Most of the species in my comic are a twist on old ideas. Orcs are the smart ones. Elves are more like forest-dwelling creatures. I didn't really have an angle for dwarves for a long time - Should they be half-rock? Should they have parasitic beards that live on their chins? It wasn't until the fourth year of my webcomic that the idea of the Bronze, Silver, and Gold dwarves came about - and from that, I got excited to spin out the idea that everything from Helium Dwarves to Plutonium Dwarves were options too, which made them MUCH more fun to explore.

I'd written myself into a corner a little by having a few appearances of Dwarves already that didn't quite fit with the new periodic table framework; but in the end, I decided that Hill Dwarves, Mountain Dwarves and Dirt Dwarves who love gardening and have literal green thumbs were all viable options too. Some of the tribes have similar physical characteristics as well, so you can roughly infer they used to be one tribe before an argument broke out over which metal was better.

Swords as a series doesn't really have one theme or message - I like to think of it more as a sandbox for telling lots of little stories; but if there is one overarching theme, I think it's just to not punch down at people. Pick on someone your own size, or keep your sword sheathed!

There are still a lot of stories to finish telling in the world of Swords. Who will become the King? Will Quest Sprout get reunited with his mother? And what will happen to the seven demon swords attacking the world of mortals? The Dwarven Summit is just one arc in a much bigger tapestry.

Swords is a very community-driven webcomic. I'm always seeking feedback from the audience, across Discord, Patreon, Reddit, and Twitter and each September, I run a full-scale survey that gets thousands of responses that help inform which characters and storylines are the most valued. It can be hard to juggle so many characters and keep everyone happy but I try my best!

Swords recently raised $250k on Kickstarter for the card game Swords: Cut the Deck and work on the video game Swords: Edge of Chaos continues. Each will add to the Swords universe in different ways.