Happy Halloween!
Sorry I didn't update my blog in a more timely manner this week, but I was stuck between two projects all week: Assembling the Dark Sun art order, and beginning my new design project (sorry, it's secret for the moment). The art order is a LOT of work, because we've got two large books with close to a hundred illustrations each, and each one of those illustrations needs an art suggestion.
Dark Sun's a little unusual in that we have a large amount of old reference material we want our new artists to be aware of. Gerald Brom's pencil work and cover paintings back in 2nd Edition Dark Sun were really, really good, and we don't want to lose too much of that magic as we update the setting. A big part of putting together the new art order is hunting down the best reference pieces from the older material and making sure we pass those along. For example: Remember that DRAGON magazine cover painting of the belgoi perching on the crag, holding out its bell with its spear in its other hand? We want the new belgoi art to capture that.
Speaking of the belgoi, I'm pretty proud of the 4e version of this monster; it's one of the monsters I worked on myself. They were always a problematic monster in 2nd Edition; the story indicated they attacked you in camp and tried to lure one PC at a time out into the desert. That just didn't play well at the table; as soon as the DM asks for Joe to make a saving throw and Joe fails it, the other players at the table are shouting things like "I tackle Joe to keep him from leaving!" or "I look for monsters out in the dunes!" In other words, player metagaming meant that the belgoi encounter never worked the way it was supposed to even though it was an evocative story. Secondly, the belgoi didn't fit in the scheme of monsters in 2nd Edition. They were clearly physical, living creatures-but they drained life energy with their touch. They acted like undead or outsiders, not humanoids. That always bugged me.
In 4e, I found that the belgoi made a lot more sense. First of all, I created a lurker belgoi that could skulk around the edges of another encounter and "ring up" a character while his friends were busy with some other threat. Now the monster summoning one PC out into the darkness is a viable part of an encounter. Then I built an elite controller belgoi who had an area-effect summoning bell power, something that could pull and daze or stun several characters at once-so you can take on the whole party at once instead of fiddling with the metagame-challenged idea of fighting one PC at a time while the rest of the party isn't in an encounter. Secondly, the 4e monster schemes helped me find a story about the belgoi that helped me out a lot. The belgoi are psionic *fey*, not natural humanoids. That's why they have their supernatural powers and the strange but flavorful focus of a bell for their mental summons. The Feywild of Athas is in pretty poor shape (more on that in another post, I guess), so centuries ago the belgoi abandoned it and became roving nomadic predators in the deserts. OK, that's sort of interesting. I think 4e helped the belgoi a lot. Now they live up to that beautiful, striking Brom painting that was the first glimpse of Dark Sun for so many D&D players back in the day.
OK, now for some quick War at Sea news... if you didn't see it before, Steve Winter (aka WotC Huscarl) posted an excellent piece on playing War at Sea sans grid. He ran his gridless game at a gathering of the Northwest Historical Miniature Gaming Society over at the Museum of Flight a couple of weeks ago, and reported great success with it. If you want to try a new spin on your War at Sea game, it's a lot of fun. We're working on reinforcing our art references and specifications for the set 5 models now, and we're finding that we've got some trouble tracking down top-down drawings on some of the more obscure ships (and a couple of not so obscure ones). If anybody out there knows of great resources for ship drawings, I'm all ears. Here's one in particular I'm looking for: the River-class frigates. We've got side-view drawings and zillions of photos, but no top-view drawings.
Last thought: Hey, my Phillies are tied up with the Yankees at 1 game each in the November Classic. I think that favors the Phils by just a smidgen: They wanted to come out of New York with a split, and they succeeded. But to make that pay off they need to take 2 out of 3 in Philadelphia. Right now we're looking at Hamels vs. Pettitte tonight, and then Blanton against Sabathia in game 4. I'm a little bummed that the Phils decided to pitch Lee twice instead of three times, but the good news is that Game 5 is going to be a big game no matter what happens in Game 3 and 4. Either the Phils will be trying to finish off the Yankees, win their 3rd game to put the Yankees on the ropes going back to New York, or stay alive by keeping the Yankees from sweeping them in Philly. Any one of those scenarios is worth your best pitcher... which makes me think that Charlie Manuel might be a little smarter than he lets on. Plus, we don't want to break Cliff Lee. We're going to want him for next season, too.
Oh! That tease about the Athasian Feywild . . . Don't keep us waiting too long!
Anondson01:01 PM PST