-human history and ecology of Hereva, and come in many different kinds, from the lightning dragon (a purely electrical being) to the swamp dragon (which is normally docile but can throw mud around when aggrieved) to the humble dragoncow.
- Our Genies Are Different: A walrus-headed genie lures whoever he can get to sign a paper into a life of easy wealth and fame.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: The practitioners of Aquah must breathe underwater in order to attend their studies. The only one we've met doesn't have a fishtail, however.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: Actually black holes, the generation of which is a signature technique of witches of Chaosah.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Despite the name, the magic school Zombiah is not said to create George-Romero-esque zombies (with the stated aim being to avoid cultural appropriation from West African / Carribean religions). Three revenants are seen and they seem quite keen-minded.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill:
- in The Battlefield arc, Pepper decides to resolve the conflict between two armies bloodlessly by making their weapons harmless, then fighting in "arcade mode" to see who wins without anyone actually dying. Both armies immediately chase her off.
- It's implied throughout the story that this is one of the things the aunties really try to work around with Pepper: what good is the most powerful combat magic in the universe if she's unwilling to harm anyone?
- Uvula Escape Route: How Pepper and Carrot escape a giant fish in the summer special.
