Points of Interest (Art/Story) · 3:23pm Jan 31st, 2021
So, it's Sunday. I'm in my hotel room in Washington, D.C., watching light snow fall outside the window. According to the weather report, we should be getting several inches by mid-afternoon. It's quiet here so far, like a good Sunday morning should be.
Seems like a good time to fill you all in on what I've been doing lately.
We'll start with the content front, because most of you care about stories. I'm happy to say that the next (long delayed) chapter of The World is Filled with Monsters is coming along very nicely. I may even have it ready to publish in the next day or two, which I think will restart that story and push it toward the third act and end.
I have a new story I'm working on too, a collaboration with my friend GaPJaxie. Don't worry, it's not a grab-bag of philosophy, ethics and supervillainry like our Starlight and Pals story (though I do love that one greatly, and if you do too, thank you). This one's an adventure and a bit of a bildungsroman set in a very different pony world, the one he describes in his latest blog post here.
So, Ponyfinder. Or Pathfinder. Never played either before, but Ether Echoes was starting a game, GaPJaxie was in, and, I mean, what else are we doing in the pandemic winter? So I signed up, and promptly got to work drawing and writing about Solanum:
Feall Diermad hasn’t had an official census in centuries, but even if the world hadn’t fallen so far that such things were no longer comprehensible – much less possible – Solanum still wouldn’t count. Born to a 14-year-old mare who made some poor choices with an equally immature itinerant farmhand, she was named after her father’s favorite vegetable and promptly abandoned at the local abbey.
The Sisters at the abbey did their best to provide her with a moral upbringing, as they did for all orphans given over to their care, but Solanum was at best a half-hearted student. The only lessons she could bear sitting through were the stories of lost, wondrous Riocht De and the glories of those ancient ponies to whom she and all others living today are poor, unworthy heirs. She fell in love with ancient, mythical heroes – Caoimhe, the Faultless Spear, who slew the ravenous Sluagh on the shores of the Sanguine Ocean; Eibhleann, the Radiant Herald, who first brought the light of the Daoine to the world; but most of all the ghostly Teimhnin, who could cross the moors in a single step, vanish in the brightest of sunlight, and always came to the aid of the poor, the distraught, and the forgotten.
The story behind her cutie mark – or, indeed, what her cutie mark actually represents – varies with the telling and merits no mention here. But when her mark appeared at the age of 13 the Sisters of the abbey rejoiced, gave her a gold coin, and turned the newly adult Solanum out into the world, her head full of stories and little else. With no practical skills, no family to rely upon and no higher purpose in life than to survive, Solanum seemed destined to join the detritus of beggars, prostitutes or roving bandits that filled in the cracks of a decaying world.
But there was something in those stories the Sisters told that stuck with her, that guided the arrow of her fate as a lodestone draws iron. She knew what a hero was, and she knew that she wanted to be one.
Today, Solanum rarely thinks about her birth name. She’s spent too many years (well, only a few, if we’re being honest) skulking about the shadows, learning how to press her tiny body into spaces where nopony would think to look, and discovering all the ways to remain hidden when an angry merchant sought eagerly for a strip of her hide. Now she thinks of herself as other ponies do, answering the question, “Where’s Solanum?”
She’s Somewhere.
And... that was fun. I hadn't drawn ponies in most of a year, and you can see the picture is a bit rough. But I enjoyed the setting and the characters so much that I started drawing more, and more. Lately I've been the team's artist, doing portraits for everyone I can. I think this is the one I like the most:
Very stronk unicorn
And when I say I did art. I mean, I did art.
Character art:
I made some lore sheets for eventual release:
Maps. Did you know I love making maps? I didn't either, but I do. We have world maps:
Regional maps:
Battle maps:
And even Point of Interest maps, which have been a delightful mix of lore, art and layout:
So, yeah, I've still been busy with ponies, even if it wasn't always obvious from my presence here. But I never really left FimFic – I was just lurking in the background, waiting for the desire to overcome the aggravation and slog that was 2020. And as much as this post was about art, you all know that my true love, the thing I really consider myself skilled at, is writing. It is the creative effort I will always return to at the end of the day, even if I may go on some odd, long detours in the process.
Thanks for your patience, folks. I hope to share more of this world Ether Echoes is letting us play with.
The maps are to die for in how gorgeous they are.
I liked the last ponyfinder character I built. Clockwork pegasus archer with a built in crossbow. I named her Rose Gold as is fitting for a clockwork made of it.
OKAY I'LL ADMIT IT!
I only made her because the mental image of a clockwork pegasus spitting arrows out her mouth and her wings being the arms of the crossbow was just the perfect level of silly and adorable to me.
Wow, that is some fantastic work!
Not to sound like a hopeless nerd even by the standards of this website, but maps are always fun.
You make me so jealous. Sigh. So whatcha’ doing in DC, the wretched hive of scum and villainy ?
That character art is amazing, my man. It's been wonderful to watch your art skills improve over all these years.
This is tremendously cool stuff! Celtic pony fantasy? Awesome.
And yes, good maps -- and yours look great! -- are always nice to see.
sourcebook when? :B
I would subscribe to this campaign's newsletter in a heartbeat.
This looks amazing and epic.
I wanna see more. Can you release the rest of the drawings you made? Will there be a way to see all of them? Maybe even a printing?
Damn dude, you truly are multi-talented. You’re like Aragon minus the insanity.
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I'm part of the core staff for what was known as Operation Warp Speed under President Trump, and is now known as Operation We-Don't-Know-What-Our-New-Name-Is.
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You mean something like this?
i.imgur.com/WmfO7CC.png
I dunno. Maybe soon :p
(It's a collaborative project and Ether Echoes owns the intellectual rights, so I can't make any promises. But it's been a lot of fun to create.)
Ooh, those maps look like they were quite a bit of fun to make and think through. I also really like the naming style for the lands and pony breeds.
5445291 I've been part of a lot of presidential transitions. They rename *everything* but the underlying rules stay remarkably the same. Agencies have much the same treatment. I don't think we've had a transition since 1980 where at least one agency has not been renamed, including ours. We're on our fourth name since I started, and nobody knows what it stands for.
Phase 1 : The idea of merging two agencies is floated, or the shifting of a responsibility from A to B, etc...
Phase 2: A great deal of behind-the-scenes chaos occurs, certain Senators take contrary positions, a great number of political donations happen.
Phase 3: No, we never intended on doing that. Everything's fine. We don't know how people got that idea. Honest. We're just renaming some of them.
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This sounds like an episode of Yes, Minister...
5445380 You just don't appreciate the fine points of that wonderful show until you've worked in the guts of government for a few years. It's like Dilbert had illegitimate children with Cyanide and Happiness, then put them all in charge as your bosses and co-workers.
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I don't even play, and that cover has me excited. :D
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Imma tease u jus' cuz i can
i.imgur.com/pZHpt6a.jpg
I'd recognize the distinct style of Campaign Cartographer and a whole mess of its add-ons anywhere.
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Interesting, I've never seen different Goblin varieties though I'm only a newbie with 5e. Your artwork looks great, I love the shadow skulls with weapons? Those guys. Good to hear from you
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Inkarnate, actually! I've studied most of the popular mapping software out there, and it's my favorite so far.
5445623 Ah, Inkarnate! I stand corrected.
I'm a fan of it; it's not as powerful as CC3+, but it's also a LOT more user-friendly because it doesn't have its roots in hardcore CAD programs, with their "don't already know how to use this? No, fuck YOU" philosophy of UI design.
Also a big fan of HexKit, which is another step down in power but is priced dirt cheap for something that looks as good as it does.
I'm shocked by this sudden deluge of pony campaign art and writing! Amazing stuff. Please keep it up!
Niiice. :)
Glad it sounds like you're enjoying the game! And thank you for sharing. :)
(I already wanted to play in it after GaPJaxie's post, but now want to more -- sadly, even if there were no other obstacles to that (far from certain, and I've not even asked), I'm already in a well-established RPG group and probably don't have the time to be in another one at the same time.)
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Oh, wow. Uh, I was going to say something about hoping things were going well for you because I want things to be going well for you, but now I hope things are going well for you for you and a lot of other people too. Good luck, indeed.
Between you and Jaxie's character bios, this campaign sounds like a banger.
Woohoo, happy to see you're still about. Gonna be re reading the world is filled with monsters, sos I can get into the next chapter properly. Excellent art, as well.