Gorgon Tug-o'-War

While I'm at work, my brain gets an awful lot of free time to come up with bizarre concepts like this. At first I just wanted to draw a gorgon who had tough, plated tendrils instead of hair (like they do in Magic: the Gathering), then I thought it might be cute to make the gorgon act like a pretentious pain-in-the-ass artsy type as she petrifies someone, then I wanted to add a second gorgon to take issue with her assessment, then I decided their dispute would be about which type of stone to use.

And it just snowballed from there until I started coming up with a backstory.

Gorgons, much like the myths, don't occur naturally. The first three gorgons, known nowadays as The Originals, were three human women who were cursed and turned into mind-controlled monsters to guard some cruel wizard's keep. However, the transformation, aside from the obvious physical impact, also made the gorgons a bit more willful than the wizard's control magic could handle. Inevitably, the gorgons broke free of the wizard's power, then killed him and taught themselves as much of his magic as they could learn. Seemingly with no memories of their human lives (or any interest in recovering them), the Originals sought to begin spreading the gift of gorgon-ness across the land.

Gorgons, as an all-female race, have no means of reproduction except to transform other human women. It's not overly difficult for them to transform someone, but gorgons have become total elitists over time and are extremely picky about who they will "bless". (And the humans aren't exactly beating the door down, though it's also not unheard of for a woman to come willingly in search of the gorgons' power.)

Gorgons live in groups of three to five, appropriately called "cliques". The leader of a clique is the Elite. Cliquemates regularly refer to each other as "sister" even though it's extremely rare for two gorgons to be actual sisters. The gorgons' main pastime is what they refer to as "live statuary," which is the art of petrifying humans in such a way as to create a pleasurable composition.

In this picture, we see our old friends Alex and Azalea from "Gorgon and Victim" (Azalea's design has seen significant changes), as well as Azalea's chain-smoking older cliquemate Abelia, the Elite of the clique. As her thought bubble might imply, Alex has been stuck with these gorgons for a long time now...the gorgons like her so much that they keep petrifying and re-petrifying her with different poses and stone types. Abelia is using Azalea's magic necklace to make Alex pose as desired, but unbeknownst to the gorgons, Alex is very much enjoying being dominated, even though she gets a bit annoyed by the gorgons' endless bickering and indecision.

Incidentally, Abelia's clique has a third member named Amaryllis ("Rylli"), a shy, well-meaning gorgon who usually fixes the mischief her cliquemates cause. I don't have a clear picture of her in my head; all I know is that she's purple and has glasses.