 |
| Illustration rough by Ian Baggley |
Ian Baggley delivered this rough (i.e., unfinished) illustration today to check over. Even though it's just a "rough," it's still pretty amazing. I threw him a curve-ball: I asked for a silhouette-style illustration (because it needs to stand out on a 2-page spread that has two other illustrations that are larger), and oh man did he deliver! It's so cool!
Ian might be best known among gamers for his copious artwork in the North Wind Adventures products, wherein he shows his amazing skill with charcoals (I believe). But the above rough shows he has skill with other media too! Dark Druids will feature at least 14 illustrations by Ian, most of which are inked from pencil sketches. (That's my layman's guess based on the end result. Apologies, Ian if I got the detail wrong there!)
Over the coming weeks, I'll show some previews from all the other involved artists. (Reminder: Rob already posted a Dark Druids art preview by Andy "ATOM" Taylor a couple weeks ago.)
Once I'm a little closer to being done with the production, I'll put some teaser info on the Chaotic Henchmen Productions site. (I don't want to put any info there until I'm more confident about ship date, price, etc.) In the mean time, here are some random factoids: 56 pages; classic-style detached cover with maps on the cover interior; outdoor section plus three dungeon levels; 71 keyed areas; an outline for continued adventures; historical commentary about how the content was used in the original campaign; a bunch of new magic items; four new monsters; a new class and cult; roughly 40 spells; roughly 50 illustrations!
Ian does great work and I had the opportunity of expressing that to him at a past Garycon.
ReplyDeleteOnly forty new/reworked spells? I must be slipping... ;)
How will this edition compare to previous editions? Is there additional material?
ReplyDelete@Joseph: The eventual product page on the CHP site will list the differences between this printing and previous printings, so potential buyers can make an informed decision. For now, here's a brief run-down...
ReplyDeleteThe "adventure" portion is more-or-less identical in all the printings, other than details related to usability with AD&D vs. d20 vs. Creations Unlimited system.
This new version...
- Includes various "accessory" material (I'll say more about this in the coming weeks) that was not present in the 2002 TLG/d20 version. (But is in the 2006 version.)
- Fixes map glitches that were present in the 2002 TLG/d20 version. These glitches didn't make it unplayable; just inconvenient/confusing.
- Includes full spell selections for the 10+ NPC spell casters; these were not included in the 2006 PPP/CU version.
- Includes one new spell that was missing from the 2006 PPP/CU version.
- Has been re-organized, to be more usable at the table. It has with a new, clean layout and re-rendered high-resolution maps.
- Has roughly 50 all-new illustrations, many of which are intended for showing the players during play. (Note that the 2006 PPP/CU version contained no illustrations.)
- Is a print-only product, with two of the four main maps on the detached classic-style cover. (The 2006 PPP/CU version was pdf-only.)
If you already have the 2006 PPP/CU pdf version, and you're comfortable doing on-the-fly conversions from the CU stats (not hard), then this new version may not be compelling for you. But I tried to make sure that the new version would will still be useful, if only for the illustrations and NPC spell selections.
Personally, I'd much prefer to run this new version because of the layout & organization improvements.
Thanks, Guy. It's pretty much a given that I'll be buying it, but was curious about the differences. Appreciate it!
ReplyDelete