Another Art Blog

The Robber Prince 5/9

This is going to be a long one because boy did it become a complicated one. For previous stories I’ve been able to trim certain areas of context to get to the point, but that’s not as easy here. So...

The story continues. The party gathered information that the next artifact they would need would be in Calatang, an extremely notorious country for its horrible living conditions and its hatred towards all things magical. Centuries back the Lazeran Inquisitors led a purge of magical creatures (and some nonmagical creatures that were still associated with magic), driving many species and races to extinction or near extinctions, and amongst these were the Lupans. Though still surviving in extremely secretive and isolated pockets, their people will probably never truly recover from the loss of culture and history and family. All of this was learned from a single surviving Lupan named Fiugay who retold the story of his escape from the inquisitors when he was just a child about the age of nine.

They learn the place they need to go is known by the Lupan’s as the Midnight Woods, or Fallaro’s Midnight, the land where god cried when he realized his people were dead. After his tears fell over the land, growing the woods wild and untamable, he shed a singular, final tear which was imbued with all the parting sadness, pain, hate, and goodbyes, turned to stone, and fallen to Signet.

To get into Calatang they needed to rid themselves of their magic, but 5/6 of the party members are at least moderately magical, and 4/5 are fairly dedicated casters (a bard, a druid, a cleric, and an alchemist). The Alchemist brewed them a special poison that would mask their magic so they wouldn’t be discovered by the Inquisitors who were capable of seeing magic, and the fighter forged them some documents to get into the country with their magic items left alone. With haste they made it to the woods only to find there was next to nothing there. The woods were dead and silent, save for occasionally the soft sound of ghostly coughing and the sound of a child weeping.

The party saw glimpses of a single Lupan repeatedly, the Tear of Fallaro embedded in his right eye socket, but never saw him for more than a moment. At least until he started to make it very, very obvious that they were not welcome there. One of the party members had a Leadership Cohort, a worg, whom he couldn’t bring himself to harm, and so when she was separated from the party he approached her, and cast a modified Baleful Polymorph on her, turning her into a wolf puppy, who he promptly adopted and gave the name Rhuga. The Werewolf Cleric, the one who’s Cohort (and adopted daughter) was taken began to panic. She took on her wolf form and began running around searching for her. It wasn’t long before the Lupan saw her, too, and the same thing happened. Now under normal circumstances a Lycanthrope can always undo a polymorph at will, but her Lycanthropy works differently. She worships a Lycanthropic god, and her Lycanthropy is tied to her cleric levels... meaning that when she failed both saves, she lost all of her cleric abilities. Including her Lycanthropy.

The party eventually realizes she’s gone and goes to save her, learning about a castle at the top of the mountain where the Lupan has been staying. The monsters they’ve seen hints of also appear to reside there: Griffons and Drakes mostly, but they also saw a hydra skin earlier and had seen no other sign of it yet.

So, the party starts moving. Kind of. They wait a day because as you recall they all drank poison to get rid of their casting, and that isn’t going away immediately.

So then they get moving after that and promptly get attacked. The Halites are not happy that their holy artifacts were stolen, so they hired assassins to go after them. Following that, the party concluded they needed to rest another day.

So the next morning they finally get moving. Well, kind of. The next morning they wake up to the Lupan standing at the edge of their camp, giving them one final warning to leave before dropping an explosive spell on them, causing the cliff they were resting by to collapse. Thankfully they manage to survive due to a combination of good reflex saves and magic items, and realized they can’t put this off any longer, if they wait around the Lupan is just going to pick them off even more than he already has.

So they storm the castle, boarding the druid’s animal companion and flying over the gatehouse (which was a very wise idea). They are attacked in the air by a flock of midnight griffons, and then when they finally land on the other side, out of the gatehouse charges a massive five-headed Hydra. If they had entered through the gates, the portcullises would have dropped and the Hydra was going to start attacking them through the murder holes.

Finally, they make it to the chapel of the castle where the showdown was intended to happen, and there are the drakes that the Lupan has taken as companions of his own. They barely come out of that fight alive when they hear it again. The coughing and weeping of a child. The Gunslinger catches sight of a young Lupan child by the name of Lellula... who promptly begins screaming at them. Telling them they’ve ruined everything, telling them to die, screaming that he was finally going home. Well, after five very advanced griffons, three drakes that also functioned as about 8th level animal companions, and a five-headed hydra with five levels of fighter, and them not having a barbarian worg cohort or their dedicated healer, they decided the wisest idea was to maybe NOT risk this fight. Especially when the child started casting Animate Dead on the drakes they JUST FINISHED killing.

But this left them still with a problem. Their cleric was gone, and she and her cohort were nowhere in the castle. This Lupan had adopted those two as his own children as surrogates for the ones that he had lost, so of course he wasn’t going to keep them in a castle he was certain was about to be attacked. A quick scrying spell later showed that the puppies were in a nearby town, and they were wearing collars with little tags on them so people (who weren’t familiar with wolves because they had basically driven them extinct) just thought of them as lost puppies. Calatan people weren’t in the habit of treating dogs bad, so he knew they’d be safe there for a short while, but it also gave the party an opportunity to go and get them back while the Lupan wasn’t watching.

So finally they get their cleric under the cover of night, turn her and her cohort back to normal and start to hatch a plan. At this point, though, the lycanthrope is capable of remembering a few things that had been told to her. First, the Lupan they were dealing with is named Kudlania. Second, he was planning on destroying all of Calatang. Third, he had three kids. Fourth, the name of those kids were Rhuga, Lellula, and Fiugay, all of whom he was convinced were dead, even though only Lellula’s ghost hung around.

Using the bond she had created with him, they managed to talk to him. He refused to believe Fiugay was alive. He had long since been driven beyond help by a combination of the horrors he had suffered and the anguish of a god artifact of loss and misery warping his mind. All that he could do was activate his final option and die with peace. He certainly couldn’t face his surviving child as he was.

They worked out a deal with Kudlania. Once his job was done, he wouldn’t need the artifact anymore, and he’d be ready to die. Over these past decades he has been cultivating four horrible diseases, similar to the ones found in the Calatan prisons, similar to the ones his people were exposed to. He had modified them. He had grown them. He had selectively made them stronger through magic. He was a Plague Druid. The disease was made to be deadly even through SR or divine resistances. He wanted it to be unstoppable.

At this point in time the horrors this party has heard about and the things they’ve seen (and the fact that this party is 3/6 chaotic and 2/6 evil before counting cohorts or companions) meant this was a pretty easy choice.

And so they did, spreading it over a massive trade city.

And at the well where Kudlania released the last of the disease, the party had a final showdown. The party got their artifact, Kudlania got his last revenge, and Calatang got the beginning of the worst plagues this world has ever seen.

Not all is completely lost for Calatang, though. Kudlania’s revenge can be thwarted for the more innocent, for the more open minded... but that’s a story for a different time.

Three artifacts down, four to go, and at least one artifact is held by another competing party. They have gone in the face of Stal, Hale, and Fallaro, and now the ones left are Lapis (god of Luck and Curses), Jotlin (god of Storms and Destruction), and Yailee (god of Death, Trade, and Madness). And one more. One more the party didn’t know until the Cleric picked up the Tear of Fallaro and ended up speaking directly to the great wolf mother. Glori, god of horses, god of lust and war and valor. Glori, the dead god, dead for over six hundred years.

“This is a test, I’m being tested...“

So I really, REALLY love JourneyQuest.

Every time a new season comes out I get ridiculously excited. I love all of the characters so much that it’s one of those series where it’s really hard to pick a favorite character. I just love all of them so much and for so many different reasons. If had to pick a favorite, though, I’d probably have to go with Carrow. His outright traumatic character development has my heart aching for him each time he’s onscreen and I cannot wait to see how he continues to develop.

But the same is true for all the characters.

If I don’t stop myself here I’m going to start gushing and I don’t need to do that to myself after spending the past 4 hours slowly ticking away at this. I might go back and modify it if I see some errors with it when I get to sleep and wake up with fresh eyes, but as of right now, file it under Finished Enough.

Hmmn... it’s been a few days since I’ve done any updates here on the progress of Skyless. Not that I haven’t been working, but most of the work I’ve been doing lately has been on the writing aspect of it, which I don’t want to share too much of.

So might as well share some of my sketches and studies for one of the Skyless species. I’ve worked up about 10-12 of them at this point, and steadily working on fleshing them out, so this one is more in the concept art stage.

Cherloirgiet are among the larger skyless, substantially larger than your average humanoid, and are also amongst the more deadly. Because of their flexibility as warriors, they make up a sizeable chunk of the Skyless King’s army. They can spit hot sticky toxins a short range and fling their tail-quills in distracting display, and their high intelligence makes them very versatile enemies.

Robber Prince 4/9

Following getting the Final Armor of the god Stal and the Death Totem of the god Hale they headed north to find more information on the Lupan god Fallaro. However, while they were there they were struck with the news that a tragedy had occurred. A storm, worse than any known storm, had formed over the country of Nantande. A huge flood of refugees, mostly otterfolk, was making their way into the country the party was visiting. Earlier this game they’d been given a hint that the god of the otterfolk, Jotlin, god of the western river, of storms and destruction, was likely one of the seven gods who’s artifacts they needed.

It seemed as though one of the other ratfolk groups had gotten here first.

Since it is unlikely they will ever meet this character, I figured I might as well go ahead and put out this picture, Flite the Otterwitch, an oracle of Jotlin, and the artifact The Shell of Storms, a chaotic and highly destructive artifact from a fickle, clever, and violent god.

Robber Prince 3.5/9

So every god artifact the party is gathering comes equipped with something that could be a massive drawback in the hands of the wrong person.

For example, the Armor of Stal which they defeated the goddess of war to obtain, it is armor which can only be worn by the chosen one of their religion (which they’re getting around because of the Thief-God’s gift). That armor cannot be moved, only worn, so when taken off it it stays in one spot whether you like it to or not. So the Final Armor must be worn in order to be moved.

So... when they got the Death Totem they learned that Hale’s son, the one who had been shot full with arrows, pinned to a tree, and skinned alive, is connected to that death totem and would visit the wielder of the Death Totem.

So the paranoid war veteren bard never takes off the armor that basically renders him invulnerable.

And the Halite has fully adopted the skinless dead son of her god as her own precious child.

They only have these two artifacts. I look forward to seeing how they handle the rest of them. Maybe I’ll know by the end of the day.

Another study for the Skyless project. Another Crodog.

Their primary fighting style involves them being airborne and striking with their tails. The sharp tips tear or impale small prey items, and can rend huge cuts and gouges in attackers. When they snap their tail forwards, they clutch their legs together at the heels to cut down on the surface membrane that they fly with, meaning that they’re fighting against less resistance.

Sometimes their spines will become lodged in larger creatures and stay there. Such wounds are not always fatal, but can be since the wounds will have a hard time closing and often times keep bleeding.

Ahhh, a while back I ran a game called Springdown. It was an attempt to run a game set entirely in a school. I’ve never been a fan of those because it feels to me that one of two things always ends up happening, either 1) the game gets severely bogged down by the day-to-day of going to classes, or 2) the game is so unrelated to its school setting that it might as well not take place in a school except for flavortext and as someone who hated middleschool and highschool (when these games exclusively seem to take place in) the flavor it leaves is just bitterness and teenage horomonal angst.

But it was a challenge I’d always wanted to take on, making a school game interesting.

Given that most of my players immediately asked if there was going to be a sequal, I’d say I did a pretty good job.

Unlike my other pictures I won’t be giving a synopsis here, partly because it would take a really long time, and partly because this game was actually recorded. While the recordings likely wont be posted for quite a long time, i wanted to put these out while I was thinking about them, especially since they’re older pieces at this point.

So because it was recorded, I made icons for each of the characters so there’d be sort of a visual aid.

The basic premise was that everyone was playing children of lesser nobility who were sent away to the house of a higher noble who enjoyed teaching and had basically turned his manor into a school for the education of select privileged youths. The manor doesn’t accept more than 20 students at a time.

So from left to right in the group portrait (which I mostly made to show off size differences) we have Aquilla Loretto, first year, daughter of two prestigious Phorlesian Knights who’s heritage is in question following a series of magical experiements performed upon her by drow, Alasdair Honeyhive, third year, the cursed oracular first son of a Baron of Algandis, Ezekial Whitehall, third year, seventh son of the Baron Whitehall of Calatang (where the story takes place), Aran Breckenridge, third year the illegitimate daughter of an Algandan Baroness and a cursed fey-elf, Dyrdine Guthriekor, second year first son of a Dwarven Champion, and Faustus Elrius, first year the first son of the White Herald of powerful Crystal Dragon.

Robber Prince 3/9

Following on the heels of retrieving the armor of Stal, the adventuring group then races to the far south where dwells the snow vulpans, the near-exclusive worshipers of their god Hale, a god of murder, ice, and tyranny. One of the party members who was an odd one out in that she was a Halite by choice had gotten in contact with Hale earlier to ask him if he was one of the original seven who bound the Robber Prince God, and discovered that this was true...

Also that for some reason he knew who Hanni, their quest-giver, was.

It amused him to say no more and decided it would simply be more fun to watch it play out.

So they made their way to the most holy city of the Vulpan religion, known as Stykrieg or “The City of Hale’s Ire“ since the founding story of the religion involved the Vulpans killing Hale’s child and their ongoing punishment being servitude to Hale. The item they looked for is called very simply The Death Totem, a piece of wood from the tree Hale’s son murdered against, its only surviving piece since the Vulpans burned the body with the tree to cover up the murder. Hale placed on the death totem a powerful magic and had it so his high priest would always carry it and use it to punish those Hale despised as well as... other things...

So they make their way to the city and the high priest Askyr is proselytizing in the middle of town (I wrote an entire grand speech that took a couple of minutes to read and I expected my party to interrupt the monologue, but I actually got to finish it!) and a plan was hatched. Specifically a plan was hatched by the Halite because she knew that the death totem might outright kill anyone else in the party who touched it because she is a singular lawful blip in a sea of chaotic characters.

Askyr calls forth people to be rendered clean by the branch he is holding. He whips them into unconsciousness or even into death as a ritual which cleanses their soul for their god Hale. The Halite Ratfolk volunteered. During the process she managed to successfully get the branch away from him, get to the party, and everyone teleported away before the crowd could draw all of their weapons and begin the killing. So they make it away with this branch, they get some rest, and they’re prepared to move out the next morning.

Except.

It becomes steadily more and more apparent that this isn’t the death totem. It is actually a lesser item named Cergan. The Halite goes over her holy text and learns something barely mentioned in the religion, that Hale always has two Priests: one who is The Eyes of Hale, and one who is The Voice of Hale. It was assumed at this point that Askyr was likely The Voice since he wears a blindfold and preaches. They found the item of one, but it is the other, more sacred priest who holds the other, and that is the actual one that they need. Luckily for them, the Cergan does serve a purpose other than acting as a decoy. It’s used for one priest to be able to find another.

They managed to use the Cergan to track through the snowy wilderness to a small clearing where they came across a vulpan, completely naked against the harsh cold, clutching a totem in one hand about twelve inches long, carved delicately into the shape of a screaming fox. He was eating a fallen caribou, raw, face, hands, arms, upper body all covered in blood, eating only the best cuts and organs until finally he was done and he crawled inside the carcass and began singing to himself.

The Robber Prince 2/9

The first god the party decided to tangle with was Stal the King of Horns, god of the forge, god of the Cerveri people: goats, bulls, deer, boar, etc. They went to the City of the Sun and climbed to the grand temple, where they saw the Armor of Stal, which was the last item made by Stal’s hands from the Sunforge, and it was said that only the true hero of Stal would be able to don the armor.

This was when the party discovered something interesting about the re-awakening of the Robber Prince. Particularly high level ratfolk are gifted with a unique ability to activate magic items even if they don’t have the proper activation word, or even if the item was designed to be exclusive- such as having a chosen-one narrative around it. Such as the Armor.

So at night they manage to break into the vault in which the armor is kept, and they come in to this surprise. The armor is not being guarded by paladins, priests, warriors, or even mercs. Before them stands an avatar of one of Stal’s wives.

The Robber Prince, 1/9

I love to run Pathfinder games. My most recent one has been an all-ratfolk game with my close group of friends. My world and my games have next to nothing to do with the core pathfinder story and world, except that I do use a good number of the gods, but this particular game focuses much more heavily on the “beast pantheon“ or the gods responsible for and worshiped by the beast races of the setting.

So for each of the major NPCs through the game I decided to make a fairly quickish picture. I have all but one of the pictures finished, and I’ll post them as the party discovers them.

This lovely character was the inciting NPC, Hanni Suffo, a ratfolk bartender who has an exceptional love for opulent and suggestive attire, and her familiar Smiley. She is the one who gathered the party together in her tavern The Lonesome Arrow... along with about every other high-level ratfolk she could get in time.

After a test, she let the party in on the goings on of the world...

Somethings has felt off all year. That is the thought which has crossed your minds regularly. Not bad. Not good. Simply off. Maybe it was warmer than last year? Maybe the winds were stronger? Maybe it was a smell that was hanging around? No, since the turn of the year a bit over six months ago, there’s been an odd feeling in the air. Sometimes it’s easy to ignore, sometimes it becomes background noise, but every now and then, especially at night, something still continues to feel… off...

           Like something is missing.

Long ago the ratfolk had their own god, known as The Robber Prince, as well as by a slew of other titles. He had a prosperous people, a thriving community, and everything a god could hope for his followers. But he became bored. Thievery was losing its spark, because what could really challenge him? Then one day, he decided it was time to seek that challenge he had been missing, and what could possibly be better than attempting to steal from another god? He set his sights on the god of merchants, the god of the Coyote folk, a god of death, fair trade, and madness.

And madness is what he stole.

He was overcome by an immense greed and began stealing from god after god until eventually he was too powerful to be stopped by any one god. Seven of the beast gods banded together to stop him, and they forged seven powerful items, things he wouldn’t be able to help but steal, and placed on them a powerful curse. For each item he picked up, he would be weighted down by the chains of the curse, until eventually upon picking up the final item, his powers and influences would be sealed and he would be banished back to the pits of his gods realm.

Eight hundred years have passed and already he is breaking free. The party has seventy four days to go around to each of the original seven gods and steal an important artifact from them which will then be offered in sacrifice to revive the weakening curse and seal him again. The items must be stolen, though, to be properly sacrificed to the Robber Prince.

The price for failure is the theft of the soul of every ratfolk, and likely the end of all pantheons.

A super quick messy sketch just to get an idea down.

I think I’ve always been an odd one in a lot of games. I like the common encounter monsters.

I don’t know why, but I always have a soft spot for the most common creatures in games. Maybe it’s because the fanbase of those games tends to oversaturate the fanart world with the rare popular special ones while forgetting the ones that were likely your first introduction to that world.

The first monster you fought. The first monster you caught. The first monster that you really learned the game through. They’re typically weak, everywhere, and annoying, but I guess that’s just a quirk of mine.

Some preliminary works/sketches on an ongoing personal project of mine called Skyless. This is one of the first creatures I designed for the project called a Crodog. They’re small, only about the size of a cat, but still very adept at combat and hunting. They’re pretty common creatures in the setting and known for having abrasive/hostile personalities. Then again, if everyone else only saw you as a messenger for stronger, more important creatures, wouldn’t you?

The Night Wisp Queen

In the realm beyond in ethereal thought there lives a creature called a night wisp. It cannot be felt, it cannot be seen, it cannot be heard, not unless it wants to be. Within their own ghostly, shadowy world they are content, harmless, and docile, but it is when one of them accidentally ends up in our world that they can become dangerous.

Locked in a physical world as an ethereal creature, they cannot properly understand the world around them. Their senses don’t comprehend our beings, in a way they’re little more than strange ghosts- but similar to these ghosts a night wisp can posses a sleeping, living creature (the deeper the sleep the stronger the possession) and use it as a surrogate through which to feel and understand the world. These experiences tend to be enthralling and intoxicating, driving them to obsessively posses people over and over again to feel new things. People possessed by night wisps are often forced into excess experiences: over eating, heavy drinking, extreme promiscuity, adrenaline-seeking, physical harm, self-harm, and even murder. Typically, the host of a night wisp does not live long.

In a way, though, they cannot help it. When stuck here they stumble through a world of sensory deprivation leading to madness, and when given an out they are overloaded with the joy of new and unique experiences. It doesn’t matter to them if it harms the host: they don’t feel it and it can’t kill them. It becomes the ultimate high, and the ultimate escape from a crushing world of solitude and madness.

Of course, there is at least some force in their home that does its best to call them back, and that is their... “queen.“ She exists on her web of dreams, plucking gently at the strands, playing her enchanting song, drawing in and sending messages to all Night Wisps under her influence, and calling to those lost in the other, unforgiving, isolated existence.

Happy holidays everyone.

I have arrived at last. I just graduated with my Bachelors in Fine Arts a few days ago.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the next leg of life and where to go and what to do from here, so I figured I’d start with a picture of one of the characters who started me down this road.

My goal is to become a concept artist, illustrator, or storyboard artist someday, and one of my favorite things to do has always been to draw characters and monsters.