Who Needs A Science Fantasy Bestiary?

(hopefully you do)

Ideas become compulsions, at least for me they do. An image, a concept, a product comes to mind and my brain refuses to rest until I act. One of those ideas is a science-fantasy setting for an RPG and, after a couple years, is now seeing the light of day.

[CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE KICKSTARTER PROJECT]

The Project

Which Comes First;
the Chicken or the Egg?

Doing the complete setting is a difficult and costly proposition since I pay most of the project costs before going to Kickstarter. Art-heavy books that use commissioned art—especially so. Therefore, it made sense, to me at least, to break the project down into separate zines/books.

I made the choice to start with a bestiary. Bestiaries require many illustrations (at least one per entry, and in a very inefficient way. That makes sense because visualization helps the GM describe the creature and provides some inspiration for for the table.

It is inefficient because even small-is portraits are basically 1/4 page art piece shrunk down. There is no discount on art below a certain size because it takes the artist the same time to complete.

While I could supplement the book with stock art, and there is plenty of good work out there, I choose not to go that route with this project. I want the setting to exude a vibe that is both specific and consistent. I wanted an artist to have influecence on the setting. Once I determined that Matthew Sargent was the artist (and he accepted, the course was set..

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Inspiration Inspires Inspiration?

Writing a setting is a daunting task, at least for people like me. A “world” doest not come fully formed. For me, the development is a spiral, swirling to the center. The more details that one establishes, the easier it is (for me at least) to move forward. That is what the bestiary is, inspiration for the setting.

Before going to Zac with the project, the background was already in place. With general history established and key concepts developed, the skeleton was good, but it needed fleshing out. Pinterest is a good took for collecting images for various projects. For Blood Sands, I created an artboard that leaned pretty heavy into sci-fi pulp novels of yesteryear, handed him the images (and the setting skeleton) and told him to make stuff up. And that he did.

The details from the bestiary are now being folded back into the setting.

The Future

Finishing the Bestiary Art

The writing is done. Editing is completed. Layout is locked in. The only thing we await is the art. And there is a lot of art. Matthew is a professional artist, meaning he makes his living making art. We are now slotted into his schedules and over the next few months, we should have all the art in-hand.

The Setting

We have about 14k words written for that project. I hired an imaginative and productive freelancer to fill out the book in a way that I couldn’t (that is another story). This will mean a steady climb in work count until we get to the end, which I hope to have a finished product by the end of the year.

The setting book will include plenty of NPCs and adventure hooks to fuel your games for years.

Adventures

One adventure is currently in the works, and several more ideas are flagged for review and development. The goal is to have adventures of differing lengths that lean heavily into the “uniqueness” of the setting.

While there are more details and plans to share, I will save that for another time. Thanks for reading and please, click the link to check out the Kickstarter.

No Sleep Till Brooklyn,
Jeff Jones