Aaruk is Coming!

How can anyone get through a 24 hour comic challenge? 

The Coming of Aaruk Issue 1 Cover

The Coming of Aaruk was never supposed to become one of Murlant Magazine’s next ongoing fantasy series. In fact, it began as something far smaller: a 24-hour comic challenge. The objective was simple: create an entire comic from start to finish in a single day. As part of the challenge we cannot think about the project before the 24 hour timer starts and I could not stop thinking of the potential.

The more time spent designing the world, shaping its characters, and exploring its central conflict, the more impossible it became to leave behind. What began as a one-shot experiment quickly evolved into something much larger. Every new idea demanded another. Every answer revealed another mystery. Before long, The Coming of Aaruk had grown beyond its original challenge and into a full series. (Once you learn who Aaruk is, it’s easy to understand why.)

Twenty years ago, Warrior General Aaruk gave everything to save the Kingdom of Cynturyan from the Diwata Devils. His courage brought peace to the realm and earned him the admiration of the people. It also earned him the destructive, devilish envy of his king.

Fearing the growing popularity of his greatest champion, King Korthyan devised a betrayal that would erase Aaruk from history. The general was dispatched into the heart of Diwata territory only to discover the mission was never meant to succeed and he was abandoned. But legends have a habit of returning. Ten years later, Aaruk stands once again at the gates of Cynturyan. Not as its savior. As its judgment.

The tale is told through Maultar, the High Mage of Cynturyan, who knows the kingdom’s final days are no longer prophecy. They have already begun. Every step Aaruk takes toward the capital brings the realm closer to its inevitable reckoning.

Inspired by the primal spirit of classic sword-and-sorcery adventures, The Coming of Aaruk embraces brutal battles, towering warriors, ancient kingdoms, and monsters lurking beyond civilization. Yet beneath the bloodshed lies something far more personal. This is a story about betrayal, jealousy, vengeance, and the terrible consequences of allowing ambition to corrupt loyalty.

Aaruk is no flawless hero. His rage drives him as much as his sense of justice. Along his journey, broken villages, forgotten warriors, and divided clans are drawn to his cause, not because they are conquered, but because they recognize the truth behind his war. Every victory pushes him closer to the revenge he believes he deserves, even as that same vengeance threatens to consume everything he has left.

In Murlant, darkness rarely comes wearing the face of evil alone. Sometimes it arrives wearing the face of the hero who was abandoned. Sometimes kingdoms don’t fall because monsters break down their gates. Sometimes they fall because they created one.

The entire comic creation process is shared on my Instagram, @Chris.Zandroh, where readers can follow Aaruk from its earliest sketches to the completed comic issues.

Aaruk is coming.