Dehnatic Empire Campaign World

This is the first of a couple of illustrations I’ve commissioned of Yiratiae & Co. lately.

One of my players spent long enough maneuvering to become landed gentry in a foreign kingdom that he was eventually leaned-on by the Darae* to choose a daughter/grand-daughter/cousin of the royal family for marriage.

...good luck with that, lady.

(DM Scribbles)

Representing a broad spectrum of Villains-turned-allies:

R E D W I T C H

There was once a street named after her, but they changed it because no one crosses Vresh.

Vresh died 20 years ago, death hasn’t worked up the courage to tell her yet.

Things that ACTUALLY EXISTED FOR REAL IN EUROPEAN HISTORY: Non-white people, mostly those of North African and Middle Eastern heritage who were immigrants, merchants, missionaries, mercenaries  advisors, and scholars; female leaders, including the famed Warrior Queen Boudicca; and queer folk, seriously, Shakespeare wrote sonnets for dudes.

Things that did NOT actually exist for real in European History: Magic, faeries, dragons, wizards.

So much fantasy is set in quasi “dark ages” feudal Europe.  Can we just take a sec and realize that Europe is that asshole who gets to be a continent even though he’s not really a continent.  He’s the jerk who, when he has a bad day, everyone starts calling it The Dark Ages.  

FYI, “The Dark Ages” were a golden age for almost everyone else.  Islam was booming, spreading and gathering up classical knowledge that would have been completely lost otherwise.  China was going through a golden age of its own unter the Tang empire and Song empires, during which China grew and traded so much and so widely that they ran out of metal for coins and had to invent paper money (they also invented gunpowder).  And let’s not forget that, while we have relatively few written records from this region, the evidence suggests that Africa (ALL of Africa, both around the Mediterranean and in Sub-Saharan Africa) was booming as well, creating empires of their own, trading with Islamic travelers and building gorgeous goddamn cities.

Torin’s Quest

Sketches from the DM’s pad :) 

Ananka - this sketch has been around over a year, but I didn’t get around to showing it because most of the players didn’t know that their favorite familiar hagborn triple (quadrupal?) agent was more specifically a drow hagborn. Because of course she is.

Molo - also been around a while – full body shot is from when Yiratiae made him wear hobgoblin chainmail and he could barely walk in it