Twokinds

Twokinds is a webcomic created by Tom Fischbach, following the adventures of Trace Legacy and his companions, Flora, Keith and Natani. The story focuses around a love interest between Trace and Flora, with side plots ranging from Keith and Natani's relationship to the internal and external obstacles that they all face on their travels together. It is currently hosted by webcomics portal Keenspot.

Twokinds won the 2010, 2015 and 2016 Ursa Major Award for Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story.

As of 2017, the webcomic is usually updated once a week.

Setting
The world of Twokinds is made up of at least three races : Humans, Keidran, and Basitin, the last two anthropomorphic animal races. Keidran consist of at least four clans based on different animals. Basitins are not based on any particular animal. The three races have various levels of animosity toward each other; most humans and Keidran have a good deal of contempt and hatred for the other race.

Other races, including normal animals and dragons, also exist.

Humans
Humans often regard themselves as the highest of the races, as they believe themselves to be the least animalistic. They believe the Keidran to be nothing but animals, and thus feel no remorse when they enslave or slaughter them. The humans' government setup is merely a monarchy, which is very quickly being overtaken by the Templar.

The Templars
The Templar is an organization that used to simply be a mage's guild, but very quickly grew into the humans' military force, treasury, and, often times, the heads of towns and cities. This came about by the help of the tyrannical Grand Templar, Trace Legacy, who used the Keidran as a scapegoat to strengthen the Templar's forces and build up an empire within the Templar ranks. With the assassination of the human king by the Keidran wolf clan, full Templar control seems imminent.

Humans can harness mana straight from the environment and use it to cast spells ; the Templar push this further with the construction of "Towers", large structures that store mana and enable Templars to cast spells with incredible power, one of the reasons to their success.

Keidran
The Keidran are an anthropomorphic, carnivorous race consisting of five (known) clans - tiger, wolf, cat, dog, and fox. The Keidran are related to their animal mostly in their look; not all of their real-life counterparts' features and habits apply (such as retractable claws).

They are not particularly modest about sexual habits, normally parading around without clothes and usually embrace the idea of casual sex. If their mate isn't around to have sex with them when they need it, they have no qualms with seeking satisfaction from another Keidran.

Female Keidran enter estrus ("heat") approximately five times a year, which is often used as comic relief during various parts of story. Despite common misconception among the other races, however, Keidran have the capacity to commit to one mate.

Tom used the Keidran to mimic the Native Americans, in that they live in tribes and were native to the continent and helped the humans survive through the winter, while the humans were the copy of the Europeans, as they were ungrateful and slaughtered the Keidran in the name of their misguided morals.

The Keidran reside on one part of the continent, away from the humans, though there is much warring on the boundary. The Keidran are at a disadvantage to the humans, however, as they can only harness mana from mana crystals, while the humans can harness mana straight from the Earth. The life of Keidran slaves largely depend on their masters' treatment.

Basitins
The Basitins are a warrior race that reside on the Basidian Islands, away from the mainland and largely forgotten by the humans and Keidrans. Their short, light brown fur is not meant for the cooler climate of the mainland. They seem to be impervious to most poisons, have a very high pain tolerance, and very rarely become ill.

The Basitin islands, split into a Eastern and a Western island, are enforced under strict rules and guidelines. Their children are forced into military training at a certain age, whether or not it is desired by the parents, and grow up to be very capable warriors. Decency, aside from military performance, is also a priority. Their feet must be covered while in public, as they are considered nude if not covered. The male and female Basitins also live apart on the island, the men living on the outside of the city and the women on the inside (although this tends not to be shown in the comic). Only one week in the year are the male and the female allowed to live together to have sex and seek offspring.

Basitins follow a similar judicial system to ours: trial by jury. The judicial system has been referred to "tough but fair". Their form of government is a monarchy as well, and their head is a king: for the Eastern Basitin island, that would be the female King Adelaide. Beneath the king are three generals: the intelligence general, the arms "musclehead" general, and the master general who is supposed to be a mix of brain and brawns (and who also happens to be Keith's old friend, Nickolai Alaric).

Despite the Basitins' military training, they are at a great disadvantage to the other two races due to their inability to wield magic. Their solution to this dilemma is to gain aid from the Templars, who trick the Basitin into using magic which ultimately destroys their minds upon use. In a flashback when Trace is remembering his past, this plan to destroy the Basitins' minds seem to be his idea. The Templars cleverly understood that the Basitins' law system would take too long to acknowledge the fact that magic destroys them, and thus set their plan forward confident that it would not fail. With Trace having killed the Master Architect, it seems that their plan wasn't as foolproof as they had previously thought.

Chapters

 * Prologue (2003-10-22)
 * Chapter 1 (2004-11-04)
 * Chapter 2 - "I Love and I Hate!" (2004-02-06)
 * Chapter 3 - "Never Forget, Never Remember" (2004-03-01)
 * Chapter 4 - "Old Friends" (2004-05-21)
 * Chapter 5 - "The Weight of Armor" (2004-08-25)
 * Chapter 6 - "Lost" (2004-12-06)
 * Chapter 7 - "Instincts" (2005-06-15)
 * Chapter 8 - "A Peaceful Retreat" (2006-03-10)
 * Chapter 9 - "Troubled Waters" (2006-08-18)
 * Chapter 10 - "Loyalty or Honor?" (2007-01-26)
 * Chapter 11 - "No Pressure" (2008-05-07)
 * Chapter 12 - "The Morning" (2009-11-25)
 * Chapter 13 - "Embarking Again" (2011-03-16)
 * Chapter 14 - "Mutiny" (2011-06-22)
 * Chapter 15 - "Haunted" (2012-05-09)
 * Chapter 16 - "Confessions" (2013-02-20)
 * 10th Anniversary Chapter - "Reflections" (2013-10-22)
 * Chapter 17 - "Stranded" (2013-11-16)
 * Chapter 18 - "Coming Home" (2015-02-15)
 * Chapter 19 - "Reunions" (2016-11-19)
 * Chapter 20 - "Stories of the Estate" (2018-04-20)

Kickstarter drive
With the advent of volume 2 of the Twokinds series, and the republishing of volume 1, Thomas Fischbach turned to Kickstarter to cover printing costs, color, quantity and a selection of sizes.

Funding
The initial goal was $25,000 over a period of thirty days, but that goal was reached within 12 hours. With the promise of bonus material, extra sizes, and a personal one-to-one meeting at San Diego Comic Con with the author at the Keenspot booth, the funding was extended to $55,555, which was promptly surpassed again. With the promise of additional perks, the goal amount was moved to $100,000, which has since also been surpassed.

Rewards (normal funding)
Along with the books, extra materials include several different never-before-seen posters, a printed map of the world, and a couple of side-comics, one titled Feral Hunger and the other Prank Pixie Panic.

Each book has three different editions, which are referred to as the Manga Edition (glossy color, softcover), Special Edition (glossy color, softcover, bigger than the Manga Edition), and Premium Edition (glossy color, hardcover, same size as the Special Edition).

Extra rewards (over funding)
With over funding, production will be doubled on all issues, along with non-specified bonus material. In addition, if the goal of $100,000 would be achieved, the posting scheduled of the comic would be upped from one comic a week to two.

$100,000 milestone
On May 16, 2012, TwoKinds became the fastest, and most expensive, furry media project of any kind to be funded in the history of the furry fandom, garnering $100,000+. This was achieved within one week after the prior set milestone of $55,555. The project has as of May 27, 2012, 11 days left on the official deadline.

New deadlines and rewards
On May 18, 2012, two new deadlines with incentives were implemented on the projects page:


 * $123,456 Goal: Wallpaper Pack (reached May 22, 2012). If reached, everyone who pledged would receive a downloadable wallpaper pack. This pack would include wallpaper versions of the "Tiger in the Stars" poster, Cast poster, and Book One cover in a variety of sizes and screen ratios, including cellphone resolutions. This pack would be sent via email sometime after the Kickstarter ends to anyone who participated, regardless of pledge amount.
 * $135,000 Goal: Live Streaming event for backers (reached May 26, 2012). If reached, there would be an exclusive live streaming event for all backers who would take place over the course of two days during a weekend, for several hours per day, during which the artist may even take requests. The end result will be put together into a collage and uploaded to Thomas Fischbach's deviantART account for viewing.

Last deadline and reward
On May 27, 2012, the final deadline, and reward, was set with 11 days to go:


 * $150,000 Goal: Full Hardcover Run (reached May 30, 2012). If reached, all hardcover books would be ordered in bulk in the same way the mangas will be.

$175,000 milestone

 * $175,000 Goal: Secret reward (reached june 6, 2012). Although posted on the same day as the $150.000 notice, there was no information provided for this milestone reward. The reward has since been revealed to be plushies, based off the characters.