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Abbey later points to shared membership as the reason he can keep hanging around the group after his breakup. Differences aside, he tells Sue, "we DO share the same guild, Yearrug."<ref name=":c98p14">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c98/p14}}</ref>
Abbey later points to shared membership as the reason he can keep hanging around the group after his breakup. Differences aside, he tells Sue, "we DO share the same guild, Yearrug."<ref name=":c98p14">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c98/p14}}</ref>


[[Popularity Contest]] hands the guild an entire chapter. It opens with lunchtime planning for the Crimsonflame Festival, where Mike is thinking two scavenger hunts would be fun and a rehearsal run still needs scheduling.<ref name=":c109p1" /><ref name=":c109p3" /> The trouble is Stacy. She has decided her new popularity is worth more than her guildmates, and she disowns them in public.<ref name=":c109p2">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c109/p2}}</ref> Sue answers her in the computer lab with the game's own vocabulary: "Consider yourself /gkicked!"<ref name=":c109p7" /> Stacy folds by the end of the chapter. As it turns out, she still loves SwordsVale and doesn't want to lose the guild, and she is let back in.<ref name=":c109p7" /><ref name=":c109p14">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c109/p14}}</ref>
[[Popularity Contest]] hands the guild an entire chapter. It opens with lunchtime planning for the Crimsonflame Festival, where Mike is thinking two scavenger hunts would be fun and a rehearsal run still needs scheduling.<ref name=":c109p1" /><ref name=":c109p3" /> The trouble is Stacy. She has decided her new popularity is worth more than her guildmates, and she disowns them in public.<ref name=":c109p2">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c109/p2}}</ref> Sue answers her in the computer lab with the game's own vocabulary: "Consider yourself /gkicked!"<ref name=":c109p7" /> Stacy folds by the end of the chapter. She still loves SwordsVale and doesn't want to lose the guild, and she is let back in.<ref name=":c109p7" /><ref name=":c109p14">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c109/p14}}</ref>


By a 2024 side chapter, the guild has a standing monthly meeting, and this month's lands in Mike's bedroom after he forgets about it.<ref name=":c120.1p3">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c120.1/p3}}</ref> Paulo has been ribbing Mike about the game for a while by this point,<ref name=":c119p6">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c119/p6}}</ref><ref name=":c120.1p3" /> and he ends up hiding in Mike's closet for the entire meeting, grumbling about "these fucking nerds."<ref name=":c120.1p11">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c120.1/p11}}</ref> On the other side of the closet door, the agenda covers the raid schedule, the next expansion, PvP sign-ups and the event calendar.<ref name=":c120.1p10" /> Sue also offers Daisy a trial copy of the game, and Abbey volunteers to help her make a character.<ref name=":c120.1p9" />
By a 2024 side chapter, the guild has a standing monthly meeting, and this month's lands in Mike's bedroom after he forgets about it.<ref name=":c120.1p3">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c120.1/p3}}</ref> Paulo has been ribbing Mike about the game for a while by this point,<ref name=":c119p6">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c119/p6}}</ref><ref name=":c120.1p3" /> and he ends up hiding in Mike's closet for the entire meeting, grumbling about "these fucking nerds."<ref name=":c120.1p11">{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/c120.1/p11}}</ref> On the other side of the closet door, the agenda covers the raid schedule, the next expansion, PvP sign-ups and the event calendar.<ref name=":c120.1p10" /> Sue also offers Daisy a trial copy of the game, and Abbey volunteers to help her make a character.<ref name=":c120.1p9" />


== Trivia ==
== Trivia ==
* Veronica has said she is "NOT an MMO player." SwordsVale suggestions are "an INSTANT rejection" when she picks ideas for commissioned comics, since drawing the game properly "requires research and asking MMO-savvy friends."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://bittersweetcandybowl.tumblr.com/post/808211372836061184/|date=2026-02-11}}</ref>
* Veronica herself is "NOT an MMO player." SwordsVale suggestions are "an INSTANT rejection" when she picks ideas for commissioned comics, since drawing the game properly "requires research and asking MMO-savvy friends."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://bittersweetcandybowl.tumblr.com/post/808211372836061184/|date=2026-02-11}}</ref>
* The game went unnamed for six years of publication. It is on screen from Local Area in 2014, but the first character to actually say "SwordsVale" out loud is Stacy, all the way in Popularity Contest in 2020.<ref name=":c82p6" /><ref name=":c109p7" />
* The game went unnamed for six years of publication. It is on screen from Local Area in 2014, but the first character to actually say "SwordsVale" out loud is Stacy, all the way in Popularity Contest in 2020.<ref name=":c82p6" /><ref name=":c109p7" />
* Oliver's commentary greeted Mike's flower mage debut with "<nowiki>~~~~magical girl maishul-chan~~~~</nowiki>".<ref name=":c82p11" />
* Oliver's commentary greeted Mike's flower mage debut with "<nowiki>~~~~magical girl maishul-chan~~~~</nowiki>".<ref name=":c82p11" />
* The alternate-continuity side story [[Grave Concern]] gives the flower mage a cameo of sorts. [[Lucy]] laughs over Mike's shoulder at his monitor while he splutters "A FLOWER MAGE?!"<ref>{{Cite chapter|url=https://www.bittersweetcandybowl.com/graveconcern/p10}}</ref>
* The alternate-continuity side story [[Grave Concern]] gives the flower mage a cameo of sorts. [[Lucy]] laughs over Mike's shoulder at his monitor while he splutters "A FLOWER MAGE?!"<ref>{{Cite BCI page|slug=graveconcern|page=10|title=Grave Concern}}</ref>


== See also ==
== See also ==
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{{Locations}}
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Revision as of 12:41, 14 July 2026

SwordsVale
First appearanceLocal Area, page 6
April 9, 2014
GenreMMORPG
TypeOnline game
Related charactersStacy, Abbey, Sue, Amaya, Mike

SwordsVale is an online fantasy role-playing game that a small guild of Roseville High School students plays together every night. It first turns up on Stacy's computer screen in Local Area, and it has kept resurfacing every few years since then, whether as convention cosplay, a lunchroom scandal, or a guild meeting crammed into Mike's bedroom.

Description

The character-creation menu.[1]
The guild's avatars standing together in-game.[2]

SwordsVale is a PC MMORPG, played at home in the evenings. Sue describes it plainly as "this MMORPG" that the group plays every night.[3] On screen it is a rather pretty fantasy world of green fields and mountains, and its player characters are elves and other fantasy folk rather than the comic's usual cat-people.[4] Sue plays a blue-haired male elf named Yearrug. Stacy's character is a red-caped warrior with spiked pauldrons, Amaya's is an armored figure in blue and gold, and Abbey's is a brown-haired bovine humanoid.[5][4] Mike, for his part, plays a female flower mage in a green dress with pink flowers in her hair, on the grounds that he "really liked her design!"[4]

The comic shows the game in bits and pieces. There is a character-creation menu,[6] there are nightly quests,[7] and there is a server list that separates the public servers from the group's own "serious server where we remain IN CHARACTER."[5] Guilds come with a working /gkick command,[8] and the raid system is "actually very simple for newcomers," according to Sue.[3] When the guild gets together in person, the talk runs to raid schedules, an upcoming expansion, PvP sign-ups and an event calendar.[9] The game also has its own events, like the Crimsonflame Festival.[10] In the planning for that one, Abbey wants to save Forestgale for the 2.11 patch, once the bugged Hellfiend spawns are fixed.[11]

The guild itself consists of Sue, Stacy, Amaya and Abbey, with Mike recruited in Local Area and Daisy offered a trial copy years later.[5][12] Sue runs things, from festival planning right down to the disciplinary kicks.[10][8]

History

Stacy's secret SwordsVale character revealed on her computer screen.[13]
Mike's flower mage debuts among the group's avatars.[14]

SwordsVale debuts in Local Area, where Mike bumps Stacy's mouse and wakes her computer, revealing her secret character.[15] Stacy is mortified, and she insists that nobody needs to know about any of this.[16] Mike learns that Sue, Amaya and Abbey all play too,[5] makes his flower mage, and is soon questing with the group every night.[4][7] The chapter ends with Mike venturing onto a public server alone and getting an eyeful of how the rest of the player base behaves. Sue is horrified. "You joined a PUBLIC server?! Oh my god."[17]

The secret takes its first hit in Guest of Honor. Stacy, Sue, Abbey and Amaya attend a convention in SwordsVale cosplay, in costumes that match their avatars right down to Yearrug's gold pauldrons, and Paulo catches the group in full regalia.[18] Mike comes along without a costume, and Sue makes a point of telling him she'd like to see him in cosplay.[19] The group eventually heads off to a panel together.[20]

Abbey later points to shared membership as the reason he can keep hanging around the group after his breakup. Differences aside, he tells Sue, "we DO share the same guild, Yearrug."[21]

Popularity Contest hands the guild an entire chapter. It opens with lunchtime planning for the Crimsonflame Festival, where Mike is thinking two scavenger hunts would be fun and a rehearsal run still needs scheduling.[10][11] The trouble is Stacy. She has decided her new popularity is worth more than her guildmates, and she disowns them in public.[22] Sue answers her in the computer lab with the game's own vocabulary: "Consider yourself /gkicked!"[8] Stacy folds by the end of the chapter. She still loves SwordsVale and doesn't want to lose the guild, and she is let back in.[8][23]

By a 2024 side chapter, the guild has a standing monthly meeting, and this month's lands in Mike's bedroom after he forgets about it.[24] Paulo has been ribbing Mike about the game for a while by this point,[25][24] and he ends up hiding in Mike's closet for the entire meeting, grumbling about "these fucking nerds."[26] On the other side of the closet door, the agenda covers the raid schedule, the next expansion, PvP sign-ups and the event calendar.[9] Sue also offers Daisy a trial copy of the game, and Abbey volunteers to help her make a character.[12]

Trivia

  • Veronica herself is "NOT an MMO player." SwordsVale suggestions are "an INSTANT rejection" when she picks ideas for commissioned comics, since drawing the game properly "requires research and asking MMO-savvy friends."[27]
  • The game went unnamed for six years of publication. It is on screen from Local Area in 2014, but the first character to actually say "SwordsVale" out loud is Stacy, all the way in Popularity Contest in 2020.[15][8]
  • Oliver's commentary greeted Mike's flower mage debut with "~~~~magical girl maishul-chan~~~~".[4]
  • The alternate-continuity side story Grave Concern gives the flower mage a cameo of sorts. Lucy laughs over Mike's shoulder at his monitor while he splutters "A FLOWER MAGE?!"[28]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 10
  2. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 8
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 4
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 11
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 8
  6. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 10
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 12
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 7
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 10]
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 1
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 3
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 9]
  13. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 6
  14. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 13
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 6
  16. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 9
  17. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 13
  18. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 30
  19. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 31
  20. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 42
  21. ↑ Chapter 98: Moments Apart, page 14
  22. ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 2
  23. ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 14
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 3]
  25. ↑ Chapter 119: New Year's Resolution, page 6
  26. ↑ Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 11]
  27. ↑ . 2026-02-11 https://bittersweetcandybowl.tumblr.com/post/808211372836061184/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  28. ↑ Grave Concern, page 10 🔒 (members only)
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