The Grinding Gear Cover + Updates

Art by Laura Jalo. I'm not entirely sure what to do about logo placement and effects though. What do you think?

Laura says the interior art should be done in the next couple weeks, and Mr. Dow says the maps should be done soon. I'm working with the printer to come up with an affordable yet impressive physical format. The original idea would have looked spectacular but cost $15 through Noble Knight, plus shipping, which is excessive since the actual adventure content, sans maps and handouts, is 16 pages. The US really has to do something about this Euro-Dollar exchange rate.

When all those elements comes together, this will go to press.

I'm still finagling Insect Shrine playtest dates, and in the meantime, the next project is underway, with the working title The Old Miner's Shame. It will be a short dungeon adventure (maybe 12 pages, maybe 16, with just one map) about dwarves. I have some larger projects on the horizon (the Sanitarium project and an introductory box set RPG) but I don't want to get busy with anything large until Insect Shrine is out the door.

FillerBugs

I just scanned in the "Filler Bugs" I asked Laura Jalo to do for me. These will basically be used when there is a bunch of white space at the end of a section of Insect Shrine, so you're not just looking at half a blank page. I had her do a dozen of these, since I had no idea how many I'd actually need. Here's a sample:


... and as of this week, all completed work has been paid for in full. Still working through map issues and still waiting on Aino's FillerBug.

This will look good.

Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill cover... now in fabulous COLOR!

I've been stressing about this for over a year, since I first saw the original line art. I even tried doing the color myself since I knew what the place was supposed to look like, but my illustration and Photoshop skills are pretty stinky.

But now the problem is solved.

Artwork by Laura Jalo, colors by Kevin Mayle.

Insect Shrine Art Preview

Tuesday night, Maria and I had Laura Jalo and her boyfriend Oskar over for dinner. Laura delivered the completed artwork hardcopies for Death Frost Doom, No Dignity in Death: The Three Brides (there are still a piece or two to go on this one), and Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill. She was also paid in full for the former two projects (at a shameful rate, honestly she should be paid as much for one picture as I paid for all of them... but that's one of the reasons for inviting them over for a big dinner), but it was the first time I got to see the actual pieces of art rather than a digital camera photo.

Laura completed her first piece for me last June, completed the last Insect Shrine piece for me April 14th, and has been doing ongoing work since then for the other projects. Her development in the past year has been tremendous, and I will be extremely proud to present the art in the finished projects.

But this also puts a lot of pressure on me. I'm not financing large print runs using traditional offset printing, I'm running a tiny publishing effort out of my living room. It will be too easy to screw up her artwork and have it end up blurry or otherwise flawed in the final output. Even having other people handling the printing doesn't mean it will come out so well, as first-print buyers of the Creature Generator can attest after comparing the cover image in the pdf and what appears on the physical booklet. And I'm not exactly "Mr. Graphic Design" as the judges of the One Page Dungeon contest should be aware of about now.

But I will do my best, both in the writing and in the presentation of the projects. It is my hope that when Insect Shrine is actually released (July... but we know how good my predictions are in these matters...) the embarrassment and ill-will concerning the delays will be forgiven (but not forgotten - smack me down if I ever utter the word "pre-order" again without an already completed-and-in-hand product).

But in the meantime, I present a thumbnail preview of the Insect Shrine artwork.

Striking a Nerve

Part of my investment in the whole Carcosa thing, besides my belief that imagination and expression of imagination should be absolute in its freedom, is that I have a couple of things in development that touch on similar sensitive areas. Remember my media influences, mind you... and... you know... fantasy gaming should be fantastic. Horror gaming should be horrific. And fantasy horror should be fantastically horrifying. :P

Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill's Goblin Kitchen... drawn by Laura Jalo... (image photographed, not scanned).

Why? Because there's no reason to use goblin bad guys if human bandits work plot-wise just as well. Bandits wouldn't do this. Creatures that saw humans as just another natural resource would though. And that's a pretty good reason for going after them, yes? And who else is going to be laired in a giant mound originally consecrated to ancient bug gods?

Plus I have this Duvan'Ku thing that I add notes to every so often (a collection of spells, items, and adventures relating to an ancient kingdom of the damned). A couple of examples of what was in there before I ever knew Carcosa had graphic content:

Dangerous Toys
Level: 1st
This spell causes a minor demon to inhabit a very small inanimate object. The demon wakes up, animating the object, when it is touched by a child. At that point the object will attempt to slay any living thing it comes across. The object then has AC Unarmored, MV Human Average, HD 1, #AT 1, D d6.

Storm of Fertility
Level: 9th
This spell impregnates every female of the same race as the caster in a large area. Before casting the spell, the caster must trap an extra-planar being in a containment circle. Casting this spell kills this creature, and this being is the father of the children it spawns. The spell affects an area one mile in diameter for every hit die of the trapped creature, with each female getting a saving throw to avoid its effects. The children will look like the mother’s race, mature at the rate of the mother’s race, but have the temperament, alignment, and abilities of the father.

Book of Faust
By reading this book, a character may make a pact with a devil and increase one ability score to 18 in exchange for one service to be rendered one year from the time of the ability score gain. At the one year mark, an Arch-Devil will appear in person to take that person to hell, and the character can not be raised or resurrected, and a wish to bring the character back will result in a crippled stump of a body, no limbs, blind, and dumb, being spewed forth from the Arch-Devil that had required service.

Chalice of Great Health
If a good creature is ritually sacrificed and its blood immediately collected in this cup, the drinker will be cured of any curses and diseases, magical or mundane.

Gem of Lifeforce Sight
This gem acts as a gem of seeing, but when looking through the gem all living beings will be seen as slowly rotting and dying, and the viewer will be able to tell the how long the creature will naturally live. This insults the soul of the viewed, and any creature that will naturally die (of age or disease) within a month will rise as a wight or wraith to hunt the viewer. Anyone else viewed with the gem that dies within 24 hours will also rise as a wight or wraith and hunt the viewer, feeling the violation contributed to its death.

LotFP: Corrupting Innocent Girls Since 2008

A couple months back, I was hanging out with Aino (Creature Generator artist and cover model, age 18 and three months when she did the cover and started on the art) when her mother called from back home. Apparently she'd wandered into Aino's room and saw a couple copies of the Creature Generator lying around... and wanted an explanation.

Currently I'm working with Laura (new Insect Shrine artist, turned 18 this past Friday, after starting the piece of work in question) in getting the goblin kitchen illustration just right. Her mother came in and saw what she was working on... and this was the message I got while on messenger with her yesterday: "Oh god. My mother just came to my room and looked at my drawing... My mom said this is absolute sick piece of shit^^ this is too brutal for her^^"

I'm pleased about this. I'm a longtime metalhead/horror movie freak, and I can only assume what might be gross or disgusting to a normal person, because I'm immune to it. And for me, it is imperative that this goblin kitchen (and later, the torture chamber) be as explicit as possible... because goblins are too-often thought of as some toothless generic low-level fantasy menace, and they need to be seen as a true menace and deadly enemy of mankind. When it comes to establishing why the goblins should be taken seriously and evoke a true reaction from the players, I don't think it'll be sufficient to tell you... I want to show you.

Today, I was concerned that the art might mysteriously disappear. I've been assured: "I've hidden them in a secret location, heh^^" So they'll be safe until they're finished and then scanned.

Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill

It's going to be that kind of adventure.

Illustration by Laura Kristiina Jalo. Eight more to come. Although I'd better stop being so excited about them and posting them immediately or else there won't be any surprises when people get the actual thing. A note about the artwork: She's working from written descriptions taken directly from the text. There are no lame "Jim sketches" to work from this time. The exact text I gave her that she used to produce this picture:

The PCs will first come into this room exactly four days after the pegasus gives birth. The room is mostly bare, with a cage with great iron bars taking up the majority of the space. In the straw-lined cage is the pegasus’ vacated body (wings entirely stripped of feathers) against the back wall, five small flying dire wolves alternatively tearing at a piece of meat and flying about the 20’ tall room. The door of the cage is chained and locked shut. Human and goblin bones line the cage and bloodstains are everywhere. When the PCs enter the room, the wolves will begin howling, which is cause for a wandering monsters check, and the witch doctor and his guard will arrive in 1d6+4 rounds if they have not already been dealt with.

There are also some fun things to come. Some instructions I'd given to her: "The goblin kitchen and torture chamber are the ones I'm most concerned about, as far as the right atmosphere. This will sound weird to say... but the stuff I'm writing is for a game that's been out of print for 20 years... so most of the people that end up buying it are going to be fairly old... and I want them to feel queasy and sick looking at this."

It was my original goal with Insect Shrine to make the best damn adventure people had yet seen from the new wave of simulacrum products coming out and to make everyone else seem lazy... in 2006. So I guess I've failed on the laziness score.

But writing progresses again now that I've got a collaborator working on the visuals, and I can tell you... my goal isn't really to make the best damn adventure that people have yet seen from the new wave of simulacrum products. No no no. After all this shit, all the trouble, and all the stupidity I went through in life between the time I announced it and now, I fully intend for Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill to stand with the classics.

This adventure is full of death, despair, violence, cruelty, corruption, grief, a dark oppressive atmosphere, weird science, a blasphemous religion for a mad god, an impossible challenge, no-win situations, gallows humor (yeah, "I don't want to go on the cart!" is funny... unless you're the one saying it) and maybe, just maybe, the chance for wealth, power, and/or glory. Get rich or die trying. Death before dishonor. Everything that critics of role-playing accused it of being and everything its practitioners knew it really was.

I will succeed wildly or I will fail miserably. All or nothing. Going for broke.

Insect Shrine of Goblin Hill. Coming whenever it's done... because I'll probably get all excited about the Stone Hold Asylum adventure when Aino starts turning in that stuff. :p