Denise Fabbroni Portfolio

Children of the Sun
Heru is an extremely powerful kingdom, which has subjugated the surrounding territories to itself through the power of its king. The king of Heru possesses the power of the Sun and is identified with it as a deity.
No one can see his face; when the king ascends to power, he wears a mask that he cannot remove for the rest of his life.

These are my concepts and some preparatory drawings I did to create the Sun Palace, obviously the inspiration is ancient Egypt but I hope I also gave it a fantasy touch.

The territories that surround Heru and depend on it are called Princedoms. The king chooses a noble virgin in each princedom and makes her his bride. Once she has been chosen as Moon's bride, she too must wear a mask. Moon brides can continue to live in their own palace and only have the task of giving birth to an heir for the king. They only receive one visit from the king, who stays with them for a month. In this month, if they are lucky, they manage to conceive an heir. Giving birth to a prince brings much wealth to the family and the principality of the Moon Bride, which is why noble families go to great lengths to have one of their daughters chosen as a bride. If a princess is born, however, privileges are granted to the family and one day she will be designated to be a Moon Bride.

Every fifteen years, the heirs, who are thus half-siblings, must face trials to determine who will be the next king. At the end of these perilous trials, the survivors will have to face each other and the sole survivor will receive the power of the sun from his father, who will die the instant he passes his power on to his son.

The Moon Bride

Our protagonist, Khara, is one of the children of the Sun. His mother was particularly fortunate in giving birth to twins: Khara and Atharvan. Their principality has never produced a king and everyone has high expectations of Atharvan. The tournament for the heir is proclaimed when the two are barely twelve years old. The twins are virtually identical and, like all children of the Sun, have bright golden eyes. Atharvan has been subjected to extremely rigorous training since he was a child and it was during a climb that he fell and fractured his leg. To avoid missing the chance to compete in the tournament, Khara takes his brother's place, unbeknownst to everyone

At Heru's arena Khara meets her half-brothers, all teenage boys who are extremely determined to win and who, being one of the youngest, try to get into trouble immediately. The boys are sent to the most remote places in the kingdom to retrieve relics, face legendary beasts and all sorts of impossible tests including the Sphinx.
The Sphinx is a thousand-year-old being that lives in a lonely mountain, served by priestesses and feared because it possesses the power of prescience. The King himself goes every three years to ask her for a prophecy about the future of the kingdom. The Sphinx is tasked with examining candidates and devouring those she deems particularly unsuitable for the role of king.

The Sphynx

When she meets Khara she immediately realises that she is a princess and prophesies to her that if she ascends the throne this will be the end of Heru's cruel reign. Incredibly, the Sphinx does not devour her and even seems to encourage the princess on her way.
Eventually Khara underestimated by her adversaries manages to be chosen as heir. At the moment of receiving the power from her father, however, something strange happens, the power disperses among all the inhabitants of Heru, effectively nullifying it, all have become equal. The king does not die, his mask falls off and only one man remains.

This was a science fiction story I had written that year. The world is dominated by terrible killer robots and humanity has almost disappeared. Very few have survived inside Nova Lux, an ideal city where people live according to the (extreme, however) principles of the Enlightenment. 

Meriadoc meets Nicholas, an orphaned child trying to survive the killer robots, together with his little dog.
When he meets Meriadoc, however, he does not immediately discover the truth. He does not know that Nova Lux exists, nor that it was its inhabitants who built the robots that destroyed the world.

Meriadoc

Killer Mantis