Another update

 The world of Barg'Herzarag is developing at the hands of Daniel J. Bishop and I'm busily updating maps and modifying encounters to develop what I hope will be our best release so far. Whilst Daniel has proven to be an 'elusive' partner, I'm so glad to have him on board as the work he's been doing has made me very excited about this product. Anyone who enjoyed the hags in The Trolls of Mistwood are going to find this adventure full of haggy goodness.

Aside of Curse of Mistwood, I've been busily constructing my first funnel adventure which revolves around the sad Keep of Lord Justinian Irvin. A little more complex than most funnels, this adventure uses a random event generator that makes the funnel re-playable by the same group where different outcomes are guaranteed.

Real life update: I've been put in the temporary position of Head of Senior School which means any available time to work on Shinobi27 Games has shrivelled up. But don't worry, things are still progressing behind the scenes.

Update

Just a quick post to say I'm recovering from surgery and have taken some time off adventure making. The break ended today when I got stuck into the area map for Curse of Mistwood.

Based on the Gravic Swamp map from Trolls of Mistwood, the Hagworld area map is both familiar and yet distinctly different. Teeming with a thriving hag community, the alternative swamp has castles, temples and huts where the hags live and commune with Hecate.

I also took my sketch book into the hospital with me for the two nights I was in and did some creature designs for the Claeridge Pass setting. So I'm hoping the school year allows for some solid publishing time.

Stay tuned.

Mistwood's had some upgrades over the five year break between adventures...

This is the Curse of Mistwood map - a few changes since the original adventure. I'm working on Claeridge Pass too and tying the adventures all into a coherent world.

Claeridge Pass in production

Thanks to Brian Van Hunsel for the awesome contribution of the city map for Claeridge Pass. Planned as a campaign setting and series of adventures from funnel to higher levels.

If you follow that river flowing to the south, you'll eventually wind up at the Gravic Swamp from Trolls of Mistwood.

Getting on with the DAMN job

I was looking through my old art files on a spare hard drive and thought this might make an interesting post. I started on DAMN in September '13. I'm not sure how I got involved but I had been working with Daniel Bishop and Paul Wolfe on several projects, so I suspect they were somehow instrumental.

Below are a series of progress pieces of the cover taking shape - you may notice that Hugh the Barbarian at one stage was going to appear on the cover but for potential legal reasons I changed to just a savage barbarian to take that place on the screen. For those of you who haven't purchased issue one of DAMN (for shame), it was dedicated to Ray Harryhausen who had recently passed, so I tried to use as many iconic Harryhausen monsters I could - as did Daniel with his adventure.

First draft

 I always loved that cyclops! I wanted something that divided the front and back covers and initially it was going to be that tree. But I scrapped that and went with a different setting altogether after reading the adventure.

 And Harryhausen's medusa - well, I don't think anyone else has come close - mind you, I am a fan or Tony Randall as the medusa in The 7 Faces of Dr Lao.

 Above is where Hugh was going to cameo before we thought better of it lol. I had to have the Jason and the Argonauts skeletons. And Calibos to accompany Medusa.

 BTW the guy getting turned to stone is me - at least I got one cameo in there.

 And there we have it.

As much as I liked the cover my favourite piece from issue 1 of DAMN was the dragon illustration (another 7th Voyage of Sinbad monster).

I had an idea for the cover for issue 2 but I have since incorporated it as you may recognize...

More Illustrations

More illustrations.

 This adventure has been more than a year in the making and I've called in others to help.

I'll be one happy camper when I get this all together.

Unused Patron Art

By request! :)

Back when I was illustrating Angels, Daemons and Beings Between, there were a few patrons that didn't make the final book. Since Paul Wolfe is publishing the stats for some of these patrons, I thought I might as well post the art. Forgive me, Paul, if I get the name's incorrect.

First off is Myrddin. I thought the write up on this patron was excellent - trying to imagine how to portray this in picture form was difficult to conceptualize. But instead of drawing the patron, I decided based on the culture Paul described I'd make the image of a Myrddin worshiper and a totem pole idol of said patron. Seen below:

 You can access the awesome description and details of Myrddin at the following LINK and it is well worth the read. In fact, it was Paul and Daniel J. Bishop's writing on patrons that got me interested in DCC to begin with.

Another patron I drew, and I'm not sure who the writer was on this one (sorry guys) or the patron's name but he was an entity that lived in a volcano and was appeased by precious gems from its followers - all I know is its name starts with 'T'.

This piece actually inspired me to draw symbols for each patron and I have somewhere a collection of 'holy' symbols or markings for the patrons, in the end they weren't required for the book.

One of the pieces I spend a fair amount of time designing was for Paul's patron A'Kas. Paul knocked this one out of the park for me again. Absolutely loved this patron - perhaps he'll share the details on his blog in future posts. Here is the piece I drew for that:

For old time sake, following are some drafts and roughs of other works for that book.

Hecate pencil concept

Hecate Inks

Hecate Cover Art

King Halgaz Early Draft

King Halgaz Pencils

Four Maidens pencils

Myrddin Pencils

Arm of Vendel (Tivet?)

That T guy again but eyes were disliked lol.

On other news, Curse of Mistwood is coming together - art is building up, writing is being done - I'm excited to see how this one goes.

The Curse Grows

Mistwood - time has passed

Life in Mistwood has been peaceful since the events of The Trolls of Mistwood. People have begun to feel safe in the village by the Gravic Swamp. But something evil this way comes...

Just a brief update on where I'm at with adventures.

Curse of Mistwood is currently being written by Daniel Bishop and myself. Brian is on board again for maps and I'm doing illustrations as often as I can. I'm actually starting to get that excited feeling about seeing the light in that long long tunnel ahead with this one.

The Freezing of Claeridge Pass is also coming along slowly. I'm dividing my time as best I can between writing this adventure, writing Mistwood and doing my day job. Here are some works in progress in terms of art.

What inspired Feast of the Preserver?

 
For those of you who have purchased Feast of the Preserver (thanks), you may enjoy this clip from the movie Monster Club (1981).

I watched this movie as a kid and the ghoul story has always stayed close to my heart. The seed for Feast of the Preserver is definitely in this movie. If you can, watch Monster Club, it's an amazing old school piece of schlock horror.

Feast of the Preserver is available from RPGNow.com.

Behind the scenes: The Trolls of Mistwood

The Trolls of Mistwood was an idea that came to me when I was a player back in 3rd edition. My character, a paladin named Gabrius Helmson, led the party on a rescue mission into a troll cave. The party was high level and we'd kicked a shadow dragon's butt - so we were feeling pretty cocky. So we marched straight down the main tunnel without scouting or investigating the side tunnels. BIG MISTAKE. When the trolls emerged from the tunnels, our only means of retreat was cut off and we were annihilated. Trolls, I decided, should never be underestimated.

The idea of a village under siege by trolls seemed like a killer idea to challenge a party but it didn't have much of a story. But as the adventure was written it evolved into the tragic curse story that drives the adventure. I enjoyed the process so much I planned a sequel before I had even finished the first. If you have purchased The Trolls of Mistwood (thanks) you might notice little hints and hooks that play out in the sequel. Hags, trolls, a curse and a swamp - that's the basis of this adventure and the next.

Now for the art. Sometimes when I get these ideas I start to visualise what I want the cover to appear like and out comes the pencil and paper. Below are some pieces that didn't make the final adventure and some that evolved into the final pieces.

Here is the original pencil drawing of the cover.

It didn't change much as you can see.

The trolls themselves took a bit of time to lock down for how I wanted them to be. I love the look of first edition Dnd trolls but (SPOILERS) the trolls in the adventure aren't your normal trolls and Pathfinder had seemed to go the way of the Weta trolls, so I tried a few different looks that ranged from The Lord of the Rings trolls to naked pube troll (that's what I call him).

I also designed what the hags faces looked like - in the adventure Glyndel, Gillara and Necrosa are only seen in silhouette in the adventure but originally I wanted to show each of their faces to show their character further. Here below are the faces of the Gravic Swamp coven.

Above is Glyndel (as well as some troll concepts urgh). As the youngest and most 'attractive' and nice, I limited her ugliness. Bellow are the vicious Gillara on the left and the bloated Necrosa on the right.

 Since they figure into Curse of Mistwood, I may develop their appearance further - they were originally witches but rapidly evolved into hags for the sake of the story. Their hut on Crone Island was also sketched but never made the adventure.

The swamp itself was also an interesting development, it had to be large enough to necessitate navigating but also include some exciting encounters - below are a series of sketches and details from myself and then Brian as we developed the environs.

My original brief to Brian:

Brian's development:

As you can see - Brian is a true artist! Have a look at what he did with this sketch I gave him of Mistwood:

His version:

And further still:

Well, that's about it for what I'm going to share today - please ask any questions you like. If you enjoy this kind of post, I can certainly share a bunch of ideas and art that didn't make Feast of the Preserver. Cheers for now.

The Trolls of Mistwood is available to purchase at a very affordable price at the link below:
Trolls of Mistwood $6.99 only!