I can’t believe it. I feel like singing it from mountain tops. My project is done: the Halberds & Helmets Ref Guide, where monsters are a large part of the book.
A year ago I started with an annotated monster list, based on the Labyrinth Lord monster list. I basically wanted to highlight the monsters I like to use. I was encouraged by the long comment Brian left on that blog post. Thanks!
At the same time, I had bought an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil and I was enjoying the Zen Brush 2 app, and I needed a project that would keep me drawing stuff, for practice. And I drew a lot of monsters. Check out the monster gallery. The humans, dwarves, elves and halflings are from my face generator. The rest was all drawn on the iPad.
The year before, James V West had posted the BX 64 challenge on Google+: “to create a 64 page saddle stitched book that fits with BX. A setting, for example.” I had plans for a setting. I wanted to write about the Planescape/Spelljammer campaign I had been running for a while. I started posting in the B/X Campaign Challenge Google+ Community. But the campaign changed. It was hard to remove the proprietary bits from the campaign setting and just leave the original stuff. I just felt tired whenever I thought of it.
Planescape/Spelljammer campaign
But when I took the Swiss Referee Style Manual, added a bit about mass combat, added a bit about the cosmology I am using, and all the monsters, with their illustrations, I had something going. And as I posted about the monsters I was drawing on Google+ and had interesting discussions with other people, I was back in the groove. Thank you all.
The one person I remember most fondly for his long comments and insightful responses was Ian Borchardt. He is definitely not one for the TL;DR crowd (too long; didn’t read). Thanks, Ian! Your replies kept me going!
And then there was Jennifer Hartogensis who I think I first saw in the King Arthur Pendragon Google+ Community with her Dutch session reports. Some of her comments will be hard to forget. Centaurs, unicorn names, with a sentence or two she always put the finger right where it hurt. I laughed!
I also want to thank those faithful followers of my Drawing Google+ Collection where they +1’d my sketches and pictures, encouraging me to keep at it, Christian Sturke, Tina Trillitzsch, Jensan Thuresson, Harald Wagener, Steve Sigety.
And there are more. The right comment at the right time by Aaron McLin. I just can’t remember you all. Thank you all, for keeping me going.
I know how hard it is to stay motivated because of the Free Software I write. I usually write it for myself, but when a random stranger sends me an email telling me they are using it, I love it. And I loved every single encouraging remark, every little +1, every discussion and every new angle.
I sometimes feel like going back and fixing some of the drawings I no longer like. I think I got better over time, so I’m hoping that I might redo some things. I also know how these images look on the PDF pages, now. It just doesn’t look very good if the waves of the sea serpent are cut off, or the manticore wings, or if the shark background or the spectre background is totally black. I feel like these things need fixing.
I also started using these monsters in my games and sometimes I think they need fixing. The ghouls in my games didn’t run like I felt they should. Their /aura of fear/ never gets used. Their /paralysis/ is still coupled to the third attack. Something is wrong. But what is it? Some of these monsters need more playtesting, I guess. One would think that the established monsters need practically no playtesting, but I guess if you want to make them /better/, then you better playtest them all.
Perhaps I should go through the list of treasures again and add treasure types? I think at the beginning I was thinking more about the changes I wanted to see. Only ancient civilisations would have electrum or platinum pieces. Stuff like that. But towards the end of the book, I practically stuck to the Labyrinth Lord book. I’d like to have treasure types, with a treasure justification: “this is the hoard of a creature that attacks towns, or of creature that trades with towns”, “this is the hoard of a creature that kills lone adventurers and grave robbers”, “this is the hoard you’d find in a mausoleum”.
Oh, and I think I’d also like to write new lists of magic items.
I also worry about the file size. 50MB, really?
(Five years later, editing the page to remove the Google+ links. I will never put my trust in a Google product again. Uuuhg.)
#RPG #Old School #Monsters #Halberds and Helmets
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WOW! What a creative endeavor you’ve undertaken. I just downloaded it and was scrolling thru the Monsters section. I must say that the B&W line/brush art style is wonderful. It gives the art a simple elegance. I’ll be reading up on this RPG over the weekend. THANK YOU for making this.
– marshomeworld 2017-09-06 03:22 UTC
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👍🏾
– Alex 2017-09-06 05:19 UTC
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I’m also looking forward to this monster manual by Sean McCoy.
– Alex 2017-09-08 09:54 UTC
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٩(*‿*)۶
– Chris 2017-09-21 18:27 UTC
