#ileosa

For a little breakdown, what you're looking at here is the silhouette of Castle Korvosa and the crown that Ileosa will eventually wear as queen. The base shapes are mostly taken from the book since they are iconic, with a little modification to make then pop as graphical elements.

One of the main elements I wanted to convey with the icon is the battle between the traditional forces of Korvosa and Ileosa's rising power. Here represented by the interplay of positive and negative space with the crown, the background, and the castle. The castle is broken by the Crown, both to prevent the pyramid from being the dominant image and to show the disruptive nature of the changes Ileosa makes to Korvosa. The line of the crown really creates a great feeling of two opposing forces pressing against each other and I’m glad I got to use that here.

The crown is also much larger than the castle to show that, while the castle may be the iconic, imposing power over Korvosa, the real influence is the crown. There is also another element at play here, but I will save that for a later date. If you've played Curse, you will already know.

This design also makes a heart shape at the bottom because Daft and I love each other....

And definitely.... no other reason. If you're reading this, back to sleep. You know who you are.

Finally, it's also ever so slightly off center. Nothing quite lines up with the center. This is partially because of the asymmetry of the castle and crown. But also to evoke a feeling that something is wrong, even if you can't quite place it. At a distance, everything looks fine, but if you look closer, it’s all wrong.

We use a d12 in our artwork rather than a d20. This is really just a personal preference. Daft likes d12s and both of us feel they don't get enough use in D&D/Pathfinder for how neat they are. I also just felt it looked better as a royal gem. I tried the design with every die, including one that featured a tower of dice going up the crown and the d12 always just caught my eye the best.