November 2018 Challenge: The Shattering of Ixantar's Gate

[Jaxilon]

I don't think any of my players frequent this site but if one of you is here, stop reading now or I'm for sure going to at the very LEAST cripple your Player character!

Long story short, this represents the finale of our campaign. It's certainly a ways off but I'm still working on illustrations and maps for everything so I'm doing this now.

The name may change as once the adventurers find the location they may give it their own name or it may be given a name as they continue to unravel the story leading up to this encounter.

The Gate is in fact a portal by which a parasitic alien species has invaded the world and the adventurers will have had to collected a number of artifacts needed to collapse the portal and seal the breach.

It lies in a cavern within a dark spire on the vast sea. Arriving there will be a bit like sailing into the Bermuda triangle when things get wiggy but in the end this is where everything comes together...or not.

I'm going at this from a different direction than I normally do as I'm trying to follow a more environmental design approach since I'm in world building phase anyway. So we'll see how it goes.

I begin with some references for my location and some artifact designs. I also did an initial idea of what the chamber might look like (this will change later) as you will see.

References on the left and my scribbles on the right.

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[aeshnidae]

Very cool idea! I love the Bermuda Triangle aspect. I just finished up a campaign where the PCs had to collect items and seal a planar crack created by the Dark Fey Mithrielye, who features in my entry for this challenge. I had to wait to post a number of maps over the past year so that my players wouldn't be spoiled.

[Jaxilon]

Yeah I hear that. Fortunately I think I have semi-lazy players who are too busy to track any of this unless I point it out to them. Don't get me wrong, if they knew it was here they would be tempted, who wouldn't?
Especially because right now they are really in the dark as to what is going on. What was that "thing" they just fought and what is this specimen they have in a container?
The next session (god only knows when I'll be ready for that) will hopefully begin to shed some light and tip them to the idea that there is a massive scheme going on.

Anyway, here are some thumbnails I scribbled and as you can see number 7 is the map item I will be going for.

Some of these thumbs suck but that's the point of them, to just tear thru until you capture something useful. Plus, I'm a noob at doing thumbs.

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[Jaxilon]

So now we start going into what looks more like a map.

Looking at my schedule I'm now wondering why on earth did I sign up to do this? When does this thing end again, because I'm out of town the 25-30th?
Even if I take my tablet and find time late at night to work on this I don't know what kind of net access I'll have. This is looking more and more like a bad idea

I'm not giving up but I haven't figured out how to get this one in yet.

This is just the thumbnail blown up, well technically it's 50% of the full size version. A LOT of work to go!

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[Jaxilon]

I put as much time as I could into this today and I think I'm very happy with the results. I'm debating colors and want to put more characters into the piece as I have in mind what they are doing but for now you have one dude just for scale.

Speaking of scale this is reduced to 50% of the original.

Feedback is welcome as this is a new way of doing things for me.

I might mention that I'm making this using Corel Painter 2019 running the demo (I've never used Corel before) and the 30 days is an added pressure to get it done .

I might call this update as you enter the vast cavern...

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[Gidde]

That looks really cool Jax! It's not really clear yet what those tendrils coming off the thing in the middle are (is that the gate)? Like, are they strands of webby alien cocoony stuff, or strands of pure energy? It's intriguing. Your players are going to love this.

[Jaxilon]

Thanks Gidde.

It is an organic alien technology and I still have some work to do but basically you can think of those as roots. I plan on adding more.

On their own the Drall (the name of my monster) leech the life energy from the environment. This being an "anchor" point or portal allows easy access to the planet and rightly so is going to be hard on the area. Hence the cracks and splits in the cavern and the way the environment will be acting all Bermuda triangle-ish as the party approaches the area.

So indeed, the roots or tendrils will course with pulses of energy and when activated the gate will materialize above the "Core" in the center of the "pylons" (of the midst) of the circular object I'm depicting.

I'm after the 3d effect and yet being able to use this as a battlemap when all is said and done.

In my visions of grandeur I see myself putting together an adventure module of all of this for use with VTTs. I am working on that but I'm just so stinking slow at getting my writing and drawing done because my day job pays too much to ignore and we are in the middle of building a house on top of everything else. I've given up on telling myself, "as soon as this next thing is done I'll have time" because there is always another "next thing".

Anyway, thanks for the comments, they are always appreciated.

My next step is to clean this up a bit more and get my lighting down since the center point will be a source of illumination.

[Jaxilon]

An update indicating a bit more light, cleaned up some stray gunk and added an adventurer climbing to the top with one of the items designed in the initial sketches.

I think I may add some color next although this is in a dark place to begin with so black and white works pretty well.

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[Gidde]

Some color highlighting the alien nature and energy would be a good counterpoint to the black and white cave, I think. But honestly it looks way cool without it too.

[Jaxilon]

Thanks Giddie, I'm debating the color as I'm not sure if I can add the glowing effects I imagine and still keep the depth in place. I'll have to fiddle with it to see how it goes.
It does remind a tiny bit of some of those HR Giger pieces (probably just the black and white alien technology feeling) but not with the creepy horrific stuff he tends to have.
All in all I am pretty happy with how it's turned out. I think I'll be using this method again for my next design to see what I can improve.

Another question is should I add labels indicating what is where or is the mystery better left untold? Personally, I kind of like the mystery because hopefully it means folks look at it and wonder what the parts do....which is pretty close to how I expect the players to feel when they finally arrive. Oh, they will have some vague pseudo scientific concept of what needs to be done but they will certainly have to figure it out once they see the cavern.

Plus, there would definitely be some guardian(s) to protect such an important installation. I think I might add in something to indicate that as well.

Time scheduling may dictate how much more i fiddle with it.