#pawky

So I remembered this one concept I made some years ago and I just wanted to sketch and talk about it

I talked about how maybe I needed a design overhaul, but since I’m not really sure how to do that, I went back to @droolingdemon imitation for now. Or at least, semi that. I wouldn’t say it looks…anything like their work

I had a lot of fun with the rough sketching of this group (Callous was a bit difficult though with his demon form), but realized I need to also do sketches of them that were nicer, which I had less fun with. Don’t think it turned out too bad though, I just need to figure out how to do sketch lines in this style, since I instead just do straight line art. Though maybe it’s also because I’m always looking at the reference image (the smaller screen of the entire picture thing). I don’t think I used that back when I first did the imitation style

I definitely messed up Callous’s hands in the bottom left though. I wasn’t really thinking about them tbh

But anyways, how about I talk about the characters here?

You know, I think I’m gonna try and be more concise with my points on the plot. I feel like with these things I ramble too much and it starts to become a bit incoherent

Okay, so basically this takes place in a world where humans summon demons from their realm via magic scrolls as basically servants. Our main human character, Pawky, summons a demon from a newly appeared scroll, this being our main demon character Callous, to help her with a quest by being her bodyguard, and that’s pretty much how the plot gets going

I don’t think I ever actually decided what quest she’s actually going on or what they’re doing. I haven’t worked on this for a very long time and a lot of the plot points that might have been there are lost on me. The things I do remember are vaguely how the demon thing works and Callous’s backstory. Mostly since I think those are the things I actually thought about

But I do know the two become friends by the end

So I’ve drawn Callous before, a long time ago, but I’ve never drawn Pawky, which was basically what I was trying to do here

Here’s the original drawing

I like how their designs look in the end though, at least the final pic (bottom right). Need to work on Callous’s demon form though

Okay so first up, origins. Of the story I mean

So basically this thing was inspired by this one au I saw back in my Dragon Ball days (so junior year high school) of basically a monster au, in which witch Bulma summons demon Vegeta for reasons I don’t remember. I don’t remember if it was part of a larger au or this was its own thing, since they did have a full on monster au too. Basically I just took the concept and made it original. Though I did later take out the romance aspect as I changed Callous. But the inspiration may be seen somewhat in their hair

Anyways, so let’s start with the whole demon summoning thing and how it works

Basically how it works is that demons get summoned with scrolls that end up magically appearing in the human world, and with summoning, demons can enter it

There’s different “levels” of demons depending on their power, with the low level ones being your common enemies like slimes and skeletons, stuff like that. They’re generally summoned in groups for proper effectiveness. Then there’s the middle group, which are usually part of a species, but are more powerful than the common enemies, things like manticores and such, but aren’t powerful enough to stand on their own. Then there’s the high level demons, who are so powerful they get their own personal scrolls

Callous is a high level demon

Now granted, the levels are a spectrum, there’s a big difference between the weakest member of the middle level and the strongest, while there likely isn’t as much between that weakest member and the strongest member of the low level. But there is a separation somewhere. Callous technically lies somewhere on the lower end of his spectrum

Demon scrolls usually pop up in the human realm once a demon is old enough or powerful enough, with Callous being the former

Now as for demon summoning, you can’t just do it willy nilly, it takes practice and training, sort of like alchemy in Full Metal Alchemist. And the higher level a demon, the more difficult they are to summon. But when summoned correctly, a demon will appear and the two strike a bargain, the human asking for them to do something, and the demon having to carry that out so that they can return to the demon realm. Though technically speaking it’s not really a bargain, the demons don’t have much say in what they have to do. And while the demon is summoned, they basically have to cater to the summoner’s wishes

If the imbalance of power seems unfair, yeah. I think the lore is that demons and humans fought a war that the humans ultimately (somehow) won, and this is the demons’ punishment for it

One big thing with demon summoning is that if someone of too little experience and power tries to summon a far more powerful demon, they run a very high risk of dying in the process, if not certain risk. And if a summoner dies while summoning a demon, then demons are ultimately left in a loophole where they can go about the demon realm with no limitations, which generally isn’t good. There are people who hunt down those rogue demons, but generally speaking to prevent these sorts of things, there are strict regulations and laws when it comes to distributing demon scrolls, to minimize the risk of this happening. Pawky is someone of a high enough experience that she can summon someone like Callous no problem

Also I’m just remembering, I think there may have been a character who was a Goku stand-in in this story, who’s one of these demon hunters. He’s a very friendly guy, but he has an absolute hatred of demons for one reason or another, and this puts him in conflict with Callous, who is a demon. He might not know Callous’s true nature due to him using a human disguise

I don’t remember why he’s using a human disguise, just that he is

Anyways so I think I’ve just about covered the world building, let’s finally get in to the characters, starting with Pawky

So I don’t have much to say on Pawky, mostly because I don’t remember much about her, if I even wrote stuff about her. She’s spunky and sassy, and she’s good at summoning demons. Also she’s an adult at least in her 20s. I don’t…really have much, that’s about it

As for Callous, he has a lot more going on

So Callous is a manticore, which is a mid level demon class, but he was able to rise up to a high level status on his own. Not only that but he was originally to be of a relatively high ranking in his own race (which is why he has horns like he does). As such he’s very prideful of his abilities and doesn’t take too kindly to being stooped to something as demeaning as being some human’s bodyguard

Now I’m sure you may notice that he’s got something weird about his back, and also that he doesn’t have wings (I know not all manticores have wings, but plenty do, including here). Well he originally did have wings, and quite nice ones that that. But at a young age, the manticore group he was part of was basically exterminated by another, much more powerful demon, with him as the only survivor, and he had his wings ripped off by this other demon, who takes body parts of other demons and basically just attaches them to their own body, becoming this patchwork demon. The copious amount of scars on Callous’s back in the original are from him scratching his own back because of the pain he feels about what happened and to cover up that he ever had wings in the first place, as he sees him losing them as incredibly shameful

Yeah, don’t know why I have him a backstory like that. But that patchwork demon is still out there, with Callous’s old wings, and Callous has a chip on his shoulder from the incident. That demon would probably show up sometime later in the story

Another thing to note is how in his human form, I called out in the sketch that he’s supposed to be small and skinny, which is also supposed to be demonstrated in the bottom right pic, to which Pawky is confused by his non threatening appearance. He’s also supposed to look like a teenager in this form. This is because when a demon goes into a human form, it’s essentially them if they were humans. So what this amounts to for Callous is that despite his appearance in demon form, in comparison to other manticores, he is pretty tiny, and in manticore years only a teenager. His small size is because he was malnourished and had his growth stunted after the extermination of his people. However it might take Pawky some time to realize the reason why Callous looks the way he does in human form

So in reality Callous is actually a tiny 16 year old with a lot of trauma, and ego to compensate

Now let’s talk about Callous’s abilities. Generally he’s just got great strength and sharp fangs and claws, but he also has natural poison/acid that comes from his mouth and stinger.

…Thought I’d have more to say on that front but no. But one thing I have is that he’s a carnivore, and while he’d love to eat human flesh, they usually aren’t fighting enough people to do so, so he just settles for large animals he finds, and he uses the acid in his mouth to essentially melt his prey while tearing an eating it. He’s an incredibly messy and loud eater. Pawky finds his way of eating absolutely disgusting and so makes him eat somewhere where she can’t see and generally hear him

And I think that finally about covers it

I realize now I don’t actually have a title for this. Hmm, was there a name for it? …I don’t remember, nor can I really think of one, other than like, Summoners, but that’s lame. I’m not good with title

I've been using Bowser a lot during adventure mode and he's slowly becoming a main of mine when playing normally.

2:53 PM EDT April 17, 2025:

Dorothy Ashby - "Pawky" From the album In a Minor Groove (June 15, 1958)