A unique fact of literature is that some popular franchises started as tabletop roleplaying games. George R. R. Martin, before his works on the Game of Thrones series, had adapted his TTRPG campaign into a novel titled Wild Cards which went on to give him experience as he went on with his career. James S. A. Corey had created a science fiction TTRPG campaign which he later took details from and wrote The Expanse series which later led to a franchise with SyFy and Amazon. These are two authors who have their creations from campaigns and explored the details through their words in novels. Yet what about taking those creations and exploring them through art pieces in illustrations and graphic novels?
Clipped Wings is a fantasy series by Rain Redwood, an artist who is adapting the original characters, Ryker and Juno, they made in a TTRPG into their own story. Today, we’ve asked Rain about their series and the characters and how they intend to adapt their TTRPG content to a webcomic.
Hello! Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background in arts?
I’m Rain Redwood! — or, that’s my pen name, rather. (No one’s real name is that cool and weirdly thematically consistent with their artwork.) While I’ve been trying to use social media less these days, I am on Instagram under the username @rainsforests and on Sheezy Art under the username @rainsforest.
As for my background, I’m currently a senior-year student at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design working towards my Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in both comic art and creative writing. I’m not originally from here, though — I’ve lived all over the United States during my short 21 years of existence. I’m a queer artist, massive fantasy fan, and current and former ‘weird kid.’ Ever since I was old enough to imagine, I have lived in fantasy worlds more than I have lived in the real one.
Clipped Wings is my passion project, senior project, and soon-to-be-published web series. It follows a human artist and part-elvish scholar who become deeply entangled in an ancient curse. In order to find a way to break it, they set out on a quest together and grow to learn more about each other – and themselves – than they bargained for.
What’s your series Clipped Wings about?
Clipped Wings is a high fantasy drama following two characters; Juno Sokolov and Ryker Deerstep. Juno Sokolov is an artist barely making a living off of his work. He feels alone and isolated in the kingdom of Northwall – he’s neither well-loved nor well-understood, and he’s saving up the coin to leave. That’s when he receives a request from a prestigious academy in the kingdom’s capital city. A group of scholars, historians, and archaeologists under their employment have come across a ruin of an ancient, underground temple dedicated to the Mother Phoenix, a mythological deity once revered in prehistoric Northwall. The academy needs someone to come and reproduce their findings – they need an artist, and they’re going to pay a huge chunk of change for the services. It’s enough money for Juno to start from scratch somewhere else. How can he say no?
When the expedition to the ruins begins, Juno meets the worst guy ever: Ryker Deerstep. He’s a self-centered and irritable scholar, and the eldest son of a very important family. Ryker intends to take this expedition as an opportunity to make it big. According to him, if he goes in there and discovers something truly groundbreaking, everyone will give him the respect, recognition, and fame he deserves. Ryker’s big talk isn’t just big talk; in the dead of night, before the excavation of the ruins can actually begin, Ryker takes Juno down into the depths of the temple in the hopes that he’ll make the first big discovery, and have it recorded in both writing and illustration before anyone else has the chance. As they go deeper into the labyrinthine ruin, it starts to dawn on Juno that something is down here. Something magical is protecting the ruins.
When Ryker and Juno reach the bottom floor, they find exactly what Ryker’s been looking for — a great treasure. A beautiful, untouched, perfectly intact carving of the Mother Phoenix itself. Right away, Ryker makes an attempt to steal the artifact. Writing and illustration aren’t good enough. He needs to be the one to bring home this prehistoric wonder. Juno, scared that something terrible will happen if he tries, does his best to stop Ryker. Their disagreement turns into an argument, and their argument turns into a fight. Ryker’s hubris becomes the downfall of them both when he attacks Juno, causing him to careen into the artifact, destroying it. Magic flame engulfs the sanctum, and in an instant, they are both cursed. When they’re discovered by a rescue party hours later, they find that Juno has been transformed into a bird of prey, and Ryker has been silenced, his words replaced with blood whenever he tries to speak about what happened.
That’s the premise. What follows is a secret! But it’s several chapters of a story I’m excited to tell. Clipped Wings, at its core, is about the vicious cycles of harm created by hatred and ignorance. It’s also a story about how messed up it would be if there were two guys and one of them was a bird and the other one had magical tuberculosis. It’s a story I’m proud of and it’s a story I hope others will enjoy.
Both Ryker and Juno have had a long and personal history with you. What’s their history?
Long and personal indeed. Ryker and Juno are fundamentally inseparable as characters. I first came up with Ryker and Juno at the same time on — I cannot stress this enough, the date was not on purpose — September 11th, 2023. They started out fairly barebones – I wanted to create two characters who were inextricably linked and bound by their fates, though I didn’t really know what shape that would take. They went through a lot of early versions before I decided on something I liked. At one point, unnamed proto-Ryker was a medical doctor, and unnamed proto-Juno was a blue-haired elvish warrior, but they soon turned into something much closer to their current iteration – a part-elvish scholar-turned-thief, and a human artist, bound together by a curse that transforms Juno into a bird, and silences Ryker about the curse’s nature. A lot of their early story was a bunch of me throwing things at the wall to see what would stick, and eventually, something did.
Both Ryker and Juno really started taking shape as characters when I started using them as my player characters in tabletop games and in role-playing video games. I think stepping into the role of these characters was really intuitive for me, and helped me shape them not just as narrative devices but as people in their own right. In addition to being a helpful tool for writing, this sort of role-play origin brought me comfort and escapism during times when I struggled. Being able to take the role of this swashbuckling elf bandit and his feathery forever companion took me away from a world where I was worrying about my own life. When my worries started bleeding into the story, though, it also provided catharsis. I gave Ryker my struggles with anger and sadness, and my insecurity. I gave Juno my loneliness and persistent fear of never quite fitting in. My fairly constant worries for the state of the world, and for the well-being of my loved ones, gave rise to an often cruel setting that wasn’t necessarily welcoming to people like Ryker and Juno. More importantly than any of that, though, I thought it was only right to give these characters hope and the ability to heal — and if they could have that, maybe the person who wrote them could, too. Ryker and Juno aren’t copies of myself, and their story is by no means autobiographical, but I do really identify with the core of their story — overcoming, healing, forgiveness, and accepting what you can’t change.
While they haven’t changed a whole lot from the initial premise of “two cursed guys, one silenced, one transformed,” I’ve spent most of my time on them refining that premise into a coherent story. The original version of their story was a ten-page long summary — now it’s a multiple chapter comic that I’m slowly but steadily working on.
I’ve heard he started in a DND campaign awhile ago. How has the process been with the DM and moving him to your own story?
He did! My friend Naoto, author and artist of the very cool comic Rapture, told me that he wanted to run a campaign, and that I was invited. I made Ryker and Juno without knowing anything about this campaign’s story or world, so it was all a surprise to me. A few weeks later, we started The Fall of Umida Mema, a campaign using DND rules, but a completely homebrewed setting and lore. We’ve been playing it since late 2023, and we’re only just now reaching the end.
Ryker has been separated from the canon of Umida Mema for a while now. As I further developed Ryker as a character, I started wanting full control over his story – something that ultimately isn’t really compatible with a collaborative tabletop game. I decided that in order to fulfill my own vision for this character and story, I’d essentially just remove him from Umida Mema and place him and Juno into a world written specifically to serve their story. Still, I like to have my cake and eat it too. I still play him in the campaign, it just doesn’t have any bearing on what I’m writing for him separately. That way, everyone’s happy – I’m not imposing my will on my friends, and I’m still getting full control over the story I wrote. Umida Mema is like… Ryker and Juno’s childhood home. They’re not really there anymore, but it’s always going to be something special to me. I’m glad I could fool around with their characters in that setting. They wouldn’t exist without that funny little game.
What are some of your inspirations for Clipped Wings?
I’ve already talked a bit about how a lot of Clipped Wings has taken inspiration from the world around me – I think that’s often how it goes with art. I take a lot of inspiration from other artists and their works, though. I really just love high fantasy in general, I think it’s just generally a plainly fun genre to play around with. Clipped Wings, by nature of being high fantasy, is influenced by stories that have come to define the genre. Lord of The Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, Narnia, the world… but I’ve also really enjoyed some of the more recent big stories in the genre. Baldur’s Gate III and especially Delicious in Dungeon are among the stories I’ve loved. Delicious in Dungeon in particular has such fantastic worldbuilding and character writing, reading and watching it just makes me want to write. The Last Unicorn is one really lovely piece of art that has inspired Clipped Wings on several levels, and so is Record of Lodoss War, which I think is just beautiful and a fun, classic, kinda retro fantasy story. I’ve also taken a lot of inspiration, both in a visual and writing sense, from The Castle of Cagliostro, which is my favorite movie of all time. I don’t want to replicate these stories, (why just retell a story that already exists?) but each one of them has something special in it that I’ve wanted to learn from and work into Clipped Wings. Good artists copy, great artists steal, or however the saying goes.
Any personal goals for Clipped Wings and your art as a whole?
I’m on track to start publishing Clipped Wings as a long-form webcomic in around May of this year. I grew up on webcomics, and while the golden age of webcomics might be over, they’re not gone. I’ve always wanted to make one. I think there’s something really cool about being able to share a story with the whole world on your own terms. Clipped Wings is a story I’ve told myself to bring myself comfort in what feels like a scary time. If there’s one goal that I have for Clipped Wings, it’s that it can be something like that for other people, too. I hope others will read the comic and find something special in it for themselves. Well, it might also be nice to do a print run someday, if that’s not too lofty.
Getting Clipped Wings finished is my immediate goal, both for the short-term and the long-term. Honestly, if I can achieve that, I’m sure I’ll be happy for some time. On a broader scale, my goals for my art is just to continue making it until I’m no longer able to. Art is how I see and interact with the world. Once Clipped Wings is finished in a few years, I’m sure I’ll continue creating with other stories. I just hope I can continue to make art that resonates with people and perhaps brings comfort.
What do you think is missing from modern webcomics and how do you think Clipped Wings will reignite some of that lost magic?
The state of modern webcomics versus webcomics from even just a decade or two ago is complicated for sure. It’s not necessarily black and white. Here in 2025, there are still amazing masterpieces, and many of them aren’t even difficult to find. On the flipside, even during the ‘golden age’ of webcomics, as I’ve described it, there have always been comics that are kind of lackluster. (I hesitate to say ‘bad’ — because I still think even the roughest webcomic is a net positive for the internet!) My issue with webcomics has nothing to do with the comics or creators themselves. This problem is absolutely not the fault of anyone who makes them, whether they’re a renowned creator making their magnum opus, or a young teen drawing their favorite characters. I think the blame for this falls squarely on the shoulders of corporations that saw dollar signs in the webcomic space and in the artists who made it. I’ll say it — I have beef with Webtoon.
Webtoon is run by a giant corporation. Their goal is to make money, not to genuinely facilitate a good space to write, publish, and read webcomics. The contract for Webtoon Originals, their curated collection of Webtoon-exclusive comics, is predatory and deeply exploitative of artists. The site, as well as the overly corporate internet in general, has encouraged artists to work themselves to death, encouraged them to always stay topical and relevant, and encouraged them to prioritize likes and follows over the story they truly wish to create, and more importantly, their well-being. Creators on Webtoon that can’t handle these lofty expectations get chewed up and spit out by the company and left in the dust. Whether you sign their contract or not, the model of Webtoon demands that you keep up with their unrealistic pace or just give up, and this is to the detriment of artists every single time. Probably worst of all – through some aggressive marketing, Webtoon has convinced a lot of people that Webtoon is webcomics. ‘You don’t need to go looking offsite to run or read your webcomics – just do it on Webtoon, that’s the only way to get lucky and make it big!’ But that’s not true.
I am not going to be the savior of webcomics and neither is Clipped Wings – because the magic of webcomics still exists. Even on Webtoon! I don’t think it needs saving, I think it just needs to continue to be fostered and cherished, and there’s more people already doing that than you might think. Webcomics, at its core, is a medium of independent artists telling the stories they want to tell. It’s a community of artists with a handful of tools, some free time, and a dream, and it always has been. Everyone who makes webcomics and everyone who supports webcomics is already preserving and bringing back that magic of this webcomic “golden age.” Corporations have absolutely cannibalized the internet and made it difficult to be an artist online. The webcomics space is just one of many victims of this rapid enshittification. It’s tough, but just one person continuing to make art reignites that magic. Many people continuing to make art reignites it tenfold. I’d like to be just one of those people.
Still, I do think it’s good for webcomics as a whole to try and pull away from huge corporations like Webtoon. Making webcomics is hard, and it’s certainly harder to just get one up and running than it was ten or twenty years ago. Sites like Webtoon would like you to believe they’re the only option – but they’re not, and never have been. Sites like The Duck, ComicFury, and WebKom are a few smaller, indie sites that offer webcomic hosting and aggregation, for example – and if you’re okay learning a bit of coding, there’s always the option to host it on your very own website. I’m planning on the latter. If you just like to read webcomics, I encourage you to go looking for stories by smaller creators. You’re sure to find something genuinely interesting and maybe even something that’ll stick with you for a long time. I guess to circle back around and answer your actual question – I want to make a comic in this indie webcomic space, and I want to read comics in this indie webcomic space. I think that’s where the magic is, and every person who joins in makes it bigger.
Of course, this is all my opinion, so if Webtoon wants to sue anyone for defamation, then I guess I should just say “go after me, and not Cackle Cave!”
Do you have any advice for people looking to create a series out of their TTRPG characters?
Try looking into the history of this kind of thing! It’s very interesting. Tabletop roleplay, after all, is collaborative storytelling. I think it’s only natural to want to take those stories and make them into something bigger. I’m not a trailblazing genius or the first person to have this idea – far from it. I feel like most people have at least a passing knowledge of things like Critical Role or The Adventure Zone, podcasts where they play the game for an audience. There’s also novels like the Dragonlance books, which were based on some Dungeons and Dragons modules, or the Malazan books, which have their origins in games of both DND and GURPS. The most famous example is my personal favorite, Record of Lodoss War. That one started out as ‘replays’ published in a gaming magazine — almost like an analogue version of the TTRPG podcasts that are so popular today. It got popular enough that now it’s got novels, manga, and an absolutely gorgeously animated anime. Going back to webcomics, there are plenty of people who make comics based on their own campaigns. Whatever it is you want to do, you’re not the first person to try, and you can absolutely do this thing kind of successfully.
However, you do have to be careful, because who-exactly-owns-what can get messy. Keep track of what’s yours to use and what isn’t, especially if you’re playing something like Dungeons and Dragons, which is owned by Wizards of The Coast, famously pretty protective about their intellectual property. Of course, there’s a degree of wiggle room – if you’re just posting these stories for fun, no one’s going to send the Pinkertons after you… er, I mean lawyers. That’s kind of what the Open Game License is for – and most companies don’t care about for-fun fanfiction type things. But if you’d like to publish a book or crowdfund an animation, or you just want something that’s really wholly you, I advise you to maybe change your mind flayers into something else. This whole thing is kind of similar to how some writers will take their fanfiction and switch up the names so it’s a wholly original deal, in a way. An angle of this specific to tabletop gaming, though, to be mindful of the others playing the game with you. Their characters and stories belong to them. If you’re not scooping up your own characters and putting them elsewhere like I’ve done, you need to work things out with people. If they’d like their character included in your comic, your book, or your animation, awesome! But if they don’t, be respectful of their work, too.
And finally, don’t be afraid of shaking things up. Follow your heart – tell the story you want to tell, even if you’re embellishing or changing things up from the original format. Behind every awesome, polished, finished story are countless rough drafts and ideas that changed up in the process of writing. Try new things, experiment with the weird little ideas that pop into your head at night, check out other stories, figure out what you like… well, now I’m just getting into general art and writing advice, which is a whole other question. Whatever you want to do, go for it. The world always needs more passionate storytellers and artists making the work they want to see in the world.
Connect Today!
Currently Rain has uploaded many pieces of artwork of this series to their aforementioned Instagram and Sheezy page that serve as a great look into the world they are building and also as great inspiration for artists looking to expand upon their characters. We already mentioned Wild Cards and The Expanse and we know one day that Clipped Wings will be another memorable example of how someone’s TTRPG creations can become an amazing part of fiction.
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