WoAF - Game Session 59 - Comic

Another experiment with AI... this time using DashToon to create a Comic from the Way of All Flesh Story.  While only a tiny fragment, I'm trying to get a feel for what can be done, and how much work it takes to do it.  This took me about 30 minutes during lunch.  It is not perfect.  It is difficult to get the prompts to show what I actually want and requires many generations to get something close enough to use.  In the end - I suspect we are close to something usable, but not quite 100% there yet.  As ever, prompting is the problem.  Still, though... I nevertheless like how this came out.  Pretty neat.

WoAF - Game Session 59

Dr. Capek

Having defeated the four Nazi UFOs, our heroes had begun their journey back to Earth.  Not far behind them were the eighteen Nazi technicians manning the two UFOs that they had managed to repair before escaping the smoldering ruins of the super-secret Nazi Moon-Fortress, Eisenhelm.  Far below them, a thin cloud of gray smoke slowly wafted over the moon's surface from the burning wreckage of that once mighty Moon-Bastion of Nazi Totalitarianism, the first and last of its kind... and good riddance, thought our heroes as they sped away.   

It should be noted that the last UFO that Team Purple hurtled into Eisenhelm's Hanger C caused a massive explosion, killing many Nazi soldiers who had been preparing their next assault on another Nazi faction from that location.  Yet, the explosion failed to eliminate Hanna Schiller, who was a bit too far underground on Level C3, having taken refuge with a certain Doctor Karel Capek, the chief Roboticist of General Hertling's military command hierarchy.  But our story leaves her and Capek to their fate, and follows our heroes on their journey back to Earth.

Not far from the moon, Shadow Hawk and the two UFOs trailing behind her, encountered the derelict space armada known as the "The Phalanx", floating towards Earth.  The armada was composed of fifty Giant Nuclear Missile Robots, each of which had been programmed to fly to a major Earth capital and explode its 500 megaton cobalt bomb.  Due to the incredible power, and extremely lethal radioactive footprint of this type of bomb, this event would have certainly exterminated all life on the surface of the planet.  

Fortunately, at the last, Ling, Vallnam and Jacab had managed to disable The Phalanx during the Eisenhelm Civil War that they had so craftily caused.  And so, now they had arrived at The Phalanx, its fifty monstrous robot emissaries of doom completely inert.  Not a light blinked, nor gear moved among the great fifty.  The robots were immobile, free floating, and entirely harmless.  However, they also happened to be on a trajectory towards Earth and it didn't take the three more than a few moments to realize that left to their current course, the robots would continue on to Earth, and one at a time, fall through the atmosphere and hit whatever was before them.  There was a reasonable probability that the impact alone would cause little harm, however they also conjectured that such an impact could detonate the nuclear weapons inside.  Perhaps not all of them, but even a few of the fifty exploded, it would bring incredible destructive force to their already badly wounded world.  They still faced a potential extinction level event. They decided to act.  

The technicians they rescued from Eisenhelm were eager to help.  After all, they were on a one way trip to The Mother World, and they felt it incumbent upon them not to see it destroyed.  They proposed removing the bombs, detonating them in space, and then reprogramming the robots to convert them into useful powerhouses of machinery, capable of taking orders and performing fantastic feats of strength and construction.  An ideal gift for the bustling new civilization of Earth, indeed.  They hoped to bequeath them to the new Earth Government, so that their arrival would prove beneficial to Earth, and give them a chance to present themselves as something other than mere lunar refuges, and potential enemies.  This idea struck a chord with Ling and the others, and so they agreed.  Vallnam directed them to try one robot, and if that worked, they could proceed with the others, provided the first one didn't take so long that the total time needed exceeded the time it would take for the robots to begin falling into Earth's atmosphere.  That gave them seven days.  The technicians were optimistic they could do it.  They got to work on the first one, flying their UFO to it, depositing two of their best on the giant machine, with the remainder flying off to a safe distance of about eight hundred miles along side Shadow Hawk and the other UFO.   

The two technicians got busy.  After grueling, diligent effort they were able to delicately disengage the bomb, and floated it outside the robot into space.  However, as it turned out, removing the bomb was the easy part.  The greater challenge was in the reprogramming of the robot's computer core.  In fact, it was protected by an impenetrable cypher-encryption mechanism that if tampered with incorrectly would cause an enormous amount of trouble.  If they didn't get this right, once re-activated, the Robot was capable of taking actions that could revive the entire armada, and put them all back on their original mission plan.  That would be a terrible outcome, of course, so they were being very careful.  They tried delicately three times, and each time they had to back away.  The tinkering with the cypher-block was simply beyond their skill.  And so the two technicians gave up on this attempt and had their UFO come pick them up.  Once together with their team, they began serious deliberations on how to overcome the blocking encryption.  

"If only Nick had made it with us!  He could have disarmed it without a second thought!" they bemoaned.

Meanwhile, as the technicians brought all their mental powers to bear on the discussion, in the rear of their UFO one member, a certain Dietrich Keller, son of the late Captain Keller, was suffering with some unknown ailment.  They had been so busy, the technicians had all but forgotten about him.  But now, it became evident that his suffering was something they could no longer ignore, and so they alerted Team Purple as to the situation.  Inquiries were made.  

It seemed that he had been injured as the technicians had fled Eisenhelm.  As one of the technicians described to Vallnam, Keller had been the last one aboard.  It had been his responsibility to disconnect the power couplings from the UFOs before takeoff.  He had been operating the Power Coupling Station on the western wall of Hanger B when everyone clambered aboard the UFO.  At the last moment, as soon as the ship had as fully charged its power banks as time would allow, he de-coupled the power cable, and turned to make his run for the UFO.  As he disabled the power coupling and turned to run, however, he suddenly lurched, cried out, and staggered forward clutching his neck.  With no time to spare, several technicians ran out and grabbed him, hustling him into the ship. They took off right behind the first UFO just before an explosion rocked Hanger B, and brought the rocky ceiling down.

Keller was not doing well.  He was suffering from a nasty looking red welt on his neck, they said, and explained that they had laid him down on a bench with a blanket, and then went to work flying the UFO, which was difficult in those cramped conditions, given that none of them had any actual piloting experience.  The two UFOs wobbled their way behind Shadow Hawk, and soon everyone had more or less forgotten about technician Keller, being busy manning the ship, and helping to guide it into space.

Ling thought it best that they take a look at Keller.  She asked Vallnam and Jacob to suit up in their Shadow Hawk armors and go to the UFO to see what could be done for the poor fellow.  And so the two heroes found themselves once again flying on the magnetic waves towards the Nazi UFO.

The UFOs are very bizarre ships, by the way.  On the outside they look like what you would think of as a "normal" flying saucer, with a burnished silvery exterior, domed top, and three distinctive small domes on the lower belly of the vessel.  The three domes comprised its weapons array.  On the inside, however, they were quite strikingly different than any ships found on Earth.  They were filled with glowing vacuum tubes, shiny bronze controls, bronze-plated meter dials of various sizes and a slick metallic monitoring screen on the dome.  They had three (rather uncomfortable) chairs, each facing one of the small thickly-glassed port holes.  The air was filled with crackling and buzzing noises at all times.  At the center of the vessel was the engine, encased in a bell shaped device known as "Die Glocke," which contained the top secret Red-Mercury Vortex Engine, that was responsible for creating the anti-gravity field, and maintaining the Stasis-Field within the ship's confines.  The ship could move at a maximum of 30,000 miles per hour, and could, at lower speeds, within the Earth's atmosphere, make hairpin turns without significantly effecting the crew.  Each came with a battery of three weapons:  The Lightning Cannon, Plasma Beam, and the Liquid-Metal Cannon.  The armor of the ship was an alloy created by Science Center 5, known as Titanhaltbar-236, sufficient to repel most forms of kinetic attack.  Vallnam and Jacob sailed to the ship, and attained the airlock.

Once inside, they found the huddled technicians, trying to find a space to stand, or crouch, or lay down.  Three of them were in the Command-Chairs at their regular stations:  Pilot, Navigator and Weapons.  The rest had to make due as best they could.  The UFOs were really designed for a three man crew, so nine in each ship was a terrible squeeze. The air was stifling, while lack of space and protruding electronics hindered their movements, and the noise incessant. Nevertheless, they made do, and were earnestly pursuing their deliberations regarding the cypher-block.  Vallnam and Jacob went to the rear and examined Keller.

Jacob had some medical training, and so made a careful examination.  Keller lay on the bench wrapped in a woolen blanket, now stained with blood and thin streaks of grey puss.  He was staring, his eyes glaring as they tried to see through his chin to his neck.  He was breathing heavily, his face a mask of agony.  He could only manage to move his lips, but not speak.  Jacob drew closer and examined the wound.  What had been described to him as a red welt was no longer merely that.  It had apparently transformed into an open wound, from which protruded a small thorn like object, perhaps a quarter inch in length, dark red, and bristling with thin branches that appeared to extend into the flesh of his neck.  Jacob turned on the bio-scanner of his suit, and with careful tuning was able to trace the tendrils from the thorn using its FLIR-like imagery system.  The tendrils became microscopic, and penetrated all the way into Keller's nervous system.  And it appeared they were growing.  Jacob noted that the flesh around the tendrils was being affected as well, turning from normal tissue into a kind of puss-filled lumpy gray mass.  It was pretty disgusting, actually, but a true veteran, he managed to control his gag reflex.

Jacob urgently reported his findings back to Ling and Jacob via their telepathic link.  The thing in his neck appeared to be extending tiny tendrils into the poor man's nervous system.  He decided to cast a Narcoleptic Beam on the thing to see if it might inhibit its growth.  The effect was to put Keller into a deep dreamless sleep, which was a mercy, but it had no effect on the thorn at all.

"Whatever is afflicting Keller, it is not normal.  At all.  Very far from it," said Jacob.

They had to do something, and quickly.  The three heroes began to discuss their options, and sought for advice and capabilities that might be latent within Shadow Hawk, the Modroni spaceship that had already provided them with so many amazing surprises.  What their inquiries revealed on this occasion was that the ship had been equipped with a Short Range Teleporter, and more interestingly, a Shrink/Grow Ray.  These could be used in conjunction with each other to deposit large specimens, or equipment, at tiny sizes into a specially constructed "Container Jar", which sat in a hidden alcove somewhere further back in the ship.  But exactly what do do with it, if anything, under these circumstances was something to be debated.  And so they did. 

Meanwhile, a certain dark amorphous dog-like cloud hovered somewhere near UFO-T1, observing from a distance with keen anticipation...   

What is a Homebrew RPG?

There I was enjoying a nice warm cup of java the other morning when the topic of Homebrew came up in conversation, as it often does. Some people were saying that they homebrewed their game by altering the rules of a popular RPG. After spewing some java out my nose, I let out an anguished cry. How can that be what you mean by Homebrew?! I asked incredulously. I was offered a few quips in reply, but nothing that was said assuaged my feeling that this really was not the right word for what they meant. So I'd like to clarify what I mean when I say "Homebrew" in relation to RPGs.

I started GMing in 1978 with my first World, and first rules system, both going by the name of Elthos RPG. The rules I created after a skim-reading of "Men & Magic", the first volume of the original three (and highly magical) D&D booklets. My rules system had a couple of design goals. One was to eliminate the odd zig-zag math used by OD&D. I wanted even charts with easy to remember values. The second goal was to centralize (what later became known as) Conflict Resolution. I created one centralized chart that pits Difficulty Level vs Skill Level for all possible skills. In this way I wanted to avoid the need for endless additional charts for all of the doodads I might want to add to Elthos over time. The goal was to create a Homebrew system that I could rely on to only change in ways that make sense for me as the GM, and to avoid being tethered to rules systems that would inevitably alter the nature of the world itself. Thus I would be able to maintain my world for a long time exactly the way I envision it, and my world's history would not be subject to the whims of TSR's rules editions over time.

These two design decisions resulted in a system that has served me well for 40+ years.

The second leg of Homebrew is the Setting. My world is my own creation. Sure, of course I borrow ideas from many sources, historical and literary, but there is no tether that is tied to any of them. As such my world's only cannon is it's own history. The reason I wanted it this way is to keep my players from being "in the know" about things in the world that would be much more entertaining as surprises, than facts they encountered elsewhere. To me this is much more fun for everyone.

So for me, the word "Homebrew" suggests a creation from more or less whole cloth by the Gamemaster. Filled with surprises and idiosyncrasies that make sense to their creators, and are not beholden or tied to some corporate behemoth. It is the freedom and versatility of Homebrew that attracts my ardor. I think from a creativity perspective Homebrew is definitely the way to go.

As for what I think the correct word for what was mentioned by my buddy online the other morning is "House Rule". Homebrew and House Rule are two different things. There is some overlap, of course, but they are really quite distinct in my mind.

What do you think? Am I right about this? What's your definition of Homebrew?

Bruno of Elthos

I got a Wacom CTL-470 Tablet.  It's an older, simpler model... an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

So, you can guess what comes next ... I shall of course be posting some of my better sketches here.  Just some fun things to pass the time, and I do want to learn how to draw a little better so I can update my Elthos Core Rules Book with some nicer looking art.   So here we go.

The latest greatest ...  introducing Bruno of Elthos.

Of course, you want to exercise your own creativity.  That's perfectly natural.  Unfortunately, in this day and age, most people say to themselves "oh, I can't do art", and "I'm not the creative type." along with a great deal of other nonsense.

Why not take up a creative hobby for yourself?  May I recommend https://elthos.com as an excellent place to start?  Go ahead.  Make both of our days.  :) 

Create your own World.

Whitewode Township Tactical Map

Spoiler Alert! If you are one of my players you may want to avert your eyes from this post until the end of the Whitewode Campaign.

In addition to making Story / Plot Maps, I also, of course like to make Tactical Maps which in this case shows the layout of the North West corner of the town.  To the upper right is the infamous Black Raven Inn, and on the upper left is the Church of Whitewode, Library, and School House, as well as Reverend Russel's Pastoral Residence outside of which you can see the Player Character Group has assembled.

RPGs do happen to be the most creative and fun hobby in the World.  I think I could prove that in a court of law.

Here's an overhead view with the main locations investigated thus far labelled.

I would like to say that the RPG community has done a spectacular job creating gorgeous maps these past few years.  Absolutely gorgeous.  This is not one of those.  This is instead a purely functional Tactical Map intended for use as the primary focal point for combat and movement of groups during the final phase of the Whitewode Campaign.  It is even possible, frankly, that it may not be used very much at all, if it turns out the Party avoids the upcoming war with the Pechs and Gnolls, and slips away.  That said, I am considering how to embellish it with a bit more artistic flair.  I'm thinking of coloring in the rooves with tiles, and whatnot.  Any suggestions would be happily considered.  :)

Whitewode Campaign Story Map - Version 4

Below is the final version of the Whitewode Campaign Story Map. As I mentioned in my previous post this kind of map is used as a memory device to allow me to see the grand sweep of the Campaign at a glance. It shows major characters, related objects, moods, and key events occurring currently as relates to Whitewode.

Spoiler Alert! If you are one of my players you may want to avert your eyes from this post until the end of the Whitewode Campaign.

The map has not substantially changed from the earlier versions, which looked like this:

Version 1

The first version is the simplest and contains the roughest overview, but would be sufficient to run the Campaign with.  What it represents is a snapshot in time of who is who and where they are located, showing some additional elements such as mood and relationships.

Version 2

The second version shows the same information, but with more detail.  However in this case I left out the relative locations information as I ran out of room on the side of the paper where things would normally go.  As you can see, it is an evolution of the first map and includes some additional detail, such as the key at the bottom which shows various objectives of specific characters or groups in the Campaign.

Version 3

The third version is a combined and more complete combination of the first and second versions, which I posted in my previous blog post A Few Notes on Story Mapping which explains in more detail what is being shown.  This version (3) certainly has enough detail to run with and includes everything I probably would need for the campaign.  However, as I ruminated over version 3 I recalled additional elements that while not essential, might easily come into play soon.  I also wished to clarify the environment such as the borders of Whitewode village, and give further hints as to the characters and include each of their most important aspects, which you can see in what was the blank space for notes earlier.

So here is version 4 which I am considering final for the purposes of tonight's game.

Version 4 - Final

Note: if you want to see the enlarged view of the Story Map you can Right-click the image, and open in a new window. This will give you the jpg itself which most browsers will then allow you to zoom in on. Enjoy.

Also note that during the game this kind of Story Map is really only intended for my own use as Gamemaster, and contains information which the Players are currently unaware of. Of course all of this information is coded in a way that would make it difficult for the Players to interpret even if they saw the map, and they certainly would not understand the references in a way that would allow them to act on that information intelligently. So the map is not as much a giveaway as it may seem at first.

Lastly, I would like to point out that were I to write down all of the information in this image (which I have done elsewhere) then it would take up a great volume of pages, and not serve its intended purpose which is to give me a way to view all the important details of the Campaign at a glance. And that is the true beauty of the Story Map method.

A Few Notes on Story Mapping

Sometimes Campaigns get complicated.  There may be a lot of NPCs involved, or a lot of loose threads that have built up over time, or both, and you start losing track during the game of significant details that could make a difference.  What I do to handle this situation is create what I call Story Maps.  These are figurative in nature and are designed solely for the purpose of reminding me of all of the important places, people, things and events happening in a Campaign at a given time. This is also known as a Memory Map. It gives abbreviated information that allows me to see in one glance the entire sweeping panorama of the campaign. I find them quite useful.

Spoiler Alert! If you are one of my players you may want to avert your eyes from this map until the end of the Whitewode Campaign.

Here's an example:

Story / Memory Map... combination of story elements and relative locations. This version has all of the details I want to keep in mind for the game. The space on the bottom is for further notes as ideas should surface. The map is in pencil so I can amend it easily. 

In this case what you see are circles with letters in them that represent characters. Some are inside larger circles which represent groups of characters who are aligned by purpose. There are some simplistic graphical representations of mood or events related to the characters, such as the storm cloud representing a conflict, or the wavy lines representing a type of attack that is ongoing in the area. In most cases the locations of the circles on the page reflect the relative physical locations of the characters on the scene, although not to scale. This is to remind me visually not only who is related to who, but where, physically, they are located in relation to each other. Note that sometimes this is not convenient to do, such as when a group is split up and parts are in one location while others are in another location. So flexibility here is really key. The idea of the memory map is that it need not be technically accurate - it only needs to serve as a reminder of what is going on. If it does this then it has done its job.

At the bottom of the page is a list of goals where I am showing characters and who or what they are striving for in a simple format: character X --> Thing or character Y. If there are multiple goals or a domino set of goals then it is X --> Y --> Z. If two characters are competing for the same goal then X --> Z <-- Y. etc. If characters are moving then it is represented with a dotted line and an arrow showing the direction.

All of which when combined helps me to visualize the entire scene with the main events, motivations and goals of the groups involved in the conflict.

There are no fixed rules for this, and no specific or unchanging nomenclature. The purpose of the Memory Map is to remind me, during the game, what the big picture is, and who is where in relation to the others, and what their goals are. This is not to be obscure, but because I find that each time I make a Memory Map the situation warrants a slightly different approach, depending on the complexity and details involved. The Whitewode campaign has gotten rather complex, and so this map helps me to keep all of the factions, the timing of actions, the motives of all characters and their relative locations in mind during the game. Least I, ahem, forget something important.

If you have any specific questions feel free to ask. :)

The Giant Cave Spider

A creature from my menagerie ... This is a pretty low key monster without magic or special powers. It's effectiveness is in the gruesome size and frightful reality that such spiders in fact actually exist. I like to throw this kind of thing into my game often. I have magical creatures of course, but they are interspersed with nature's finest monsters in order to provide context and a bit of naturalistic flare to my world. It's more funnerer that way. :)

The Giant Cave Spider

The Cave Spider's habitat are holes in cave walls.  They can range in size from 2 to 24 inches, while Giant Cave Spiders can grow up to 72 inches. Their bodies are bumpy, ridged, broad and flat, with a segmented two-section abdomen. They have a pair of median eyes at the front of the carapace, and possessed three smaller eye pairs placed further back on each side, for a total of eight eyes.

They tend to have poor eyesight. Their forelegs which serve in part as sensors, are spiked for grabbing and retaining prey, much like those of a mantis.  The first pair of very long and thin legs can extend several times the length of body, are whip-like, and have numerous sensory receptors. Typically, it will extend one of these legs out in front of it as it moves, and uses the other to probe the terrain to the side.  It will also use these long whip legs to probe for prey, and will even put them behind the pray to corral it into range of the gripping forelegs.  Once the prey is in range the Cave Spider snaps into action with blinding speed (+2 Initiative, +2 Armor Class for Hyper-Reflexes and Insect Plating). Once the pray is secured the Cave Spider will use it's long front fangs to suck the inner juices out while the victim is still living.

Courting rituals involve the male depositing stalked sperm, which have one or more sperm masses at the tip, onto the ground, and using his probe legs to guide the female over them.  She gathers the sperm and lays fertilized eggs into a sac carried under her abdomen. When the young hatch, they climb up onto the mother's back.

Cave Spiders will diet consists of insects, small rodents, and sometimes larger animals depending on the environment.  They do not typically hunt outside of the cave in which they live, but they may do so if food is scarce within the cave.  They can survive for two or three weeks without food.

Elthos Stat Block
Min Strength:   4 Max Strength:   6
Min Wisdom:     2 Max Wisdom:     3
Min Dexterity:  3 Max Dexterity:  6
Max Level:      3
Movement:       8 (fast)

Cave Spider (Character Example)
Race (Gender) Class..... Cave Spider (M) Freeman                 XP Base:  40
Character Level (CL)....   3         Bonus    Movement:   8 ->   8
Strength................   4 ........(+0)     Weapon             DMB ALM TAL
Wisdom..................   2 ........(-1)     Fangs 1d6           +1  0   6
Dexterity...............   5 ->   7  (+3)     Spiked Legs         -1  0   6 
Mystic Attack Level (MAL)  2                  
Mystic Armor Class (MAC)   2
Life Points (LP)........  12                  Armor        ACM DXM DAB MOV TAC
Mystic Points (MP) .....   6                  Body: Hyper*  +3  +2  +0  +0
Current Experience......  80                  Body: Insec*  +2  +0  +2  +0
Money................... 270                  Armor Total:  +5  +2  +2  +0  6

Rikshaw the Rat Man

If you happen to be down under Yellow Clay then you might happen to chance upon Rikshaw.  He's a nice enough fellow, but you'd best keep an eye on your stuff.

Imagery From The Most Recent Adventure

A few drawings I did based on the game we played last Friday night (May 22, 2015)...

Lido and Ischandar's Journey through Dreamland

When the Strange looking Workmen Singing a Tunnel Song Came Marching Up From the Deep.

Thorgrim and His Gnoll

The Big Picture

Elthos Yellow Clay Story Map

Instead of simple maps that show what is in a given area, I like to superimpose over that the actual story as it's being played, with past, present and (possible) futures also represented. These story maps act as a memory device for me as the GamesMaster, and also provide the Players with an interesting representation of the game, and helps to keep the story in their memories. Those things that appear to them to be ambiguous and mysterious are just as well. I don't explain them. I simply keep them in mind while we are playing. If one of the 'possible futures' does transpire they can see it afterwards on the Story Map as a form of foreshadowing. And that works great.

These are wonderful little devices if you happen to have the time, artistic bent, and creative imagination for it. I love them. And over the years I've accumulated a neat stack of Story Maps that never fail to entertain me again long after the campaign has completed.

Edit: Venger Satanis (google+) mentioned this post and Story Map on his blog here. Cool. :)

The GM as Master Artisan

Lets talk a bit about the GamesMaster as Artisan.

The idea struck me this morning, not entirely for the first time, but in a sufficiently organized way to write something about it.

There's a lot to being a Master Artisan.  It takes a combination of natural talent, studied skills, and enough time to cultivate greatness.  Artists aren't simply born into existence.  They are cultivated through enormous effort.

I won't go into the vast array of skills required to be a great artist as it would take too long.  And if I attempted to do so for GamesMastering I suspect it would take even longer.  The reason why is that GamesMastering combines a host of arts into one activity.  Improvisational Theater, Literature, Story Telling, History, Art, Game Play of various kinds, and so on ... in fact it can encompass a very wide range of existing arts and knowledge.  The more you can master all of the component arts and knowledge that is useful for Gamemastering the better a GM you likely will be.  Being born with talent is easy.  Cultivating it into a Artisan quality craft takes time and effort.  Things to study are Literature, History and depending on your interests I would also include Science, and possibly Folk Lore, Anthropology, and Ethnography.   A study of comparative Religions is also a pretty-darn-nice-to-have, as well as basic Psychology.  In other words, you could spend a lifetime studying all the various subjects that might pertain to your role as Gamemaster.   Easily.  And that is simply covering the knowledge aspect, and not touching on the skill sets required.  

So instead of going through all of the various aspects of what it takes to be an Artisan quality GamesMaster, I'm going to focus on providing what I think are a few bits of Key Advice that come primarily from my experience as both a GM and artist.

• Details & Flourishes.
• Details and Flourishes matter.   If you take a piece of artwork and put it on a page, and it has a nice outline, good composition and basic colors then you have a piece of artwork.  If you add shadowing, it gets more refined looking.  If you add a border its even more refined.  If your border includes flourishes in the corners it starts to take on the quality of a finished work and a delight to the eye.   Applying this concept to GMing is a matter of doing the same thing, but for your back-story and Narrative Descriptions.   Think in terms of filling in the details, not necessarily in advance, though you can, but along the way as well.   It is a matter of being able to improvisationaly expanding your Players vision and understanding of your world.  This can be done, for example, by including details such as smells and sounds, as well as what the Player Characters see.  Naturally a lot more could be said on this, but I'll leave it to you to consider how you might go about it for yourself.
• Composition 
• When looking at a painting or photograph composition is extremely important.  How do the elements of the scene visually line up with one another?   Is the scene balanced (or intentionally out of balance)?  Does the composition flow so that it guides the eye to the main subject of the thing easily?   This concept as applied to GMing involves knowing how to shape your story.  What are the main elements of the thing?  How do they relate to each other?  Is there a sense of balance (or intentional imbalance)?  How does this concept translate into story?  The things you might consider have to do with how well balanced the story is.  Do you have a number of Main Characters who have clearly defined objectives?  Do those objectives balance with one another to form a holistic tapestry?  As a contra-example, if you have four Main Characters but their objectives are completely unrelated to one another, this will not produce a story with a good composition.  Consider it. The whole of your back story should blend together to form a cohesive narrative.  It should, in other words, tell a story, and a compelling one, and in a compelling way.
• Subject Matter & Meaning
• Great art, despite what modernists may tell you, have meaning.  The greatest art has the greatest meaning.  It stands the test of time because people who look at it find value in it.  The value is that they derive meaning from it.   And this has to do with subject matter.  What makes Greek Art so intriguing for example is the many layered nuances of meaning behind each story, and what one can learn about human nature from them.  Freud and Jung went to town on analyzing Greek mythology from a psychological perspective.  They found untold depths of meaning in the works.  Most people will not immediately recognize the meaning of a great work of art unless they've studied the subject.   But throughout the ages people have been drawn to it because they sense there is a meaning, and in their subconscious heart-of-hearts they connect to it, and it answers something for them at some level.  Maybe they don't know why.  But they come back to the art because their interest in it is piqued.  The same thing is true for great literature.  And it can also be true for your RPG.  You just have to think about it and put meaning into your world.  I would recommend reading works by Freud, Jung, or Joseph Campbell to get an idea of how that can be done.   Another pair of interesting books to read that give clues as to how this might be done are "Tolkien's Ring" by David Day, and "Holy Blood and Holy Grail" which though an apparently debunked conspiracy fabrication by Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, nevertheless is fabulous at revealing how art and history can merge together to form an amazing hidden tapestry of inner meaning.
• Story Arcs
• Lastly for today is the topic of story arcs.  A lot of people have talked about this already and you can probably find tons of blog posts on how to apply this idea to RPGs.  I won't go on about it except to say that it's important, and that you can link this idea to both Composition and Subject Matter to form amazing RPG stories. 

I encourage GMs to think about how to merge all of these ideas into a unified whole.  There is every reason to believe that going forward into the future we will find GMs who aspire to Great Art via their talent and skills by making their Worlds into beautiful tapestries of Theater, Story, and Art.

Of course there's much more than can be said on this subject, but I will keep it short so that my post doesn't become TLDR.  Oh darn... too late, probably.  ;)

The Elthos Cosmology Encapsulated

This diagram illustrates the conceptual framework of the Elthos World ... it includes the relative positions of both groups of Deities - the Cosmic Celestials and the Archetypes.

The Cosmic Celestials operate in the Realm of Divine Ideas, above the conscious mind.  The Archetypes, on the other hand, operate in the realm of the ID, below the subconscious mind.  Wilderness adventures will have a tendency to relate to themes pertaining to the Cosmic Elkron, and quests of the upper world.  Delving into dungeons and caverns will conversely explore the realms of the subconscious mind, and ultimately, if one goes deep enough, the realm of the Id.   So the higher or deeper you go the more mystical the nature of the exploration becomes.

The Cosmic Celestials are represented by Zodiac and Planetary signs, while the Archetypes are represented by the Major Arcane cards of the Tarot Deck.  Each Archetype has a corresponding Celestial.  So if you were to imagine the two groups of Ekron overlapped they would form two disks divided into twelve pie slices, and both disks forming two concentric circles, as can be seen below.

The Cosmic Celestials are pictographically represented here on the back face of the Elthos Tarot Deck. 

The Archetypes are represented in the Major Arcana of the Deck, and here's an example.

So what we see here is that this Major Arcana card is the Archetype of The Magician, and is associated to the Planet Mercury and the Zodiac Sign of Gemini. 

How this all plays out in terms of Elthos, the world, is that the Elkron are Cosmological Forces of the upper and lower realms of the Mind, and personifications of the Alignments to which they are associated.  They war and ally with one another in accordance with their natures and the movement of the Planets and Archetypes as they perform the Dance of the Spheres.   This all happens at the Cosmological level of the Campaign wherein the purposes and circumstances of the Elkron are charted. 

That said, it has been very rare for Player Characters to advance high enough or deep enough to experience or comprehend the true nature of the Dance of the Elkron, or even more than a passing glimpse of it.  However, it is there nevertheless, ever in motion, ever synchronizing elements of the back story with elements of the plot line.  It's quite an exquisite system in many ways.  Some day I do hope to rationalize it well enough to put into a book and explain to other GMs how it works, and what one might do with it.   Until then, however, its to be taken as a kind of philosophic art that enhances the Elthos world in some mysterious way, as yet quite unfathomable to the Player Characters (or other GMs).  Perhaps some day a particularly stellar mage will arise in the Campaign who will begin to make sense of it all.  

Elthos Book Art - Toad Attack

Another bit of side-page art for the Elthos Core Rules Book ...

Somewhere in a cavern deep and dim... a monster toad lashes out a tongue of slime faster than the eye can see.  With a tremendous Thud our hero loses his sword and in an instant is gone. 

Dragonflies in Aerial Combat - Elthos Book Art

One more bit of artwork for tonight. I hope this will do for a corner or edge of the page, perhaps.

Three Dragonflies in aerial combat, possibly with invisible Fey Knights on their backs. Possibly. Quite possibly!

I'm not sure I dare attempt to make the Fey Knights visible! If I do try and it works, I'll re-post this later. For now it may simply do as is. The thing is, Fey Knights tend to prefer to remain unseen by mortal eyes.  They may object to my attempts to draw them... in which case they will come out looking more like goblins than knights, and that wouldn't do at all.  Not at all.

Western Style - More Artwork

Damn Jack Blain

Another possible entry for the Elthos RPG Rules Book.  Western Genre.

Damn Jack Blain was a Desperado who lived out on the fringes of the Black Sands Desert.  He made his living rustling cattle and robbing stage coaches with the Kestler Gang, until became their leader when he put Robert Kestler in his grave with a single shot through the right eye.  He ranged the desert country causing trouble for a while until he was gunned down by Kestler's sister, Jane.  She put a hole through his head, left him to be eaten by coyotes. 

Elthos Rules Book - The Philosophers

Another possible addition to the Elthos RPG Rules Book artwork... this one is intended to go along a left or right side border of a page.

I chose for this one a medieval theme to balance to the other themes that lately have tilted towards Space Genre. This drawing was inspired by a glance at a leaf decoration in The Book of Kells. It's intended to mimic the concept without attempting to duplicate the exact details of the style. I like the subject matter, which is the debate between Heaven and Hell, and raises questions therefore of morality and alignment.

Not everyone is all that interested in playing with alignment these days, but I think this is because the Alignment system as originally given was somewhat flawed in design, and lead a lot of games into something of a bog. I've worked out a system to handle alignment in Elthos, and I do think it works fairly well.

In any case, the purpose of this post is to show the illustration, not debate alignment systems. So there you have it. I think the next drawing will be one of plants, vines and fanciful insects, perhaps. We'll see. I never know exactly what is going to happen when I begin a drawing. I usually have an idea, and then wind up a bit surprised in the end at the results. This one is a classic case of that. I don't mind that method, by the way. Some artists know exactly... I don't. I like to be a bit surprised, too. I think its more fun in a way.

Space-Ranger X

Another Space-Genre drawing for the Elthos RPG Rules Book...



Somewhere beyond the edge of the Galaxy, Space-Ranger X is collecting samples of deep space artifacts that might lead Dr. Greenstone's team of Super Scientists to unravel the strange happenings near Oswaldia in the year 150NK... and determine the best course for the Elthos World's migration through the Cosmos...

Elthos RPG Rules Book Drawings

A few drawings that I made for the Elthos RPG Rules Book. We're working on final layout now.
What I really love about this hobby is how many different arts it brings together. Between the story writing, improvisational acting, history and science study, map making and artwork, well, its just a fabulously creative endeavor.

Petroglyph of Elthos II

Another petroglyph somewhere in Elthos. This one is rather a bit of a mystery, as no one knows the context of the story depicted. It is thought to be far more ancient than the first petroglyph but even this is uncertain. Further study is required.