Out Of My Mind

Here’s a not-quite-new piece. I did this before Halloween, but by agreement, have refrained from posting it until the beginning of the year, since the client had a number of events planned for it. The client is Paradigm Concepts, the creators of Arcanis, and of course Witch Hunter, in which players take on the personae [...]

This is another alien concept for Dan Repperger’s Epoch of Rysos role-playing game and fiction setting. This alien is called a Mordeth.

At the start of the project, I was given a description:

Here’s a commission I recently finished. This is the logo for a science fiction setting, Epoch of Rysos.The client had specified a “clean future” sort of a look, not the lived-in and tarnished Star Wars or Alien style world. He also specified a squarish design rather than a rectangular one, for ease of use in [...]

With the advent of the upcoming movie, I thought I’d showcase a map I made for Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s RPG: The Savage World of Solomon Kane.
This is an example of a common difficulty in historical fantasy game maps. There is a constant battle between accuracy and artistic authenticity. On the one hand, the customer wants [...]

This map was created for Aberrant Games, for their Rezolution line. It was an emergency job, as the contracted artist had let them down in some manner. They needed a city sector map for a post apocalyptic, cyberpunk style world. I was given an existing piece and asked to copy the style. I don’t have [...]

I have some private projects that I keep returning to. On of my favorites is the map of my campaign city. The City of Tallon was envisioned to be your basic Edgar Rice Burroughs-style Big-City-In-The-Middle-Of-The-Wilderness. This is an inherently insupportable fantasy, yet it occurs in much early fantasy and pulp sci fi. A great deal [...]

The concept of disagreeing authorities as described in the last entry is personified in the character of Arthur. This was intentional. It’s easier for players to compare and contrast facts when they come from a limited number of sources. Arthur was created to be a living conundrum, a walking contrast. At times, he displays god-like [...]

This is a continuation of the Mystery theme. This time it deals a bit more into specifics, so I will make cross references to the appropriate adventure in question when possible.
The central mystery in the Savage Earth is of course that of it’s genesis. Who were the Demon Kings? The Prometheans? What was the nature [...]

I have noticed that the theme of mystery has grown in importance as my worldbuilding has progressed. My very earliest campaign worlds were dominated by fairly open, cards-on-the-table set-ups. Maybe the players would have to journey somewhere to retireve an artifact or elicit help, but rarely did their quests include solving a mystery.
Now, by mystery, [...]

I’ve been listening to a great podcast called Shakespeare and Dragons. It’s a great worldbuilding series by an English teacher, who approaches world-building for rpgs, comics and stories from a dramatic viewpoint. He explores topics rarely touched on, or at least rarely explored in such depth and scholarly detail. He speaks extensively on things like [...]