[Illustration] Wizard

Here's the wizard for the new DungeonTeller character sheets. I just have the paladin and the warrior left to do!

 

Dwarf

I drew this last year during a period of trying different styles to illustrate my ruleset. I stumbled on it tonight in a stack of assorted artwork and I find I like the fellow.

Brush and Ink, 2011.

 

[Free Stuff] Wondermorphs Sets 3: Stairs and Passages

This set includes some handy connector pieces and some stairs. Enjoy!

Link to PDF

[Free Stuff] Wundermorph Special Set 1: Raging River Redoubt

Another free geomorph for you all. This one is a triple-size tile that details a section of underground river spanned by a bridge that leads to a small, well-defended hideout. I've included at least two possible ways to bypass the main bridge, and hints that this could just be the front entrance to a much larger complex. Find the rowboat and take a ride down the river to parts unknown!
Enjoy -- and let me know what you'd like to see in future sets.

Link to PDF download

[Free Stuff] Wondermorphs Sets 1 and 2

Hi, my first resolution of the new year is to make some of my hand-drawn geomorphs available to you as free PDFs. I calls 'em Wondermorphs. I draw them on 4/inch graph paper, using a Pilot pen, mostly without sketching first, although I will reach for my pencil when planning out some of the larger morphs, like the crypt in Set 2. I've played around with coloring them in PhotoShop, but for now they're in glorious, printer-friendly black and white. Because they're drawn in one-point perspective, with the nadir centered in the middle of each tile, they look great in any orientation.

You can print as many copies as you like, cut them out, and paste them together to make a dungeon layout. Or you can mount them on 2.5" coverstock or cardboard squares to make tiles that you can shuffle or pull out of a bag for building randomly/on the fly. Kids love to "explore the dungeon" by adding tiles and telling a story as they go along.
I give you my permission to make copies for your personal use, but please don't repost them without a linkback to this blog. I have more on the way, and I'll also take requests.
Here's to a year of wonder!
Link to PDF of Set 1:

Link to PDF of Set 2:

In the spirit of the season...

Bone Dancer, 2005, colored pencil and watercolor. Client: Atlas Games.

Red Sorceress

Colored pencil, 2011.

[Illustration] Warrior with Kite-shaped Shield.

Here's a sketch of a warrior from a few years back.

[Sketch] Towering City

Sometimes I survive long meetings by bringing a clipboard with some drawing paper and an HB pencil, and letting loose. I'd love to know where this city is. I was thinking about Kafka's castle and about Gormenghast when I was developing this. I think there's a mastermind or demigod up at the top, and people ascend the city to seek his favor. There's also a great Neil Gaiman story in Miracleman: Book Four about some mortals climbing MM's pyramid to ask him for help with various crises in their lives.

[Illustration] Ferrec

A ferrec.

Another sketch from my Earthlaw campaign sketchbook. This is a ferrec, one of the cute, ruthless aliens I mentioned in my previous post. As god is my witness, I have no idea why there's a ball hovering over her head. It may have been a psychic artifact, or something akin to an Ioun stone.

[Campaign Graveyard] Earthlaw: AD&D 2e Science Fantasy

My closet is a graveyard of old RPG campaigns -- I was reminded of one in particular this morning when I was cleaning out my file drawer and came across some illustrations in an old sketchbook for a fun little campaign I had entirely forgotten about.
I called it "Earthlaw", referring to the part of the galaxy under Earth's jurisdiction in the far future setting of the campaign. It was a 1000-points-of-light setting before that term was coined -- with a tired, decadent human civilization in retreat, leaving lots of struggling planets outside the Earthlaw facing increasing threats from the monstrous Old Ones who had been driven to the far side of the galaxy eons earlier. Only the jedi, I mean, the Paladins, an ancient order of mystic warriors, could stem the resurgence of the Old Ones.
I tend to dislike SF settings with zillions of alien species -- give me something more like Star Frontiers, with a limited number of well-realized and distinct races. Earthlaw only had about 5 intelligent races:


Humans, of course.
Elders, who were basically immortal space elves who predated humanity, and had been all but destroyed by the Old Ones in an eons-ago battle.
Podians, who looked like floating cuttlefish.
Ferrec, adorable fox-like creatures who maintained a ruthless criminal network across the galaxy.
Urzen, nature-loving bearlike critters.
Chiba, bug like creatures with a single mind distributed among several bodies, each with a specialized function.


We used AD&D 2e rules, modified as little as possible. A hard-drive crash years ago wiped out any files I might have had, although as I go through my spring-cleaning, I'm optomistic I can find my campaign binder.


Here's a picture of a Podian, from my sketchbook, c. 2000.

Podian. Their head-shells were hydrogen-filled chambers

that alowed them to hover in the air. Pencil, c. 2000.

[Illustration] Kat's Hand Crossbow

Someone go build this, kk? Pencil, c. 2003.

I loved Kat's character so much that I thought of doing a comic book about her for a while. I even made detailed sketches of her hand crossbows, and wondered how a repeating model might look (the boxy one at the top).

[Illustration] Look Out Below!

Kat leaps from a building. Pencil, c. 2003.

This is Kat(erina), a rogue PC of mine. She started out as a rogue in 3e, later gained levels as a thief-acrobat. Her backstory was that she was a rich brat who snuck out of her room at night to work the streets of the city of Gravesend as a petty thief. She carried a short sword and two hand crossbows. In this sketch she's wearing a cats-eye, which is a monocle made by dwarves IMC to allow surface dwellers limited night vision.

[Illustration] Sea Devil

I drew this in 2005 for a Northern Crown adventure module called Isle of the Judge that was never published. It was a mix of Salem Witch Trials and HPL goodness. Think: Shadowe over Innsmouthe.


I still like the illustration, though. This was done with black and blue colored pencils and a bit of watercolor. When I'm drawing something that's going to be reproduced in grayscale, I often go the monochrome route, but the originals still have a cool vibe of their own -- it all hangs together coherently.