Webcomic / Nixvir

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Nixvir is a High Fantasy webcomic written and illustrated by Aeneas1. It concerns the adventures of a Snowlem called Erik and his angel love interest, Oriel of the Eudaimonia, as they travel to stop a war being waged by a deranged evil Flying Brick snowman with Eye Beams and an entire army of clockwork Robots at his beck and call. What begins as a wacky, childish High Concept becomes a tale of love, religious fanaticism, masculinity and good versus evil across the entire multiverse.

The comic, which first began publication on 17th June 2021, can be read here and, more recently, here. The comic ended on its quadrennial, 19th June 2025, after 507 episodes (roughly equating to 56 chapters). In 2023, an Audio Adaptation of the comics was released, which can be found here, narrated by the author themselves.

On 15th March 2024,^note a date deliberately chosen to mark the anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar a Prequel series called Ragnar: The Prelude to Nixvir, was published to explain Ragnar's Start of Darkness. This series, while currently on hiatus, can be found here. The author also has more plans for more material set in the same universe with no known release date.

In late 2024, the author began serialising Perekrin Penkrin A Day In The Life, a Slice of Life webcomic focused on the titular character's daily life.

As of early 2026, the author has started releasing prose stories set in the same universe on his Wattpad account aeolu5 (named in reference to the wind demigod from classical mythology).

Nixvir contains examples of:

• Accidental Tickle Torture:
  • As his body expands after eating the bittermint, the Gnome President giggles and lampshades this trope.
  • Another example with a heavily-pregnant female occurs again during the Alan Moore saga, where one of the sorcerer's sentient cocoa beans massages his pregnant wife's belly with the fan he's carrying, causing her to burst out laughing. There is however some ambiguity about whether this is accidental or deliberate.
• Action Girl: Despite her status as an All-Loving Heroine, Oriel is this, ready to conjure up a flaming sword at the drop of a hat.
• All-Loving Hero: Erik does not start as this, but through Character Development, he develops into this. Oriel is a more straightforward example.
• All There in the Manual: The ComicFury version HAS a manual, one which is incredibly lengthy.
• Always Night: The dwarves' home of Svartalfheim, to allude to the City Noir setting the author intended for it.
• Amazonian Beauty: Belphoebe is an example. A lot of the goddesses tend to be this as well. Unlike most examples of this trope, the muscular women in Nixvir tend to be as feminine and affectionate as their more slender counterparts.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Yi-Yi the Tyrant is this. In a twist, Asha isn't even his biological brother. He had his stepmother, Yi-Yi's mother killed for being a pain in the neck.
• Author Appeal: Aeneas1 likes to use obscure Classical Mythology, muscular women, Gratuitous Latin, old British children's shows, and Shakespearean references. He also likes to use Ingenue types in his work, and likes to use the landscape of his native England as a backdrop.
• Animesque: The general art style tends to be this, although to what extent differs from chapter to chapter.
• Arcadia: The sixth chapter takes place in one of these and even incorporates many of the pastoral cliches: including romanticised ideals of rural poverty (farmers offering up their produce to be kissed), gods intervening (Metre kissing the produce and holding a drinking contest with Erik, and Eroszth appearing) and romance (Oriel has fallen in love with Erik).
• The Atoner: Oriel. Since she knows that her love for jewellery made her selfish, she strives to be kind and loving to everyone.
• Basilisk and Cockatrice: A pair of basilisks appear to menace the denizens of a small town in chapter 21.
• Battle Cry: Several of these appear in Dying of the Light. "A LAND HIIIIILLLLL!", "FOR THE SNOW WORLD!", "BARUCH AZAAD!" and "FOR THE TOPTE EMPIRE!" being the most prominent examples.
• Beast Man: The World Oak also has ''kemonomimi' residing in it, with more animal traits than their species name would imply.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Apparently C.S. Lewis didn't actually die in 1964, but continued his life by becoming a Zombie Wizard.
• Big Bad: Ragnar is the main antagonist of the comic, an evil Flying Brick snowman, who has laser powers and an entire army of clockwork robots at his command.
• Big Fancy House: Zigzagged with Alan Moore's home of Moore Manor, as while it is indeed a huge house, it is also an exaggerated version of the real Moore's house Seaview. It's also on the coast for good measure!
• Bittersweet Ending: Ragnar is defeated and peace is restored to the multiverse. However, Erik and millions of other innocent people lost their lives at the hands of Ragnar, who feels stricken with remorse for everything he’s done. Despite all the atrocities he’s committed, Ragnar still gets what he wanted anyway: to become a god, but he does so alongside Erik, who is there to comfort him and reassure him that everything will be all right. Oriel gets to return to heaven, but is forever changed by her adventures (thankfully for the better) and it remains uncertain whether she and Erik will ever be reunited after the deification of the latter. As for the snowmen, they get outside help from the empires of the multiverse to help rebuild their broken civilisation, but it remains unknown whether any of them will have truly learned their lesson or whether they will end up returning to the same harshly theocratic system which oppressed their society in the first place.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Among other things, the mammalian dwarves are hatched, rather than born, similar to monotremes.
• Blow That Horn: The magical Horn of Ice, an instrument resembling a shofar (a Semitic trumpet-like instrument made of a sheep's horn which is traditionally blown on special occasions), which can summon help to whoever blows it. While Erik never really gets to use the Horn of Ice, it is Oriel who blows the Horn at the climax of the story to summon her own species to battle.
• Clockwork Creature: Ragnar's army, as a Shout-Out to the Doctor Who episode "The Girl in the Fireplace".
• Cool Airship: Every single airship in the World Oak tends to be this, being large ships suspended in the air by gas bags.
• Crapsaccharine World: Underneath its façade of a bright, colourful utopia, full of crystal Pegasi and talking snowmen, the snow world is not an exceptionally happy one. Religious fanaticism permeates every aspect of the snow world's society, the government is run by nine fanatically religious zealots, and their society is organised in a rigidly classist system, leaving little room for upward social mobility.
• Cupid's Arrow: Naturally, considering the series' roots in Greek mythology. In contrast to Eros, Eroszth instead uses an M1858 Lefaucheveux revolver, a real type of pistol developed in France during the 1850s.
• Eye Scream: Alan Moore is shown at one point gouging a donkey's eyes out.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Averted, as Choshech is portrayed as noble, if grumpy, in keeping with his role as the Hades analogue.
• Fairy Devilmother: The Fairy Redmane is revealed to be one. On the surface, she appears like your standard fairy godmother but in reality she is a selfish bitch who cares more for power and manipulating everyone else for her own benefit. We see this when she reveals that she killed a king after worming her way up, and later killing his son once he had offspring of his own.
• Fallen Angel: Oriel turns out to have been cast out from heaven for her obsession with jewellery.
• Fantastic Caste System: The Snow World's society is absurdly stratified, with the Nine Elders being on the top, the priests being in the middle and everyone else relegated to the bottom. There is a diagram here◊.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The World Oak resembles a hybrid between the United Kingdom during the Early Modern Period and ancient Greece.
  • As revealed by the official map in the background lore, the Kingdom of Tebet, the setting for chapter eleven, is a fantasy version of Yorkshire, with its capital Yorkold being located exactly where York would be in real life.
• Fantasy Counterpart Religion: The Snowmen's religion takes elements from Judaism (their priests wear top hats; they consider themselves Lord Nix's Chosen Species) and Roman Catholicism (they pray in Latin rather than Hebrew).
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The World Oak includes: sentient snowmen, four-legged topless angels, anthropomorphic animals, mythological creatures, both famous (fauns, satyrs, trolls, dwarves, etc.) and obscure (monopods, vegetable lambs), giant bees, gods with the heads of animals and all kinds of crazy stuff.
• Fantasy World Map: The series has a few, which appear in the background lore.
• Elves Versus Dwarves: With the primitive Snowmen as the Dwarves and the scarecrows as the Elves. Nobody knows how exactly this feud began, but the feud was exacerbated by Vanderbilt insulting their god at a conference.
• Fictional Traditions: It is mentioned that snowmen, as part of the tradition surrounding the Festival where they sacrifice bread to their god, recite poetry about what cold things supposedly do in spring. We do get at least one of these poems, courtesy of Erik, who recites one for the giants in Chapter XX, which is decried as "hopelessly naive twaddle".
• Final Battle: The series' climactic battle in the form of the Battle for the Snow World, at the climax of Erik and the Dying of the Light, and it's a very significant battle in that it's the first battle to be fought on the snow world's soil and features not one, not two, but as many as five or six of the most significant species in the World Oak. The battle starts as a battle between Ragnar's robots and the angry dwarves, but soon other species in the World Oak, like the centaurs, the scarecrows, the entire Topte army and even the gods themselves end up getting involved.
• Flaming Sword: In keeping with her inspiration in the Biblical texts, Oriel is able to do this, summoning it in the form of a zweihander.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: This is how everyone in the comic talks, albeit in a form which is made digestible for the reader. Averted in the side stories, where the characters speak in more modern English.
• Frog Men: Zeta Toad is a bipedal talking toad.
• God Guise: The god Astartoth, as it turns out is this, as while he hides behind a curtain, he appears far grander and more imposing than he actually is, and naturally takes advantage of this position to make excessive demands of Asha. Once he appears from behind the curtain, he is revealed to be little more than a mouse with a deformed appearance, and is quickly done in by a cat.
• Godiva Hair: Oriel has this kind of hairstyle. Justified, since the angels and gods are depicted as having Barbie Doll Anatomy and thus possess no need to wear any form of clothing, because they know they will not come to harm.
• Gratuitous Latin: The story will generally include Latin phrases out of turn, such as "vesta virum faciunt" (clothes make the man) or "orbis sine adultibus non exsistere potest" (a world without adults cannot exist).
• Jerkass Gods: Zig-zagged. The Gods of the World Oak are usually the petty and vindictive sort as in Classical Mythology, but they do have their more benevolent moments. Subverted with Lord Nix and Lady Aqua, who are kind and compassionate towards their subjects and the lesser gods who work under them.
• Kill It with Fire: Erik does this, tapping into the Gormanian Heat, a special power he was taught under Apollodoros, in order to defeat the Wicked Witch of the North Pole. This causes the waters of the North Pole to heat up, which the witch cannot stand because, as it turns out, she turns to steam when the waters are heated.
• Layered Metropolis: Every major city in the World Oak is one. A prominent example in this setting is Overchester, a city with upper-levels built on two plates, each supported by huge metal girders, where the upper and middle classes live in lavish luxury, while beneath them, at the very bottom of the city, are the slums of Overchester.
• The Multiverse: The story takes place in a huge multiverse called the World Oak, which exists in the branches of an enormous tree of the same name. Each world has its own unique name (World Lepsomai, World Erdiva, World Amulu, et cetera). Travel between these worlds is possible by use of magical portals, which Oriel and later Erik can conjure up.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Zombie-Wizard C.S. Lewis.
• Our Angels Are Different: The Eudaimonia could at best be described as a mix of the Eudaimonia of Classical Mythology and the angels of Christian theology.
• Our Clones Are Identical: The Bond Wars are so called because, for some bizarre reason, the Vunfraen use defective clones of James Bond. These clones are twisted variations on Daniel Craig's rendition of the character, only able to utter the line "Bonf. Jamef Bonf."
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Subverted; the dwarves of the World Oak only loosely resemble their mythological counterparts. They are largely distinct due to their antennae. They have the usual craftsmanship skills, but are hatched rather than born and are renowned for their tragic playwrights.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: They turn up everywhere, appearing as everything from soldiers and bodyguards to palace guards to architects.
• Pet the Dog: There are a few moments of this from the Jerkass Gods. One example being that Zdios sends his son, Arcuray (the World Oak's counterpart of Hermes) to go down to Erik to warn him of the danger during the Wicked Witch of the North Pole's fight against him.
• "Pop!" Goes the Human: This is what happens to the Gnome President once he eats the bittermint, after swelling up to such a ridiculous size.
• Shout-Out: So many, that they go on their own separate page.
• Shown Their Work: The author, Aeneas1, incorporates all manner of obscure Classical myths into his work. He also references elements of obscure English literature and fairy tales.
  • During chapter sixteen, the witch Zanuba is depicted travelling in a flying sieve. As implied by Macbeth, it was commonly believed during the English Renaissance that witches travelled in sieves as well as broomsticks.
  • While Choschech having dark skin/fur colour may indicate his role as the God of Darkness, it is true that the manes of lions darken as they age. So, Choschech having a very dark mane would indicate that he is indeed very, very old.
  • Eroszth may have a truncated version of the name of his mythological counterpart, and may not use a bow and arrow, but he is depicted as a handsome young god, similarly to how Eros is depicted in the original myths prior to his confusion with the Italian putti^note he is not, however, the first depiction of the character to use a gun - Gustave Dore got there first. He also has pink bullets with gold tips and lead bullets, a nod to the fact that Eros' arrows have gold and lead tips, the latter being for unrequited love. Genius Bonus because the author gives him the head of a civet, an animal which was known to the Elizabethans for its musk, or "perfume" as it is referred to in King Lear.
  • The priest that appears towards the end crowning Empress Aubrea is shown wearing a pileus, a real-life hat worn in ancient Greece.
  • The Fountain of Divine Patronage has some parts that are painted gold. There were indeed statues partially constructed of ivory and gold that were built in ancient Greece, and they were called chryselephantine statues. Most haven't survived in their original forms.
  • Erik accidentally burning the loaves of bread he was supposed to be keeping watch over is drawn from the historical apocrypha surrounding King Alfred of England, who allegedly accidentally burnt some wheat cakes while he was hiding out in an old woman's cottage.
  • Gyzes is a reference to Gyges from Plato's The Republic.
• Silence Is Golden: The chapter Erik and the Sleeping Hunk features no spoken dialogue.
• Snowlems: The snowmen. Aggressively tribal, they can only enter the snow world if they melt in the sun (if they melt in flames, they just die). They are also The Needless because they have no stomachs of their own but have Nigh-Invulnerability aside from their weakness to fire..
• Spoiled Brat: This is Yi-Yi the Tyrant's character, being prone to not only annoying Asha, even when he is running the Astoreth Empire, but also spouting nonsense and throwing tantrums.
• Steampunk: A lot of the technology in the World Oak tends towards this trope. Examples include the war-kettles, and the birthing machines and the piss-pump.
• Take That!:
  • The Gnome President is designed after Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
  • The author is noted to have a disdain for The Umbrella Academy. The story also includes the comic's version of Luther and Viktor mounted on the walls as hunting trophies. Furthermore, the Gnome President is also designed as a reference to Luther's appearance in the second volume.
    • The two-page spread where Erik hallucinates about Oriel and sings a nonsense song◊ is actually a parodic riff on a similar spread◊ in the third volume of the comic series, Hotel Oblivion.
    • Graffiti reading "My name is Dr Pogo and I smell" can be seen on a wall with a crude drawing of a chimpanzee.
  • The snowmens' reputation as "comic buffoons" is clearly a jab at works like Jack Frost (1998), Frozen (2013) and The Snowman. Additionally, the above Latin phrase for "a world without adults cannot exist" is a jab at Magic Gift of the Snowman.
    • Additionally, the snowman counterpart of Satan who does not actually exist, is called the "Silver-Haired Temptress", and is depicted as a usurper to Lord Nix's power. The Temptress is a thinly-veiled jab at Elsa.
    • In chapter 20, Erik recites a poem about what cold things supposedly do in spring, which is decried as "hopelessly naive twaddle" (a jab at "In Summer").
  • The song the Irritating Meerkats sing (quoted in full at the end of ''The Saga of Yi-Yi the Tyrant'') is one huge jab at the Walt Disney Company. The original version of the song contained an illustration of a crucified Mickey Mouse.
    • The Irritating Meerkats themselves are a jab at the Compare the Meerkat ad campaign which was and continues to be a fairly common sight on British television.
  • The minor character Pullen the Wyrd (pronounced "weird") was based on a kid the author knew at school, who he hated.
  • Several, to Christianity:
    • During the events of chapter 13, Erik alludes to "Yeshua, that naive carpenter's son."
    • During the events of the chapter Erik Helps a Schruntlip Give Birth, the snowman comes across an inn, with the legend "There's always room here! No naive idiots born here!" and a sign reading "NO POOR CARPENTERS ALLOWED." This is a jab at the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus.
  • Scott Pilgrim and Dandilion make cameo appearances during the Old Harry Flowerpot Saga, the former having been impaled on a St Andrew's Cross and the latter having been shot through with arrows in a sort of St Sebastian reference.
  • At one point, Erik walks past a tombstone, bearing references to the names Josephus Matteius and Rivkah Fyndensberg. These are named after personages the author hated.
• Tender Tears: Common with all the comic's female characters, even more so than the male ones, in keeping with the Womanliness as Pathos found in Homer's Iliad. Oriel sheds these upon realising the snow world's true nature.
• The Theocracy: The snow world is one, ruled by a council of deranged religious fanatics called the Nine Elders, which brutally oppress the population through a combination of gaslighting, psychological conditioning, and religious education.
• The Underworld: Naturally fitting for a work deriving from Greek mythology. Erik ends up going to the underworld in chapter sixteen in order to fetch a box from the resident God of the Dead.
• Voodoo Doll: Appear in chapter 16.They are called "fleshdolls" and have very clear rules about how they function: they can only work when they are in closest range of the person they are used to harm.
• War Is Hell: The Battle of Conevstall Saga has Erik discover the hard way that war is this.
• Wicked Weasel: They turn up in the thirteenth chapter, where they hold our heroes hostage. Played with in that, unlike most examples of this trope, they have magic powers.
• Wicked Witch: The Wicked Witch of the North Pole. In a next level version of the Oz example, she turns to steam when the waters of the North Pole are heated.
• World of Buxom: All the comic's major female characters, even minor ones, are buxom.
• World of Weirdness: Would you really expect the World Oak, a world with talking snowmen and Guy Fawkes mannequins, to be anything else?
• World Tree: This is what the World Oak is, in simple terms.
• Would Hurt a Child: Erik, despite being the protagonist of the story. When Yi-Yi the Tyrant presses his buttons, Erik grabs his arm and slams it into a wall so hard that blood starts pouring from it.