Chigger is the name of a character I play in Ed's Tribe 8 cycle. I called her Chigger because, like her namesake (sort of a tick), she get's under people's skin, almost immediately. She's short (four feet ten, but still growing), young (fourteen), mean, petty, ugly, deceitful, jealous, obscene, and very, very angry.
So far, this section only contains two pictures I drew of her.
Chigger's older sister, Cindra, is played by Steve. She's tall, thin, beautiful, mysterious, romantic, and extremely well poised. Had she not fallen from the grace of the Dahlia, the Fatima who rules the Caravan of the Beautiful Severance (the mobile community in which the two sisters were brought up), she would surely have been the greatest dancer ever to rouse the hearts of the seven tribes. Beneath her magnificent exterior, however, is a deeply troubled heart. She has found out that the love of her life is in thrall to one of the demonic Z'bri, and yet this knowledge has not in any way altered her feelings toward him. But she also loves her friends and her sister, and fears for their safety, if not her own.
In this section you will find three pictures Steve made of Cinder.
Juniper was the major supporting character in the first book of our Tribe 8 cycle. This changed once he and Chigger had a major falling out. Once the best of childhood friends, the two watched their relationship crumble in the aftermath of a soul-scarring encounter with the Z'Bri fiend Eshlazi. The rise and fall of Chigger and Cinder's first cell is chronicled in "Juniper's Journal". (See "Rusted Sky" below.)
In this section you will find two pictures Steve and I drew of the little twerp, in his natural habitat: pain.
Here is a link to a couple of drawings Steve and I did to commemorate one of the (revivified) cell's first actual triumphs. See, it isn't all doom and gloom! OK, we accidentally paralyzed the person we were sent to capture, but how could Bastion know her neck would be so fragile?
The cycle has been unfolding for several months now, and Steve and I always await the next session with a combination of terror and heavy addiction. This is mainly because our characters are constantly forced into physical, emotional, and spiritual states we would never want to find ourselves in, but yet are fascinated by. We, consciously or otherwise, search for that within ourselves which could overcome these situations, were we to be literally taking part, and measure it against the created and evolved personalities of our characters. Sometimes we find our characters stronger than ourselves, sometimes weaker. Either way, the differences are no less moving than the similarities, as we advance our understanding of humanity through this most poignant of art forms.
The architect of all this religious fervor is my friend, Edwyn. He puts a lot of effort into his work, and it shows. Besides the incredible preparations he needs to make each week in order to satisfy the bottomless artistic greed of Steve and myself, he actually finds the time to pursue other projects (like getting married, working, and raising two lovely ferrets)! He has written a "Legends" supplement for Dream Pod 9 (the makers of Tribe 8), which is already in publication, as well as half of "Word of the Pillars" which should be out soon. Currently, he, Steve, and I are collaborating on a new Tribe 8 supplement called "Trial by Fire", which will hit the shelves in February 2000. Ed's website, too, (called "Rusted Sky") is something to behold. It includes pictures, stories, and suggestions for other people interested in running a Tribe 8 cycle.
In particular, you will definitely want to check out "Juniper's Journal", which relates the whole history of our cycle through the skewed perspective of Chigger's former best friend, Juniper. Ed has managed to truly capture the childlike imbecility of the character through the subject's own egocentric narrative: in nearly every circumstance related, Juniper "remembers" himself as being the source of all good ideas, and "quotes" my character, Chigger, with whom he has a deep and justified inferiority complex, for all the bad ones. A strictly factual story would probably feature a lot less of the ineffectual and agitated Juniper, but in true human fashion, his journal places him in the starring role. Excellent writing by Ed, both in story and in psychological scope.