Role-Playing Games

monster illustration for sci-fi role-playing game extreme future

By The Illustrator | 2012/03/18 18:15 Posted in Extreme Future, Illustration, Role-Playing Games | Comments (1)

I’ve been working on the art for Extreme Future and its supplements. I was looking through the sketches I have on my hard disk, and I found a nice sketch of a sci-fi monster walking down a spaceship corridor. It’s in the tradition of Alien, and those sort of biological construct kind of monster aliens, but this alien – I call it the ‘Scorpiant’ – has cybernetics too.

The idea is that the creature can secrete metal as it grows, and so has a metal skeleton, metal claws, and a metal syringe sticking out the end of its tail that it can use to sting player characters – and NPCs too pf course – rather like a scorpion.

When there are a group of them , they organise themselves like an ant hill, with warriors, a queen, drones etc. But mostly warriors, this being an action and adventure game set in deep space.

I’m writing a new supplement for Extreme Future, which will include table to be rolled on when characters are traveling through deep space. They will be sort of like the wandering monster tables from old D&D, but there will be loads of encounters based around monsters, wrecked spaceships, distress calls coming from strange planets, space pirates and the like.

I think this illustration will make a fine cover, with a bit more work, but it is definitely heading in the right direction. It just needs to be perhaps a bit darker, with even more shadows in the spaceship corridor.

A female jedi knight

By The Illustrator | 2012/03/11 05:51 Posted in Heros in Time, Illustration, Role-Playing Games | Comments (0)

I’ve been working with my graphics tablet and GIMP for the last couple of hours, just so I would have something to post for Illustration Friday. Well that’s not quite true, I’m killing two birds, as it were, because if the illustration is good enough, it will end up being the cover for a role-playing game called Heroes in Time.

The female warrior, seen in the painting with her back to the fire on the bridge of a doomed spaceship, is actually just a detail of the finished painting. The picture will also have a barbarian in a cave, representing the other end of time.

In the game, the player characters can choose to play as different types of adventurer from the very beginnings of time, to the very end. So they can be a robot, a magic user, an investigator from modern times, or the most primal of cave people.

It was when I was cropping out a nice thumb to paste on Illustration Friday that I noticed that the female jedi could easily be the subject of her own painting.

I like the urgent and energetic the image has right now, but I’m aware it will need some smoothing out, some detail, and a few more hours of attention before it really reaches a place where it could be called a finished piece of digital painting.

I keep coming back to this image though – attracted by the juxtaposition between brutal cave thug and sophisticate spacewoman – so undoubtedly it will eventually get to that coveted polished state of a completed painting.

The barbarian standing beside our woman from the future looks a bit naked I just noticed. I think the next stage will be to paint him in some clothes :-).

Updated Front Page with Second Edition of the SciFi RPG

By The Illustrator | 2012/03/03 00:57 Posted in Extreme Future, Illustration, Role-Playing Games, Self Publishing | Comments (0)

Extreme Future, the sci-fi role-playing game, has been in its second edition for quite some time now, a few weeks at least, and I’ve finally gotten round to updating the front page of the sci-fi and fantasy publishing and illustration website to reflect that. I’m very proud of the new edition, and on top of a vastly expanded background galaxy – yes an entire galaxy – to adventure in, the game system is also now entirely designed in house.

Designing a dedicated game system, rather than using an off the peg system like FUDGE, was the only way to get the control I required. I wanted to make a game that was light on the bookkeeping, but heavy on cool detail and stats for all the sci-fi hardware of the setting, including robots, spaceships, weapons and monsters – oops, I mean belligerent aliens.

I quite like the cover as well, it sums up the busy environment of the game, with lots of action both in space and on planetary surfaces. It also emphasises the space opera aspect of the games, where some attempt has been made to keep things corresponding to real science concepts, but never at the expense of making things cool. Faster than light travel and communication are commonplace in the background to this role-playing game and psionics are also far from uncommon. One of the weapons available is even an approximation of the good old force sword famous from a certain blockbuster sci-fi movie that shall remain nameless.

And on top of all this there are also extensive rules for including mechs within the gaming experience. They fit into a space opera setting surprisingly seamlessly. RPG Drivethru has a few pages of the game that can be flicked through, and of course this sci-fi role-playing game is available for sale there too, take a look.

RPG spaceships with Blender

By The Illustrator | 2012/02/16 01:45 Posted in 3D, Blender, Extreme Future, Illustration, Role-Playing Games, spaceship | Comments (0)

I’m working on a new supplement for Extreme Future, the sci-fi role-playing game, it was released a few days ago and is already selling well. The new supplement will probably be based around a spaceship.

The spaceship will be something like a freighter or scientific exploration spaceship. It’ll be a small one; the perfect size for a group of adventurers to use it as a base and means of transport combined.

I’m planning to include all the usual goodies, including deck plans, a technical readout and lots of other detail, but I’ll also include some ideas about how it can be integrated into an ongoing sci-fi role-playing campaign game.

The first stage for me is to come up with a beautiful 3D render of the hull of the spaceship, and perhaps some concept art and some modeling of interior detail. As usual I’ll be posting lots of renders of it as a work in progress, before finally releasing the supplement, so many that regular readers of the blog will probably soon be sick of the sight of the spaceship.

It’s great to have the nuts and bolts of a huge and versatile science fiction, space opera setting where I can easily insert the hig-tech equipment I come up with. One of the beauties of sci-fi role playing is all the robots, spaceships, blasters and other assorted hardware that the players can choose for their adventurers, so take a look at the core rules for Extreme Future, the sci-fi role-playing game, which already has everything necessary for spaceship design, and slot the new spaceship in as soon as it’s done.

Second Edition of the Spaceship Space Opera Role-Playing Game

By The Illustrator | 2012/02/10 09:01 Posted in Heros in Time, Illustration, Role-Playing Games | Comments (0)

I’ve been meaning to overhaul Extreme Future for a while now, and here that marvellous little sci-fi RPG is, finally done. I’m also writing a couple of genre novels too, one fantasy novel set in the world of Realms Fantasy Role Playing, and another for later release, set in the Extreme Future galaxy.

The Sci-Fi book in particular is proving a lot of fun. The background I’ve already designed for the role-playing game is so rich that it’s easy to come up with stories that’ll play out against it. The spaceships are particularly fun, with pages and pages devoted to them, which means I’ll have to include spaceships in the sci-fi book, as soon as the fantasy book is complete that is.

I’m already a third of the way with the book, and having the world already designed for the fantasy book makes writing it a lot easier, and as I’m into RPGs, I can publish this richly imagined fantasy world as a game, where other authors have their worlds in a pile of notes that nobody else ever sees. It’s a shame.

Updating the games does of course mean that I’ll have to redo the home page of the website, grr, but it’ll be worth it once everything is sorted out.

Working on Some Fantasy Art

By The Illustrator | 2011/12/21 07:03 Posted in Heros in Time, Illustration | Comments (1)

I’m working on a few fantasy pieces at the moment. This image is going to illustrate the concept of wizard, or magic user for the new edition of my role-playing game. I’ve done about an hour’s work on it so far, and I can imagine it going in a nice direction, whether it actually does or not is another question. I’m back to blogging again, because I’ve finally released the new edition of Realms. The image above shws how it looked after a few minutes blocking colours in roughly and trying to come up with a composition.

Here’s Realms the role-playing game to buy at RPGDrivethru.

If you click through the link, the nice piece of text I wrote explains what the game is all about, but basically it’s set in a fantasy world similar to the world of European legend, full of fairies, giants, goblins and devil dogs.

That’s why I need a nice magic user image, an image where the magic user is looking powerful and commanding. It’s to go in the section where the players roll up their characters, and I want to instill a bit of confidence.

This image shows how things stand at the moment, after about 45 minutes work putting the first few hints of detail into the image. The whole thing looks a little wimpy at the moment, like the wizard is attending certain well known magical school. I’ll have to feed him a few steroids and beef him up a bit before the picture is complete. I’m particularly happy with the lightning at the moment. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of lightning on a dark and stormy night in a fantasy illustration.

New Photography Blog

By The Illustrator | 2011/12/07 00:01 Posted in Heros in Time, Role-Playing Games | Comments (0)

My favorite photographer just moved to a new blog, and I thought I would give her a shout out, and a link. To some great colorful photography and Venice pictures. I’ve been working on a bunch of stuff, including the second edition of realms – but that won’t see the light of day for some time yet. It’s getting an extreme makeover to better fit with the Heroes in Time RPG.

Heroes in Time just got reviewed on a website dedicated to role-playing games. And it’s a good read. Here are some excerpts.

“The core Heroes in Time rules …enable us to play any character from it’s world many time period/setting to form a player group. Even listing these eras are somewhat majestic : Primeval, Fantasy, Swashbuckling, Steampunk, Modern, Cyberpunk, and Space Opera….The concept of the Heroes of Time RPG that heroes recruited from across the timeline of the game’s world to form a problem-solver group. As member of the Temporal Guardians they are ready to be deployed in any point of history….

For each setting, the core rulebook contains a detailed history and timeline, possible occupations and abilities for the characters, as well as equipments, adversaries and adventure hooks. …

So what we get in the new book ? Mecha, and lots of it !….First, we receive a great description in Mecha Clash about mecha in general, and also their usage in Heroes in Time‘s world. We get to know which armies use them, how they are deployed, equipped, and what are their uses…..

The meat in the book is the detailed rules to create mecha on our own based on the rules provided. We receive a lost of options here, from basics like size, speed and weapons to more exotic features as tractor beams and transformation module…..

We also receive some sample mecha with both detailed statistics and point cost, which is a great help is you want to build your own mech, or you just need some ready to use adversaries for your Heroes in Time campaign…

As the rules provided for mecha use and combat are easy to learn, the whole sourcebook is easily connectable to an existing campaign….Heroes of Time fans out there should definitely take a look at it if they are like mecha.”

Both Mecha Clash and the Heroes in Time core rulebook are available on DriveThruRPG.

Mysterious character for role-playing games

By The Illustrator | 2011/09/07 17:33 Posted in Heros in Time | Comments (0)

I just added another supplement for download for the Heroes in Time role-playing game. It’s a shaman character showing how the rules can be used to create a starting character with real depth and interest, but also lots of room to gain experience and grow as they adventure through the game.

This is the cover art, and I wanted to make the shaman character look mysterious, but still adventurous, like he wouldn’t be afraid of meeting monsters in the deeps of the jungle. Enjoy – and if you like it, check out the RPG supplement.

Great review for the RPG (Heroes in Time)

By The Illustrator | 2011/09/05 07:43 Posted in Heros in Time, Illustration, Role-Playing Games | Comments (0)

I just got a great review for the Heroes in Time role-playing game on RPG Drive Thru. Here are a few choice excerpts, but you can read the whole role-playing game review here.

“…[With] extensive contents that includes the wide variety of settings for adventures – Primeval, Fantasy, Swashbuckling, Steampunk, Modern, Cyberpunk and Space Opera. While many would consider it ambitious to try and create a system that can deal with so many different genres, as the name suggests, it also intends to make it possible to have the same character be playable in all of them as the default setting has all the genres linked in a common timeline….

[E]ach setting gets a brief timeline of the main events of the era as well as a history, adventure ideas, information about the prevalence of Gods, the types of monsters as well as how special powers are viewed and how societies of the era tend to function…

Following the genres of play we reach details of the Temporal Lords, inspired by Dr Who and Sapphire and Steel, the far future human race with the ability to move backwards and forwards through time and the first mention of their adversaries, The Entropic Alliance…

[C]haracter creation – names, alignment (not just good vs evil, law vs chaos but also has suggestions such as logical vs emotional or detached vs engaged), suggestions for back-stories and the type of personality the protagonist will have (all nicely free of mechanics … so any suggestions could easily be used for any other game or as a simple guide for new roleplayers) and how they’re funded…

There’s a wide variety of examples for skills…

[T]he power list is extensive and covers so much it would be difficult to think of anything quickly that isn’t covered by the powers available. As I’ve been writing this review I cast my mind towards the X-Men but I reckon most or all of them could be made fairly quickly with the rules provided…

The equipment list is similarly extensive without feeling bloated – the main classes of weapon, armour and shield are all provided and extend through the genres and there is also a decent list of general equipment and magic items…

There are also pages devoted to robots, space ships …, poisons, diseases and environmental hazards as well as a small bestiary…

[A] simple system with a plethora of information and options to cover most genres and technology levels and manages to condense it all into a surprisingly small book for everything that’s contained within…

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars!”

It’s a great review, and I’m still working on the rules at the same RPG Drive Thru download link for anyone who already has the game.

work starts on new role-playing game cover

By The Illustrator | 2011/08/30 15:17 Posted in Heros in Time, Illustration, Role-Playing Games | Comments (0)

My new role playing game is called Heroes in Time and has everything needed to role play across an entire span of history from brutal primeval barbarian sword and sorcery to space opera and its laser battles, but the cover needs work. It is the element of this project that has been most severely letting it down uptil now.

This is the old cover, and it has lots of space opera sophistication, but no primeval brutality, and that is what I am in the process of changing. The new cover already has a more atmospheric colour scheme, and I have hacked out a more action oriented pose for the two player characters depicted. In terms of composition I quite like the way the text of the game’s title leads to what will be a light saber blade then across to the axe before landing up on the player character’s faces, which will of course be contorted in the depths of fear and determination, as most cover art characters are in these situations. The game content is evolving too, and the game itself is available from RPG Drive Thru. I’ll be adding a lot of internal art to the game too, as I work on the rules and add content. The great thing is that because the game covers all RPG genres, I can add whatever crazy ideas come into my head somewhere or other in the game.

Starbright Illustrations (blog)