Owls and their baffling, yet fun-to-look at antics.
Realm of Owls
is a comedic open-ended gag-per-day webcomic about owl people living in a fantasy realm. The comic's creators, Gheralf and Vayandil, act as characters in the owl society, working as fictional documentarists who make comic strips to introduce various aspects of the owl people's world: how their uniquely silly culture works, why they named their largest city Buffet, who has the power in the city and what creatures and equally weird cultures share the world with them. The owls' off-the-wall behaviour and simple outlook on the world can also be interpreted as lighthearted satire of human life and habits.Although Realm of Owls has a documentary-like narrative without a particular main cast, the creators themselves may occasionally turn into main characters when they embark on a journey.
Realm of Owls started in May 22, 2016. It became a part of the SpiderForest webcomic collective in 2017.
Realm of Owls contains examples of:
- The Ace: Aviatar travels, fights and meditates so confidently that he obviously knows what he is doing.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Mystery Horse took his name from, well, a horse and has super powers. At least he claims to have.
- Big Ball of Violence: When the owl people fight, they might turn into a dust ball of fists and faces.
- Blind Shoulder Toss: A couple of characters throw the original Das Law book behind. Also, the third member of Tip-Top Tempo Crusaders throws her broken lute away.
- The Cat Came Back: No matter how far behind AD Moslo is left, he finds his way back to haunt Gheralf.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Vayandil and Gheralf's doppelgängers grin all the time, except without teeth, because they are owls.
- Chest Insignia: Peacemongers sport a surprised face insignia that later changes to an angry face insignia. Aviatar also has his own chest insignia loosely resembling an Ankh.
- Cute Owl: Especially the owl people's babies, but also the adults tend to look cute when they goof around and stare at stuff happening in front of them.
- Doppelgänger: Vayandil and Gheralf are chased by unsettlingly grinning copies of themselves.
- Filler Strips: The series has occasional filler material, specifically sections of Lord of the Realm reading fan mail.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The Lord of the Realm reads mail sent by fans.
- Funny Animal: Owl people's appearance follows owl anatomy for the most part, but they have some human-like attributes, such as hands instead of wings. It is also hard to tell genders apart, for the differences are as minimal as with most of the real-life owl species.
- Ghibli Hills: Outside the city of Buffet, the realm is filled with wilderness free from an intervention by advanced societies. Places like forests, swamps, grassy hills and a volcano.
- Hammerspace: Aviatar's bags hold all the weapons and items he needs.
- Head Turned Backwards: The people being owls, heads turning backwards are a norm rather than an exception, but it still works as a comedic effect.
- Hobos: Living in the outskirts of the city of Buffet, the hobos look, act and live like real-life hobos, but are mostly perfectly fine or even happy with their lifestyle.
- Humanlike Hand Anatomy: The owl people have a bone structure resembling a human hand rather than their wing feathers acting like fingers.
- Meaningful Name: The largest city is named Buffet because of an endless supply of rats to eat.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Some people, especially the lofty who live in high homes, fall long distances but don't die when hitting the ground.
- Other Me Annoys Me: The doppelgängers smile perpetually, which annoys Vayandil greatly.
- Owls Ask "Who?": The town of Buffet used to just be called "Hoo" or "Hoohoo", eventually arriving on its current name because the word "Hoo" has thousands of meanings in the owls' language.
- Palm-Fist Tap: Sah taps in discovering that there is a lot simpler solution to the problem.
- Pauper Patches: The hobos, being hobos, wear patched clothing.
- Self-Insert Fic: The comic's creators have owly counterparts who live in the city among the other owls.
- Shout-Out: The Aviatar seems to be one to the Avatar from the Ultima series, down to his long bright 'hair', magic carpet, and Ankh-like chest symbol. The descriptions of the comics he appears in are also often full of references to the series.
- Thinking Tic: The detectives have their hand on their chin so much that it is practically a part of being professional.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Cacko keeps sitting and staring into distance, frozen in place and nobody knows what she has seen or gone through.
- Trademark Favorite Food: For some reason the owl people like bananas so much that they farm them.
- World of Funny Animals: The owl people are the comic's equivalent of humans. There are also other anthropomorphic animals that have human intelligence, like the Beast Lord who is a long-spined cat.
